AZERBAIJAN
Protesters seek road access
Thousands rallied yesterday in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, demanding that Baku reopen the enclave’s sole land link with Armenia. About 6,000 people gathered at the central square of Karabakh’s main city, Stepanakert, after Baku closed the road to Armenia. “We ask to ensure unimpeded movement, transportation of people and cargo along the corridor connecting Artsakh with Armenia,” said Gurgen Nersisyan, a state minister in the separatist government said on Thursday, using the Armenian name for the region. “The situation is terrible, in a few days we will have irreversible consequences.”
JAPAN
Rocket engine explodes
A rocket engine exploded during a test yesterday, an official said, in the latest blow to the country’s space agency. The Epsilon S — an improved version of the Epsilon rocket that failed to launch in October last year — blew up “roughly 50 seconds after ignition,” Ministry of Science and Technology official Naoya Takegami told reporters. “So far we have received no reports of injuries” from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, which was investigating the cause of the explosion, Takegami said.
CHINA
Former teacher executed
A former kindergarten teacher was executed in central China this week after killing one child and injuring 24 others by poisoning their porridge with sodium nitrite four years ago, state media reported yesterday. Wang Yun (王雲), 39, had unsuccessfully appealed the sentence, initially handed down in September 2020 by the Jiaozuo City Intermediate People’s Court in Henan Province. On Thursday, the same court verified Wang’s identity, escorted her to the execution ground and carried out the death sentence, a court statement said. In March 2019, Wang purchased sodium nitrite after being involved in a dispute with a fellow teacher. The next morning at the kindergarten she added some of the chemical compound into the children’s “eight treasures porridge,” the court said. In January 2020, one of the children died of multiple organ failure caused by the poisoning.
UNITED STATES
Man catches 6m python
A Florida man caught a nearly 6m Burmese python, believed to be a record for the state. Jake Waleri, 22, nabbed the snake on Monday at Big Cypress National Preserve while out hunting for the invasive species. Waleri is seen in a video grabbing the snake by the tail at the side of a road. The snake then lunges for Waleri and tries to bite him as he grabs it by the neck. They wrestle for a while on the ground, until a friend helps Waleri subdue the creature, which weighed 56.6kg. Waleri took the snake to the Conservancy of Southwest Florida in Naples. The organization measured and weighed the beast, and declared it a record for Florida. The state pays hunters to catch and kill such snakes to protect the local ecosystem.
UNITED STATES
Cocaine case closed
No fingerprints or DNA turned up on a baggie of cocaine found at the White House last week despite a FBI analysis, while surveillance footage of the area did not identify a suspect, a summary of a Secret Service investigation said. There were no leads on who brought the drugs into the building, it said. “Without physical evidence, the investigation will not be able to single out a person of interest from the hundreds of individuals who passed through the vestibule where the cocaine was discovered,” it said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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