AUSTRALIA
Wong presses US on Assange
Minister of Foreign Affairs Penny Wong (黃英賢) yesterday said that the long-running case of imprisoned WikiLeaks frontman Julian Assange had gone on too long and needs to be completed. The Australian citizen being held in the UK is battling extradition to the US, where he is wanted on 18 charges over the release of confidential US military records and diplomatic cables in 2010. At a news conference in Brisbane after an Australia-US meeting, Wong said that Canberra had made it clear that “Mr Assange’s case has dragged for too long, and our desire that it be brought to a conclusion.” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he understood the views of Australians on the sensitive issue, but added that the leak had risked “very serious harm to our national security.”
IRAN
Editor banned over protests
Authorities have banned the editor-in-chief of reformist daily Etemad “from any press activity for a year” over coverage of last year’s nationwide protests, the newspaper reported yesterday. Behrooz Behzadi was “accused of publishing false content,” Etemad said, citing a decision by the prosecutor’s office following a complaint by a Tehran branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. The paper said the complaint was in relation to reports it had published which detailed the “kidnapping” land year of a scientist and “bans and arrests” of artists who backed the protest movement triggered by Mahsa Amini’s death.
SWEDEN
Refugee’s status probed
The Swedish Migration Agency late on Friday said it is re-examining the residency permit of an Iraqi refugee who is behind several Koran desecrations in Stockholm in the past few weeks, which have upset Muslims across the world. The man burnt a copy of the Koran last month outside of Stockholm’s central mosque and also held a demonstration in front of the Iraqi embassy this month where he said he would burn the holy book, but did not. The agency said it received information from authorities that have given it reason to examine whether his status should be revoked.
UNITED STATES
City complains over ‘X’ sign
The city of San Francisco has opened a complaint and launched an investigation into a giant “X” sign that was installed on Friday on top of the downtown building formerly known as Twitter headquarters as owner Elon Musk continues his rebrand of the social media platform. City officials say replacing letters or symbols on buildings, or erecting a sign on top of one, requires a permit for design and safety reasons. The X appeared after police stopped workers on Monday from removing the brand’s iconic bird and logo from the side of the building, saying they had not taped off the sidewalk to keep pedestrians safe if anything fell.
UNITED STATES
Man posts stabbing online
A man allegedly stabbed a woman to death in the San Francisco Bay Area on Wednesday and then posted a video of the slaying to Facebook, authorities said. The footage helped police track down the suspect, who was later identified as 39-year old Mark Mechikoff. He was arrested about 48km south of where the victim was found dead in a San Mateo apartment complex. “While the motive for stabbing the victim is still under investigation, we do know Mechikoff mercilessly filmed the last moments of the victim’s life and posted the video to Facebook, then fled the area,” San Mateo police said in a statement.
A colossal explosion in the sky, unleashing energy hundreds of times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. A blinding flash nearly as bright as the sun. Shockwaves powerful enough to flatten everything for miles. It might sound apocalyptic, but a newly detected asteroid nearly the size of a football field now has a greater than 1 percent chance of colliding with Earth in about eight years. Such an impact has the potential for city-level devastation, depending on where it strikes. Scientists are not panicking yet, but they are watching closely. “At this point, it’s: ‘Let’s pay a lot of attention, let’s
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
CHEER ON: Students were greeted by citizens who honked their car horns or offered them food and drinks, while taxi drivers said they would give marchers a lift home Hundreds of students protesting graft they blame for 15 deaths in a building collapse on Friday marched through Serbia to the northern city of Novi Sad, where they plan to block three Danube River bridges this weekend. They received a hero’s welcome from fellow students and thousands of local residents in Novi Said after arriving on foot in their two-day, 80km journey from Belgrade. A small red carpet was placed on one of the bridges across the Danube that the students crossed as they entered the city. The bridge blockade planned for yesterday is to mark three months since a huge concrete construction
DIVERSIFY: While Japan already has plentiful access to LNG, a pipeline from Alaska would help it move away from riskier sources such as Russia and the Middle East Japan is considering offering support for a US$44 billion gas pipeline in Alaska as it seeks to court US President Donald Trump and forestall potential trade friction, three officials familiar with the matter said. Officials in Tokyo said Trump might raise the project, which he has said is key for US prosperity and security, when he meets Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba for the first time in Washington as soon as next week, the sources said. Japan has doubts about the viability of the proposed 1,287km pipeline — intended to link fields in Alaska’s north to a port in the south, where
RSS