UKRAINE
Two killed in shellings
An elderly woman and a police officer were killed early yesterday by Russian shelling on a settlement in Kharkiv region in the east and Zaporizhzhia in the south, officials said. “This morning, around 5:10am, the enemy fired on Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi village in Kupiansk district. A residential building was damaged. A 73-year-old woman died,” Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synehubov said on the Telegram messaging app. In a separate attack on Orikhiv in Zaporizhzhia, one police officer was killed and 12 people, including four police officers, were injured, Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko said on Telegram.
BRAZIL
Police raid Bolsonaro allies
Police raided the homes of former president Jair Bolsonaro allies accused of reselling gifts including jewelry from foreign dignitaries for the “illicit enrichment of” the former president, a judicial judgement showed on Friday. Bolsonaro categorically denied any wrongdoing, with his lawyers saying he “never appropriated or misappropriated any public good,” in a statement posted on the G1 news site. The scandal broke earlier this year, when newspaper Estado de Sao Paulo reported that customs officials had seized a set of jewels from a government aide who tried to bring them into the country undeclared in his backpack in 2021. Public officials are barred from keeping expensive gifts. “The evidence collected showed [the existence] during the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro of a network to divert goods of a high amount which were offered to him,” part of the judgement read. “Beyond allowing an inadmissible enrichment of the President of the Republic... it is possible that the Brazilian head of state was co-opted by foreign nations through these assets,” investigators said.
SOUTH KOREA
Fukushima plan protested
Hundreds of activists yesterday gathered in central Seoul to protest against Japan’s plan to release treated radioactive water from the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant into the ocean. Japan’s Asahi Shimbun reported earlier this week that the country plans to start releasing the water into the ocean as early as late this month, citing unidentified government sources. “If it is discarded, radioactive substances contained in the contaminated water will eventually destroy the marine ecosystem,” said Choi Kyoungsook of Korea Radiation Watch, an activist group that organized the protest. “We are opposed ... because we believe the sea is not just for the Japanese government, but for all of us and for mankind.”
MALAYSIA
Festival sues UK’s 1975
The organizer of a festival canceled after a kiss between two male members of The 1975 is seeking US$2.68 million in damages from the British indie-rock band, its lawyer said on Friday. The Good Vibes music festival in Kuala Lumpur was canceled after the band’s lead singer, Matt Healy, launched a profanity-laden speech and kissed bassist Ross MacDonald during their July 21 performance. “I can confirm that my firm issued a seven-day letter of claim to the UK band 1975 demanding for 12.3 million ringgit [US$2.68 million] in damages on behalf of Future Sound Asia,” David Dinesh Mathew, lawyer for the event organizer, said in a statement. David said the claim filed on Monday against the band was “essentially for breach of contract.” Healy’s representative signed a preshow written assurance that the band would “adhere to all local guidelines and regulations” in their set, he said.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
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