AUSTRALIA
Canberra to buy US missiles
Canberra has locked in a deal to buy potent long-range weapons from the US, officials said yesterday, as it looks to counter China’s rising military power. The cache of more than 200 Tomahawk cruise missiles costing US$830 million would be some of the “most powerful and technologically advanced” weapons in the nation’s arsenal, the Department of Defence said. The nation is embarking on a major military overhaul, pivoting toward long-range strike capabilities in an effort to keep would-be foes such as China at arms length. The Tomahawk cruise missiles have a strike range of more than 1,000km and are to carried by the Australian navy’s Hobart-class destroyers. They would eventually be used by the roving nuclear-powered submarines acquired by Canberra under the AUKUS pact.
SOMALIA
TikTok, Telegram banned
The government has banned TikTok, messaging app Telegram and online-betting Web site 1XBet to limit the spread of indecent content and propaganda, Minister of Communications and Technology Jama Hassan Khalif said in a statement late on Sunday. “The minister of communications orders Internet companies to stop the aforementioned applications, which terrorists and immoral groups use to spread constant horrific images and misinformation to the public,” he said. Members of insurgent group al-Shabaab often post about their activities on TikTok and Telegram. The decision comes days after President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said a military offensive against al-Shabaab aims to eliminate the al-Qaeda-linked group in the next five months. The order gave Internet service providers until Thursday to comply
SWITZERLAND
‘Zero-degree’ line soars
A hot spell enveloping Europe has pushed the zero-degree line — the altitude at which the temperature dips into the minus — to a record height of nearly 5,300m in the nation. The zero-degree line is determined by meteorologists using weather balloons that take off twice a day from Payerne. MeteoSwiss said the new height was clocked overnight from Sunday to yesterday at 5,298m, “which constitutes a record since monitoring began in 1954.” The previous record of 5,184m was set on July 25 last year. “The area known as the zero-degree isotherm is the threshold between air layers with temperatures above 0 at lower altitudes and those with temperatures below freezing at higher altitudes,” MeteoSwiss said. “Among other things, the zero-degree isotherm affects vegetation, the snow line and the water cycle, and so has a considerable impact on the habitats of humans, animals and plants alike,” it added.
MEXICO
Four die on highest peak
Four Mexicans died in a climbing accident on the Pico de Orizaba, the nation’s highest mountain, authorities said on Sunday. The civil defense office in the central state of Puebla said all four deaths appeared to have been caused by a fall on the 5,675m volanic mountain, which is also known by its indigenous name Citlaltepetl. The office said two of the climbers were from the state of Veracruz and at least one was from Puebla. Photos distributed by the office showed rescue workers trying to recover the bodies down from a loose, rocky apron below an even steeper slope above the snow line. Accidents on the peak are not uncommon, and since 2015 rescuers and climbers have found at least three mummified bodies in the snow there. They apparently were climbers lost in a 1959 avalanche.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
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