JAPAN
Record rain recorded
Several prefectures have been deluged by their heaviest daily rains since records began, officials said yesterday, with reports of more than 100 landslides after a tropical storm. Mobara in Chiba Prefecture, which borders the capital, Tokyo, recorded 392mm of rain overnight into yesterday — the largest amount to hit the city in a 24-hour span since the Japan Meteorological Agency began the survey in 1976. On Friday, Tropical Storm Yun-yeung disrupted some railway services and left thousands of households without power in Chiba, Ibaraki and Fukushima prefectures. In Mobara, “a river near the city hall flooded on Friday and a car that was running nearby had to be rescued,” a city spokesman said, adding that levels had mostly receded.
UNITED STATES
Fewer missing in Maui
The number of missing persons following a massive wildfire that leveled a town on Maui last month has fallen from 385 to 66, Hawaii Governor Josh Green said on Friday. Green made the announcement one month after the fire that destroyed the town of Lahaina, the deadliest in the US in more than a century. The death toll from the blaze remains at 115 people, but could rise as a police investigation unfolds, Green said. The Maui Police Department is investigating the cases of missing persons, he said, adding that “the numbers are getting sorted out,” causing the reduction. The high initial numbers of missing stirred fears that the death toll could rise sharply from the blaze.
CANADA
China warns Ottawa
China is warning of “consequences” for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s administration unless it stops spreading “lies and false information” about alleged interference in domestic affairs. The Chinese embassy in Ottawa issued a stern statement on Friday, a day after the government announced a public inquiry into meddling by China, Russia and other actors in national elections in 2019 and 2021. “China urges the Canadian side to abandon its ideological bias, stop hyping up China-related lies and false information, stop misleading the public and stop undermining China-Canada relations. Otherwise, Canada will have to bear the consequences,” an embassy spokesman said in the statement. In an interview with Bloomberg News on Thursday, Trudeau said that there was no room for political “rapprochement” with China, as Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) muscular foreign policy has made it impossible for the two countries to have a normal relationship.
UNITED STATES
Musk refused Kyiv request
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk late on Thursday said that he refused a Ukrainian request to activate the company’s Starlink satellite network in Crimea’s port city of Sevastopol last year to aid an attack on Russia’s fleet there, saying he feared complicity in a “major” act of war. His comment on his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, came after CNN cited an excerpt from a new biography of Musk that says he ordered the Starlink network turned off near the Crimean coast last year to disrupt a Ukrainian sneak attack. Musk said that he had no choice but to reject an emergency request from Ukraine “to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol.” He did not give the date of the request and the excerpt did not specify it. “The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor,” Musk wrote. “If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.”
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
RSS