INDIA
Key space tests launched
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) yesterday carried out the first of a series of key test flights after overcoming a technical glitch ahead of its planned mission to take astronauts into space by 2025, the space agency said. The test involved launching a module to outer space and bringing it back to Earth to test the spacecraft’s crew escape system, ISRO chairman Sreedhara Somanath said. The launch was delayed by 45 minutes in the morning because of weather conditions. The attempt was again deferred by more than an hour because of an issue with the engine, and the ground computer put the module’s liftoff on hold, said Somanath.
CHINA
Ad executive arrested
An executive and two former employees of WPP, one of the world’s biggest advertising companies, have been arrested, two people familiar with the situation said. The arrests involved WPP’s GroupM media trading division and included a raid on offices in Shanghai, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly. WPP declined to comment, and the Chinese embassy in London did not respond to a request for comment.
RUSSIA
Court detains US journalist
A court on Friday ordered Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva to be detained for three more days, after prosecutors said she had failed to register as a “foreign agent.” Kurmasheva was working for the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty when she was detained by law enforcement officers in Kazan on Wednesday. She faces up to five years in jail if found guilty of the charges. She is the second US journalist to be detained by Russia, after Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested in March for “spying.”
CHINA
Tsingtao probes pee video
Tsingtao Brewery, one of the country’s biggest beer makers, said it has opened an investigation after a video appearing to show a factory employee urinating on raw ingredients went viral this week. The clip, published online on Thursday, purportedly shows a male worker at a Tsingtao warehouse clambering into a high-walled container and relieving himself onto its contents. The footage circulated widely on Chinese social media, racking up tens of millions of views on the popular Sina Weibo platform. Tsingtao on Friday said that it had contacted the police over the incident and an investigation was ongoing. Some Web users were not about to pass up the chance to make a wry quip about the country’s famously light and fizzy mass-market brews. “I’ve always said the beer here is like horse pee. Turns out I was wrong,” one of them commented. “Thanks, I think I’ll have wine instead,” quipped another.
UNITED STATES
Republicans drop Jordan
Republicans on Friday abruptly dropped Representative Jim Jordan as their nominee for House speaker, after the ally of former US president Donald Trump failed badly on a third ballot for the gavel. The outcome meant another week without a House speaker, bordering on a full-blown crisis. House Republicans have no realistic or working plan to unite the fractured party, elect a new speaker and return to the work of Congress that has been languishing since Representative Kevin McCarthy was ousted as speaker at the start of the month. “We’re in a very bad place right now,” McCarthy said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home