SOUTH KOREA
S Korea, US to launch drill
South Korea, the US and Japan were set to conduct a joint air military exercise near the Korean Peninsula yesterday, weeks after the three countries carried out their first three-nation naval interdiction drills in seven years. Yesterday’s drill was to include a formation flight in which the nations’ fighter planes escort a US Air Force B-52H Stratofortress, Yonhap News Agency reported, citing unidentified US and South Korean military sources. While there have been cases of US-Korea and Japan-Korea joint drills, this would be the first time the three countries came together to conduct an aerial exercise, the report said.
UKRAINE
Russian strikes kills six
Russian missile strikes on Saturday killed at least six postal workers and wounded 16, when they hit a mail depot in northeastern Kharkiv Oblast, officials said. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy shared a video on social media of what appeared to be a heavily damaged warehouse surrounded by rubble and a container with the logo of Ukrainian postal operator, Nova Poshta. “All six dead and 14 injured as a result of the occupiers’ attack were employees of the company who were inside the Nova Poshta terminal,” Kharkiv Governor Oleg Sinegubov said. “The victims, aged between 19 and 42, received shrapnel wounds and blast injuries.” The Ministry of Internal Affairs confirmed the death toll, but updated the number of injured to 16. Sergiy Nozhka, who works for Nova Poshta, said that a rocket “flew into the neighboring depot, but at ours too — the windows and shutters flew out. This is not the first time.”
UNITED STATES
Venezuelans top crossings
Venezuelans became the largest nationality arrested for illegally crossing the border, replacing Mexicans for the first time on record, according to figures released on Saturday, which also showed that last month was the second-highest month for arrests of all nationalities. Venezuelans were arrested 54,833 times by the Border Patrol after entering from Mexico last month, more than double from 22,090 arrests in August and well above the previous monthly high of 33,749 arrests in September last year. Arrests of all nationalities entering from Mexico totaled 218,763 last month, up 21 percent from 181,084 in August and approaching an all-time high of 222,018 in December last year, US Customs and Border Protection data showed. Arrests for the government’s budget year that ended Sept. 30 topped 2 million for the second year in a row, down 7 percent from an all-time high of more than 2.2 million arrests in the same period a year earlier.
UNITED STATES
Apple drops show over China
US comedian Jon Stewart’s talk show on Apple TV+ has reportedly been canceled after just two series due to clashes between its host and the company over topics such as China and artificial intelligence (AI). Stewart told staff that executives from Apple — which has vast commercial interests in China and AI — had expressed concern over proposed new content for The Problem with Jon Stewart, the New York Times said. Apple CEO Tim Cook made a surprise visit to China this month, and he has previously spoken of his company’s “symbiotic” relationship with the nation. In an earnings call in August, Cook said that Apple views AI and machine learning as “core fundamental technologies that are integral to virtually every product that we build.”
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