SOUTH KOREA
Fighter jets scrambled
Seoul yesterday scrambled fighter jets when two Chinese and four Russian military planes entered its air defense identification zone, the military said. The aircraft entered the Korea Air Defense Identification Zone off its east coast between 11:53am and 12:10pm and then left the area, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. The planes did not violate South Korea’s territorial airspace, the military said.
JAPAN
New jet pact announced
The defense ministers of Japan, Britain and Italy yesterday signed an agreement to establish a joint organization to develop a new advanced jet fighter. The three countries last year agreed to merge earlier individual plans — for Japan’s Mitsubishi F-X to succeed the retiring F-2s developed with the US and Britain’s Tempest — to produce the new combat aircraft for deployment in 2035. Minister of Defense Minoru Kihara at a joint news conference with his British and Italian counterparts, Grant Shapps and Guido Crosett, said that codeveloping a high-performance fighter aircraft is “indispensable to securing air superiority and enabling effective deterrence.”
CHINA
Auto-driving tests approved
BMW Group has received a test license for level 3 (L3) autonomous driving on high-speed roads in Shanghai, the German automaker said yesterday, a move closer to allowing driverless vehiclesin the world’s largest auto market. BMW will launch products equipped with L3 self-driving functionality when they can do so in accordance with Chinese laws and regulations, it said in a statement. The new license would expand areas for BMW to carry out tests of advanced autonomous driving technologies in Shanghai.
VENEZUELA
Crash kills at least 16
At least 16 people died and six more were seriously injured after a fiery 17-vehicle pile-up on a highway, the country’s fire chief, Juan Gonzalez, told reporters on Wednesday. “So far there are 16,” Gonzalez said when asked about the death toll in the crash earlier in the day on the Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho highway, which connects the capital, Caracas, with the east of the country. Carlos Perez Ampueda, deputy minister for risk management and civil protection, had earlier reported eight fatalities in the incident, but warned that the number would “increase significantly.” Perez Ampueda said that 17 vehicles were in the pile-up, which occurred when a speeding truck crashed into several cars. Images of huge flames at the scene of the crash were shared widely on social media on Wednesday morning. “We have control of all the vehicles that were on fire,” including a bus that was completely burnt, Perez Ampueda said.
AUSTRALIA
Doughnut truck stolen
A woman yesterday was charged with stealing a parked truck stuffed with 10,000 Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Police said the unmarked delivery truck had stopped for fuel on the outskirts of Sydney when a 28-year-old woman allegedly hopped inside and made off with the freshly baked booty. Detectives followed a trail of crumbs to a suburban carpark, where they found the abandoned vehicle more than a week later. The woman was arrested yesterday and police said that her just desserts was to be charged with taking a truck without its owner’s consent. Police said the doughnuts were “destroyed.”
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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