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.”
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
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