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.”
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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