JAPAN
Spy satellite launched
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd yesterday launched a rocket carrying a government intelligence-gathering satellite on a mission to watch movements at military sites in North Korea and improve responses to natural disasters. The H2A rocket lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center carrying the optical satellite as part of Tokyo’s reconnaissance effort to rapidly buildup its military capability. The satellite can capture images even in severe weather. Japan began the intelligence-gathering satellite program after a North Korean missile flew over Japan in 1988 and it aims to set up a network of 10 satellites to spot and provide early warning for possible missile launches. Yesterday’s liftoff was closely watched ahead of a planned launch of a new flagship H3 rocket developed by Mitsubishi Heavy and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency as the successor to the H2A. The first test flight of the new rocket failed last year. The Mitsubishi Heavy-operated, liquid-fuel H2A rocket with two solid-fuel sub-rockets has 41 consecutive successes since a failure in 2003, or a 98 percent success rate.
Photo: Kyodo / Reuters
CHINA
New climate envoy named
Beijing has named former minister of foreign affairs Liu Zhenmin (劉振民) as its new special envoy for climate change, after his predecessor, Xie Zhenhua (解振華) stepped down due to health reasons, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment said in a statement yesterday. Xie, 74, served as China’s top climate representative at 16 rounds of climate talks. His resignation was announced following a video meeting with US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry and comes only weeks after he helped secure an agreement to tackle emissions from fossil fuels at the COP28 climate talks in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Liu, 68, acted as Xie’s special adviser in Dubai and has experience in climate diplomacy, participating in negotiations to draw up the 1997 Kyoto Protocol as well as the 2015 Paris Agreement. Unlike Xie, Liu is a fluent English speaker. He served as under-secretary-general at the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs from 2017 to 2022, with a broad brief that included climate issues.
UNITED STATES
Mississippi water tainted
Mississippi health officials on Thursday told residents in Jackson to boil their tap water after traces of Escherichia coli were found in the state’s capital’s supply — a result the manager of Jackson’s long-troubled water system disputed while calling it a devastating setback for rebuilding public trust. The boil-water notice, which officials also imposed in the Jackson suburb of Flowood, was issued just days before the expected arrival of a blast of cold weather that could further disrupt the local water infrastructure. The bacteria’s presence indicates that the water might be contaminated with human or animal waste, the Mississippi Department of Health said. Residents of the two Mississippi cities were advised to boil their water for one minute before using it. The precaution was to last for at least two days as officials collected new samples for testing. Ted Henifin, Jackson’s interim water manager, told a news conference that state officials refused to validate the lab results before issuing the boil-water notice and suggested there might have been false positive tests. He also said it was unlikely that samples from Jackson and Flowood would be contaminated at the same time, as the cities’ water systems are not connected.
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