SOUTH KOREA
Ties established with Cuba
South Korea has established formal diplomatic relations with Cuba, a country whose steadfast loyalty to North Korea had for decades apparently kept it from forging ties with Seoul. The South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement the two countries’ representatives to the UN exchanged diplomatic notes in New York on Wednesday to establish ambassador-level relations. Cuba became the 193rd country to establish official ties with South Korea, it said. Havana had been one of the few global outliers when it came to forging ties with South Korea, setting itself apart from North Korea’s two biggest backers — the Soviet Union and China, which established formal relations more than 30 years ago as the Cold War ended and they looked to South Korea as a powerful partner for trade. The announcement had been kept secret to prevent any interruption by North Korea, Yonhap news agency reported, citing sources it did not name.
EGYPT
Al-Sisi meets Erdogan
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made his first visit to Egypt in more than a decade, as the two Middle Eastern powers looked past years of acrimony and pledged to work together on economic and security issues. Erdogan met his Egyptian counterpart Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo on Wednesday for talks they said focused on the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the entry of more humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinian territory. They also discussed greater cooperation in the energy-rich eastern Mediterranean and war-torn Libya. The visit means “together we can open a new page between our countries” and set relations “on their right track,” al-Sisi said in televised comments, flanked by Erdogan. The two signed a joint declaration to formally resume cooperation in fields ranging from diplomacy to banking, energy, tourism and defense. Egypt and Turkey had been at odds for much of the past decade, following the 2013 military-backed overthrow of Mohammed Morsi, an Islamist favored by Ankara.
AUSTRALIA
PM announces engagement
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday revealed his Valentine’s Day engagement to girlfriend Jodie Haydon, after “she said yes” to a carefully planned marriage proposal. The words “Canberra” and “romance” are rarely twinned, but yesterday the centre-left leader one-upped Valentines across Australia, with a morning message that the pair had agreed to wed. “It is such a joy to be able to share this news with people,” a beaming and slightly bashful Albanese said, after walking hand-in-hand with Haydon from the prime minister’s official residence. “It’s wonderful that I’ve found a partner who I want to spend the rest of my life with.”
RUSSIA
Gummies prompt arrest
A Moscow court on Wednesday remanded a German citizen into custody after his arrest over possession of cannabis gummies and accusations of smuggling drugs, Russian state news agency TASS said. Patrick Schobel, 38, was detained at Pulkovo Airport in St Petersburg late last month and is to remain in custody until at least March 15, Tass said. The Federal Customs Service said the German national arrived in the country to visit a friend, and when searched, a packet of “Fink Green Goldbears” with six cannabis gummies inside was found on him. Both Tass and the customs service said Schobel faces up to seven years in prison for smuggling drugs.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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