NORTH KOREA
Spy satellite ‘alive’: expert
Pyongyang’s first spy satellite is “alive,” a Netherlands-based space expert said on Tuesday, after detecting changes in its orbit that suggest it is successfully controlling the spacecraft — although its capabilities are still unknown. Pyongyang’s state media claimed the satellite, launched in November last year, has photographed sensitive military and political sites in South Korea, the US and elsewhere, but has not released any imagery. Independent radio trackers have not detected signals from the satellite, but from Monday to Saturday last week, the satellite conducted maneuvers to raise its perigee, or the lowest point in its orbit, Marco Langbroek, a satellite expert at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, wrote in a blog post, citing data from the US–led Combined Space Operations Center. “The maneuver proves that Malligyong-1 is not dead,” he said.
AUSTRALIA
Coral bleaching confirmed
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority is preparing to carry out aerial surveys across the entire length of the park after helicopter flights confirmed extensive coral bleaching across the southern section of the world’s biggest coral reef. Bleaching had been reported in all regions of the reef from Lizard Island in the north to the Keppel islands in the south — a distance of more than 1,100km. Conservationists fear a seventh mass bleaching event could be unfolding on the reef. The authority yesterday said that helicopter flights had covered 27 inshore reefs and 21 offshore reefs in the southern region off the Queensland coast and found bleaching was “extensive and fairly uniform” at all surveyed spots.
CHINA
Ex-foreign minister resigns
Former minister of foreign affairs Qin Gang (秦剛), who was abruptly removed from office last year and has not been seen in public since, has resigned as a lawmaker, state media reported. Qin’s resignation as a representative for the port city of Tianjin to the 14th National People’s Congress was accepted on Tuesday, the state-run Xinhua news agency said. The former foreign minister was removed after just 207 days in the job in July last year without explanation. He was then removed from the State Council in October. Seven months on, Beijing has still not offered any explanation for Qin’s dismissal, nor why he has not been seen in public since then.
UNITED STATES
Two guilty in Run-DMC killing
The godson and a childhood friend of Jam Master Jay were on Tuesday found guilty by a jury for the 2002 murder of the Run-DMC rap pioneer, who was fatally shot at his New York recording studio in one of the most infamous killings in rap history. Ronald Washington, 59, and Karl Jordan Jr, 40, were convicted of federal charges of murder while engaged in drug trafficking in the shooting of Run-DMC founding member Jason Mizell, the US Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn wrote on X. The verdict came after a month-long trial at the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, where prosecutors called witnesses who were in the studio the night Mizell, 37, was shot dead. “It is no mystery why it took years to indict and arrest the defendants,” US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace told reporters outside the courthouse after the verdict. “The witnesses in the recording studio knew the killers, and they were terrified that they would be retaliated against if they cooperated with law enforcement and identified the ruthless executioners of Mr Mizell,” he said.
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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