UKRAINE
Russian warship destroyed
Kyiv yesterday claimed that its forces had destroyed a Russian military patrol boat on the Black Sea near the Crimean Peninsula. The strategic waterway has become an increasingly important battleground as Ukrainian forces claim a string of attacks on Moscow’s fleet. Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov said the ship had been hit previously, but was destroyed after the overnight attack by maritime drones. “As for the crew, the details are being clarified. There are dead and wounded, but it is likely that some of the crew managed to evacuate,” he told local media. There was no official response from the Russian defence ministry. The air force said earlier yesterday that it had downed 18 of 22 Iranian-designed attack drones launched by Russia over the Black Sea port city of Odesa.
VIETNAM
Hanoi most polluted city
Hanoi was yesterday blanketed by a thick haze of pollution that obscured high-rise buildings and left the city’s nearly 9 million people breathing toxic air. The city topped air monitoring Web site IQAir’s table of the world’s most polluted cities early yesterday afternoon. Levels of PM2.5 pollutants were classified as “very unhealthy” and hit more than 24 times the WHO’s annual guideline. Hanoi has in the past few years frequently been listed among the world’s most polluted cities, due in part to widespread construction and emissions from the huge number of motorbikes and cars that crisscross the capital every day. Carbon emissions from coal plants to the north and agricultural burning exacerbate the problem. The latest World Bank report on air pollution says 40 percent of people in Hanoi are exposed to concentrations nearly five times greater than WHO guidelines.
NEPAL
Coalition forms government
The nation’s two largest communist parties on Monday joined forces to form a new coalition government that would also include smaller parties as partners. Maoist party leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal is to remain prime minister a year after he was elected to the office. Dahal has ended his partnership with the Nepali Congress party, the largest group in parliament, and is now joining forces with the Communist Party of Nepal, the second-biggest party, led by Khadga Prasad Oli. Dahal appointed three new ministers who were sworn in to office by President Ram Chandra Poudel in Kathmandu. The Cabinet is expected to be expanded through negotiations between the new partners in the coalition government. Dahal’s party is the only third-largest group in the 275-seat House of Representatives.
JAPAN
Mount Fuji charges hikers
Hikers using the most popular route to climb Mount Fuji are to be charged US$13 each from July, with numbers capped to ease congestion and improve safety, a regional official said yesterday. Increasingly large crowds are scaling the nation’s highest mountain, which is covered in snow most of the year, but draws more than 220,000 visitors during the July-September climbing period. From July 1, an entry fee of ¥2,000 (US$13) is to be charged per person to ascend the famous volcano’s Yoshida Trail. Daily entries to the trail are to be capped at 4,000 people, with entry banned between 4pm and 2am, under an ordinance approved on Monday by Yamanashi region.
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