JAPAN
Kobayashi raids continue
Health officials yesterday inspected a factory producing health supplements linked to at least five deaths and the hospitalization of more than 100 people, one day after the authorities investigated another plant that manufactured the product. A team of 17 health officials from the central and prefectural governments raided a plant operated by the Kobayashi Pharmaceutical Co’s subsidiary in Kinokawa, in western Wakayama Prefecture. The Wakayama plant took over the production of the supplements after Kobayashi Pharmaceutical closed another plant in nearby Osaka, which authorities searched on Saturday, NHK public television reported.
SYRIA
Car bomb kills eight
A bomb early yesterday exploded in a market in a northern city held by pro-Turkish forces. At least “eight people were killed and 23 others wounded” when “a car bomb exploded in the middle of a popular market” in Azaz, in Aleppo province, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, adding that the toll was provisional. The Britain-based Observatory, which has a network of sources inside the country, said the blast caused “significant damage” and sparked a fire.
EUROPEAN UNION
Schengen area expanded
Bulgaria and Romania yesterday joined Europe’s vast Schengen area of free movement, opening up travel by air and sea without border checks after a 13-year wait. However, a veto by Austria means the new status would not apply to land routes, after Vienna expressed concerns over a potential influx of asylum seekers. Despite the partial membership, the lifting of controls at the two countries’ air and sea borders is of significant symbolic value. Admission to Schengen is an “important milestone” for Bulgaria and Romania, symbolizing a “question of dignity, of belonging to the European Union,” foreign policy analyst Stefan Popescu said. “Any Romanian who had to walk down a lane separate from other European citizens felt being treated differently.”
PERU
President Boluarte raided
President Dina Boluarte on Saturday slammed raids on her home and office as “arbitrary, disproportionate and abusive” after authorities carried out overnight searches in a corruption probe centered on Rolex watches she has been wearing publicly. TV footage showed agents with a metal bar breaking down the door of Boluarte’s home. A lawyer for Boluarte said police found watches in her office at the government palace. “They did not take them away. They were noted and photographed. There were around 10, and among them were some nice ones but I cannot say if they were Rolex,” attorney Mateo Castaneda told radio station RPP.
UNITED STATES
Chance Perdomo dies at 27
Actor Chance Perdomo, who rose to fame as a star of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Gen V, has died at the age of 27. “On behalf of the family and his representatives, it is with heavy hearts that we share the news of Chance Perdomo’s untimely passing as a result of a motorcycle accident,” a publicist said in a statement issued on Saturday evening. The statement said no one else was involved in the crash, and no details were immediately released. “We can’t quite wrap our heads around this. For those of us who knew him and worked with him, Chance was always charming and smiling, an enthusiastic force of nature,” the producers of Gen V said in a statement.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
DISASTROUS VISIT: The talks in Saudi Arabia come after an altercation at the White House that led to the Ukrainian president leaving without signing a minerals deal Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was due to arrive in Saudi Arabia yesterday, a day ahead of crucial talks between Ukrainian and US officials on ending the war with Russia. Highly anticipated negotiations today on resolving the three-year conflict would see US and Ukrainian officials meet for the first time since Zelenskiy’s disastrous White House visit last month. Zelenskiy yesterday said that he would meet Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the nation’s de facto leader, after which his team “will stay for a meeting on Tuesday with the American team.” At the talks in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, US
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