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.
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