SOUTH KOREA
Yoon casts early vote
President Yoon Suk-yeol cast his ballot yesterday as early voting got under way ahead of next week’s general election, where his party is seeking to win back its parliamentary majority. Yoon’s approval ratings have fallen below 40 percent in recent weeks, according to some pollsters, driven by a litany of scandals and voter dissatisfaction with rising inflation. However, experts say the poll is crucial for Yoon’s People Power Party, because his authority could be significantly weakened for the final three years of his term if the opposition wins a supermajority. Yoon cast his vote in Busan and afterwards thanked the staff at the polling station, his office said.
DENMARK
Faulty missile shuts strait
An important shipping strait between two Danish islands was closed for several hours on Thursday after a missile malfunction on a navy frigate, the military said. The malfunction happened during a missile test on the Niels Juel frigate in the port of Korsor, west of Copenhagen, which created the risk of a missile launch. “The problem happened during a compulsory test where the launcher had been activated” and could not be deactivated for several hours, Danish Defence Command said in a statement. As long as the launcher was not deactivated, there was “a risk that the missile would be fired and would travel several kilometers,” the military said, adding however that there was no risk of the missile exploding. The Great Belt shipping lane, which separates the islands of Zealand and Funen, and air traffic over it were closed between mid-afternoon and 8pm. However, road traffic on the bridge between the two islands was not suspended.
RUSSIA
Governor stabbed
The governor of the northwestern Murmansk region was stabbed in the stomach after a meeting with local residents, the most dangerous assault on a high-ranking government official in more than a decade. Governor Andrei Chibis, 45, had just finished a meeting at the cultural center in the town of Apatity on Thursday, when a man walked up and stabbed him with a knife, local media reports said. The suspect, who was not named, told interrogators that he committed the attack because he “disliked” the governor, although he did not know him personally, the Investigation Committee said on its Telegram channel. The investigation is ongoing. Chibis underwent surgery for his injuries, and posted a video in his Telegram channel yesterday, saying he is conscious and will recover.
CHINA
Space pact with India inked
China and Thailand yesterday signed initial pacts to cooperate on peaceful use of outer space and international lunar research stations, the China National Space Administration said in a statement. The countries aim to form a joint working group on space exploration and applications, encompassing data exchanges and personnel training, the memorandums of understanding said. They also agreed to cooperate on plans for appraising, engineering and managing lunar research stations, it said. Last year, China selected a space weather monitor developed by Thailand for its Chang’e-7 lunar probe mission, the agency added. To be launched around 2026, the Chang’e-7 mission will explore resources on the moon’s south pole, looking to sustain long-term human habitation. China aims to land astronauts on the moon by 2030.
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