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.
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
‘NO WORKABLE SOLUTION’: An official said Pakistan engaged in the spirit of peace, but Kabul continued its ‘unabated support to terrorists opposed to Pakistan’ Pakistan yesterday said that negotiations for a lasting truce with Afghanistan had “failed to bring about a workable solution,” warning that it would take steps to protect its people. Pakistan and Afghanistan have been holding negotiations in Istanbul, Turkey, aimed at securing peace after the South Asian neighbors’ deadliest border clashes in years. The violence, which killed more than 70 people and wounded hundreds, erupted following explosions in Kabul on Oct. 9 that the Taliban authorities blamed on Pakistan. “Regrettably, the Afghan side gave no assurances, kept deviating from the core issue and resorted to blame game, deflection and ruses,” Pakistani Minister of
UNCERTAIN TOLLS: Images on social media showed small protests that escalated, with reports of police shooting live rounds as polling stations were targeted Tanzania yesterday was on lockdown with a communications blackout, a day after elections turned into violent chaos with unconfirmed reports of many dead. Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan had sought to solidify her position and silence criticism within her party in the virtually uncontested polls, with the main challengers either jailed or disqualified. In the run-up, rights groups condemned a “wave of terror” in the east African nation, which has seen a string of high-profile abductions that ramped up in the final days. A heavy security presence on Wednesday failed to deter hundreds protesting in economic hub Dar es Salaam and elsewhere, some
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