NORTH KOREA
US, SK accused of spying
Pyongyang yesterday accused the US and South Korea of conducting more aerial espionage around the Korean Peninsula, saying it would take “immediate action” if its sovereignty was breached. The US has deployed dozens of military planes “in air espionage against the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] from May 13 to 24,” Vice Minister of Defense Kim Kang-il said in a statement, referring to his country by its official name. The espionage activities observed over the 12-day time frame were “at a level beyond the wartime situation,” he said in the statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. He also lashed out at the South Korean navy for what he called “enemy intrusion across our maritime border.”
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Landslide death toll spikes
The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) yesterday increased its estimate of the death toll from a massive landslide to more than 670. Serhan Aktoprak, chief of the IOM Mission in Papua New Guinea, said the revised death toll was based on calculations by Yambali village and Enga provincial officials that more than 150 homes had been buried by Friday’s landslide. “They are estimating that more than 670 people [are] under the soil at the moment,” Aktoprak said.
BANGLADESH
Thousands flee cyclone
Tens of thousands of people yesterday left their coastal villages for concrete storm shelters further inland as the low-lying nation prepared for the expected landfall of an intense cyclone, officials said. Cyclone Remal is set to hit the country and parts of neighboring India between 6pm and midnight, with the Meteorological Department predicting crashing waves and howling gales with gusts of up to 130kph. “Our plan is to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people from unsafe and vulnerable homes to the cyclone shelters,” Secretary of the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief Kamrul Hasan said.
THE NETHERLANDS
Nicki Minaj detained
A concert by US rapper Nicki Minaj in England was called off at the last minute on Saturday night, after the superstar was detained at Amsterdam’s main airport on suspicion of possessing “soft drugs.” The artist was due to perform in Manchester on Saturday, but wrote on X that authorities “said they found weed” in her luggage before briefly taking her into custody. Minaj said the “pre-rolls” belonged to her security guard and that her bags had been searched “without consent.” Police said that they had detained a 41-year-old American woman on suspicion of trying to export soft drugs. Military police spokesman Robert Kapel later said that the suspect had been released after the payment of a “reasonable” fine. Transporting drugs from the Netherlands to another country is illegal.
UNITED STATES
Richard Sherman dies
Richard Sherman, 95, a man behind famed Disney songs that delighted generations, such as It’s a Small World (After all) and Mary Poppins’ songs Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, Chim Chim Cher-ee and Spoon full of Sugar died on Saturday, the Walt Disney Co announced on its Web site. He passed at a Beverly Hills California, hospital. The cause was only listed as an “age-related illness,” a Disney obituary said. Sherman was one half of the famed songwriting team “the Sherman Brothers” along with his late brother Robert Sherman, and was regarded as part of Walt Disney’s inner creative circle.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
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