CHINA
Pakistan upgrade pledged
Beijing is willing to work with Islamabad to build an upgraded version of an economic corridor linking the two countries, President Xi Jinping (習近平) told visiting Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday. Sharif pledged to ensure the safety of Chinese workers in Pakistan, according to a report on by state broadcaster China Central Television. Sharif offered his government’s condolences for the deaths in March of five Chinese engineers in a suicide bombing in Pakistan, the report said. The economic corridor includes building and improving roads and rail systems to link the western Xinjiang region to Pakistan’s Gwadar Port on the Arabian sea. Earlier in the day, Xi met with Brazilian Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, who expressed hope that many Chinese companies would participate in a Brazilian government infrastructure program that includes railways, energy, port and airport projects.
VIETNAM
Island building picks up
Hanoi has been increasing its dredging and landfill work in the South China Sea, creating almost as much new land as in the previous two years combined, setting the stage for a record year of island-building, US researchers said on Friday. Since November last year, when the Washington-based think tank issued its last report, Vietnam has created 280 hectares of land, compared with 163.5 hectares in the first 11 months of last year and 140 hectares in 2022, the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative said in a report.
DR CONGO
Coup suspects face death
Three US suspects in what the Congolese army called an attempted coup in Kinshasa last month committed acts “punishable by death,” a court heard on Friday as their trial opened. Marcel Malanga and Taylor Christian Thomson, both 21, and 36-year-old Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun are among 50 defendants in the case and were the first to stand before the judge to hear the charges against them. “These acts are punishable by death,” the presiding judge of the Kinshasa-Gombe military court, Freddy Ehume, told the three in Kinshasa. Western diplomats, journalists and lawyers were present for the trial, which is set to resume on Friday.
UNITED KINGDOM
Cameron talks to hoaxer
Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs David Cameron exchanged messages and held a video call with someone purporting to be former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, but the interactions were later determined to be a hoax, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said on Friday. “Whilst the video call clearly appeared to be with Mr Poroshenko, following the conversation the Foreign Secretary became suspicious,” the foreign office said in a statement. “The department has now investigated and confirmed that it was not genuine and that the messages and video call were a hoax.” The statement gave no details of what was discussed during the exchanges, other than to say that the caller asked Cameron for others’ contact details. “Whilst regretting his mistake, the Foreign Secretary thinks it important to call out this behavior and increase efforts to counter the use of misinformation,” the foreign office said. It did not say who it believed was responsible for the hoax.
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