JAPAN
Four missing in floods
Heavy rain in the past week has triggered floods and landslides, with four people missing as of yesterday, including two police officers. The rain had subsided in Yamagata and Akita prefectures, but the area was still at risk of flooding and landslides. One person was missing in Yuzawa city in Akita Prefecture after being hit by a landslide at a road construction site, while in Akita city, rescuers were searching for an 86-year-old man whose bicycle and helmet were found floating by a river, media reports and rescue agencies said. In Shinjo city in Yamagata Prefecture, two police officers were missing after reporting from a patrol vehicle that they were being swept away by floodwaters.
INDIA
Chinese border deal inked
New Delhi and Beijing have agreed to work to withdraw tens of thousands of troops stationed along their disputed border, the government said in a statement late on Thursday. Minister of Foreign Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar met Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) on the sidelines of ASEAN meetings in Laos, where they stressed the need for an early resolution of outstanding issues along the disputed Line of Actual Control, the Himalayan border shared by the two nations. The two “agreed on the need to work with purpose and urgency to achieve complete disengagement at the earliest,” the statement said.
SRI LANKA
Presidential vote scheduled
The first presidential elections since an economic crisis spurred widespread unrest are to be held on Sept. 21, the election commission said yesterday. The election would be the first test of the public mood since the height of the 2022 downturn, which caused months of food, fuel and medicine shortages across the nation. President Ranil Wickremesinghe has hinted that he plans to run. He would face at least two rivals — opposition leader Sajith Premadasa and former minister of agriculture Anura Kumara Dissanayake.
VENEZUELA
Election campaigning ends
The government and the opposition on Thursday closed the official presidential campaign season with demonstrations that drew thousands of people to the streets of Caracas, three days before Sunday’s presidential election. President Nicolas Maduro, who is seeking a third term, spoke from a stage on one of the city’s main roads. He told the crowd that his opponents are promoters of violence and described himself as a man of peace. “Who of the 10 candidates guarantees peace and stability?” Maduro asked. He faces a challenge from former diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who is representing the Unitary Platform coalition.
UNITED STATES
Cartel members arrested
Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of another cartel leader, were arrested in Texas on Thursday, the Department of Justice said. A leader of the Sinaloa cartel for decades alongside Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Zambada is one of the most notorious drug traffickers in the world. A Mexican federal official told reporters that Zambada and Guzman Lopez arrived in the US on a private plane and turned themselves in to authorities. Zambada in February in the Eastern District of New York with conspiring to manufacture and distribute fentanyl, one of several charges he faces.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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