CHINA
Mudslide kills 12
At least 12 people were killed after a mudslide yesterday hit a homestay house in a tourist area in the southeast as heavy rains from what remained of a tropical storm drenched the region, state media said. Elsewhere, a delivery person on a scooter was on Saturday killed after being hit by a falling tree in Shanghai, apparently because of storm-related winds, the online news outlet The Paper reported. The deaths were the first in China that appear linked to Typhoon Gaemi, which weakened to a tropical storm after making landfall on Thursday. The mudslide struck the homestay house at about 8am and trapped 21 people in Yuelin in Hunan Province, China Central Television reported online. About 30cm of rain was recorded in the area over a 24-hour period.
IRAN
Ayatollah endorses president
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei yesterday gave his official endorsement of reformist Masoud Pezeshkian as the Islamic republic’s ninth president, following snap elections that had concluded earlier this month. “I endorse the vote [for] the wise, honest, popular and scholarly Mr Pezeshkian, and I am appointing him as the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” a message from the leader read by the director of Khamenei’s office said. The new president is due to be sworn in before parliament tomorrow.
UNITED STATES
Park Fire continues to grow
A fire raging out of control in northern California has rapidly become among the biggest ever in the western state, authorities said on Saturday. The Park Fire burned more than 142,000 hectares as of Saturday evening, making it the seventh-largest ever recorded in the state’s history, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) said. The fire, which prompted orders for more than 4,000 people to flee their homes, was burning through a largely rural, mountainous area near the city of Chico. “Extreme fire conditions continue to challenge firefighters,” Cal Fire wrote on X. The fire was just 10 percent controlled, despite the efforts of more than 3,700 personnel with more than a dozen helicopters and several planes, the agency said.
UNITED STATES
Trump courts crypto vote
Former president Donald Trump, once a cryptocurrency skeptic, on Saturday vowed to be a “pro-bitcoin president” if elected in November, as the Republican nominee sought backing from an industry irked by US regulations. “The Biden-Harris administration’s repression of crypto and bitcoin is wrong, and it’s very bad for our country,” Trump said to cheers at a conference in Tennessee, referring to US President Joe Biden and Vice President and likely Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. The ex-president likened cryptocurrencies to the growth of the “steel industry of 100 years ago,” and said that if president, he would not allow the US government to sell its bitcoin holdings, saying it would be a strategic stockpile. Meanwhile, on Friday, Trump told a crowd in West Palm Beach, Florida, that if Christians vote for him, “in four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.” It was not clear what he meant by his remarks, in a campaign where his opponents have accused him of being a threat to democracy, and after his attempt to overturn his 2020 defeat to Biden that led to the Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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