JAPAN
Mongooses eradicated
The nation has wiped out all mongooses on a subtropical island, officials said, after the animals ignored the venomous snakes they were brought in to hunt and preyed on endangered local rabbits instead. About 30 of the venom-resistant predators were released on Amami Oshima, a UNESCO World Heritage site, in the late 1970s to keep down the population of habu, a pit viper whose bite can be deadly to humans. However, the snakes are mostly active at night when mongooses prefer to sleep and the toothy mammals turned their ravenous appetites to local Amami rabbits, drastically reducing their numbers. The rabbits only live on Amami Oshima and one other island and are listed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list. The mongoose population had exploded to about 10,000 by 2000 and authorities began a program of eradication. The government declared the island mongoose-free on Tuesday, almost 25 years after the start of that program and nearly 50 since the ill-fated initiative began.
Photo: EPA-EFE
SOUTH KOREA
Leaders slam N Korea
The leaders of South Korea and New Zealand during a summit in Seoul yesterday condemned North Korea’s weapons program and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. President Yoon Suk-yeol and New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon also agreed to work toward elevating bilateral ties, the presidential office said. “It is more important than ever for countries that share values, including South Korea and New Zealand, to form solidarity at this critical juncture, where challenges from authoritarian forces continue, with the war in Ukraine and military cooperation between Russia and North Korea,” Yoon said in his opening remarks.
Photo: Reuters
BANGLADESH
Thousands of Rohingya flee
About 8,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled from across the border with Myanmar in the past few months, escaping escalating violence in Rakhine State, an official said yesterday. The violence has intensified as fighting between Myanmar’s ruling junta and the Arakan Army continues to worsen. “We have information that around 8,000 Rohingya crossed into Bangladesh recently, mostly over the last two months,” said Mohammad Shamsud Douza, a senior official in charge of refugees for the government. “Bangladesh is already overburdened and unable to accommodate any more Rohingya.”
Photo:AFP
UKRAINE
Foreign minister resigns
Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba has submitted his resignation, the speaker of parliament said yesterday, as part of a major government reshuffle. The announcement came a day after several other ministers resigned in a significant government reset. Kuleba is the most senior of the ministers to offer to step down.
ECUADOR
Prison director killed
The director of a prison was killed in an armed attack on Tuesday and two officers were wounded, the Latin American country’s prison management service said. “Three administrative officials of the Center for Deprivation of Liberty ... were victims of an armed attack” on the road to Coca city, the SNAI prisons agency said on WhatsApp. Alex Guevara, director of the prison in Sucumbios Province, “unfortunately died due to the attack,” it said. Two other workers who were with him were wounded. SNAI said that police are investigating the incident.
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