SPACE
SpaceX launches ISS rescue
SpaceX launched a two-person crew to the International Space Station (ISS), the start of a mission to bring home two NASA astronauts stuck in orbit after flying on Boeing Co’s Starliner spacecraft. NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov took off inside a SpaceX Crew Dragon from Cape Canaveral, Florida, just after 1pm on Saturday. The Crew-9 capsule was scheduled to dock with the ISS yesterday after press time. The pair would have two empty seats next to them that NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams would fill when the spacecraft returns next year. The Crew-9 flight was meant to have a four-person crew, but NASA removed two crew members to make room for the Starliner duo after technical failures with Boeing’s spacecraft. Astronauts Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson relinquished their seats so their colleagues could return to Earth. Wilmore and Williams have been on the ISS since June 6, when they arrived on Starliner. During their docking, the spacecraft experienced a number of helium leaks and failures of its thrusters — tiny engines the vehicle uses to maneuver through space. After months of analysis and testing, NASA decided it was too risky to bring them home on the Boeing capsule. The agency and Boeing instead returned the spacecraft uncrewed on Sept. 6, with the spacecraft landing under parachutes in New Mexico.
MOLDOVA
Poll interference suspected
Moldova’s state-owned broadcaster on Saturday said that vandals had poured paint across an entrance to its building in the capital, Chisinau, a day after police blamed similar incidents on a group trained in Moscow to destabilize upcoming elections. Paint was also poured on the Moldovan Supreme Court building overnight, police said. Moldovan authorities have linked such incidents to a group trained in Moscow to provoke instability ahead of a presidential poll next month, in which pro-European incumbent, President Maia Sandu, is favored to beat a field of 10 challengers. Sandu’s opponents are led by Alexander Stoianoglo, who was dismissed from his position as prosecutor general and is backed by pro-Russian opposition parties, and Renato Usatii, who favours good links with both the West and Moscow.
CRIME
‘Sunflowers’ vandalized
A pair of paintings by Dutch master Vincent van Gogh at London’s National Gallery were vandalized on Friday when a group of climate activists splattered what appeared to be tomato soup on them, shortly after two other activists were sentenced over a similar attack two years ago. The paintings from Van Gogh’s Sunflowers series, which the artist painted in Arles in the south of France, were not damaged thanks to protective glass coverings. The gallery identified the two as its own Sunflowers (1888) and Sunflowers (1889) on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The three activists from the Just Stop Oil environmental group involved in the attack were arrested while the paintings were removed, examined, and then returned to their location. The exhibition reopened later on Friday, the gallery said. The action was apparently in protests against the sentencing earlier Friday of two other activists from the group, Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22. Plummer was sentenced to two years while Holland received a 20-month sentence for their October 2022 attack on a Sunflowers painting.
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
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
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
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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