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.
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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