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Iran warned this weekend against any “adventurous action” by the US and said it would retaliate decisively if American forces follow through on US President Donald Trump’s threats of fresh attacks on Iranian targets. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi’s comments in separate phone calls on Saturday with senior Turkish, Pakistani and Saudi officials came just hours after Kuwait’s army said it de...
Vincent Pastore, a veteran actor who played mobsters and tough guys, and was best known for playing Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero on The Sopranos, has died. He was 80. Bob McGowan, who had managed Pastore since his run on The Sopranos, told Associated Press that he learned of his death on Saturday from another client and actor on the show, Vincent Curatola. He said Pastore had been found in hi...
Having marked its 99th anniversary on August 1, the People’s Liberation Army is now just one year away from its centenary goals, with its evolution highlighting the past, present and future of China’s military strategy. In the third part of a series, Yuanyue Dang and William Zheng examine how Beijing leans on Mao-era doctrines and anti-corruption drives to guarantee absolute party control over the...
China’s export boom is reaching its limits. The country’s next phase of growth will come not from shipping more goods abroad, but from exporting its factories, technologies and brands. China is running up against the limits of its old model. It is obvious as the economy looks increasingly K-shaped. Weak consumer confidence and a prolonged property slump continue to sap domestic demand, forcing man...
At least 13 people died when a small plane carrying tourists to view Peru’s famed Nazca Lines archaeological site crashed, police said on Saturday. “We have information that 11 passengers and two crew members have died,” Police Major Jorge Andrade told reporters from the crash site in the country’s south. The incident happened just after 1pm local time after the plane took off from the airport in ...
US President Donald Trump posted on Saturday that he disagrees with his own Justice Department’s findings that a flawed installation, not vandalism, caused the lining of the newly renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington to peel. “I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Socia...
A home-made bomb carried by a woman killed at least three people and injured 21 near an upscale restaurant in central Moscow on Saturday evening, authorities said, amid unconfirmed speculation on social media that the attack may have been linked to the war in Ukraine. Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NAK) said an unidentified woman carrying an improvised explosive device had tried to g...
An explosion at a Moscow restaurant on Saturday that killed three people and wounded 21 more was a bombing, Russia’s national anti-terrorism committee said, the Tass state news agency reported. “A home-made explosive device blew up at a restaurant in Kudrinskaya Square in Moscow, killing three people,” said the committee, quoted by Tass. An unidentified woman who attempted to carry the explosive d...
An explosion at a Moscow restaurant on Saturday that killed three people and wounded 21 more was a bombing, Russia’s national anti-terrorism committee said, the Tass state news agency reported. “A home-made explosive device blew up at a restaurant in Kudrinskaya Square in Moscow, killing three people,” said the committee, quoted by Tass. An unidentified woman who attempted to carry the explosive d...
An explosion on Saturday near a Moscow cafe killed at least three people and wounded another 15, police said, without saying what caused the blast. “From the information we have, an explosion happened today at around 8.10pm near a summer cafe, causing three deaths and 15 injured, of varying degrees of seriousness,” Moscow police told state news agency RIA Novosti. Investigators and police forensic...
A truck bomb exploded on Saturday near a Colombian police station not far from the Venezuelan border, wounding 14 people just days before president-elect Abelardo de la Espriella takes office. The government in Bogota blamed rebels from the National Liberation Army (ELN), the country’s largest active guerrilla group, for the early-morning blast in the northern city of Cucuta. Eleven police officer...
Colombia’s government on Saturday blamed the nation’s largest remaining rebel group for an explosion outside a police base that injured 11 officers and killed a police dog. The attack took place early Saturday in Cucuta, a city along Colombia’s border with Venezuela, where drug gangs and rebel groups have long fought for the control of smuggling routes. General William Rincon, the director of Colo...
The White House has used a song by Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny, a well-known opponent of US President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, as music for a video about operations by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The clip, which shows arrests of migrants, drew criticism on social media and can now only be viewed on TikTok without the music of the song “La MuDANZA” (The Move) from...
The Israeli military said on Saturday that it killed several Hezbollah fighters in south Lebanon and that an Israeli soldier was injured there despite a ceasefire. The military said it identified several Hezbollah fighters overnight inside what Israel has labelled a “security zone” in southern Lebanon which its forces occupy. “Following the identification, the soldiers struck the terrorists and el...
US embassies in capitals across the Middle East on Saturday warned American citizens to beware of an “unforeseen escalation” in the regional conflict and urged them to be ready to leave. The warning, posted online by US embassies in Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates came a day after US President Donald Trump threatened to hit Ira...
Hongkongers should brace for more bad weather over the next few days. The Hong Kong Observatory warned on Saturday that showers would be heavy at times with squally thunderstorms over the coast of southern China in the next couple of days under the influence of a broad trough of low pressure and an active southerly airstream. Meanwhile, authorities said they received six landslide reports between ...
Celebrated Nepali climber Nirmal Purja, who set a record for the fastest ascent of the world’s 14 highest mountains, died in an avalanche during an expedition in Pakistan, his company said on Saturday. “Today it is with profound sadness and immense heartbreak that we confirm that Nirmal ‘Nimsdai’ Purja tragically lost his life following the avalanche on Broad Peak,” his expedition organising com...
Celebrated Nepali climber Nirmal Purja, who set a record for the fastest ascent of the world’s 14 highest mountains, died in an avalanche during an expedition in Pakistan, his company said on Saturday. “Today it is with profound sadness and immense heartbreak that we confirm that Nirmal ‘Nimsdai’ Purja tragically lost his life following the avalanche on Broad Peak,” his expedition organising com...
Celebrated Nepali climber Nirmal Purja, who set a record for the fastest ascent of the world’s 14 highest mountains, died in an avalanche during an expedition in Pakistan, his company said on Saturday. “Today it is with profound sadness and immense heartbreak that we confirm that Nirmal ‘Nimsdai’ Purja tragically lost his life following the avalanche on Broad Peak,” his expedition organising com...
Hong Kong authorities are gauging public feedback on a possible shift in the supply ratio of public rental flats to subsidised sale homes to an even 50:50 split, the housing minister has said. Secretary for Housing Winnie Ho Wing-yin told a planning forum on Saturday that the total supply of public housing would reach 196,000 flats over the next five years. Under measures outlined in Chief Executi...
Hong Kong authorities are gauging public feedback on a possible shift in the supply ratio of public rental flats to subsidised sale homes to an even 50:50 split, the housing minister has said. Secretary for Housing Winnie Ho Wing-yin told a planning forum on Saturday that the total supply of public housing would reach 196,000 flats over the next five years. Under measures outlined in Chief Executi...
A recent US executive order requires major arms manufacturers to trace their multi-tier supply chains and actively phase out Chinese rare earths, aiming to end years of reliance on cheap minerals from China. Far from a radical policy shift, industry observers view the directive as a long-overdue enforcement crackdown designed to inflict short-term contractor pain for long-term national security ga...
A man has been killed and three people seriously injured after a severe storm struck the Saxon Switzerland region in the eastern German state of Saxony, police said on Friday. There were no reports of missing people, said a spokesman for the Dresden Emergency Services Control Centre. According to the control centre, a 38-year-old man lost his life near the Felsenbühne open-air theatre in Rathen wh...
The Hong Kong garrison of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) celebrated the 99th anniversary of the military’s founding on Saturday with a reception at the barracks on Stonecutters Island, with a top officer pledging to expand its role in promoting patriotic and defence education across the city. Speaking at the reception at the Ngong Shuen Chau Barracks, garrison political commissar Rear Admiral ...
Sweden has introduced tougher penalties for gang-related offences, allowing courts to impose prison sentences up to twice as long as before, as the country cracks down on organised crime. Under the new law, which took effect on Saturday, gang members convicted of certain offences can face sentences up to double the previous maximum. For example, a gang member caught carrying a firearm previously f...
Chinese President Xi Jinping has honoured a veteran naval test pilot with a first-class merit award for defence science and technology. The pilot, Yang Yong, who had previously been awarded seven second- and third-class merit awards, has been testing planes launched from the country’s most advanced aircraft carrier, the Fujian. Yang featured in a documentary that aired this week on state broadcast...
Hong Kong police have arrested 57 people, including a 14-year-old boy, in a crackdown on triad-linked illegal debt collection. Police said on Saturday that the operation, launched last month, had dismantled an illegal debt collection syndicate, along with a prostitution venue, a drug den and three illegal gambling parlours. Fifty-seven people, aged 14 to 70, were arrested and some of them had tria...
Japan’s Kumamoto prefectural government said on Saturday it has ended rescue operations at an Aeon shopping centre where seven workers died in an explosion shortly after a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck the southwestern Japan prefecture four days earlier. Officials said there should be no more people unaccounted for after local police and firefighters, joined by the Self-Defence Forces and others...
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) carried out a missile test in the Pacific last month. The July 6 launch – in which a dummy warhead travelled 8,000km (5,000 miles) – was China’s first confirmed submarine-based missile test since 1982, and the first known firing from a nuclear-powered submarine. The type of missile used has not been officially confirmed, but a report in the Global Times – a newsp...
As China’s era of catch-up growth fades, experts warn that profound issues in research culture and institutional incentives may hamstring the country’s ambition to become a leader in scientific innovation. In a dialogue held at the Shanghai Academy of Natural Sciences (SANS) last month, leading scholars discussed the hurdles China faces with Kevin Kelly, the founding executive editor of Wired maga...
