Greece’s coast guard has found the bodies of eight migrants — six minors and two women — who drowned off the island of Samos in the Aegean Sea, authorities said on Monday.
Greek police found a further 36 people alive in the northern part of Samos, while three people, trapped in a rocky area on the island, were rescued by coast guard officers, the coast guard said.
Aircraft and vessels assisted a search and rescue operation, it added.
According to a coast guard official, authorities were alerted to the incident by a non-governmental organization and estimate that about 50 people were on board the vessel that brought them off Samos.
Greece, in the southeast corner of the European Union, has long been a favored gateway to Europe for migrants and refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
More than one million crossed from Turkiye to Greece’s outlying eastern islands in 2015-2016. Many have drowned while attempting the perilous journey on flimsy boats.
The number of arrivals later dropped before surging again last year.
So far this year, about 54,000 migrants have reached Greece, the second largest number in southern Europe behind Italy. The vast majority of them arrived by sea, according to data from the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR.
At least eight migrants drown off Greek island of Samos
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At least eight migrants drown off Greek island of Samos
- Greek coast guard finds bodies of six minors, two women
- So far 39 people rescued, search and rescue operation continues
US flies long-range bomber for drill with South Korea, as Pyongyang marks key anniversary
- North Korea often reacts to the US deployment of B-1B bombers and other powerful military assets
- Tuesday’s flyover of the US bombers could draw an angrier response
North Korea often reacts to the US deployment of B-1B bombers and other powerful military assets with missile tests and fiery rhetoric. Tuesday’s flyover of the US bombers could draw an angrier response because it happened when North Korea was marking a key anniversary – the 113th birthday of state founder Kim Il Sung, the late grandfather of the current leader.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry said the US bombers participated in a South Korea-US aerial drill over the Korean Peninsula to strengthen the allies’ combined operational capability and demonstrate their deterrence capability against North Korea’s advancing nuclear program.
A ministry statement said South Korean F-35 and F-16 fighter jets and American F-16 fighter jets also took part in the training. It said South Korea and the US will continue to expand their joint military exercises to respond to North Korean nuclear threats.
It was the second time a US B-1B’s had participated in a drill with South Korea since President Donald Trump began his second term in January.
In February, North Korea’s Defense Ministry slammed the B-1B’s earlier flyover as proof of intensifying US-led provocations since Trump’s inauguration. It pledged to counter the strategic threat of the US with strategic means. Days later, North Korea test-fired cruise missiles in what it called an attempt to show its nuclear counterattack capability.
Trump has repeatedly said he will reach out to Kim Jong Un to revive diplomacy. North Korea hasn’t directly responded to Trump’s outreach.
Last Wednesday, Kim Yo Jong – Kim’s sister and a senior official – derided the US and its Asian allies over what she called their “daydream” of denuclearizing the North, insisting that the country will never give up its nuclear weapons program. Her statement came as a response to a recent meeting among the top diplomats of the United States, South Korea and Japan where they reaffirmed their commitment to push for the North’s denuclearization.
The Kim Il Sung birthday, called “the Day of Sun,” is one of the most important holidays in North Korea, where a state-sponsored cult of personality treats key members of the ruling Kim family like gods. On Tuesday, the country’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper issued an editorial urging the public to rally behind Kim Jong Un to achieve a national prosperity. In recent days, North Korea has held seminars, performances and other events commemorating the founder’s achievements.
Singapore dissolves parliament ahead of imminent election
- The vote will be the first electoral test for Prime Minister Lawrence Wong
- The election will take place amid a gloomy economic outlook
SINGAPORE: Singapore’s parliament was dissolved on Tuesday ahead of a general election to be held within three months, a government gazette said.
The vote will be the first electoral test for Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, who took over from long-time premier Lee Hsien Loong as leader of the People’s Action Party in May 2024.
The PAP is almost certain to dominate and win most seats, as it has in every vote since independence in 1965, although its share of the popular vote will be closely watched after one of its worst electoral performances in the last contest in 2020.
The election will take place amid a gloomy economic outlook as US President Donald Trump’s tariffs threaten to hit activity in the trade-reliant nation, which on Monday downgraded its growth forecast for 2025 to 0 percent to 2 percent, from 1 percent to 3 percent.
The ruling party’s popularity has dimmed in recent elections as the opposition steadily gained more ground in parliament, winning an unprecedented 6 seats in 2011 and 2015, and 10 in 2020.
The upcoming election will have four more seats compared to the last vote in 2020, with 97 lawmakers elected from 15 single-member electoral divisions and 18 divisions with 4 or 5 members each.
In February, Wong delivered what analysts called “a full-blown election budget” with goodies for all Singaporeans ahead of the polls.
Russia says it is not easy to agree Ukraine peace deal with US
- Donald Trump has been pressing Moscow and Kyiv to agree to a ceasefire but has failed to extract any major concessions from the Kremlin
- Foreign Minister Lavrov warns that key disagreements remain with the US and insists Ukraine must abandon NATO ambitions and withdraw from Russian-claimed territories
MOSCOW: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that it was not easy to agree with the United States on the key parts of a possible peace deal to end the war in Ukraine and that Russia would never again allow itself to depend economically on the West.
US President Donald Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, has repeatedly said he wants to end the “bloodbath” of the three-year war in Ukraine, though a deal has yet to be agreed.
“It is not easy to agree the key components of a settlement. They are being discussed,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper when asked if Moscow and Washington had agreement on some aspects of a possible peace deal.
“We are well aware of what a mutually beneficial deal looks like, which we have never rejected, and what a deal looks like that could lead us into another trap,” Lavrov said in the interview published in Tuesday’s edition.
The Kremlin on Sunday said that it was too early to expect results from the restoration of more normal relations with Washington.
Lavrov said that Russia’s position had been set out clearly by President Vladimir Putin in June 2024, when Putin demanded Ukraine must officially drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed by Russia.
“We’re talking about the rights of the people who live on these lands. That is why these lands are dear to us. And we cannot give them up, allowing people to be kicked out of there,” Lavrov said.
Russia currently controls a little under one fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and parts of four other regions Moscow now claims are part of Russia — a claim not recognized by most countries.
Lavrov praised Trump’s “common sense” and for saying that previous US support of Ukraine’s bid to join the NATO military alliance was a major cause of the war in Ukraine.
But Russia’s political elite, he said, would not countenance any moves that led Russia back toward economic, military, technological or agricultural dependence on the West.
The globalization of the world economy, Lavrov said, had been destroyed by sanctions imposed on Russia, China and Iran by the administration of former US President Joe Biden.
Biden, Western European leaders and Ukraine describe Russia’s 2022 invasion as an imperial-style land grab, and repeatedly vowed to defeat Russian forces.
Putin casts the war in Ukraine as part of a battle with a declining West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 by enlarging the NATO military alliance and encroaching on what he considers Moscow’s sphere of influence.
Xi’s Vietnam trip aiming to ‘screw’ US, says Trump
- Xi Jinping is in Vietnam as part of a Southeast Asia tour that will include Malaysia and Cambodia
- Beijing trying to position itself as a stable alternative to Trump as leaders confront US tariffs
HANOI: China’s President Xi Jinping paid tribute to Vietnam’s late revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh on Tuesday, his last day of a trip to Hanoi that President Donald Trump said was aiming to “screw” the United States.
Xi is in Vietnam as part of a Southeast Asia tour that will include Malaysia and Cambodia, with Beijing trying to position itself as a stable alternative to Trump as leaders confront US tariffs.
The Chinese leader called on his country and Vietnam Monday to “oppose unilateral bullying and uphold the stability of the global free trade system,” according to Beijing’s state media.
Hours later, Trump told reporters at the White House that their meeting was aimed at hurting the United States.
“I don’t blame China. I don’t blame Vietnam. I don’t. I see they’re meeting today, and that’s wonderful,” he said.
“That’s a lovely meeting... like trying to figure out, how do we screw the United States of America.”
China and Vietnam signed 45 cooperation agreements on Monday, including on supply chains, artificial intelligence, joint maritime patrols and railway development.
Xi said a meeting with Vietnam’s top leader To Lam on Monday that their countries were “standing at the turning point of history... and should move forward with joint hands.”
Lam said after the talks that the two leaders “reached many important and comprehensive common perceptions,” according to Vietnam News Agency.
On the final day of his visit, Xi laid a red wreath emblazoned with his name and the words “Long live Vietnam’s great leader President Ho Chi Minh” at the late leader’s mausoleum in central Hanoi.
He is also due to attend the launch of the Vietnam-China Railway Cooperation, which will help manage an $8-billion rail project – announced this year – to link Vietnam’s largest northern port city to the border with China.
Xi’s trip comes almost two weeks after the United States – the biggest export market for Vietnam, a manufacturing powerhouse, in the first three months of the year – imposed a 46 percent levy on Vietnamese goods as part of a global tariff blitz.
Although the US tariffs on Vietnam and most other countries have been paused, China still faces enormous levies and is seeking to tighten regional trade ties and offset their impact during Xi’s first overseas trip of the year.
Xi will head to Malaysia later Tuesday and then Cambodia on a tour that “bears major importance” for the broader region, Beijing has said.
Xi earlier urged Vietnam and China to “resolutely safeguard the multilateral trading system, stable global industrial and supply chains, and open and cooperative international environment.”
He also reiterated Beijing’s line that a “trade war and tariff war will produce no winner, and protectionism will lead nowhere” in an article published on Monday in Vietnam’s major state-run Nhan Dan newspaper.
China and Vietnam, both ruled by communist parties, already share a “comprehensive strategic partnership,” Hanoi’s highest diplomatic status.
Vietnam has long pursued a “bamboo diplomacy” approach – striving to stay on good terms with both China and the United States.
The two countries have close economic ties, but Hanoi shares US concerns about Beijing’s increasing assertiveness in the contested South China Sea.
China accuses US of launching ‘advanced’ cyberattacks during the Asian Winter Games
- The attacks had ‘the intention of sabotaging China’s critical information infrastructure, causing social disorder, and stealing important confidential information’
BEIJING: Chinese police in the northeastern city of Harbin have accused the United States National Security Agency (NSA) of launching “advanced” cyberattacks during the Asian Winter Games in February, targeting essential industries.
Police added three alleged NSA agents to a wanted list and also accused the University of California and Virginia Tech of being involved in the attacks after carrying out investigations, according to a report by state news agency Xinhua on Tuesday.
The NSA agents were identified by Xinhua as Katheryn A. Wilson, Robert J. Snelling and Stephen W. Johnson. The three were also found to have “repeatedly carried out cyberattacks on China’s critical information infrastructure and participated in cyberattacks on Huawei and other enterprises.”
It did not specify how the two American universities were involved.
The US Embassy in China did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
The detailed allegations come as the world’s two largest economies spiral deeper into a trade war that has already spurred travel warnings for Chinese tourists going to the US and halted imports of US films into China.
“The US National Security Agency (NSA) launched cyberattacks against important industries such as energy, transportation, water conservancy, communications, and national defense research institutions in Heilongjiang province,” Xinhua said, citing the Harbin city public security bureau.
The attacks had “the intention of sabotaging China’s critical information infrastructure, causing social disorder, and stealing important confidential information,” it added.
Anonymous servers
Xinhua said the NSA operations took place during the Winter Games and were “suspected of activating specific pre-installed backdoors” in Microsoft Windows operating systems on specific devices in Heilongjiang.
In order to cover its tracks, the NSA purchased IP addresses in different countries and “anonymously” rented a large number of network servers including in Europe and Asia,” Xinhua said.
The NSA intended to use cyberattacks to steal the personal data of participating athletes, the news agency said, adding that the cyberattacks reached a peak from the first ice hockey game on February 3. The attacks targeted information systems such as the Asian Winter Games registration system and stored “sensitive information about the identities of relevant personnel of the event,” Xinhua said.
The US routinely accuses Chinese state-backed hackers of launching attacks against its critical infrastructure and government bodies.
Last month, Washington announced indictments against a slew of alleged Chinese hackers who targeted the US Defense Intelligence Agency, the US Department of Commerce, and the foreign ministries of Taiwan, South Korea, India, and Indonesia.
Beijing denies all involvement in overseas cyber espionage.
After years of being accused by Western governments of cyberattacks and industrial espionage, in the past two years several Chinese organizations and government organs have accused the United States and its allies of similar behavior.
In December, China said it found and dealt with two US cyberattacks on Chinese tech firms to “steal trade secrets” since May 2023, but did not name the agency involved.
