MOSCOW (Anadolu) – Russia launched its hypersonic Zircon (Tsirkon) cruise missile from a frigate, the country’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday. The test launch was carried out in the Arctic Barents Sea, and successfully hit a sea target at a distance of about 1,000 kilometers, said a ministry statement. Earlier this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the new missiles, capable of reaching a speed of about Mach 9 and hitting targets some 1,000 km away, will be put on combat duty in the near future. The test was undertaken as part of ongoing “testing of new weapons,” the ministry added.  The Zircon has undergone several tests in recent years, including several tests from the Admiral Gorshkov frigate and from a submerged submarine. The first official Zircon test came in October 2020. The hypersonic cruise missile, one of the latest additions to Russia’s arsenal of weapons called “invincible” by Putin, can travel more than five times the speed of sound and is much harder to track and intercept than traditional projectiles.

 

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ANKARA (Anadolu) – As Turkey and Azerbaijan enjoy strong, deep-rooted relations, the Turkish president on Saturday stressed the two countries’ “strategic alliance” as cemented by last year’s declaration in the wake of Azerbaijan’s victory in a regional conflict with Armenia. “We first elevated our relationship with Azerbaijan to a strategic partnership, and last year to a strategic alliance with the Shusha Declaration,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at leading Turkish aviation, space, and technology festival Teknofest, now held abroad for the first time, in the Azerbaijani capital Baku. Saying that the two countries have taken bilateral ties to a level that is exemplary not only for the region but also for the entire world, Erdogan said, “We are organizing Teknofest, the world’s most popular aviation, space and technology festival, in Baku, the pearl of the Caspian, with the slogan of one nation, two states, one festival.” Just like Turkish Anatolia, just like Turkey itself, Azerbaijan is also our homeland, the Turkish leader added. “Just as we do not have designs on anyone’s lands or sovereignty, we do not and will not have a single inch of land to lose to people with malicious intent,” he declared.

 

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TOKYO (Dispatches) – The founder of a Japanese-based anti-imperialistic group has been released after serving a 20-year prison sentence in the country over alleged embassy siege charges. Fusako Shigenobu, who was detained in 2000 under charges related to a 1974 siege of the French embassy in the Netherlands, walked free from prison in the Japanese capital of Tokyo on Saturday after pleading not guilty to the accusations. Shigenobu maintained her innocence over the siege, in which three Japanese Red Army militants stormed into the French embassy, taking the ambassador and 10 other staff hostage for 100 hours. Two police officers were shot and seriously wounded. France ended the standoff by freeing a jailed Red Army guerrilla. Shigenobu did not take part in the attack personally but the court accused her of coordinating the operation. The 76-year-old was the leader of the now-disbanded Red Army in Japan, which was active in the 1970s and 1980s, and an outspoken supporter of the Palestinian cause. Upon her release, Shigenobu and her daughter appeared in front of the cameras while wearing a scarf that symbolizes Palestinian nationality, with several supporters holding a banner that read, “We love Fusako.” Shigenobu previously said that she considers herself a political prisoner who has vigorously fought to improve the international society and help the Palestinian people.

 

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JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesian rescue teams are looking for 26 people missing after a boat with 43 people on board capsizes off Sulawesi island, the search and rescue agency say. The motorboat that had left Paotere port in Makassar, capital of South Sulawesi province, on Thursday midnight was reported missing the next day when it failed to arrive at its destination, local media reported. Rescued passengers were picked up by tugboats and taken to Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan and Jeneponto in South Sulawesi, South Sulawesi search and rescue agency chief Djunaidi said on Saturday. Authorities said they think the accident was caused by a fuel shortage and bad weather. “We have confirmation that the boat had sunk in the search area,” Djunaidi said. “We received information saying that 17 people were found and saved by passing tugboats.” Indonesia’s weather agency had warned on Thursday of waves up to 2.5 meters in Makassar strait areas and that could cause safety risks.

 

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ONTARIO (LA Times) – A police chase that began in Ontario and entered Pomona ended in a shooting that left one person dead Friday night, authorities confirmed.  Cpl. Bill Lee, an Ontario Police Department spokesperson, said he wasn’t able to confirm whether an officer’s shot killed the suspect or whether the suspect was armed. Officers tried to pull over a vehicle at 7:37 p.m. in the area of Mission Boulevard and Magnolia Avenue in Ontario, but the driver failed to yield and officers gave chase, Lee said. Information about why officers tried to pull the vehicle over, and a vehicle description, wasn’t immediately available. The pursuit went through Montclair and into Pomona, where it ended when the suspect crashed into an uninvolved person’s vehicle in the area of Kadota Avenue and 9th Street, Lee said. He wasn’t able to immediately confirm the other driver’s status. The suspect got out of the vehicle after the crash and at least one officer opened fire, Lee said. The suspect was pronounced dead after the shooting, although information on whether that was at a hospital or at the scene wasn’t available late Friday.

 

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States has imposed sanctions on two Russian banks, a North Korean company and a person it accused of supporting North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction program, increasing pressure on Pyongyang over its renewed ballistic missile launches. The latest American move came a day after China and Russia vetoed a U.S.-led push to impose more United Nations sanctions on North Korea over its ballistic missile launches, publicly splitting the UN Security Council for the first time since it started punishing Pyongyang in 2006. The vetoes came despite what the United States says was a sixth test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) by North Korea this year and signs that Pyongyang is preparing to conduct its first nuclear test since 2017. The U.S. Treasury Department in a statement said it targeted Air Koryo Trading Corp as well as Russian financial institutions the Far Eastern Bank and Bank Sputnik for contributing to procurement and revenue generation for North Korean organizations.