The Week USA - Vol. 19, Issue 935, August 02, 2019

The world at a glance ... NEWS 9

New Delhi

No U.S. mediation: President Trump claimed

this week that Indian Prime Minister Narendra

Modi had asked him to “be a mediator or

arbitrator” in his country’s long-running dis-

pute with Pakistan over Kashmir—an assertion

India’s government swiftly denied. Trump made

the claim during a Washington meeting with

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, whose

country has fought three wars with India over

Kashmir since 1947. India’s Foreign Ministry

said no such conversation with Modi occurred,

and “that all outstanding issues with Pakistan are discussed only

bilaterally.” At the same press conference, Trump said he could

have won the Afghan war by having the country “wiped off the

face of the earth,” but he did not “want to kill 10 million peo-

ple.” Afghan President Ashraf Ghani demanded clarification.

Satish Dhawan Space Center, India

Off to the moon: India successfully launched a robotic lander

bound for the moon this week, after a first attempt was canceled

last week because of technical difficulties. The Chandrayaan-

mission will spend the next six weeks traveling through space

before attempting to touch down the Vikram lander on the moon’s

south pole. There, Vikram will study deposits of helium-3—a pos-

sible future energy source for Earth—and

monitor for moonquakes. The craft will

operate for one full lunar day (14 Earth

days) but will not survive the freezing lunar

night. If all goes well, India will become the

fourth nation to land a craft on the moon—

after the USSR, the U.S., and China—and

the first to perform a soft landing at our

satellite’s south pole. The mission cost a rela-

tively cheap $150 million, less than the bud-

get of the 2014 Hollywood hit Interstellar.

Wellington, New Zealand

Firearms registry: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern

unveiled plans for wide-ranging new restrictions on gun ownership

this week, the second set of firearms controls announced

since an Australian white supremacist massacred 51 peo-

ple at two Christchurch mosques. The new measures,

a mandatory registry of all guns and a ban on gun pur-

chases by foreign visitors, “would have made it con-

siderably harder for the terrorist to purchase guns in

the way he did,” Ardern said. The proposals, she

added, will “enshrine in law that owning a fire-

arm is a privilege,” not a right. In the wake of the

March 15 attacks, New Zealand banned the sale

and possession of semiautomatic weapons.

Seoul

Firing on Russians: In a dangerous and unprecedented encounter,

warplanes from four countries faced off this week above a group

of islands controlled by South Korea but claimed by Japan. South

Korea said it fired more than 300 warning shots at a Russian

military command and control aircraft after it twice violated the

country’s airspa ce, and Japan said it too scrambled fighters after

the Russian plane buzzed the islands. Seoul and Tokyo said two

Chinese bombers had accompanied the Russians on other sorties

in the area. Russia denied the charge, blaming South Korea for

intercepting its aircraft over international waters. Analysts said

the incident appeared to be an intentional provocation of South

Korea. “It is beyond imagination to believe that it is merely coin-

cidence for both China and Russia to do this on the same day,”

said Jeffrey Hornung of the U.S-based Rand Corp.

Hong Kong

Triads attack protesters: Chinese officials may have enlisted

organized crime gangs known as triads to crack down on pro-

democracy protesters in Hong Kong. After a peaceful demonstra-

tion involving some 100,000 people this week, dozens of masked

men wearing white T-shirts and hard hats stormed a Hong Kong

train station, pummeling protesters with metal bars and wooden

sticks. At least 45 people were injured, and police took hours to

respond. Social media footage of the attack sparked outrage in

the semi-autonomous city, and police later arrested 11 men, some

of whom have triad backgrounds. The gangs have long been

regarded as muscle for hire for the Communist

Party. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman

Hua Chunying accused the U.S. of being behind

the protests and said Washington should with-

draw its “black hands.”

Kyoto, Japan

Anime massacre: An apparently

mentally ill man set fire to a Japanese

anime studio last week, starting a

blaze that killed 33 people, because

he believed the company had stolen

the plot of his novel. It was Japan’s

worst mass killing in decades. Shinji

Aoba, 41, walked into the Kyoto

Animation building, poured gaso-

line out of a bucket, and then sparked a lighter while screaming

“Die!” About 70 people were in the building at the time, and

some on upper floors escaped the flames by jumping out of win-

dows, breaking bones. Badly burned, Aoba collapsed near the

studio. “They plagiarized my work,” he told police. It is not clear

he ever actually wrote a novel. Kyoto Animation is known for

hiring women artists—20 of those who died were women—and

for producing meticulously detailed TV series and films.

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Takeoff

Kyoto Animation in flames

Ardern: Gun bills

Modi: Denied offer