Hours after the death of boyfriend Anthony Bourdain, Italian actress Asia
From "El Trumpo" and "Rocket Man" tacos to the "Bromance" cocktail, restaurants and bars in food-crazy Singapore are rolling out weird and wonderful creations to mark the approaching US-North Korea summit. The affluent city-state prides itself on its buzzing culinary scene, and every type of outlet imaginable is jumping on the bandwagon ahead of Tuesday's meeting between US President Donald Trump and the North's Kim Jong Un. At Mexican restaurant Lucha Loco, customers can get stuck into an El Trumpo, a version of a taco that includes a beef patty and pickles.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was "no longer immune" from retaliation, while declaring the Iran nuclear deal over after Washington ditched the accord. Noting that Israel had stayed out of Syria's protracted civil war, in which Tehran backs Assad, Netanyahu said increasing Iranian encroachment required "a new calculus". If he fires at us, as we've just demonstrated, we will destroy his forces," the Israeli leader said at an event organised by the Policy Exchange think tank in London.
By Nidal al-Mughrabi GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed four Palestinians and wounded hundreds of others on Friday with live fire and tear gas used against protesters at the Gaza border, medics said. Israel said it was defending the frontier against crowds that threw stones and burned tyres in an attempt to cross. The protests tapered off around sunset when many demonstrators left border camps for the evening meal that breaks their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Hotel La Reunión Golf Resort and Residences sits in the shadow of Guatemala's Volcán de Fuego, at about five miles away. Prior to the June 3 eruption, it was a verdant land, with well-manicured lawns. Two days later, harrowing avalanches of scorching volcanic ash, rocky debris, and gas — called pyroclastic flows — smothered La Reunión and the surrounding land. Satellite images taken before and after the eruption reveal the devastation, which was not caused by lava flows, but by these speeding chaotic avalanches. SEE ALSO: Why Guatemala's volcano erupted in deadly avalanches, but Hawaii's hasn't Fuego, an explosive volcano, erupts like this "intermittently," Stanley Mertzman, a volcanologist at Franklin and Marshall College, said over email. For anyone studying this mountain, he recommends that "your life insurance is paid up," and if the mountain erupts, "to stay out of the valleys." It's good then, that La Reunión evacuated early before some of these pyroclastic flows traveled down the steep flanks of Fuego, moving down low-lying channels and blanketing the land below in gray-brown volcanic soot. Hotel La Reunion Golf Resort and Residences on April 7, 2018.Image: ©2018 DIGITALGLOBE, A MAXAR COMPANY Hotel La Reunion Golf Resort and Residences on June 6, 2018.Image: ©2018 DigitalGlobe, a Maxar company In a statement the resort released on social media, La Reunión notes that it heeded evacuation warnings before the hot debris flows — which Mertzman said can range from 400 to over 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit — pummeled the area. Not everyone around the volcano, however, was able to evacuate in time. As of June 6, the Guatemalan government reported 75 deaths due to Fuego's activity. Similar to La Reunión, the village of San Miguel Los Lotes has been buried in Fuego's sand-like, volcanic debris. "You can actually see gases emanating from the cooling warm mass," noted Mertzman. San Miguel Los Lotes on February 8, 2018.Image: ©2018 DIGITALGLOBE, A MAXAR COMPANY San Miguel Los Lotes on June 6, 2018.Image: ©2018 DIGITALGLOBE, A MAXAR COMPANY Images from the ground show devastation. Many homes, cars, bodies, and animals — if not buried completely — have been coated in Fuego's grey soot. A dead duck in Escuintla, Guatemala, on June 4.Image: Luis Soto/AP/REX/ShutterstockVolcano scientists keep an index of how explosive each volcano in the world is. The ranking ranges from 0 to 6, with 6 being the most explosive. On a global scale, Fuego is decently explosive, falling between 3 and 4, said Mertzman. As a counter example, Hawaii's Kilauea, which typically oozes lava and rarely kills people, falls somewhere between 0 and 1, he said. WATCH: Ever wonder how the universe might end?
Chinese President Xi Jinping will open late Saturday a two-day regional security summit attended by Russia, Iran and other allies confronting rising tensions with the US over trade and Washington's withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal. Armoured vans lined the streets of the coastal city of Qingdao as world leaders arrived Friday for the 18th annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a regional security bloc led by China and Russia. Its member states also include four ex-Soviet Central Asian republics, Pakistan and India.
The escape of a failed Iraqi asylum seeker suspected of raping and murdering a teenage girl sparked outrage in Germany on Friday, raising questions over immigration and police failings. Ali Bashar, 20, is believed to have strangled 14-year-old Susanna Maria Feldman after sexually assaulting her. As police hunted Bashar after discovering Feldman's body near a railway line this week, it emerged that he had fled to Iraq with his family on false identity papers.
Fighter jets, helicopters and thousands of troops in Taiwan fought back a simulated Chinese invasion Thursday as the self-ruled island faces increasing military and diplomatic pressure from Beijing. Relations between Taipei and Beijing have deteriorated since President Tsai Ing-wen was elected in 2016, as her government refuses to acknowledge that Taiwan is part of "one China". Live-fire drills began Monday with troops simulating surprise air and coastal assaults to reflect increased military threats from China, which sees Taiwan as a renegade province to be brought back into the fold - by force if necessary. Tsai watched Thursday's session of the ongoing "Han Kuang" (Han Glory) exercise involving 4,100 soldiers, attack helicopters and fighter jets from an air base in Taichung. Thursday's scenario simulated the enemy bombing of an airfield and a paratrooper attack, with air and ground troops deployed to take back the base. A C-130 Hercules aircraft drops supplies during Han Kuang military drill simulating the China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) invading the island Credit: TYRONE SIU/REUTERS An F-16 fighter flew overhead and deployed flares in a defensive move against heat-seeking missiles. Special operations troops were seen moving to secure a building. "I have seen our troops' capabilities and I have faith that our troops can achieve the goal of 'solid defence and multiple deterrence'," Tsai said. China held its own live-fire drills in April in the Taiwan Strait - the narrow waterway separating the Chinese mainland from Taiwan - following weeks of air and naval manoeuvres in the area. Beijing has also stepped up diplomatic pressure on Taipei, luring four countries to switch allegiance from Taiwan to China since Tsai took office. China has been incensed by a recent warming in relations between Taiwan and the United States, which remains the island's most powerful ally and arms supplier even though it has no official diplomatic ties. President Donald Trump recently signed a symbolic bill paving the way for mutual visits by high-level officials and Washington gave long-awaited approval for a licence necessary to sell submarine technology to Taiwan. A defence spending bill currently before congress in Washington calls on the US military to participate in Taiwan's drills, including the annual Han Kuang exercise. "We are optimistic about all exchanges with the US as long as it's about national security, and regional peace and stability," defence ministry spokesman Chen Chung-chi said when asked to comment on American participation in Taiwan's drills. On Monday, the pilot of an F-16 jet involved in the drills was killed after crashing into a mountain in northern Taiwan. The cause of the incident was under investigation.
A US man was sentenced to death on Thursday for the torture killing of his girlfriend's eight-year-old son, who was beaten, starved and forced to sleep in a closet until his death in 2013. The boy's mother, Pearl Sinthia Fernandez, was sentenced to life in prison for her role in the death of her son, Gabriel. The pair were arrested in 2013 after paramedics were called to a home in Palmdale, northeast of downtown Los Angeles, and found Gabriel unconscious and with a broken skull as well as broken ribs and BB pellets lodged in his groin.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The star of a live television interview in Iran's new nuclear workshop wasn't the head of the country's atomic agency, but three centrifuges labeled in English in the background, advanced devices Tehran is prohibited from using by the nuclear deal with world powers.