TOKYO -- Four people have been confirmed dead after a fishing boat capsized following a collision with a cargo ship off northeastern Japan early Tuesday, local media reported.
Local coast guard was notified at around 1:15 a.m. local time of the collision between the 748-ton cargo ship and the 140-ton bottom trawl fishing vessel about 20 km off the coast of Misawa City in Aomori Prefecture, according to public broadcaster NHK. (Japan-Aomori Prefecture-Boat Collision)
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SEOUL -- South Korea's defense minister Ahn Gyu-back said Tuesday that South Korea has not received any official request from the United States to deploy warships to the Middle East, Yonhap News Agency reported.
"The defense ministry has not received an official request," Ahn made the remarks during a parliamentary session, noting that recent calls on social media by U.S. President Donald Trump urging allies to send naval forces to safeguard the Strait of Hormuz do not constitute a formal request. (South Korea-U.S. Request-Hormuz)
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HANOI -- The 17th meeting of the China-Vietnam Steering Committee for Bilateral Cooperation was held in Hanoi on Tuesday.
Member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Bui Thanh Son co-chaired the meeting with officials from various ministries and provincial governments of both sides participating online and offline. (Vietnam-China)
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KABUL/ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan's air force carried out an airstrike late Monday night targeting a drug addiction treatment hospital in the Afghan capital of Kabul, killing at least 400 people and injuring around 250 others, an Afghan official said Tuesday.
Hamdullah Fitrat, deputy spokesman of the Afghan government, said in a statement posted on the social media platform X that the airstrike, launched at around 9:00 p.m. local time on Monday, struck the Omid Addiction Treatment Hospital in Kabul. (Afghanistan-Pakistan) ■
