Temperatures in US state forecast to hit high 30s celsius this week, while regions in Indonesia grapple with wildfires

The National Weather Service in the US has issued extreme heat warnings for parts of southern California, including Los Angeles, until Thursday, as temperatures are expected to hit the high 30s celsius. Burbank, a suburb north of Los Angeles, recorded 39C on Saturday, a few degrees shy of the October record for the region set in 1987. A persistent area of high pressure will remain in place this week, leading to further hazardous hot weather and increased fire risk.

Parts of Indonesia are in the midst of an extreme wildfire season, which has peaked over the past month. Western Kalimantan (Borneo) and southern Sumatra have been particularly badly affected. The lack of rainfall has dried the usually water-logged tropical soils, meaning that fires have been able to spread quickly, above and below the surface. Indonesia’s soils are also extremely rich in peat, meaning that the smoke produced from the fires contain higher levels of toxic gases such as sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide. Cities in surrounding areas and as far as Malaysia and Singapore have experienced reduced air quality in recent weeks as a result. Drought and wildfires are more common in this part of the world during El Niño events owing to suppressed thunderstorm activity.

Suspect allegedly killed woman at hotel in Okinawa as prime minister calls crime ‘exceptionally brutal and vicious’

A US marine stationed on Japan’s southern island of Okinawa is accused of murdering a Japanese woman and has been arrested on suspicion of murder, police said on Sunday.

The suspect allegedly “killed [a] 39-year-old woman at a hotel in Naha and stole her wallet” as well as her backpack, local police told news media outlets.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has used the UN General Assembly in New York to court partners outside Ukraine's NATO core, pitching air-defense cooperation with Japan and drone cooperation with Chile, Ukrainska Pravda reported. In a single day of bilateral talks, he met Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, Chile's President José Antonio Kast, and UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham.

The meetings turned on shielding civilian infrastructure before winter and trading Ukraine's battlefield-tested technology for capabilities it still needs. More than four years into Russia's war, a nation that entered the war reliant on donated arms now iterates drones faster than many of its Western backers, and that expertise has become leverage in its own diplomacy.

Zelenskyy pitches Ukraine's know-how for Japan's air-defense tech

In their first summit meeting, Zelenskyy cast the relationship as a two-way exchange.

"Ukraine is ready to share its experience and technologies on a mutually beneficial basis," he said.

While Japan has advanced technologies for protecting lives, particularly in air defense, that could carry Ukraine through the winter if Russia again rejects talks, the President's Office reported.

Ukraine walks into winter with two air-defense problems. It is still testing home-built interceptors to catch Russia's jet-powered drones. And it does not have enough Patriot interceptors to stop ballistic missiles over its cities. Japan holds the key to the second one.

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North Korea has fired around 150 ballistic missiles at Ukraine, learning from each one. Same missiles threaten Japan, and Kyiv just shows its speaker what is inside them

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries runs the only plant outside the US licensed to assemble the PAC-3, the advanced Patriot interceptor. Japan is also the sole maker of the guidance gyroscopes inside older PAC-2 missiles. It has already shipped Japanese-made PAC-3s to the US to refill stocks drained by transfers to Ukraine, and Zelenskyy has floated Mitsubishi as the model for Ukraine's own Patriot line.

The exchange runs both ways. Russia keeps pressing Japan over the Kuril Islands the Soviet Union seized in 1945. Against that backdrop, Ukraine's combat-tested drones could appeal to Tokyo. Kyiv offers the drone know-how it now leads in, and asks for the air-defense edge Japan already has.

Zelenskyy also thanked Tokyo for its sanctions on Russia, energy packages, and humanitarian projects, and Takaichi assured him of continued support. Zelenskyy invited her to Ukraine, including the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, which Japan helped restore after a Russian drone strike in June.

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Chile opens a door to Latin America

With Kast, Zelenskyy discussed deepening security and drone-technology ties and thanked Chile for backing Ukraine at international forums and for helping return Ukrainian children abducted by Russia. He welcomed Santiago's willingness to help expand Ukraine's presence across Latin America, calling it an opening for "even more promising opportunities," and invited Kast to visit.

Building on ties already in place

Both partnerships rest on existing ground. Japan, barred by its own laws from sending lethal weapons, has delivered generators, transformers, and non-lethal gear, pledged a $6 billion package for 2026, and agreed to help rebuild the Lavra through UNESCO. Talks in Tokyo in July recast Ukraine as a security partner rather than an aid recipient.

Chile joined the coalition to bring abducted Ukrainian children home and, in an April call, heard Zelenskyy float a security arrangement modeled on Ukraine's Gulf-state pacts. The outreach tracks Kyiv's drive to turn its wartime industry into an export business under its "Drone Deals" framework.

Ukraine's Defense Intelligence, also known as HUR, has given Japan's parliament speaker a rare, close look at a North Korean weapon: the components of a ballistic missile Russia fired at Ukraine. Ukrainian officers have shown the parts to Eisuke Mori, speaker of Japan's House of Representatives, during his delegation's visit to Kyiv, HUR says on social media.

Ukraine has become the place where North Korea's missiles are tested in combat and taken apart. Pyongyang has supplied Russia with roughly 150 KN-23 and KN-24 ballistic missiles since late 2023, along with thousands of troops, and Russia has fired scores of them at Ukrainian cities.

Each strike gives Pyongyang combat data that has sharpened its weapons. Showing Japan the components turns that access into a prospect of future deterrence: the same missiles threaten the Asia-Pacific.

Ukraine hands Japan the evidence

Examining missile parts allows analysts to read the missile's technical characteristics, design, and the state of North Korea's arms industry, HUR says. Ukraine has found that the North Korean missiles falling on its cities are built partly from foreign parts, with components traced to companies in Britain, Japan, Switzerland, China, and the US, Radio Free Asia reports, evidence of how Pyongyang skirts sanctions to build them.

The threat reaches the Pacific

HUR frames the demonstration as a shared-security case. North Korean weapons endanger not only Ukraine but Japan and the wider Asia-Pacific, it says, while the Moscow-Pyongyang partnership lets Russia keep waging its war and lets Pyongyang build up its arsenal and refine its weapons.

"Countering this cooperation requires coordinated action by international partners. Sharing intelligence helps better assess common threats and find ways to overcome them," HUR states.

Pyongyang learns from the strikes

North Korea has sent Russia millions of artillery shells, rocket systems, and thousands of troops, and is paid in cash and technology, with one analyst estimating Pyongyang may have earned about $20 billion from the war. In return, the missiles' accuracy has improved as Pyongyang studies how they perform under fire, turning the war into a live proving ground for weapons built to threaten its neighbors.