Unabashedly brutal “Grand Theft Auto V” hit the streets Tuesday in a sequel that promises to enthrall fans of the blockbuster video game franchise.
Rockstar Games spent five years crafting the title and the time has paid off for gamers, according to a slew of reviews giving it top marks.
“GTA V has been worth the five-year wait,” said computerandvideogames.com digital manager John Houlihan.
“You can really see the maturity in this version, the graphics look sensational — it really is like being in a virtual copy of LA.” GTA V is set in a fictional city of Los Santos based on real-world Los Angeles and its nearby hills and beaches.
The videogame franchise has won legions of fans and cadres of critics with game play in which triumph depends on acts such as carjacking, gambling and killing.
“GTA is essentially the ‘Sopranos’ of videogames,” Tech Savvy analyst Scott Steinberg said, making a reference to a hugely popular US cable television series centered on Mafia characters.
“Everyone talks about the series as violent, but compared to what you are seeing in the movies and on television GTA is relatively tame. Certainly, it is a mature game for mature audiences .” GTA V is billed by the New York City-based video game publisher as the “largest and most ambitious” title in a franchise that has sold more than 114 million copies since its debut in 1997.
“Grand Theft Auto V builds on everything we’ve learned about open world gaming,” said Rockstar founder Sam Houser.
Versions of “GTA V” for play on Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 video game consoles or personal computers powered by Windows software launched worldwide Tuesday in respective time zones.
Midnight release events were planned at shops in an array of countries to let GTA lovers snap up the game the instant Tuesday arrives.
EB Games held a midnight launch party in Sydney’s World Square, featuring DJs and free burritos.
Torrential rain put a dampener on the night but didn’t stop GTA zealots.
“If a storm stops you from getting your hands on gta you ain’t a die-hard fan,” Ryan Nero said in a message fired off at Twitter.
“I just rode through a hardcore thunderstorm to get my copy.” GTA V was released in 320 stores across the country Australia.
“There has been a huge buzz about the game,” Rashaan Walker said as the clock ticked down on a midnight launch event at the San Francisco area Best Buy shop where he is a sales supervisor.
“We’ve had tons of people asking about it.” Walker, a 26-year-old GTA fan, had in mind to stick around after the end of his shift to pick up a copy of the game.
“It’s exciting,” Walker said. “In this one you can go online and bring together a clique of friends and go terrorizing and do whatever you want.” He was also keen to see how the overarching storyline of the series progresses. In a new approach used in GTA 5, gamers take on the roles of three different main characters whose paths eventually merge.
“This really is a blockbuster that almost dwarfs the movies in some way,” Houlihan said. “GTA V is really a cultural phenomenon.” Houlihan said it was rumored that the production budget for the game was in the vicinity of $270 million.
The franchise’s appeal is fueled by captivating story lines and an open-world format that lets players go wherever they wish in game worlds.
“You can rob banks or you can do a yoga lesson or you can fly a plane or you can play tennis or you can do what I sometimes do, which is just wander round the world in a really flashy car and listen to some of the hilarious radio stations — so there really is everything for you to explore, it’s a world of possibility,” Houlihan said.
The game will also let people play with or against one another online.
Rockstar, which is owned by Take-Two Interactive, said that GTA V “focuses on the pursuit of the almighty dollar” in a re-imagined Southern California.
Grand Theft Auto IV blew away video game and Hollywood records by raking in an unprecedented $500 million in the week after its release in 2008.
“GTA is the 10-ton gorilla of video game franchises,” Steinberg said. “Obviously, this is going to help kick-start the holiday season for the videogame industry, which has taken a beating.” While console video games have faced mounting pressure from free-to-play titles tailored for smartphones or tablets, there is “still room for blockbuster Hollywood-style games,” according to the analyst.
’Grand Theft Auto V’ hits streets in brash debut
’Grand Theft Auto V’ hits streets in brash debut
Snakes on a plane bound for India, again
- The live snakes included reptiles often sold in the pet trade, and were largely non venomous
NEW DELHI: Indian customs officers in Mumbai said they have stopped a plane passenger arriving from Thailand with a wriggling cargo of live snakes, the third such seizure this month.
“Customs officers... foiled yet another wildlife smuggling attempt, 16 live snakes... seized from passenger returning from Thailand,” said customs officers in the airport in the Indian financial hub.
The passenger, who arrived on Sunday, has been arrested, the customs agency said in a statement, with “further investigation underway.”
The live snakes included reptiles often sold in the pet trade, and were largely non-venomous, or with venom too weak to affect people.
They included garter snakes, a rhino rat snake and a Kenyan sand boa, among others.
In early June, customs officers stopped a passenger smuggling dozens of venomous vipers, also arriving from Thailand.
Days later, officers stopped another traveler carrying 100 creatures including lizards, sunbirds and tree-climbing possums.
Wildlife trade monitor TRAFFIC, which battles the smuggling of wild animals and plants, has warned of a “very troubling” trend in trafficking driven by the exotic pet trade.
More than 7,000 animals, dead and alive, have been seized along the Thailand-India air route in the last 3.5 years, it said.
Pakistan demands world stop Israel from its ‘murderous course,’ reiterates support for Palestinian state
- Israel’s retaliatory campaign against Hamas in Gaza has killed at least 56,412 people since October 7, 2023
- Ishaq Dar criticizes Israel’s “wanton killing” of women and children, targeting aid workers and blocking Gaza aid
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar on Monday urged the international community to mobilize and stop Israel from its “murderous course” and military operations in Gaza, reiterating Islamabad’s firm support for an independent Palestinian state.
After claiming victory in a 12-day war against Iran that ended with a ceasefire last Tuesday, the Israeli military said it would refocus on its offensive in Gaza, where Hamas still holds Israeli hostages.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign against Hamas has killed at least 56,412 people in Gaza since October 2023. Most of the dead are civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers these figures to be reliable.
“The international community must mobilize to stop Israel from its murderous course and persuade it to pursue a path of reason,” Dar said during his speech at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad.
“Palestinians must be granted their inalienable right to self-determination,” he added.
He condemned Israel’s “wanton killing of women and children,” blaming the Jewish state for using starvation as “an instrument of war” in the densely populated Gaza territory, targeting humanitarian workers and destroying homes, schools, hospitals and critical infrastructure there.
Dar, who also serves as Pakistan’s foreign minister, said Islamabad reiterates its support for the establishment of a viable and independent Palestinian state with pre-1967 borders and Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital.
The Pakistani deputy premier condemned Israel and the United States for attacking key Iranian nuclear facilities earlier this month, saying they violated the United Nations Charter, international law and put regional peace in danger.
He welcomed the Iran-Israel ceasefire announcement, urging all parties to resolve their disputes peacefully through dialogue and diplomacy.
Women can be drafted into the Danish military as Russian aggression and military investment grows
- The Scandinavian country is seeking to increase the number of young people in the military by extending compulsory enlistment to women for the first time
HOVELTE: Peering across a dense stretch of woodland outside of Denmark’s capital with camouflage paint smeared across her face, 20-year-old Katrine scans the horizon for approaching threats.
After nearly four months of military training, the young soldier and the rest of her unit spent early June completing their final exercises near the Danish army’s barracks in Hovelte, 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of Copenhagen.
Katrine and other female soldiers, all of whom spoke to The Associated Press on June 11 on the condition that only their first names be used because of operational security, volunteered for military service earlier this year. Until now, that was the only way for women to be part of the armed forces.
The Scandinavian country is seeking to increase the number of young people in the military by extending compulsory enlistment to women for the first time. Men and women can both still volunteer, and the remaining places will be filled by a gender-neutral draft lottery.
“In the situation the world is in now, it’s needed,” Katrine said. “I think it’s only fair and right that women participate equally with men.”
Under new rules passed by Denmark’s parliament earlier in June, Danish women who turn 18 after Tuesday will be entered into the lottery system, on equal footing with their male compatriots. The change comes against a backdrop of Russian aggression and growing military investment across NATO countries.
Russia’s looming threat
Even from the relative safety of Denmark, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine casts its shadow. Lessons from the Ukrainian battlefields have even filtered down into their training.
“That makes it very real,” Katrine said.
Denmark’s gender-parity reforms were originally outlined in 2024 as part of a major defense agreement. The program was originally expected to be implemented by early 2027, but has been brought forward to summer 2025.
Col. Kenneth Strøm, head of the conscription program, told AP the move is based on “the current security situation.”
“They could take part in NATO collective deterrence,” Strøm added. “Raising the number of conscripts, that would simply lead to more combat power.”
Denmark, a nation of 6 million people, has about 9,000 professional troops. The new arrangement is expected to bring up to 6,500 annual conscripts by 2033, up from 4,700 last year.
Under Danish law, all physically fit men over age 18 are called up for military service. But because there are usually enough volunteers, there’s a lottery system so not all young men serve. Women, by contrast, could only volunteer previously, making up roughly a quarter of 2024’s cohort.
“Some will probably be very disappointed being chosen to go into the military,” Anne Sofie, part of Katrine’s cohort of volunteers, said of the new female conscripts. “Some will probably be surprised and like it a lot more than they think they would.”
The duration of service is also being extended from four to 11 months. Conscripts will first spend five months in basic training, followed by six months of operational service, plus additional lessons.
Military buildup
The move is part of a broader military buildup by the Nordic nation.
In February, Denmark’s government announced plans to bolster its military by setting up a $7 billion fund that it said would raise the country’s defense spending to more than 3 percent of gross domestic product this year. Parts of the conscript program are being financed by the so-called Acceleration Fund.
“We see a sharpened security situation in Europe. We have the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. We have focus on the Baltic countries, where Denmark is contributing a lot of soldiers. So, I think it’s a general effort to strengthen the Danish defense,” said researcher Rikke Haugegaard from the Royal Danish Defense College.
But Haugegaard notes there are many challenges, from ill-fitting equipment and a lack of additional barracks, to potential cases of sexual harassment.
“For the next year or two, we will be building a lot of new buildings to accommodate all these people. So, it will be a gradual process,” she added.
In 2017, neighboring Sweden instituted a military draft for both men and women after its government spoke of a deteriorating security environment in Europe. Norway introduced its own law applying military conscription to both sexes in 2013.
US envoy expects Trump, Erdogan to resolve arms sanctions on Turkiye this year
ANKARA: The US ambassador to Turkiye said he expects Donald Trump and Tayyip Erdogan to resolve long-standing defense-related sanctions on Turkiye by year end, according to an interview with state owned Anadolu Agency.
Thomas Barrack, the envoy, said the two presidents could give directions to settle the issue of sanctions, which the US imposed in 2020 over Turkiye’s purchase of Russian S-400 missile defense systems.
“In my view, President Trump and President Erdogan will tell Secretary (Marco) Rubio and Foreign Minister (Hakan) Fidan to fix this, find a way, and a resolution is possible by year-end,” he was quoted as saying on Sunday.
The CAATSA sanctions, referring to the ‘Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act’, also removed NATO member Turkiye from the F-35 program where it was both a buyer and manufacturer of the fighter jets.
Ankara, which has closer US ties since Trump’s return to the White House, has said its removal from the program was unjust and has demanded to be reinstated or reimbursed.
“We all believe there’s a tremendous opportunity here, as we have two leaders who trust each other,” said Barrack, who is also special envoy to neighboring Syria.
China lifts a nearly 2 year ban on seafood from Japan over Fukushima wastewater
BEIJING: China has reopened its market to seafood from Japan after a nearly two-year ban over the discharge of slightly radioactive wastewater from the tsunami-destroyed Fukushima nuclear power plant.
A notice from the customs agency said the ban had been lifted Sunday and that imports from most of Japan would be resumed.
The ban, imposed in August 2023, was a major blow to Japan’s fisheries industry. China was the biggest overseas market for Japanese seafood, accounting for more than one-fifth of its exports.
The nuclear plant at Fukushima was heavily damaged by a deadly tsunami that followed a huge offshore earthquake in 2011. Water still must be pumped in to cool the radioactive fuel. The water is then stored in what was an ever-growing complex of tanks on the property.
After years of debate, the utility won government permission to discharge the water gradually into the sea after treating it to remove most of the radioactive elements. Japanese officials said the wastewater would be safer than international standards and have negligible environmental impact.
China disagreed and imposed a ban, saying the discharge would endanger the fishing industry and coastal communities on its east coast.
The ban will remain in place for seafood from 10 of Japan’s 47 prefectures, including Fukushima and nearby ones.
Japanese seafood exporters will have to reapply for registration in China and all imports will have to include a health certificate, a certificate of compliance for radioactive substance testing and a certificate of origin, the Chinese customs agency said.
