A formidable new radar satellite jointly developed by the United States and India was launched which is designed to track subtle changes in Earth's land and ice surfaces and help predict both natural and human-caused hazards.

Dubbed NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar), the pickup truck-sized spacecraft blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on India's southeastern coast, riding an Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) rocket.

The highest temperature ever recorded in Japan has been observed in the western prefecture of Hyogo. The Japan Meteorological Agency said a high-pressure system pushed up temperatures across the country on Wednesday. Tamba City in Hyogo Prefecture hit 41.2 degrees Celsius, surpassing the record 41.1 degrees marked in Kumagaya City, Saitama Prefecture, in 2018 and in Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, in 2020.

China said it will conduct joint military drills with Russia in August, including sea and air exercises near Vladivostok, as well as joint naval patrols in the Pacific. The drills, named "Joint Sea-2025", form part of regular bilateral cooperation plans and are "not directed against third parties", according to Chinese defence ministry spokesperson, speaking at a press conference.

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Chilean ministers welcomed the United States' decision to exclude copper from a 50-percent levy on semi-finished products. The price of copper, which had soared after US President Donald Trump flagged the tariffs earlier this month, plunged by almost 20 percent when it emerged the duty would not apply to refined or raw copper metal.
The metal is used extensively in industry and defense manufacturing, and the White House said the United States had become overly reliant on copper imports, having once been a world leader in production.

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