PHILIPPINES
Gunmen free hostages
Gunmen who held six hostages inside a bank for three hours surrendered peacefully yesterday after a botched robbery in a crowded commercial district south of Manila, officials said. The four gunmen gave themselves up after being assured of their safety, said Bacoor Township Mayor Strike Revilla in Cavite province. Provincial police chief John Bulalacao said the gunmen had held five employees, including a security guard, and one depositor. He said no one was hurt. Bulalacao said the gunmen had demanded a get-away vehicle and the presence of journalists to ensure they would not be harmed. After the gunmen freed one hostage, a police negotiator persuaded the gunmen to surrender to avoid bloodshed. The jittery gunmen relented and walked out of the bank with their hostages, drawing applause from hundreds of people watching nearby.
INDONESIA
Militant sentenced
A militant was sentenced to eight years in prison for helping set up a terrorist cell plotting attacks on Western hotels and embassies in the capital. Abu Tholut is among more than 120 alleged members of Tanzim al-Qaeda in Aceh captured or killed since authorities discovered their jihadi training camp in westernmost Aceh Province last year. Judge Musa Arif Aini told the West Jakarta District Court yesterday the 50-year-old militant helped set up the camp and procure M16 assault rifles and other weapons for the group.
VIETNAM
Mekong flood toll increases
The country said nine more deaths have brought the toll from the Mekong Delta’s worst flooding in more than a decade to 43 people, mostly children. The government said yesterday the seasonal floods have submerged about 70,000 homes. The waters have damaged an estimated US$55 million in crops and infrastructure in the south since late August. The high water levels also prevented more than 234,000 students from attending schools.
NEPAL
Bus veers off mountain
A crowded bus veered off a mountain highway and into a river yesterday, killing at least 35 people and leaving many more missing, police said. Police and army rescuers were on the way to the scene of the accident to help villagers with the rescue operation, police official Rana Bahadur Basnet said. He said rescuers were having a hard time reaching the wreckage, which was in the Sunkosi River near Jhagajholi village, 240km east of Katmandu. The bus was traveling on the B.P. Koirala Highway, a narrow route with hairpin bends that in most parts is just wide enough for one vehicle to pass. The site of the accident is a four-hour drive from the nearest city.
NEW ZEALAND
NYC crash victim dies
A woman who was hospitalized after a helicopter crashed into New York City’s East River died a week after the accident killed her partner. A hospital spokeswoman on Wednesday confirmed the death of 43-year-old Helen Tamaki. Tamaki had been in critical condition after the crash. Bellevue Hospital Center spokeswoman Francis Arscott said Tamaki died on Tuesday night. A spokeswoman for the city’s medical examiner said the cause of death was “complications of near drowning.” The helicopter was carrying four passengers and a pilot when it crashed shortly after takeoff on Tuesday last week, killing Sonia Marra, who was celebrating her 40th birthday. Another passenger was seriously injured. The pilot and the fourth passenger were unharmed.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema