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.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion