THAILAND
Three policemen shot
Three policemen were shot dead in an ambush by suspected Muslim militants in the insurgency-racked far south, an official said yesterday. The three Muslim officers were returning from evening prayers when they were attacked on Thursday night in Krong Pinang District in Yala Province, police said. “It’s the work of militants who want to incite further unrest,” Yala deputy police commander Colonel Banlue Chuwet said by telephone. An imam was shot in the leg in the same attack, he added.
PHILIPPINES
Senator refuses to make plea
A court has entered a not-guilty plea for a senator and dictatorship-era martial law enforcer who has been detained on charges of economic plunder with two other prominent colleagues. The Sandiganbayan Court made the move after ailing Senator Juan Ponce Enrile refused to enter a plea on Friday to the large-scale corruption charge, which he has denied. The 90-year-old legislator was brought to the court in an ambulance from a police hospital, where he has been detained since surrendering last week. Enrile and two other senators were ordered arrested by the court for allegedly receiving huge kickbacks from a scam that diverted millions of dollars from antipoverty and development funds allotted to lawmakers. Enrile was defense minister when former president Ferdinand Marcos placed the nation under martial rule in 1972.
VANUATU
Inter-island ferry sinks
Two people were confirmed dead and another two were missing after an inter-island ferry sank in the Pacific archipelago yesterday, with survivors forced to endure more than six hours adrift, officials said. The ferry carrying 30 passengers and 13 crew sank in the early hours of the morning as it was sailing from Malekula to the capital, Port Vila, Vanuatu Red Cross chief executive Jacqueline De Gaillande said. “The accident happened at 2am this morning [yesterday] and we were aware of it at 8am,” she said. “By 10am the boat had completely sunk in 800 feet [240m] of water... Right now, we have 28 passengers safe and 11 crew. The bodies of two women passengers have been recovered, and there is one crew member and one child missing.” De Gaillande said the cause of the accident was unknown.
ENGLAND
Rickshaw takes motorway
A Frenchman pedaling home on a rickshaw took a wrong turn onto a motorway and was stopped by police on Wednesday. The rider, dressed in a straw hat and a gray sweater despite heavy rain, was apprehended near the town of Lewes. “Police helping a lost French man... on his way to Paris on his Rickshaw,” local police wrote on Twitter, with a photo of the man astride his three-wheeled cart. Police escorted the rider to the end of the motorway, where he was able to join a cycle path to continue his journey via the port of Newhaven.
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