INDONESIA
Plane lands after threat
A passenger plane was forced to make an emergency landing yesterday after air traffic control received a bomb threat, an official said, though police later confirmed it was a false alarm. The bomb squad started examining the Batik Air plane after it landed in South Sulawesi with 125 passengers from the eastern city of Ambon, Ministry of Transport spokesman J.A. Barata said. An air traffic controller in Ambon had received the threat via text message as the plane headed toward its intended destination of Jakarta, he said. The plane was then forced to make an emergency landing at Sultan Hasanuddin Airport in Makassar, he added. In a statement yesterday, the airline confirmed one of its staff members had received a threat and they decided to land the plane for the safety of their passengers. “The police bomb squad has declared that there was no bomb found on the plane,” Barata said.
NEPAL
Amputee vet scaling Everest
A former US Marine who lost his right leg after an explosion while serving in Afghanistan is attempting to scale Mount Everest to inspire others like him to take up challenges. Charlie Linville is set to scale the 8,850m summit next month using his specially designed metal foot outfitted with climbing boot and another one with crampons. The 29-year-old was injured in 2011 and was forced to get his right leg amputated from the knee down two years later. That has not stopped him from climbing mountains. Now he is on his way to Tibet to attempt to scale the world’s highest peak. He wants to spread the message that anything is possible, not just for amputees and wounded veterans, but for anyone with a physical handicap.
UNITED STATES
Cargo-hold sleeper banned
A contract baggage handler who became trapped in the belly of an Alaska Airlines jet on takeoff from Seattle after falling asleep in the plane’s cargo hold this week has been banned from all future work at the airline, a company spokeswoman said on Thursday. The employee of Menzies Aviation, which is contracted to provide ground services for Alaska Airlines, made news on Monday as an unintended stowaway on Flight 448 when he woke up from a nap inside the sealed baggage hold to realize the plane was already airborne. The pilot of the Los Angeles-bound flight turned the jet around to make a safe but unscheduled emergency landing back at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport after the crew and passengers heard banging from below the cabin and flight deck. Also on Thursday, a spokesman for Menzies Aviation, a subsidiary of UK-based John Menzies, said the worker remained employed for the time being, pending the outcome of an investigation. However, Alaska Airlines spokeswoman Bobbie Egan said: “The employee has been permanently banned from ever working again on an Alaska Airlines operation.”
MEXICO
Blind vendors protest
Blind vendors angry about having their stalls removed from a downtown Mexico City subway station this week clashed with police outside city hall on Thursday. Authorities said two of the estimated 150 vendors and 13 police officers suffered minor injuries and were treated at the scene. The city government had said five protesters were injured, but later lowered the number of injured vendors and reported police injuries. Vendors are angry about a campaign to clean up the subway station’s hallways by clearing out long-tolerated vendors’ stands.
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