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.
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
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing