SPAIN
Military aircraft crashes
A military transport aircraft crashed into a field a 1.6km north of San Pablo airport in Seville, emergency services and the defence ministry said yesterday. As many as 10 crew members were killed in the crash, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said in a televised interview. It appears that all those on board the crashed plane were Airbus employees, Rajoy said. It is unclear if any others were injured. Media images showed firefighters spraying smoking wreckage in a ploughed field. The plane was an Airbus A400M and was not being flown by the Spanish military, the defence ministry said. The plane had not yet been delivered to the Spanish military and was under trial, newspaper El Pais said. Airbus Group NV is investigating the circumstances of the accident, said Kieran Daly, a spokesman for Airbus’ defense and space unit.
GAZA STRIP
Troops shoot teenager
Israeli troops shot and seriously wounded a 17-year-old Palestinian in the northern Gaza Strip on Friday, medics said. The youth, whose name was not immediately released, was hit in the head north of Beit Lahiya near the border with Israel, Gaza Minstry of Health spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said in a statement. An Israeli military spokeswoman told reporters that he was one of a group of Palestinians nearing the border fence, where Israel maintains a no-go zone. “A group of Palestinians was identified approaching the security fence, in the northern Gaza Strip,” she said. An army patrol sent to investigate “called on the suspects to halt, firing warning shots in the air. When they refused to comply the force fired at a main instigator’s lower extremities and a hit was identified,” she said. Israel’s 50-day war last summer against Hamas, the de facto power in Gaza, killed about 2,200 Palestinians, most of them civilians.
DR CONGO
Tribal conflict kills dozens
Dozens were feared dead in the southeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) in renewed clashes between minority Pygmies and majority Bantus, the UN said on Friday. “Several people died” but the exact toll was “in dispute,” with estimates ranging from between 20 and 60 people killed in attacks between April 30 and Saturday last week, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told reporters. A source said the Red Cross had already buried “more than 20” victims. The aid group could not be reached on Friday for confirmation. The violence in Nyunzu, in the mineral-rich Katanga Province, began when vigilantes from the Luba ethnic group, who are Bantu, attacked communities of people displaced by previous bouts of violence. Pygmies were particularly targeted in the attacks, the UN said.
SPAIN
Man arrested for boy in bag
A Spanish court has ordered the detention of a man from the Ivory Coast who allegedly hid his eight-year-old son inside a closed suitcase in an attempt to smuggle the child into Europe. A police statement said guards stopped a 19-year-old Moroccan woman who looked nervous as she waited in line on Thursday at the land border crossing in Ceuta, a Spanish city enclave in north Africa. When the guards put her suitcase through a scanner, they detected the boy curled up inside. Border officers detained the woman and, later, the child’s father at the same border crossing. The woman is married to the child’s father. A Ceuta magistrate on Friday ordered the father held on charges of human rights abuse.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese