MEXICO
Quake death toll hits 344
As of Thursday, the death toll from the Sept. 19 earthquake had reached 344, with 205 of the deaths counted in the nation’s capital. National Civil Defense chief Luis Felipe Puente announced the new figure via Twitter as recovery teams pulled some of the few remaining bodies out of collapsed buildings in Mexico City. Most of the sites in the capital that have collapsed have already been cleared of rubble. President Enrique Pena Nieto on Wednesday said that preliminary accounting suggests damage from the magnitude 7.1 quake in central Mexico and an even more powerful one earlier in the month in southern Mexico could cost upward of US$2 billion.
PANAMA
US eliminating weapons
The US has started destroying a stock of old, World War II-era chemical weapons it left in the nation decades ago, the Ministry of Foreign Relations said. “The operation started in mid-September to destroy the chemical munitions located on San Jose island” off the south coast, the ministry’s director for legal affairs, Farah Urrutia, said late on Wednesday. US specialists were working with their Panamanian counterparts to carry out the task, she added. The project is supported by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The eight bombs being disposed of were uncovered on the island in 2002 during an OPCW inspection. US tests of mustard gas, phosgene and other chemical weapons for possible use in World War II and the Vietnam War were alleged to have been carried out on the island. The US maintained military bases in Panama from the time it completed the Panama Canal in 1914 until its withdrawal in 1999. The cleanup was initially scheduled for 2013, but never carried out because the Americans failed to set aside money for the procedure.
UNITED STATES
Paul Revere’s outhouse?
Archeologists think they have found an outhouse next door to Paul Revere’s home in Boston that could be flush with artifacts. Archeologist Joe Bagley said volunteers have already recovered fragments of pottery, bottles and a tobacco pipe from the dig outside the Pierce-Hichborn House in Boston’s North End. Bagley said the house built in 1711 was owned by one of Revere’s cousins, and the renowned US patriot himself likely visited on numerous occasions. Nina Zannieri of the Paul Revere Memorial Association said that colonial-era outhouses — “privies,” as they were politely called in the 18th century — often yield surprises. Bagley said that is because trash and household goods typically were dumped in outhouses.
UNITED STATES
No drones at landmarks
The Federal Aviation Administration is banning drone flights within 122m of several national landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore. The agency on Thursday announced the no-fly drone zones at 10 Department of the Interior sites, which are to take effect on Thursday next week. The restricted sites also include Boston National Historical Park, Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park and Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St Louis, Missouri. Five dams are also on the list: Nevada’s Hoover Dam, California’s Shasta and Folsom dams, Arizona’s Glen Canyon Dam and Washington’s Grand Coulee Dam. Violators may face civil penalties and criminal charges. The agency said the new restrictions came at the request of national security and law enforcement agencies.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not