CHINA
Scores evacuated over storm
More than 130,000 people have been evacuated to shelters as a tropical storm slammed into Shanghai. Downgraded from a typhoon, Tropical Storm Jongdari yesterday morning arrived in the financial hub packing powerful winds. It is expected to gradually weaken as it moves westward into the Yangtze River delta. It had earlier disrupted transportation and knocked out power to thousands of homes in Japan, leaving at least 16 people injured. There were no immediate reports of damage in Shanghai, although 151 flights at the city’s two airports had been canceled and 122 parks across the sprawling urban area had been closed. Jongdari, which means skylark in Korean, is the 12th typhoon of the season.
COSTA RICA
Authorities capture drugs
Law enforcement officials on Thursday said they had recovered 2 tonnes of cocaine from a low-profile boat found about 80 nautical miles (148.2km) off the coast, one of the biggest drug confiscations made at sea. Authorities said they began an operation in the Pacific Ocean after receiving a tip from the US Coast Guard on Wednesday that resulted in the discovery of about 2,000 packets of cocaine of about 1kg each. The drugs were found on a four-motor low-profile vehicle, a kind frequently used by drug traffickers because they are difficult to detect by radar. The Coast Guard and drug control police said three Colombian men were arrested and remain in custody. “The joint work between the authorities of the United States and the national police is yielding good results in the fight against international drug trafficking, which has permitted us to seize more than 17 tonnes of drugs this year,” Minister of Public Security Michael Soto said.
MEXICO
Mine collapse kills three
Part of a marble mine on Thursday collapsed in central Hidalgo State, killing at least three people, state officials said. The Hidalgo State Government said in a statement on Facebook that the collapse occurred in a locality known as Dengantzha in the township of Francisco I. Madero. The state prosecutor’s office confirmed that one body had been recovered and the search continued for four miners believed to be trapped under rock, it said. The missing people were inside a vehicle that was traveling on one of the mine’s roads when the collapse occurred, it added. Late on Thursday night, Hidalgo Governor Omar Fayad said on Twitter that two more bodies had been found, bringing the total to three. The state was offering to support the affected families, he said. Images from the scene appeared to show a collapsed section of an open-pit mine, with rescuers and civilians climbing among car-size boulders.
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