INDONESIA
Boy survives plane crash
A 12-year-old boy is the sole survivor of a plane crash that killed eight people in remote Papua Province, authorities said yesterday. The Swiss-made Pilatus aircraft on Saturday lost contact with air traffic control during a flight of about 40 minutes. The wreckage of the plane was found in a heavily forested area on a mountain side in the Oksibil district yesterday morning. “Eight passengers were found dead and one was found alive,” Papua military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Dax Sianturi said. The plane, which was owned by private charter company Dimonim Air, was carrying seven passengers and two crew members.
PHILIPPINES
Rain forces evacuations
More than 54,000 people were moved to safer ground in Metro Manila and nearby provinces, while calls for help swamped social media. Marikina implemented forced evacuations affecting at least 21,000 people after its river, the catch basin of water flowing from the mountains, reached critical level. In nearby Rizal province, 19,000 people were moved. Families were on rooftops in Marikina waiting for rescue, Twitter posts of people seeking help showed. Floodwaters in some areas were chest high, rendering roads impassable, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority said. A tropical storm and another weather disturbance outside the country are enhancing the southwest monsoon, bringing widespread rain over the main Luzon island, including Metro Manila.
JAPAN
Okinawans protest US base
Tens of thousands of protesters on Okinawa Island vowed to stop the planned relocation of a US military base, saying that they want it off the island entirely. Opponents of the relocation have said that the plan to move US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from a crowded neighborhood to a less populated coastal site would not only be an environmental debacle, but also ignore local wishes to remove the base. About 70,000 people on Saturday gathered at a park in the prefectural capital of Naha under pouring rain ahead of a typhoon and observed a moment of silence for Okinawan governor Takeshi Onaga, who on Wednesday died of cancer.
INDONESIA
US returning church bells
The US is to return three church bells seized by US forces in a bloody campaign more than a century ago, its embassy said yesterday, following a demand by President Rodrigo Duterte. US forces in 1901 took three bells from the Catholic church of Balangiga town on Samar Island as war booty in what historians said was a particularly brutal military operation in the new US colony. Duterte and previous Philippine governments have urged Washington to return the bells.
CHINA
German student expelled
German graduate student David Missal, 24, was yesterday due to return to Germany after immigration authorities told him that his student visa was canceled and he had a week to leave the country. Missal, who was pursuing a master’s degree in journalism and communication at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said that he thinks it is because he reported on the plight of jailed human rights lawyers in a journalism class. Missal said that a Tsinghua representative this year warned him twice against pursuing the politically sensitive subject, but he went ahead anyway because he wanted to “get to learn Chinese society and politics.”
UNITED KINGDOM
Ten hurt in shooting
Police in Manchester say 10 people have been hospitalized as the result of a shooting after a Caribbean carnival in the city. Greater Manchester police say the injuries range from “minor to major,” but most do not appear to be life-threatening. The shooting was reported about 2:30am yesterday. Detective Superintendent Debbie Dooley said police were trying to establish “exactly where this incident took place and who is responsible for such a dangerous attack.”
VENEZUELA
Maduro open to FBI help
President Nicolas Maduro has said that he would let US FBI agents come help investigate the alleged recent plot to kill him with explosive drones, but with conditions. If US officials confirm “the offer for the FBI to investigate links in Florida with the assassination plan ... I would agree for the FBI to come here,” Maduro said at a late on Saturday at an event with top military leaders. He said there are “terrorist cells” in Florida led by a man called Osman Delgado Tabosky, whom he claims was the mastermind of the alleged plot. Minister of Foreign Affairs Jorge Arreaza on Wednesday said that the US charge d’affairs in Caracas, James Story, “expressed his concern” over the alleged Aug. 4 murder plot, as well as “the willingness of his government to cooperate.”
EUROPEAN UNION
Saudis asked to explain
The European Commission has asked Saudi Arabia to shed light on the arrests and charges facing female human rights activists, saying that the detainees should be granted due process to defend themselves. “The EU has been engaging constructively with the Saudi authorities seeking clarification on the circumstances surrounding the arrests of women human rights defenders in Saudi Arabia, notably with regard to the specific accusations brought against them,” a spokeswoman for High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini said. “We have been emphasizing the relevance of the role of human rights defenders and civil society groups in the process of reform which the kingdom is pursuing as well as the importance of respecting the rules of due process for all those arrested.”
UNITED KINGDOM
Heat triggers egg-laying
The Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust charity says record-breaking temperatures have encouraged a rare flock of Andean flamingos to lay eggs for the first time since 2003. The trust says six of the birds laid nine eggs, all of which were infertile. The charity’s reserve in Gloucestershire then gave the Andean flamingos eggs from near-relatives, Chilean flamingos, to look after. Mark Roberts, the aviculture manager at the Slimbridge reserve, said “with the Andeans in full parenting mode, we gave them Chilean chicks to bring up as their own. It’s great motivation and enriching for the birds.”
FRANCE
Wrong escape route picked
Fleeing the police after a car crash in Paris, a man who had been driving without a license took the ultimate wrong turn — and ended up taking refuge inside the headquarters of France’s spy agency. According to a police source, the driver fled after being involved in a crash on Friday on the Peripherique Boulevard ring road, scaling a fence several meters high to get off the busy artery. What he did not realize was that he had unwittingly climbed into the grounds of the General Directorate of External Security, according to the Parisien newspaper. He was immediately picked up and arrested.
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