CHILE
Bomb threats disrupt flights
At least three airliners were on Thursday forced to make emergency landings or turn back to their original airports in Chile and Peru amid what aviation officials said was a wave of false bomb threats. A LATAM Airlines flight carrying passengers from Peru’s capital, Lima, to Santiago was safely evacuated after making an unscheduled landing in the southern Peruvian city of Pisco, officials said. LATAM is Latin America’s largest airline. Two airplanes operated by Sky Airlines bound for northern Calama and Rosario, Argentina, returned to Santiago without incident following phoned-in threats. All three airplanes were inspected and it was determined there were no explosives on board, the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation said. Agency Director-General Victor Villalobos Collao later said that authorities had received a total of 11 threats and had to carry out “a procedure” with respect to nine of them. He did not say what the procedure consisted of, but said that no explosives had been found. The threats were called in to concessions in Santiago’s airport, to LATAM and to the agency, Villalobos Collao said.
MEXICO
Tip-off exposes mass grave
A group of relatives of missing persons on Thursday said suspected criminals had anonymously revealed to them the location of a mass grave that could hold 500 bodies. The grave, about 10km from the port of eastern Veracruz, was in the same area as another grave holding hundreds of victims found in 2016, also as a result of a tip-off. Rosalia Castro Toss, spokeswoman for the Solecito collective — made up of mostly mothers of missing persons — told reporters that the map was handed to the group a few months ago. The group is now awaiting permits to carry out a search, she said. Close to the grave’s apparent location is a road to relieve traffic heading to the port. The surrounding terrain is covered with vegetation and has repeatedly been the scene of criminal activity.
PERU
‘Bamboo rat’ resurfaces
A rare rodent species known as a “bamboo rat” that lives around the Inca ruins at Machu Picchu has resurfaced after a decade of absence and been photographed for the first time. A specimen of the rodent Dactylomys peruanus was spotted by guards among bamboo trees at the citadel, which is surrounded by a protected area, the National Service of Natural Protected Areas said. The last time the animal was recorded at Machu Picchu was in 2008. The bamboo rat lives in subtropical or wet tropical areas, authorities said. It has also been reported at medium-altitude heights on the slopes of the Andes in northern Bolivia. The animal is on a list of creatures about which little is known, because it is seen so rarely.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion