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.
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