BANGLADESH
Coastline braces for cyclone
Authorities have put more than 50,000 volunteers on standby and readied about 5,000 shelters as a strong cyclone in the Bay of Bengal was expected to hit the low-lying nation’s vast southwestern and southern coast yesterday evening. The weather office in Dhaka issued the most severe storm signal for Cyclone Bulbul, packing maximum sustained winds of 74kph and gusts of up to 150kph. It said the southwestern Khulna region could be worst hit. The region has the world’s largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans. Junior Minister for Disaster Management Enamur Rahman said government offices suspended work in 13 coastal districts. As the day progressed, the volunteers used loudspeakers to ask people to move to shelters in Chittagong and other regions, the ministry said.
CHILE
University building torched
Demonstrators on Friday set a university building ablaze and ransacked a church at the close of an otherwise peaceful rally marking three weeks of unprecedented protests against social and economic inequality. Protesters clashed with police who had set up barricades to protect private Pedro de Valdivia University, and shortly thereafter the wooden roof of its 100-year-old administration building began to burn, witnesses said. Fire crews had trouble reaching the blaze because of the demonstrators. Nearby, hooded protesters looted the church of La Asuncion, which was built in 1876, dragging furniture outside and setting it alight.
UNITED STATES
Vaping illness culprit found
Health officials on Friday announced a breakthrough into the cause of a mysterious outbreak of vaping illnesses, reporting they have a “very strong culprit.” The same chemical compound was found in fluid taken from the lungs of 29 patients across the country, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention said. The compound — vitamin E acetate — was previously found in liquid from electronic cigarettes and other vaping devices used by many of those who got sick. However, this is the first time they have found a common suspect in the damaged lungs of patients, officials said. “We are in a better place in terms of having one very strong culprit,” the CDC’s Anne Schuchat said.
UNITED STATES
Woman found in desert
Authorities have said a suburban Las Vegas woman dragged to California by father-and-daughter kidnappers has been found alive after a harrowing, week-long kidnapping where she was allegedly raped, robbed and left for dead in the desert. Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials on Friday told reporters that Stanley Alfred Lawton and Shaniya Nicole Poche-Lawton dumped the woman near Edwards Air Force Base north of Los Angeles. Military personnel found her early on Wednesday.
UNITED STATES
Birds terrorize community
Some New Jersey residents have been getting an early Thanksgiving surprise. A gaggle of 40 to 60 wild turkeys have been aggressively terrorizing residents in a 55-and-up community in Ocean County daily. Holiday City residents said the turkeys are blocking doorways, pecking at vehicles and behaving aggressively when they are shooed away. The wild turkeys can weigh 7kg to 10kg and run up to 32kph. The township has received dozens of complaints, but said its animal control is powerless, as they are not licensed to trap wildlife.
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