Bodies lay scattered in all directions as scores of Filipinos took part in a massive exercise yesterday, simulating a suicide bombing on Manila’s overhead railway.
The exercise saw people playing victims in the overhead trains, lying on the floor, supposedly injured or dead with simulated blood splashed over the train seats, eyewitnesses said.
Aside from testing the preparedness of response teams, the exercise was also aimed at boosting public awareness of the threat of terror attacks, government officials said.
The exercise came just two days after two bombs exploded in shops in the southern city of Iligan, killing two people and injuring 53 others.
However city police chief, Director Leopoldo Bataoil said the exercise was not linked to the Iligan blasts, stressing that the drill had been planned a month ago, “to show how the government is ready to contain these kind of incidents.”
Justice Undersecretary Ricardo Blancaflor said the exercise involved a scenario where a suspected suicide bomber is spotted by passengers on one of the trains, causing panic.
“The door of the train had not opened yet when the bomb around the body of the terrorist suddenly exploded. Commotion ensued following the explosion. The presumed attack left hundreds of passengers dead,” Blancaflor said in a statement, explaining the scenario.
Medical teams arrived at the scene, tagging the “victims” to mark those who were near death and those who were already deceased. They were followed by bomb disposal teams including bomb-sniffing dogs.
Commandos also searched the train and arrested another suicide bomber who had not yet set off his devices, eyewitnesses said.
Military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Ernesto Torres said authorities consider the threat of another bomb attack to be “continuing” although he would not say if there was any specific plot to bomb the capital.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the