COLOMBIA
Three bodies found in river
Three bodies were recovered on Wednesday after a ship that set out from Venezuela went down in the Orinoco River, authorities said, with seven people still missing. A navy unit located the bodies of two Venezuelan men and a woman whose identity was still being confirmed. The boat capsized with 18 people onboard due to rapidly rising water caused by heavy rains, and just as another boat came to the rescue, a civil defense spokesman said. Eight people were rescued on Tuesday. Seasonal variations in river levels often are significant and it is not unusual for swells to tip over small boats.
INDONESIA
Man kills snake on train
A man who used his bare hands to kill a snake that was discovered slithering on a busy commuter train has become an Internet hero. The train made an emergency stop after the reptile was spotted lurking on a baggage rack in a carriage headed to Jakarta from Bogor, south of the capital. Smartphone footage, which quickly went viral, showed the bespectacled man casually snatch the snake’s tail and then smash its head on the floor in a violent whipping motion. The creature was apparently killed instantly as shocked spectators — including a baton-wielding security officer — kept their distance. The unidentified man, wearing a backpack, then tossed the limp body of the snake, which appeared to be about 1m long, out the door to waiting security staff. It is not clear what kind of serpent it was, nor whether it was venomous. No injuries to passengers were reported. Train operator KCI said the reptile is thought to have slithered out from a passenger’s bag. “We regret the incident and apologize to train travelers who were disturbed by it,” spokeswoman Eva Chairunnisa said.
JAPAN
Capsized ship’s crew found
The crew of a trawler found capsized in remote Pacific waters have been located safe and well in the Philippines, the US Coast Guard said yesterday. The abandoned Gyotoku Maru No. 1 was found drifting 350km southwest of Palau on Monday after it send an emergency signal. With no word on the fate of the seven-man crew — five Indonesians and two Japanese — a major international search effort was launched. The coast guard said the trawler had collided with another fishing vessel, which then rescued the stricken sailors and took them to the Philippines. “We’re incredibly relieved these men are safe and back on dry land,” search coordinator Lieutenant Commander Josh Empen said. Empen thanked those involved in the search, which included vessels from Japan and Palau, as well as US ships and airplanes based in Guam.
UNITED STATES
Celebrity mementos on sale
Handwritten lyrics by Bob Dylan and Michael Jackson, and rapper Tupac Shakur’s original death certificate are just some of more than 1,100 celebrity memorabilia items being sold in an online auction. Several dozen letters Shakur wrote while in prison to a friend are also up for sale. The handwritten lyrics being sold are for Like A Rolling Stone first released by Dylan in 1965, and for Jackson’s 1982 Billie Jean. Other top lots include a human skull signed by surrealist artist Salvador Dali. The estimated prices of the lots vary from several hundred to tens of thousands of US dollars. The auction is being held until Friday next week.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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