GABON
Nigerien stabs two Danes
Two Danes were on Saturday wounded in a knife attack in Gabon’s capital apparently committed in retribution for “US attacks against Muslims,” a rare assault in a Central African nation that has escaped extremist violence. The two men, who were working for the National Geographic channel, were stabbed while shopping in a market popular with tourists, Minister of Defense Etienne Massard said, adding that the attack appeared to be politically motivated. “According to the first testimonies at the scene, the assailant, a 53-year-old Nigerien man, shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ [Arabic for ‘God is great’] during the attack. He was arrested on the spot,” Massard said.
CHILE
Mudslide kills at least five
A mudslide fueled by heavy rains on Saturday swept over a village in the south, leaving at least five people dead and 15 missing, officials said. Rain caused a river to overflow and the side of a hill to collapse, burying 20 of the 200 houses in Villa Santa Lucia in the Los Lagos region, 1,272km south of the capital, Santiago. President Michelle Bachelet declared the region a catastrophe zone and confirmed the number of dead and missing. She met with her team of ministers to coordinate rescue and assistance efforts. Earlier on Saturday, Deputy Secretary of the Interior Madmud Aleuy said there were three people dead, including an unidentified tourist, and 15 others missing.
PHILIPPINES
Thousands stranded by storm
Thousands of people heading home for Christmas were yesterday stranded by Tropical Depression Kai-Tak, a day after the storm killed three people as it pounded the nation’s eastern islands. The storm has weakened, with gusts of up to 90kph, after cutting off power and triggering landslides in a region devastated by Super Typhoon Haiyan four years ago, state weather forecasters said. Disaster officials yesterday said that more floods and landslides were possible and that 15,500 passengers were stranded because ferry services remained suspended in parts of the country.
LIBYA
Refugees rescued at sea
The coast guard rescued at least 270 refugees off the country’s shores, a navy official said on Saturday, bringing to more than 450 the total number of refugees they have rescued in less than a week. El-Hadi Kheil said that the Arab and African refugees, who included women and children, were found at sea in an area between the coastal towns of Garabulli and Zliten, east of the capital, Tripoli, where they were taken to a naval base. “We were lost and didn’t know where to direct our boat,” Omar Yusef, a Sudanese refugee, told reporters. “We called the coast guard and a helicopter came and guided us.”
UNITED STATES
Burros caught in wildfire
Nine burros that are a favorite of visitors to South Dakota’s Custer State Park have been burned in a wildfire and it is not known if all of them would survive, a park official said on Saturday. The park reported that all nine burros had been found — a day after three of them were reported missing and feared dead in the wildfire that has consumed more than 218km2, but all nine were burned and are being treated by a veterinarian. Some were not injured as badly as others, but their chances of survival and the severity of their injuries might not be known for some time, park visitor services program manager Kobee Stalder said.
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
RSS