CHINA
Suspects arrested for blast
Authorities have detained “several” suspects in the wake of an explosion at a chemical plant that left 19 dead and injured 12, state media said yesterday. The blast occurred at 6:30pm on Thursday at an industrial park in Yibin, Sichuan Province, a statement on the Web site of the local work safety administration said. Photographs on a local news Web site showed what appeared to be the burned-out shell of a building surrounded by rubble. The building was owned by chemical manufacturer Yibin Hengda Technology Co, which was “conducting illegal construction at the plant, which had not passed safety and fire control checks,” Xinhua news agency said late on Friday, citing local authorities. The Ministry of Emergency Management has sent a team to further investigate the cause of the explosion, Xinhua added.
DR CONGO
Not guilty Bemba to run
Former vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba has been declared an opposition party candidate for the December presidential election after being acquitted of war crimes charges in an appeal with the International Criminal Court. Bemba on Friday accepted the candidacy from his Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC) party by telephone from Brussels, where he was released days after the court overturned his 18-year sentence. He is awaiting his diplomatic passport so he can return to the country. Bemba had encouraged his party to make him the candidate for a coalition of opposition parties. The court in 2016 found Bemba guilty as a military commander of committing crimes against humanity and war crimes with a campaign of murder, rape and pillaging by his MLC troops in the Central African Republic in 2002 and 2003.
SPAIN
Fastest bull run injures six
Health officials yesterday said the final bull run of the San Fermin festival in Pamplona has left six people injured in the fastest dash this year in the northern city. Tomas Belzunegui, a spokesman with Navarra’s provincial hospital, said the six were bruised after being trampled as the bulls completed the 850m course along cobbled streets in 2 minutes, 12 seconds. One man was dragged for several meters by a bull after a horn got entangled in his neckerchief; he was taken away on a gurney. The eight bull runs on consecutive days caused injuries to a total of 28 people this year. Two of them were gored. The festival draws about 1 million visitors each year. Dancing, food and alcohol are among the main attractions.
THAILAND
Cave boys to be discharged
A dozen boys and their soccer coach who were rescued from a flooded cave are to be discharged from a hospital next week, Minister of Public Health Piyasakol Sakolsatayadorn said yesterday. The last group of the 12-member Wild Boars soccer team and their coach was on Tuesday night evacuated from the Tham Luang cave complex, near the border with Myanmar, safely ending a dangerous rescue and evoking international relief and joy. The 12 boys and their coach are recovering both physically and mentally, and are to be discharged from hospital on Thursday, Piyasakol told reporters. “We need to prepare both the children and their families for the attention they will receive when they come out,” he 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
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