CHILE
Bomb threats disrupt flights
At least three airliners were on Thursday forced to make emergency landings or turn back to their original airports in Chile and Peru amid what aviation officials said was a wave of false bomb threats. A LATAM Airlines flight carrying passengers from Peru’s capital, Lima, to Santiago was safely evacuated after making an unscheduled landing in the southern Peruvian city of Pisco, officials said. LATAM is Latin America’s largest airline. Two airplanes operated by Sky Airlines bound for northern Calama and Rosario, Argentina, returned to Santiago without incident following phoned-in threats. All three airplanes were inspected and it was determined there were no explosives on board, the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation said. Agency Director-General Victor Villalobos Collao later said that authorities had received a total of 11 threats and had to carry out “a procedure” with respect to nine of them. He did not say what the procedure consisted of, but said that no explosives had been found. The threats were called in to concessions in Santiago’s airport, to LATAM and to the agency, Villalobos Collao said.
MEXICO
Tip-off exposes mass grave
A group of relatives of missing persons on Thursday said suspected criminals had anonymously revealed to them the location of a mass grave that could hold 500 bodies. The grave, about 10km from the port of eastern Veracruz, was in the same area as another grave holding hundreds of victims found in 2016, also as a result of a tip-off. Rosalia Castro Toss, spokeswoman for the Solecito collective — made up of mostly mothers of missing persons — told reporters that the map was handed to the group a few months ago. The group is now awaiting permits to carry out a search, she said. Close to the grave’s apparent location is a road to relieve traffic heading to the port. The surrounding terrain is covered with vegetation and has repeatedly been the scene of criminal activity.
PERU
‘Bamboo rat’ resurfaces
A rare rodent species known as a “bamboo rat” that lives around the Inca ruins at Machu Picchu has resurfaced after a decade of absence and been photographed for the first time. A specimen of the rodent Dactylomys peruanus was spotted by guards among bamboo trees at the citadel, which is surrounded by a protected area, the National Service of Natural Protected Areas said. The last time the animal was recorded at Machu Picchu was in 2008. The bamboo rat lives in subtropical or wet tropical areas, authorities said. It has also been reported at medium-altitude heights on the slopes of the Andes in northern Bolivia. The animal is on a list of creatures about which little is known, because it is seen so rarely.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
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