FRANCE
Artifacts to be returned
President Emmanuel Macron on Friday agreed to return 26 cultural artifacts to Benin “without delay,” a move that could put pressure on other former colonial powers to return African works of art to their countries of origin. The decision came as he received the findings of a study he commissioned on repatriating African treasures held by French museums. Macron agreed to return the works, mainly royal statues from the Palaces of Abomey — formerly the capital of the kingdom of Dahomey — taken by the French army during a war in 1892 and now in Paris’ Quai Branly museum. He also proposed gathering African and European partners in Paris next year to define a framework for an “exchange policy” for African art.
UNITED STATES
Teens steal small plane
Two teenagers on Thursday stole a small plane in a rural area of eastern Utah, flying it at low altitude over a highway and landing at a regional airport before being arrested, officials said. The teens, aged 14 and 15, took the single-engine propeller aircraft from a private airstrip in the small town of Jensen in the northeastern corner of Utah, the Uintah County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. They flew at low altitude over Highway 40 and were seen in the air above the area of Gusher, about 50km west of where they took off, the office said. The teens thought about continuing to fly west to a more populated area of Utah, but they decided to turn around and land the plane at the Vernal Regional Airport, about 25km from where they took off.
UNITED STATES
Judge dismisses MH370 case
A judge has dismissed nationwide litigation over the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in which victims’ families sought to hold the carrier, its insurer, Allianz SE, and Boeing Co liable for the still-unexplained disaster. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in Washington on Wednesday ruled that the wrongful death and product liability litigation, encompassing 40 lawsuits, did not belong in the US. She said the case belonged in Malaysia, which has an “overwhelming interest” in and “substantial nexus” to the March 8, 2014, disappearance of Flight MH370 with 239 people on board.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Chopper crash kills five
Five people have died after a helicopter crashed near a popular tourist area, authorities said. The EC20 helicopter disappeared late on Thursday after the pilot picked up four people at a hotel in Rio San Juan on the north coast, the director of the Investigative Commission of Aviation Accidents said. Colonel Emmanuel Souffront told reporters on Friday that the group was headed to the southeast coastal city of La Romana. Authorities said they lost contact with the helicopter about 39km northwest of their destination. No further information was immediately available.
ZIMBABWE
Hunters, pilot killed in crash
Four Finns on a hunting expedition died in a plane crash on Friday that also killed their pilot near the southern city of Masvingo, the Finnish consul’s wife told reporters. “There were four Finnish citizens and their pilot in the plane, they all died,” Sally Ward said. “It was cloudy and they were trying to get above the clouds.” The accident occurred near Renco, a gold mine on the outskirts of Masvingo, police spokesman Paul Nyathi said, adding that investigators had found a Finnish identity card and a passport at the scene.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
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