Mon, Dec 04, 2023 page5

• World News Quick Take

  • Agencies
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  PAKISTAN

  Militants kill nine in north

  Militants on Saturday fired on a bus in the northern Gilgit-Baltistan region, killing nine people including two soldiers, and injuring more than 20 others, local police said. The attack happened on the Karakoram Highway, which connects Pakistan with China, police officer Azmat Shah said. The bus was carrying passengers from Gilgit to the Rawalpindi when it was shot at, causing the driver to lose control and crash into a truck, which in turn caught fire. Both drivers were killed on site. At least 26 people were injured — including a local Islamic cleric, Mufti Sher Zaman — and transferred to local hospitals, as police helped reroute traffic in the area after condoning off the site, officials said. No one has immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

  PHILIPPINES

  China vessels ‘swarm’ reef

  Manila yesterday said that more than 135 Chinese vessels were “swarming” a reef off its coast, describing the boats’ growing presence as “alarming.” The boats were “dispersed and scattered” within the boomerang-shaped Whitsun Reef, about 320km west of Palawan Island, the coast guard said. The reef is more than 1,000km from the nearest Chinese landmass of Hainan Province. The Philippines said it counted 111 “Chinese maritime militia vessels” on Nov. 13. When the coast guard deployed two patrol boats to the area on Saturday the number had increased to “more than 135,” it said.

  PERU

  Nine killed in mine attack

  Nine people were killed and more than a dozen injured in an attack on a gold mine in Pataz Province, authorities said on Saturday. A group of “armed criminals” raided the Poderosa mine, “violently confronting the company’s internal security,” the Ministry of the Interior wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Seven attackers had been apprehended and police had “taken control of the situation,” it added. Among the dead were seven security guards who tried to repel the attack and two miners. The latter were killed when the assailants threw explosives into the mine shaft, authorities said, adding that they were still investigating the motive for the attack.

  GUINEA-BISSAU

  Coup foiled: president

  President Umaro Sissoco Embalo on Saturday said that gunfire and clashes that had erupted in the capital on Friday were an attempted coup. “I can assure you that the events of Dec. 1, 2023, are yet another attempted coup and those responsible will suffer serious consequences,” he told reporters after arriving from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where he was attending the COP28 UN climate summit. Clashes between two army factions broke out in Bissau on Thursday night and continued on Friday after national guard soldiers freed an opposition minister who was detained in a corruption investigation.

  RUSSIA

  Security forces raid gay bars

  Security forces on Friday night raided gay clubs and bars across Moscow, less than 48 hours after the country’s top court banned what it called the “global LGBTQ+ movement” as an extremist organization. Police searched venues across the capital, including a nightclub, a male sauna and a bar that hosted LGBTQ+ parties, under the pretext of a drug raid, local media reported. Eyewitnesses told journalists that clubgoers’ documents were checked and photographed by the security services. They also said that managers had been able to warn patrons before police arrived.
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