PHILIPPINES
Military kills nine militants
Nine Islamist militants including three suspects in a Catholic Mass bombing have been killed in a clash with troops, the military said yesterday. Army soldiers shot it out with about 15 Dawlah Islamiyah suspects hiding out at a mountain farm close to the remote southern municipality of Piagapo on Thursday, the commander of the military unit said. The firefight left nine of the militants dead and four soldiers wounded, including two with “serious” wounds, army Brigadier-General Yegor Rey Barroquillo said. Three of the six suspects in the bombing of a Catholic Mass at a school in the southern city of Marawi last month were among those killed in Thursday’s fighting, he added.
UNITED STATES
Hundredth Maui victim found
A 100th victim has been identified from the wildfire that ravaged the Hawaiian island of Maui over the summer, police said on Friday. Lydia Coloma, 70, was initially listed on a tally of missing persons that has since dwindled to just a handful of people. The Aug. 8 fire largely destroyed the city of Lahaina, the old capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii. Among the charred debris and buildings reduced to ashes, the search for and identification of human remains has been difficult, often requiring DNA samples from living relatives of those listed as missing.
VENEZUELA
Machado ban upheld
The Supreme Tribunal of Justice on Friday upheld a ban on the candidacy of Maria Corina Machado, a longtime government foe and winner of the primary held by the opposition faction backed by the US. Machado, a former lawmaker, won the opposition’s independently run presidential primary in October last year with more than 90 percent of the votes. Her victory came despite the government announcing a 15-year ban on her running for office just days after she formally entered the race in June. She insisted throughout the campaign that she never received an official notification of the ban, and said that voters, not ruling-party loyalists, are the rightful decisionmakers of her candidacy. After the court issued its ruling, Machado wrote on social media that her campaign’s “fight to conquer democracy through free and fair elections” is not over. “Maduro and his criminal system chose the worst path for them: fraudulent elections,” she wrote. “That’s not gonna happen.”
MEXICO
Passengers back wing man
The Mexico City International Airport on Friday said that a man had opened an emergency exit and walked out on a wing of a plane that was parked and waiting for takeoff on Thursday. The airport said in a statement the man had been turned over to police. However, at least 77 passengers aboard the AeroMexico flight to Guatemala signed a copy of a written statement saying the airline made them wait for four hours without ventilation or water while the flight was delayed. According to photographs of the statement posted online, fellow passengers said he acted “to protect everyone, with the support of everyone,” adding that “the delay and lack of air created conditions that endangered the health of the passengers. He saved our lives.” An incident report filed with airport authorities largely confirmed that version, stating that the incident occurred at 11:37am, after the plane was held for maintenance. “The passengers were unhappy and one of them opened the emergency door and stepped out on the wing,” the report 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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