PHILIPPINES
Flooding forces evacuations
Authorities yesterday moved thousands of residents of the capital, Manila, out of their low-lying communities as heavy monsoon rain, compounded by a tropical storm, flooded the city and nearby provinces. The national disaster agency said 14,023 people, most of them from a flood-prone Manila suburb, had moved into evacuation centers. In some parts of the capital region, flood waters, in places waist-deep, cut off roads to light vehicles. “Some houses were flooded up to the roof,” Humerlito Dolor, governor of Oriental Mindoro province south of the capital, told DZMM radio station.
CHINA
Flood death toll rises to 56
Rescuers yesterday used bulldozers and rubber boats to move residents out of flooded neighborhoods in central China after torrential rains killed at least 56 people. In Zhengzhou government crews armed with industrial pumps finished draining water from a major traffic tunnel, a news report said. Yesterday, skies were mostly clear but parts of Zhengzhou and other cities including Xinxiang, Hebi and Anyang still were under water.
SOUTH KOREA
Olympic images cause furor
A major broadcaster yesterday apologized for using offensive images and captions to describe participating countries during the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony on Friday night. Munhwa Broadcasting Corp used images of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster for Ukraine, a riot for Haiti and a promotional bitcoin poster for El Salvador when each nation entered the stadium. The broadcaster issued an apology following the opening ceremony, saying “inappropriate images and captions were used to introduce some countries.” “We apologize to those countries including Ukraine and our viewers,” it said. In the captions, the network described the Marshall Islands as “a former nuclear test site for the United States” and Haiti as a country “with an unstable political situation due to the assassination of its president.” The images and captions triggered outrage online. “They used whatever popped up first on Google,” one person said online.
THE NETHERLANDS
Teen stuns Bezos on flight
The Dutch teenager who became the world’s youngest space traveler this week surprised Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on the flight by telling him he had never ordered anything on Amazon.com. Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old physics student, accompanied Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos and 82-year-old female aviator Wally Funk — the oldest person to go to space — on a 10-minute trip beyond Earth’s atmosphere. “I told Jeff, like, I’ve actually never bought something from Amazon, and he was like: ‘Oh, wow, it’s a long time ago I heard someone say that,’” Daemen said on Friday.
UNITED STATES
Condo collapse search over
Miami-Dade County Fire Rescue on Friday declared an end to its search for human remains in the rubble of a Florida condominium tower that collapsed on June 24, killing at least 97 people. Authorities said one victim was still believed to be unaccounted for. The Miami-Dade Police Department would continue to sift through what is left of the debris for additional remains and personal effects, officials said in a statement. The fire department’s round-the-clock operation at the beachfront site of the Champlain Towers South condo, in the Miami suburb of Surfside, was demobilized four weeks and a day after the 12-story structure gave way at about 1:30am.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Hundreds of thousands of Guyana citizens living at home and abroad would receive a payout of about US$478 each after the country announced it was distributing its “mind-boggling” oil wealth. The grant of 100,000 Guyanese dollars would be available to any citizen of the South American country aged 18 and older with a valid passport or identification card. Guyanese citizens who normally live abroad would be eligible, but must be in Guyana to collect the payment. The payout was originally planned as a 200,000 Guyanese dollar grant for each household in the country, but was reframed after concerns that some citizens, including
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