GREECE
Quake rattles south
An strong earthquake rattled parts of the country’s south yesterday, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. A tremor with a magnitude of 5.4 and a depth of almost 58km occurred at 7:16am in the sea between the Peloponnese and the island of Crete, the Athens Geodynamic Institute reported. Local media reported that the earthquake was felt from Athens to Crete. It was “about five seconds long, quite strong even in the basement of a building,” one witness in the city of Chania on Crete, wrote on the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre testimony board.
PHILIPPINES
Typhoon toll hits 23
At least 23 people have been killed in the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year, officials said yesterday, with “alarming” reports of destruction on islands that bore the brunt of the storm. More than 300,000 people fled their homes and beachfront resorts as Typhoon Rai ravaged the southern and central regions of the archipelago, knocking out communications and electricity in many areas, ripping off roofs and toppling concrete power poles. Rai was a super typhoon when it smashed into the popular tourist island of Siargao on Thursday, packing maximum sustained winds of 195kph.
JAPAN
Suspect’s home searched
Police yesterday searched the house of one of the patients at a mental clinic where a fire gutted an entire floor in an eight-story building, killing 24 people trapped inside. An Osaka police investigator told reporters that the man is a possible suspect. A small fire broke out at the man’s house about half an hour before the building fire, the investigator said. He is believed to be among the three people who survived and were in severe condition. Police have not arrested anyone, and it might take a while until the man recovers enough to be interrogated.
UNITED STATES
Rioter gets five years
A supporter of former president Donald Trump was sentenced to five years in prison for assaulting police officers during the attack on the Capitol, the harshest punishment yet handed down in the investigation into the Jan. 6 violence. Robert Scott Palmer, 54, was seen in videos and photographs wearing a US flag jacket decorated with pro-Trump patches and a hat reading “Florida for Trump” as he threw boards, a fire extinguisher and other objects at police outside the Capitol. He had tried to enter the Capitol, but was ultimately pushed back by pepper spray deployed by security officials. After that he continued to throw things at officers, until he was hit by a rubber bullet.
UNITED STATES
Poison plan approved
The California Coastal Commission has approved a plan to poison invasive mice threatening rare seabirds on the Farallon Islands National Wildlife Refuge. The agency that regulates California’s coastline on Thursday night voted 5-3 to approve a plan to drop about 1,360kg of poisoned bait from helicopters onto the rocky islands off the San Francisco coast that are home to hundreds of thousands of breeding birds. The refuge is home to an estimated 300,000 breeding seabirds, including the rare ashy storm-petrel. However, officials say the population is threatened by mice that first arrived on the islands aboard ships more than a century ago.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
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