SYRIA
Israel fires airstrikes
Israel carried out airstrikes near the government-held city of Homs, state media reported yesterday, and the Israeli army later said it struck an anti-aircraft battery after rocket fire. A war monitor said the Homs-area strikes killed a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. In a brief statement early yesterday that did not mention the airstrikes, Israel’s army said that a Syrian anti-aircraft rocket “appears to have exploded in the air over Israeli territory.” Several hours later the military said it had targeted “an anti-aircraft battery in Syria, as a response to the launch of an anti-aircraft rocket from Syria into Israeli territory.”
PHILIPPINES
Tour ad shows wrong country
Tourism officials were left red-faced after the creators of a video promoting the archipelago nation as a holiday destination yesterday said they had used stock shots from other countries. Advertising agency DDB Philippines apologized for the “highly inappropriate” images, which included rice terraces in Indonesia and sand dunes in Brazil. The agency was behind the video for the government’s US$900,000 “Love The Philippines” tourism campaign launched on Tuesday. The Department of Tourism late on Saturday said that it was investigating allegations that the video included “non-original shots.” The video was later removed from its Facebook page. Some of the images used in the promotional video could be found on the Web sites of stock footage providers. For example, footage of rice terraces is on Pond5, which identified the location as Ubud on Indonesia’s Bali. Videvo has the same aerial shot of sand dunes as the one used in the ad, but says the location was Cumbuco, Brazil. Other footage shows a fisherman casting a net while wearing a hat that is not typically worn in the Philippines and a person driving a buggy over sand dunes in the United Arab Emirates.
GUATEMALA
Court orders election review
The Supreme Court on Saturday ordered ballots from the first-round presidential election to be reviewed after the front-runner’s party and allies challenged the results, setting up the potential for a recount ahead of the runoff vote. Former first lady Sandra Torres is set to face off in the decisive second round on Aug. 20, with Bernardo Arevalo, who bucked forecasts to become the runner-up. Torres took 15.8 percent of the vote in the June 25 round, with Arevalo close behind with 11.8 percent. The court said it would suspend election processes until the ballots are reviewed, acting at the request of Torres’ National Unity of Hope party, President Alejandro Giammattei’s Vamos party and several allied groups.
AUSTRALIA
MDMA prescriptions allowed
Australia is now the first country to allow psychiatrists to prescribe certain psychedelic substances to patients with depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Beginning on Saturday, Australian physicians can prescribe doses of MDMA, also known as ecstasy, for PTSD. Psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms, can be given to people who have hard-to-treat depression. The country put the two drugs on the list of approved medicines by the Therapeutic Goods Administration. Scientists in Australia were surprised by the move, which was announced in February. One scientist said it puts Australia “at the forefront of research in this field.” The drugs cost about A$10,000 (US$6,668) per patient for treatment.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
DISASTROUS VISIT: The talks in Saudi Arabia come after an altercation at the White House that led to the Ukrainian president leaving without signing a minerals deal Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was due to arrive in Saudi Arabia yesterday, a day ahead of crucial talks between Ukrainian and US officials on ending the war with Russia. Highly anticipated negotiations today on resolving the three-year conflict would see US and Ukrainian officials meet for the first time since Zelenskiy’s disastrous White House visit last month. Zelenskiy yesterday said that he would meet Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the nation’s de facto leader, after which his team “will stay for a meeting on Tuesday with the American team.” At the talks in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, US
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