MEXICO
Gas platform explodes
An explosion and fire on Friday destroyed an offshore gas platform in the Gulf of Mexico, killing two workers and injuring eight, while one was missing, officials said. State-owned Petroleos Mexicanos said that the disaster happened on the Nohoch gas transfer platform that it operates. The dead and missing workers were employed by a subcontractor, and three of those injured were company employees and five worked for the subcontractor, the company said. None of the injuries were life-threatening, it said. Seven ships evacuated 321 workers from the platform, it said. Petroleos Mexicanos director Octavio Romero said that the platform “was totally destroyed,” but that four other nearby, linked platforms did not catch fire. There appeared to be little risk of an oil spill, although it was unclear whether the incident might force the company to increase burning of excess gas.
UNITED STATES
Man rescued from sewer
Firefighters on Friday rescued two men who fell into a maintenance hole during heavy rain in downtown Omaha, Nebraska, including one who was washed about 1.6km through sewer pipes before getting trapped behind a metal grate. The men, who were workers for a private contractor, Ace Pipe Cleaning, were swept into the sewers near the Old Market just after 9am, the Omaha World-Herald quoted Lieutenant Neal Bonacci of the Omaha Police Department as saying. One of the men, who was tethered to a safety system, was quickly pulled out. A large-scale rescue effort ensued for the other, who was apparently not tethered. He was found at about 10:20am. The 41-year-old man had extricated himself from the water and was found behind a metal grate covering a culvert. An Omaha Fire Department crew cut the grate to free him, assistant fire chief Jason Bradley told the newspaper.
UNITED STATES
Chemical arms destroyed
President Joe Biden on Friday announced that the nation has fully destroyed its stockpiles of chemical weapons, fulfilling a commitment under the Chemical Weapons Convention. “Today, I am proud to announce that the United States has safely destroyed the final munition in that stockpile, bringing us one step closer to a world free from the horrors of chemical weapons,” Biden said. The US was the last of the convention’s signatories to complete the task of destroying their “declared” stockpiles, although some are believed to maintain secret reserves of chemical weapons. “It marks the first time an international body has verified destruction of an entire category of declared weapons of mass destruction,” Biden said in a statement. The announcement came after the Blue Grass Army Depot, a US Army facility in Kentucky, recently completed its four-year job of eliminating about 500 tonnes of chemical agents, the last batch held by the US military. The US had for decades held stores of artillery projectiles and rockets that contained mustard gases, VX and sarin nerve agents, and blister agents. Such weapons were condemned widely after their use with horrendous results on the battlefields of World War I. However, many countries retained and further developed them in the years afterward. The convention, agreed in 1993 and taking effect in 1997, gave the US until Sept. 30 to destroy all of its chemical agents and munitions. Other signatories to the pact had already eliminated their holdings, Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons head Fernando Arias said in May.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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