PAKISTAN
Militants kill nine in north
Militants on Saturday fired on a bus in the northern Gilgit-Baltistan region, killing nine people including two soldiers, and injuring more than 20 others, local police said. The attack happened on the Karakoram Highway, which connects Pakistan with China, police officer Azmat Shah said. The bus was carrying passengers from Gilgit to the Rawalpindi when it was shot at, causing the driver to lose control and crash into a truck, which in turn caught fire. Both drivers were killed on site. At least 26 people were injured — including a local Islamic cleric, Mufti Sher Zaman — and transferred to local hospitals, as police helped reroute traffic in the area after condoning off the site, officials said. No one has immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
PHILIPPINES
China vessels ‘swarm’ reef
Manila yesterday said that more than 135 Chinese vessels were “swarming” a reef off its coast, describing the boats’ growing presence as “alarming.” The boats were “dispersed and scattered” within the boomerang-shaped Whitsun Reef, about 320km west of Palawan Island, the coast guard said. The reef is more than 1,000km from the nearest Chinese landmass of Hainan Province. The Philippines said it counted 111 “Chinese maritime militia vessels” on Nov. 13. When the coast guard deployed two patrol boats to the area on Saturday the number had increased to “more than 135,” it said.
PERU
Nine killed in mine attack
Nine people were killed and more than a dozen injured in an attack on a gold mine in Pataz Province, authorities said on Saturday. A group of “armed criminals” raided the Poderosa mine, “violently confronting the company’s internal security,” the Ministry of the Interior wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Seven attackers had been apprehended and police had “taken control of the situation,” it added. Among the dead were seven security guards who tried to repel the attack and two miners. The latter were killed when the assailants threw explosives into the mine shaft, authorities said, adding that they were still investigating the motive for the attack.
GUINEA-BISSAU
Coup foiled: president
President Umaro Sissoco Embalo on Saturday said that gunfire and clashes that had erupted in the capital on Friday were an attempted coup. “I can assure you that the events of Dec. 1, 2023, are yet another attempted coup and those responsible will suffer serious consequences,” he told reporters after arriving from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where he was attending the COP28 UN climate summit. Clashes between two army factions broke out in Bissau on Thursday night and continued on Friday after national guard soldiers freed an opposition minister who was detained in a corruption investigation.
RUSSIA
Security forces raid gay bars
Security forces on Friday night raided gay clubs and bars across Moscow, less than 48 hours after the country’s top court banned what it called the “global LGBTQ+ movement” as an extremist organization. Police searched venues across the capital, including a nightclub, a male sauna and a bar that hosted LGBTQ+ parties, under the pretext of a drug raid, local media reported. Eyewitnesses told journalists that clubgoers’ documents were checked and photographed by the security services. They also said that managers had been able to warn patrons before police arrived.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
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