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.
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
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
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
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
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