VIETNAM
Yagi kills 14
At least 14 people have died and 176 were injured after Typhoon Yagi slammed the country’s north, state media said yesterday, as officials warned of heavy downpours despite its waning power. A family of four was killed in a landslide in the mountainous Hoa Binh Province early yesterday morning, state media said. Described by officials as one of the most powerful typhoons to hit the region over the last decade, Yagi left more than 3 million people without electricity in the north. It also damaged vital agricultural land, nearly 116,192 hectares where rice and fruits are mostly grown. Hundreds of flights were canceled after four airports were closed.
UNITED STATES
Police search for shooter
Police yesterday were searching for a shooter in a rural area of southeastern Kentucky near Interstate 75, according to authorities who said seven people were hurt in the shooting and a vehicle accident that accompanied the violence on Saturday. The Laurel County Sheriff’s Office said it was alerted to the shooting near London, Kentucky, at about 5:30pm. Five people were shot and all were in stable condition early yesterday, although some of the victims had “very serious” injuries, including one person who was shot in the face, Deputy Sheriff Gilbert Acciardo told a news conference. Two other people were hurt in a vehicle accident, he said. Police were still attempting to determine where the bullets came from, he said, adding that they believe there was only one shooter.
FRANCE
Two charged in murder plot
A Paris court in May detained and charged a couple on accusations that they were involved in Iranian plots to kill Jews in Germany and France, police sources said. Authorities charged Abdelkrim S., 34, and his partner Sabrina B., 33, on May 4 with conspiring with a criminal terrorist organization and placed them in pretrial detention. The case, known as “Marco Polo,” which was revealed on Thursday by French news site Mediapart, signals a revival in Iranian state-sponsored terrorism in Europe, a report by the General Directorate for Internal Security said. “Since 2015, the Iranian [secret] services have resumed a targeted killing policy” to sow fear in Europe among the country’s political opposition as well as among Jews and Israelis, the security agency wrote. Abdelkrim S. was previously sentenced to 10 years behind bars over a killing in Marseille and released on probation in July last year. He is accused of being the main France-based operative for an Iran-sponsored terrorist cell that planned acts of violence in France and Germany. The group intended to attack a Paris-based former employee at an Israeli security firm and three of his colleagues residing in the Paris suburbs.
PORTUGAL
Inmates escape with ladder
Five inmates including a Briton, an Argentinian and a Georgian, as well as two Portuguese, escaped from the Vale de Judeus high-security prison, about 30km north of Lisbon, authorities said on Saturday. The men, aged 33 to 61, escaped at 10am, “with external help through the launch of a ladder, which allowed the inmates to scale the wall and access the outside,” the Directorate-General for Reintegration and Prison Services said. The two Portuguese escapees were serving 25-year sentences for drug trafficking, criminal association, theft, robbery and kidnapping, the prison service said. The other three had been convicted of theft, kidnapping and robbery.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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