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.
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
Some things might go without saying, but just in case... Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up on Tuesday: Do not eat your Christmas tree. The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s East Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table. Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town Web site suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried — for use in making flavored butter, for instance. Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on Monday met virtually with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) and raised concerns about “malicious cyber activity” carried out by Chinese state-sponsored actors, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement. The department last month reported that an unspecified number of its computers had been compromised by Chinese hackers in what it called a “major incident” following a breach at contractor BeyondTrust, which provides cybersecurity services. US Congressional aides said no date had been set yet for a requested briefing on the breach, the latest in a serious of cyberattacks
RSS