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.
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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