YEMEN
Soldier opens fire on Saudis
A soldier for exiled government opened fire on Saudi Arabian troops as they exercised in eastern Yemen, killing two of them and wounding another in a rare insider attack during the kingdom’s nearly decadelong war there, officials said on Saturday. The assault in eastern Hadramawt Province comes as a yearslong cease-fire between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Houthi rebels largely has held despite the militants’ ongoing attacks against shipping in the Red Sea corridor. While the Houthis did not claim the attack, at least one Houthi official praised it as being “the beginning and an indication of a harsh future awaiting the invaders.” Meanwhile, US warplanes carried out new strikes targeting Houthi positions that lasted into early yesterday morning, the US military said. The strikes come after the militants likely shot down yet another US reconnaissance drone over the country. The attack on the Saudi troops took place on Friday night in Seiyun, a city about 500km east of Sanaa. As troops worked out at a Saudi-led base there, the soldier opened fire, killing an officer and a noncommissioned officer, the state-run Saudi Press Agency said, citing a military statement. “The Joint Forces Command underscores that this ‘Lone Wolf’ cowardly attack does not represent the honorable members of the Yemeni Ministry of Defense,” the statement added.
MEXICO
Gunmen kill 10 people
Gunmen in a truck pulled up to a bar in central Mexico and opened fire, killing 10 people in an area that had been spared the worst of the country’s raging criminal violence, authorities said. The attack on Los Cantaritos bar in Queretaro’s downtown district left 10 people dead inside and at least seven injured, the city’s public security department chief Juan Luis Ferrusca said. “Emergency services arrived at the scene and confirmed that at least four people armed with long weapons had arrived on board a pickup truck,” Ferrusca said in a video on social media. One suspect was detained and the vehicle used in the attack was found abandoned and set on fire, he said, adding that there were no reports of similar incidents in the city. The victims included three women, the Queretaro state prosecutor’s office, which said forensic experts were examining the scene of the attack and the vehicle.
CUBA
Protesters arrested
The government on Saturday said it arrested an unspecified number of people who staged demonstrations when a hurricane left the island without power for the second time in weeks. Street protests are very rare in communist-run Cuba. The prosecutor’s office said those arrested in Havana and the central provinces of Mayabeque and Ciego de Avila were being charged with assault, public disorder and property damage. Hurricane Rafael knocked power out on Wednesday after hitting the west of the Caribbean island of 10 million people as a major Category 3 storm. The blackout lasted two days. It came just two weeks after Hurricane Oscar, which left eight dead in the east of the island during a national electricity blackout caused by the failure of the island’s biggest power plant and a shortage of fuel. The government said that half of the people of Havana now have electricity again, but much of the capital and the neighboring province of Artemisa do not. Those detained after protesting were being held “for acts of aggression against authorities and territorial inspectors, causing injuries and public disturbances,” the prosecutor’s office said.
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
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
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
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