Over 100 feared dead in landslide in remote part of Papua New Guinea, with rescue efforts underway
By: Rod Mcguirk
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — More than 100 people are believed to have been killed in a landslide Friday that buried a village in a remote, mountainous part of Papua New Guinea, and an emergency response is underway, officials in the South Pacific island nation said.
The landslide struck Enga province, about 600 kilometres (370 miles) northwest of the capital, Port Moresby, at roughly 3 a.m., Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported. Residents from surrounding areas said boulders and trees from a collapsed mountainside buried parts of the community and left it isolated.
Residents said that estimates of the death toll were above 100, although authorities haven’t confirmed that figure. Some villagers and local media reports said the number of people killed might be much higher, though they did not cite sources.
The chief of the International Organization for Migration’s mission in Papua New Guinea, Serhan Aktoprak, said the landslide struck Yambali village, which is about two hours’ drive from Enga’s provincial capital of Wabag.
Yambali sits along a road leading from the capital that is now blocked, hampering relief efforts, Aktoprak told The Associated Press.
“The land still continues sliding, therefore it makes it very difficult to operate on,” he said, citing firsthand reports from IOM staff and others deployed from the provincial capital to the affected village.
He said the area affected covered the size of three to four football fields, and that the village is home to 3,895 people. He said that some houses in the village were spared by the landslide, but that the total number of casualties is not yet known.
Russia smashes train tracks in a battered Ukrainian border region where children are being evacuated
By: Illia Novikov
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A nighttime Russian attack destroyed trains and tracks in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, officials said Friday, and authorities organized the evacuation of children from the area as it is being pummelled by the Kremlin’s forces in a powerful new offensive.
The overnight strike on rolling stock and railway tracks also damaged buildings, according to Ukraine’s national railway operator Ukrzaliznytsia. No injuries were reported.
Authorities have evacuated more than 11,000 people from the Kharkiv region since Russia launched an offensive there on May 10, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said. Officials on Friday announced the mandatory evacuation over the next 60 days of 123 orphans and children living without their parents in the area.
Russia’s Kharkiv push appears to be a coordinated new offensive that includes testing Ukrainian defences in the Donetsk region further south, while also launching incursions in the northern Sumy and Chernihiv regions. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the Kremlin’s army is attempting to create a “buffer zone” in the Kharkiv region to prevent Ukrainian cross-border attacks.
Ukraine’s problems have been mounting in recent months as it tries to hold out against its much bigger foe, and the war appears to be at a critical juncture.
The new Russian offensive is stretching thin Ukraine’s depleted ranks, exhausted by more than two years of war. Destroying the train network puts further pressure on the already overstretched Ukrainian army.
More severe weather forecast in Midwest as Iowa residents clean up tornado damage
By: Hannah Fingerhut And Margery A. Beck
GREENFIELD, Iowa (AP) — Storms downed trees and power lines in Iowa early Friday, days after a destructive tornado ripped apart more than 100 homes in one small town, took the lives of four residents and injured at least 35 more.
The National Weather Service’s Quad Cities office in Davenport Iowa, warned Friday morning that people should be ready to shift plans and expect the rapid onset of thunderstorms as a fast-moving line of storms moved east through eastern Iowa and Illinois. The storms brought the threat of large hail and damaging winds with the possibility of embedded tornadoes in the region. More than 50,000 customers were in the dark in Iowa on Friday morning, according to poweroutage.us.
In Oklahoma, a tornado was on the ground for about an hour Thursday evening in Jackson County and neighbouring counties as a slow-moving storm moved through, according to Ryan Bunker, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Norman, Oklahoma, office. A survey team was headed to the area Friday morning and was expected to have more details in the afternoon, he said. News outlets reported downed power lines and outages and damage to some structures in the area.
Along a mile-long path of the tornado in Greenfield, Iowa, on Thursday there was a deafening clamour of heavy equipment scooping up the splintered homes, smashed vehicles and shredded trees. But on either side of that path, picturesque houses and lawns seem untouched, and one might be hard-pressed to believe a twister packing peak winds of 175-185 mph (109-115 kph) had ravaged the community of 2,000.
The havoc spun by Tuesday’s tornado in Greenfield showed on the faces of people still processing how quickly homes and lives were shattered — some in mourning and many grateful to have been spared.
North Korea preps to launch its 2nd spy satellite, South Korean military says
By: Hyung-jin Kim
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea appears to be preparing to launch its second military spy satellite into space, South Korea’s military said Friday, as animosities remain high over the North’s continued weapons tests.
Last November, North Korea placed its first military reconnaissance satellite into orbit as part of its efforts to build a space-based surveillance network to deal with what it calls U.S.-led military threats. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un later told a key governing party meeting that his country would launch three additional military spy satellites in 2024.
On Friday, South Korea’s military told local reporters at a background briefing that it detected signs that North Korea is engaging in activities believed to be preparations to launch a spy satellite at its main Tongchangri launch facility in the northwest. The military said South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities are closely monitoring the North Korean moves.
Philippines says it will forge security alliances and stage combat drills despite China’s opposition
By: Jim Gomez
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippines will continue to build security alliances and stage joint combat drills in disputed waters to defend its territorial interests, Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said Friday, dismissing China’s criticisms of such moves as paranoia.
Teodoro bluntly criticized Beijing’s increasingly aggressive actions in the South China Sea, without citing China by name, in a speech before the military’s top brass at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the Philippine navy’s founding in Manila. The Philippines, he said, would not tolerate aggression and provocative moves.
Since territorial hostilities with China surged last year in the South China Sea, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration has taken steps to forge new security alliances with a number of Asian and Western countries and allowed a U.S. military presence in more Philippine bases under a 2014 defence pact.
In April and May, the Philippine military staged annual live-fire combat exercises with U.S. forces in and near the disputed waters.
China has said such actions by the U.S. and its allies, including the Philippines, were provocative, aimed to contain Beijing and were endangering regional security.
China sends dozens of warplanes and ships near Taiwan to show its anger over island’s new leaders
By: Christopher Bodeen
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan tracked dozens of Chinese warplanes and navy vessels off its coast on Friday, the second day of a large military exercise launched by Beijing to show its anger over the self-governing island’s inauguration of new leaders who refuse to accept its insistence that Taiwan is part of China.
China has issued elaborate media statements showing Taiwan being surrounded by forces from its military, the People’s Liberation Army. A new video on Friday showed animated Chinese forces approaching from all sides and Taiwan being enclosed within a circular target area while simulated missiles hit key population and military targets.
Despite that, there was little sign of concern among Taiwan’s 23 million people, who have lived under threat of Chinese invasion since the two sides split during a civil war in 1949. Taiwan’s parliament was mired on Friday in a dispute between political parties over procedural measures, and business continued as usual in the bustling capital of Taipei and the ports of Keelong and Kaohsiung.
The defence ministry said it tracked 49 Chinese warplanes and 19 navy vessels, as well as coast guard vessels, and that 35 of the planes flew across the median line in the Taiwan Strait, the de facto boundary between the two sides, over a 24-hour period from Thursday to Friday.
Taiwanese marine and coast guard vessels along with air and ground-based missile units have been put on alert, particularly around the Taiwan-controlled island chains of Kinmen and Matsu just off China’s coast and far from Taiwan’s main island.
Iran’s military says Raisi’s helicopter caught fire soon after crash and there was no sign of attack
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — The helicopter carrying Iran’s late President Ebrahim Raisi caught fire soon after it crashed into a mountain and there was no sign it was attacked, state media reported, citing the military’s crash investigators.
The statement from the general staff of the armed forces in charge of investigating the crash was read on state television late Thursday. The first statement on the crash did not lay blame but said more details would come after further investigation.
The crash Sunday killed Raisi, the country’s foreign minister and six other people.
The general staff’s statement said the communications between the control tower and the crew of the helicopter before the crash contained nothing suspicious. It said the last communication of the crashed helicopter was between it and two helicopters accompanying it some 90 seconds before the crash.
There was no sign of anything shot at the helicopter and its flight path did not change, the statement said.
The aging Bell helicopter went down in a foggy, remote mountainous region of Iran’s northwest on Sunday. The crash site was discovered Monday morning with all eight on board dead.
Raisi was buried in a tomb at the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad on Thursday.
A fire in an apartment building in Hanoi, Vietnam, kills 14 people and injures 6
By: Hau Dinh
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — An overnight fire in an apartment building on a narrow alley in Vietnam’s capital killed 14 people and injured six others, state media said Friday.
The apartment building in central Hanoi could only be accessed through an alley just 2 meters (6.5 feet) wide, preventing fire trucks from reaching it, and firefighters eventually contained the fire by using hoses, state media said.
The fire started around 12:30 a.m. and was accompanied by several explosions, the Vietnam News Agency said. It took an hour to extinguish.
State media reported the building had 24 residents at the time, seven in the owner’s family and 17 tenants. The injured are stable and being treated at Hanoi Transport Hospital.
The fire started in the small courtyard in front of the building that was used as a garage for the sale and repair of electric bikes, state media reported.
Pakistan to pay $2.58 million in compensation to families of 5 Chinese who died in suicide bombing
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan will pay $2.58 million in compensation to the families of five Chinese engineers who were killed in March when a suicide bomber targeted the vehicle carrying them in the northwest, the finance ministry said.
The Chinese were attacked in the town of Bisham as they were heading to Dasu Dam, Pakistan’s biggest, where they worked.
The ministry said in a statement Thursday night that the government will also pay $8,950 to the family of the Pakistani driver who also died in the March 26 attack.
The government says the attack was planned in Afghanistan and the bomber was an Afghan citizen. Afghanistan’s Taliban government and Pakistani militants have denied the allegations.
The compensation was approved at a meeting led by Finance Minister Mohammad Aurangzeb, the statement said.
Thousands of Chinese are working on projects related to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Some have been attacked in recent years by militants who accuse them of plundering mineral resources.
Extreme weather. A lack of lifesaving vaccines. Africa’s cholera crisis is worse than ever
By Sebabatso Mosamo, Farai Mutsaka And Gerald Imray
LILANDA, Zambia (AP) — Extreme weather events have hit parts of Africa relentlessly in the last three years, with tropical storms, floods and drought causing crises of hunger and displacement. They leave another deadly threat behind them: some of the continent’s worst outbreaks of cholera.
In southern and East Africa, more than 6,000 people have died and nearly 350,000 cases have been reported since a series of cholera outbreaks began in late 2021.
Malawi and Zambia have had their worst outbreaks on record. Zimbabwe has had multiple waves. Mozambique, Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia also have been badly affected.
All have experienced floods or drought — in some cases, both — and health authorities, scientists and aid agencies say the unprecedented surge of the water-borne bacterial infection in Africa is the newest example of how extreme weather is playing a role in driving disease outbreaks.
“The outbreaks are getting much larger because the extreme climate events are getting much more common,” said Tulio de Oliveira, a South Africa-based scientist who studies diseases in the developing world.
De Oliveira, who led a team that identified new coronavirus variants during the COVID-19 pandemic, said southern Africa’s latest outbreaks can be traced to the cyclones and floods that hit Malawi in late 2021 and early 2022, carrying the cholera bacteria to areas it doesn’t normally reach.
Trump swaps bluster for silence, and possibly sleep, in his hush money trial
By Jill Colvin
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump isn’t known for letting slights pass.
Yet for weeks, the famously combative presumptive Republican nominee has sat silently — to the point of sometimes seeming asleep — in a sterile Manhattan courtroom amid a barrage of accusations and insults.
There were the times his former fixer-turned-chief prosecution witness was quoted calling him a “boorish cartoon misogynist” and a “Cheeto-dusted” villain who belonged in a “cage, like an animal.” There were the graphic details relayed by a porn actor about the night she claims they had sex. And there were lengthy descriptions of what the prosecution argues was an illegal scheme to conceal hush money payments to salvage his then-flailing 2016 campaign.
Through it all, even as he and his allies attacked the case outside the courtroom, Trump has spent the majority of his time as a criminal defendant sitting nearly motionless for hours, leaning back in his burgundy leather chair with his eyes closed. He ultimately chose not to testify in a case that made him the first former president in the nation’s history to stand trial on criminal charges.
Closing arguments in the case are scheduled for Tuesday, after which a jury will decide whether to make him the first former president and major party nominee convicted of felony charges.
Trump’s demeanor inside the courtroom has been a notable departure from the fight-at-all-costs persona that has defined him through decades of public life, fueling his transformation from a New York tabloid fixture to a onetime – and possible future – president.
Young missionary couple from US among 3 killed by gunmen in Haiti’s capital, police say
By Dánica Coto And Evens Sanon
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A U.S. missionary couple was shot and killed by criminal gang members in Haiti’s capital after they were abducted while leaving a youth group activity held at a local church, according to a police official and a religious group.
A third person also was killed during the attack Thursday evening in the community of Lizon in northern Port-au-Prince, Lionel Lazarre, head of a Haitian police union, told The Associated Press on Friday.
The slayings occurred as the capital crumbles under the relentless assault of violent gangs that control 80% of Port-au-Prince while authorities await the arrival of a police force from Kenya as part of a U.N.-backed deployment aimed at quelling gang violence in the troubled Caribbean country.
