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HANOI, Jan 22, 2024 (AFP) – Vietnam sentenced nine people to death and two others to life in prison on Monday for their involvement in a cross-border drug trafficking ring, state media reported. The Southeast Asian country has some of the world’s toughest drug laws, and is notoriously secretive about its executions. At the end of a three-day trial, a court in central Nghe An province sentenced ringleader Tran Thi Mau, 56, and eight accomplices […]
SINGAPORE, Jan 22, 2024 (AFP) – South Korean entrepreneur Do Kwon’s Terraform Labs, whose cryptocurrencies crashed dramatically in 2022, is seeking bankruptcy protection in the United States, according to court documents filed Sunday. The collapse of the Singapore-based firm’s TerraUSD and Luna wiped out around $40 billion in investments and caused wider losses in the global crypto market estimated at more than $400 billion. Kwon, who co-founded Terraform in 2018, was arrested last year in […]
TAIPEI, Jan 22, 2024 (AFP) – A record six Chinese balloons were detected around Taiwan, with one flying directly above the island, Taipei’s defence ministry said Monday. Five were seen near the northern coastal city of Keelung while one flew above the island near southern Pingtung county, a map released by the ministry showed. The defence ministry, which releases daily data on China’s military presence around Taiwan, said the balloons were all spotted on Sunday […]
BANGKOK, Jan 22, 2024 (AFP) – Thailand has backtracked on an announcement that it found millions of tonnes of lithium deposits last week, with the government downgrading the scope of its discovery. On Friday, Bangkok announced it had found nearly 15 tonnes of lithium deposits at two sites in the southern province of Phang Nga, which would have ranked its reserves third in the world. But officials had instead discovered 14.8 million tonnes of mineral […]
BEIJING, Jan 22, 2024 (AFP) – Forty-seven people were buried in a landslide in China’s southwestern Yunnan province on Monday, state media reported. The landslide took place at 5:51 am (2151 GMT Sunday) in Zhenxiong County, state news agency Xinhua reported, citing local authorities. State broadcaster CCTV said around 18 households were buried in the landslide, and that more than 200 people were “urgently evacuated” from the area. Authorities have launched an emergency response involving […]
By Jing Xuan TENG YANSHANPU, China, Jan 21, 2024 (AFP) – Authorities in central China’s Henan Province were on Sunday looking into the cause of a night-time fire that killed 13 schoolchildren as they slept in a dormitory. The inferno, which took place at the Yingcai School in Yanshanpu village, was reported to the local fire department at 11:00 pm (1500 GMT) on Friday and was put out around 40 minutes later, official news agency […]
SEOUL, Jan 21, 2024 (AFP) – North Korea’s top diplomat said her country is “ready to greet” Russian President Vladimir Putin, state media reported Sunday, in the latest sign of deepening ties between the two authoritarian states. Traditional allies Russia and North Korea have recently boosted ties, with Pyongyang’s leader Kim Jong Un making a rare overseas trip to meet Putin in Russia’s Far East last September. The West has accused Moscow and Pyongyang of […]
MANILA, Jan 19, 2024 (AFP) – At least seven people were killed when a landslide hit a house in the southern Philippines on Thursday, a disaster official said, with the death toll expected to rise. The incident happened in the morning in a mountainous gold mining region of Davao de Oro province on Mindanao island, where heavy rain has triggered flooding and landslides this week. A family of eight — including six children — had […]
SEOUL, Jan 19, 2024 (AFP) – North Korea said Friday that it had tested an “underwater nuclear weapon system” in response to joint naval exercises by Washington, Seoul and Tokyo that involved a US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. The drills were “seriously threatening the security” of the North, so in response, Pyongyang “conducted an important test of its underwater nuclear weapon system ‘Haeil-5-23’ under development in the East Sea of Korea,” according to a statement from […]
TEHRAN, Jan 18, 2024 (AFP) – At least three women and four children were killed on Thursday in a missile attack by Pakistan on Iran’s southeast border region, Iranian state media reported. “Pakistan attacked an Iranian border village with missiles,” state television said, quoting Alireza Marhamati, deputy provincial governor of Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan province. “Three women and four children children were killed in this incident. All non-Iranian nationals,” he added. The attack targeted a village near […]
BEIJING, Jan 18, 2024 (AFP) – Chinese and Philippine officials have agreed on the need for closer dialogue to deal with “maritime emergencies” in the South China Sea, including in the hotly contested Second Thomas Shoal, Beijing said. Manila and Beijing have a long history of maritime territorial disputes in the waterway, but relations sharply deteriorated recently over a series of incidents involving vessels from both countries. Confrontations were among their most intense around the […]
TAIPEI, Jan 18, 2024 (AFP) – More than 20 Chinese warplanes were detected around Taiwan, with 11 crossing a sensitive median line separating the self-ruled island from China, Taipei’s defence ministry said Thursday, the first significant show of force since the weekend’s presidential election. The ministry, which releases data daily on the Chinese military presence around Taiwan, said Thursday that 24 warplanes and 5 ships had been detected in the 24 hours leading up to […]
