MANILA, Sept 30, 2023 (AFP) – A cat wearing a black-and-yellow security vest strolls nonchalantly past security guards lined outside a Philippine office building waiting to receive instructions for their shift. Conan, a six-month-old stray, joined the security team of the Worldwide Corporate Center in the capital Manila several months ago. He is one of the lucky moggies unofficially adopted by security guards across the city, where thousands of cats live on the street. While […]
Asia
Malaysia blames Indonesian fires for haze, poor air quality
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 30, 2023 (AFP) – Hundreds of forest fires in Indonesia have caused haze to reach areas of Malaysia where it has worsened air quality, Kuala Lumpur’s top environment official has said. Outbreaks of smog-belching forest fires in 2019 caused Malaysia to say it would pressure Indonesia to combat the annual problem, which is often caused by blazes lit to clear agricultural land. Malaysia’s Department of Environment director-general Wan Abdul Latiff Wan […]
Embracing extraordinary times! Eagle News International – September 30, 2023
Philippines vows to remove future barriers at disputed reef
By Faith Brown and Cecil Morella MANILA, Sept 29, 2023 (AFP) – The Philippine Coast Guard vowed Friday to “do whatever it takes” to remove any more floating barriers installed by China at a disputed reef in the South China Sea. The remarks came after an aerial inspection of Scarborough Shoal on Thursday confirmed a 300 metre (328-yard) barrier that ignited the latest diplomatic row between Beijing and Manila had been taken away. AFP journalists […]
More than 50 killed, dozens wounded in Pakistan blasts
QUETTA, Pakistan, Sept 29, 2023 (AFP) – More than 50 people were killed and dozens more wounded in Pakistan’s Balochistan province on Friday by a suicide bomber targeting a procession marking the birthday of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed, officials said. A second suicide attack by two men at a mosque hundreds of kilometres north in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province led to a roof collapse that killed four people, officials said. While the celebration of the Prophet’s birthday […]
Zookeeper dies after apparent lion attack in Japan
TOKYO, Sept 29, 2023 (AFP) – A zookeeper at a Japanese safari park died after a lion apparently attacked him as he tried to bring the animal to its cage, police said Friday. Kenichi Kato, a 53-year-old worker at Tohoku Safari Park in the Fukushima region, was found bleeding from his neck and unconscious inside the lion’s cage Thursday afternoon, a local police spokesman told AFP. “It is believed that he was feeding a lion,” […]
Second round of Fukushima wastewater release to start next week
TOKYO, Sept 29, 2023 (AFP) – Japan will begin releasing a second batch of wastewater from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant from next week, its operator has said, an exercise that angered China and others when it began in August. On August 24, Japan began discharging into the Pacific some of the 1.34 million tonnes of wastewater that has collected since a tsunami crippled the facility in 2011. “The inspections following the first release have […]
Hong Kong police step up surveillance to ‘tame’ activists
By Xinqi SU HONG KONG, Sept 29, 2023 (AFP) – Hong Kong unionist Joe Wong had applied for permission to hold a Labour Day march, but cancelled his request to police in an abrupt U-turn after he briefly went missing. He cannot reveal what led to the change of heart, a result of a confidentiality clause in a sweeping national security law Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in 2020 to quell dissent. Three years after […]
Embracing extraordinary times! ASEAN in Focus – September 28, 2023
‘Without hope’: crackdown rattles Afghans in Pakistan
By Susannah Walden and Ashraf Khan KARACHI, Sept 28, 2023 (AFP) – The cow had been slaughtered and bags of rice purchased but young bride Wahida’s nuptials were cut short when her groom was arrested on their wedding day, one of hundreds caught in a recent crackdown on Afghans living in Pakistan. The 20-year-old now lives with her in-laws at the Afghan Muhajir aid camp in the port mega-city of Karachi but without her husband-to-be, […]
100 killed in Iraq wedding fire tragedy
By Zaid AL-OBEIDI At least 100 people were killed and more than 150 injured when a fire broke out during a wedding at an event hall in the northern Iraqi town of Qaraqosh, officials said early Wednesday. At the main hospital in the predominantly Christian town east of Mosul, an AFP photographer saw ambulances arriving with sirens blaring and dozens of people gathering in the courtyard to donate blood. Others could be seen gathering in […]