Race to find dozens trapped in southwest China landslide

This picture taken on January 22, 2024 shows Chinese military police and rescue workers searching for missing victims at a landslide site in Liangshui village in Zhaotong, in southwestern China's Yunnan province. (AFP)
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Updated 23 January 2024
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Race to find dozens trapped in southwest China landslide

  • Landslide buried 18 homes and sparked evacuation of over 200 people when it struck in Zhenxiong County
  • Landslides are common in Yunnan, a remote impoverished region of China with steep mountain ranges 

Rescuers raced Tuesday to find dozens of people still trapped after a landslide struck a remote and mountainous part of southwestern China, killing 11.

The pre-dawn landslide buried 18 homes and sparked the evacuation of more than 200 people when it struck in Zhenxiong County, Yunnan province early Monday.

State news agency Xinhua said rescue workers are now in a “race against time” to find those missing after a night of sub-zero temperatures.

“Search and rescue efforts persisted through the night,” firefighter Li Shenglong told Xinhua.

The agency quoted Wu Junyao, director of the natural resources and planning bureau of Zhaotong, as saying the disaster “resulted from a collapse in the steep cliff area atop the slope.”

Two hundred rescue workers have been dispatched to the scene as well as dozens of fire engines and other equipment.

The rescue site is covered in thick snow and rescuers are “using all kinds of tools to search for survivors,” Xinhua reported.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered “all-out” rescue efforts.

Landslides are common in Yunnan, a far-flung and largely impoverished region of China where steep mountain ranges butt against the Himalayan plateau.

Monday’s disaster occurred in a rural area surrounded by towering peaks dusted with snow, state media footage showed.

There was no immediate official explanation for what may have caused the landslide.

Efforts to establish what happened are underway, Xinhua reported.

China has experienced a string of natural disasters in recent months, some following extreme weather events such as sudden, heavy downpours.

Rainstorms last September in the southern region of Guangxi triggered a mountain landslide that killed at least seven people, according to media reports.

In August, heavy rains sparked a similar disaster near the northern city of Xi’an, killing more than 20 people.


Brazil’s president accuses Israel of ‘premeditated genocide’ in Gaza

Updated 2 sec ago
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Brazil’s president accuses Israel of ‘premeditated genocide’ in Gaza

“It’s a premeditated genocide from a far-right government,” da Silva said

PARIS: Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Thursday during a trip to Paris accused Israel of carrying out “premeditated genocide” in the Palestinian territory of Gaza.

“It’s a premeditated genocide from a far-right government that is waging a war against the interests of its own people,” he said at a joint press conference with France’s President Emmanuel Macron.

While Lula has previously used the term “genocide,” Macron has refused to, saying last month it was not for a “political leader to use to term but up to historians to do so when the time comes.”

Detained Greenpeace activists to face judge over Macron waxwork

Updated 05 June 2025
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Detained Greenpeace activists to face judge over Macron waxwork

  • Activists stole a 40,000-euro statue of Macron and placed it in front of the Russian embassy and later outside the headquarters of French electricity giant EDF to protest France’s economic ties with Russia

PARIS: Two Greenpeace activists who stole French President Emmanuel Macron’s waxwork from a Paris museum to stage anti-Russia protests have been detained and were set to appear before an investigating judge on Thursday, their lawyer and prosecutors said.

On Monday, several activists stole a 40,000-euro statue of Macron from the Grevin Museum and placed it in front of the Russian embassy and later outside the headquarters of French electricity giant EDF to protest France’s economic ties with Russia.

The statue, estimated to be worth 40,000 euros ($45,500), was returned to police on Tuesday night but two activists, a man and a woman, were detained on Monday, their lawyer Marie Dose said.

Jean-François Julliard, head of Greenpeace France, said that the detained pair were people who drove a truck during the protest in front of the Russian embassy, and not those who “borrowed” the statue from the museum.

“They have spent three nights in a cell,” said Dose, denouncing the detention as “completely disproportionate.”

The lawyer denounced the “deplorable” conditions in which the two activists were being held, “attached to benches for hours and dragged from police station to police station.”

One activist spent the night without a blanket and was unable to lie down because her cell was too small, the lawyer said.

“The other had to sleep on the floor because there were too many people in the cell,” she added.

“This treatment is worrying for Greenpeace activists and raises the question of a dangerous shift in the criminal response to acts of civil disobedience,” she said.

The pair will appear before an investigating magistrate on Thursday as part of a judicial inquiry into the “theft of a cultural object on display,” the Paris prosecutor’s office told AFP.

The judge will decide whether to charge them.

The lawyer argued that “no harm resulted from the non-violent action,” arguing that “all offenses” ceased to exist once the statue has been returned to the museum.

The Grevin Museum filed a complaint on Monday but subsequently took the matter in good humor. “The figures can only be viewed on site,” it said on its Instagram feed.

The activists managed to slip out through an emergency exit of the museum by posing as maintenance workers.


Suspect in murder of Tunisian man to appear before French judge: prosecutors

Updated 05 June 2025
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Suspect in murder of Tunisian man to appear before French judge: prosecutors

PARIS: A Frenchman accused of murdering his Tunisian neighbor in the south of France will appear before an anti-terrorism judge on Thursday, the national anti-terror prosecutor’s office said.

Christophe B. is accused of killing Hichem Miraoui in an attack Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau described as both “racist” and “anti-Muslim.”

Anti-terrorism prosecutors have taken over the case, the first time a far-right racist attack has been treated as a “terrorist” offense since the unit was created in 2019.


Russia to repair warplanes damaged by Ukraine’s drones

Updated 05 June 2025
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Russia to repair warplanes damaged by Ukraine’s drones

  • Ukrainian strikes targeted airfields in Siberia and the far north where Russia houses heavy bombers that form part of its strategic nuclear forces
  • Commercial satellite images showed what appeared to be damaged Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers and Tu-22 Backfire long-range bombers

MOSCOW: Russian warplanes were damaged but not destroyed in a June 1 attack by Ukraine, and they will be restored, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said.

Ukrainian strikes targeted airfields in Siberia and the far north where Russia houses heavy bombers that form part of its strategic nuclear forces.

The United States assesses that up to 20 warplanes were hit and around 10 were destroyed, two US officials said, a figure that is about half the number estimated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

But Ryabkov, who oversees arms control diplomacy, told state news agency TASS: “The equipment in question, as was also stated by representatives of the Ministry of Defense, was not destroyed but damaged. It will be restored.”

It was not immediately clear how swiftly Russia could repair or replace the damaged aircraft – if at all – given the complexity of the technology, the age of some of the Soviet-era planes, and Western sanctions that restrict Russian imports of sensitive components.

Commercial satellite imagery taken after the Ukrainian drone attack shows what experts said appear to be damaged Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers and Tu-22 Backfire long-range bombers that Russia has used to launch missile strikes against Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told US President Donald Trump in a telephone conversation on Wednesday that Moscow would have to respond to the attacks, Trump said.

Russia has an estimated fleet of 67 strategic bombers, including 52 Tu-95s, known as Bear-H by NATO, and 15 Tu-160s, known as Blackjacks, of which about 58 are thought to be deployed, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

In addition, it has 289 non-strategic fighters and bombers, including Tu-22s, Su-24s, Su-34s and MiG-31s, according to the Bulletin. Russia has given no detail about which aircraft were damaged but said that Ukraine targeted five air bases.


Philippines, US hold joint maritime drills for seventh time

Updated 05 June 2025
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Philippines, US hold joint maritime drills for seventh time

  • The exercises included joint operations near shorelines as well as fire support
  • The joint sail also showcased the Philippine vessel Miguel Malvar, a 118-meter guided missile frigate commissioned last month

MANILA: The Philippines and United States militaries have sailed together in the South China Sea for a seventh time to boost interoperability between the two sides, Manila’s armed forces said on Thursday.
The exercises, held on Wednesday in waters off the provinces of Occidental Mindoro and Zambales and away from contested features, included joint operations near shorelines as well as fire support.
“The MCA (maritime cooperative activity) is a demonstration of both nations’ resolve to deepen cooperation and enhance interoperability in line with international law,” the Philippine armed forces said in a statement.
The joint sail also showcased the Philippine vessel Miguel Malvar, a 118-meter guided missile frigate commissioned last month. It is one of two corvettes built by South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries under the Philippines’ military modernization program.
Military engagements between the treaty allies have soared under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who has pivoted closer to Washington in response to China’s growing presence in the South China Sea.
China claims sovereignty over nearly all the South China Sea, including parts of the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.