Other News

Drone attack on Russian airport near Estonia border: official

MOSCOW, Aug 30, 2023 (AFP) – A Russian airport near the border with Estonia came under drone attack, the local governor said on Wednesday, with reports that planes were damaged. Regional governor Mikhail Vedernikov, who said he was at the scene of the attack, posted a video on Telegram of a massive fire, with the sounds of explosions and sirens in the background. A drone attack “has been repelled in Pskov airport,” Vedernikov wrote, adding […]

Hurricane Idalia poses grave threat to Florida with 15-foot storm surge and potential catastrophic devastation

STEINHATCHEE, United States, Aug 29, 2023 (AFP) – Hurricane Idalia intensified Tuesday as it churned toward the west coast of Florida, triggering mass evacuation orders and flood alerts as authorities warned of life-threatening ocean surge and catastrophic destruction when the storm rages ashore early Wednesday. The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Idalia, which earlier raked western Cuba, had strengthened to a Category 2 storm with winds of 100 miles (161 kilometers) per hour, and […]

Australian doctors find live parasitic worm in woman’s brain

SYDNEY, Aug 29, 2023 (AFP) – A parasitic roundworm typically found in snakes was pulled “alive and wriggling” from a woman’s brain in a stomach-churning medical first, Australian doctors said Tuesday. Baffled doctors performed an MRI scan on the 64-year-old Australian woman after she began suffering memory lapses, noticing an “atypical lesion” at the front of her brain. It was an eight-centimetre (three-inch) roundworm, called Ophidascaris robertsi, which researchers said was a common parasite in […]

China warns US against ‘disastrous’ trade curbs

BEIJING, Aug 29, 2023 (AFP) – China’s premier warned US officials Tuesday that moves to “politicise” trade issues would prove “disastrous” for the global economy, state media reported. US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is currently on a four-day bridge-building visit to China aimed at better managing tensions between the world’s two largest economies. But a meeting with Premier Li Qiang Tuesday saw the top official lay into American trade curbs against Beijing, which Washington insists […]

Greece blaze is ‘largest wildfire ever recorded in EU’

BRUSSELS, Aug 29, 2023 (AFP) – A forest blaze in Greece is “the largest wildfire ever recorded in the EU” and the bloc is mobilising nearly half its firefighting air wing to tackle it, a European Commission spokesman said Tuesday. Eleven planes and one helicopter from the EU fleet have been sent to help Greece counter the fire north of the city of Alexandroupoli, along with 407 firefighters, spokesman Balazs Ujvari said. The EU’s civil […]

Meta fights sprawling Chinese ‘Spamouflage’ operation

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 29, 2023 (AFP) – Meta on Tuesday said it purged thousands of Facebook accounts that were part of a widespread online Chinese spam operation trying to covertly boost China and criticize the West. The campaign, which became known as “Spamouflage”, was active across more than 50 platforms and forums including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and X, formerly known as Twitter, according to a Meta threat report. “We assess that it’s the largest, […]

Russia charges US embassy ‘informant’ on Ukraine

MOSCOW, Aug 28, 2023 (AFP) – Russia on Monday accused a former US consulate employee of illegally passing data about the Ukraine conflict to American diplomats, drawing a protest from Washington which has called his activities routine. The Russian Security Service (FSB) also announced it was seeking to question two US diplomats at the embassy in Moscow over the case, in a break from diplomatic tradition. The announcement is the latest in a series of […]

Three dead after FSB helicopter crash in Russia

MOSCOW, Aug 29, 2023 (AFP) – An FSB security services helicopter crashed Tuesday in central Russia leaving three people dead, regional officials said. The MI-8 helicopter went down near the village of Krasnoe Pole in the Chelyabinsk region, the governor said without indicating a cause for the incident. “According to preliminary information, three people died,” governor Aleksei Teksler said on social media. There was no damage to buildings or individuals on the ground, he added […]

Florida orders evacuations ahead of ‘extremely dangerous’ Idalia

GAINESVILLE , United States, Aug 29, 2023 (AFP) – Residents along Florida’s west coast were under orders to evacuate Tuesday ahead of Hurricane Idalia’s arrival, as forecasters said the storm was strengthening over an exceptionally warm Gulf of Mexico and would likely become “extremely dangerous” before landfall. Idalia, which the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said had become a Category 1 hurricane overnight, was churning Tuesday morning hundreds of miles off Florida’s southwest, and bringing […]

Ukraine says advancing on southern front near Robotyne

KYIV, Ukraine, Aug 29, 2023 (AFP) – Ukraine said Tuesday that its forces had pushed deeper into Russian defensive lines near the village of Robotyne, a day after claiming control over the village on the southern front. Kyiv also ordered children to be evacuated from five settlements near the focus of their assault, as Russia claimed to have repelled Ukrainian forces. Kyiv launched a grinding counteroffensive in June after stockpiling Western-supplied weapons and building up […]

Signal No. 4 hoisted over northeastern portion of Babuyan Islands; Typhoon “Goring” slightly intensifies

(Eagle News)–Signal No. 4 has been raised over the northeastern portion of Babuyan Islands as Typhoon “Goring” slightly intensified on Tuesday. The Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration said the following, meanwhile, are under tropical cyclone wind signal no. 3: Southern portion of Batanes (Sabtang, Uyugan, Ivana, Mahatao, Basco) The rest of Babuyan Islands These areas are under Signal No. 2, the weather bureau said: Northeastern portion of mainland Cagayan (Santa Ana, Gonzaga, Santa […]