https://arab.news/m59j2
PHNOM PENH: The death toll from a fire at a Cambodian hotel-casino near the border with Thailand has risen to at least 19, a Cambodian official said Thursday.
“There are 19 dead so far as we see bodies and bones,” said Sek Sokhom, director of the Banteay Meanchey provincial information department, warning “the dead figure could be higher” as rescue teams have not reached many parts of the complex.
A massive fire that lasted more than 12 hours in a Cambodian hotel casino also injured about 50, while other victims were apparently not yet accounted for Thursday, as neighboring Thailand sent firetrucks to help fight the blaze in a bustling border town.
Videos posted on social media showed people falling from a roof after they were trapped by the fire at the Grand Diamond City casino and hotel in the border town of Poipet. Many of those inside, both customers and staff, were from neighboring Thailand.
In a video posted by Cambodia’s firefighting agency, onlookers could be heard shouting pleas to rescue people trapped on the roof of the hotel complex, which is more than a dozen stories tall at its highest point. The video showed at least one man falling as the flames reached the roof.
“Oh, please help rescue them. Pump water… pump water,” shouted the onlookers.
The Department of Fire Prevention, Extinguishing and Rescue posted that calls for help were heard from the 13th, 14th and 15th floors at 4 a.m. and hands were seen waving from windows as well as a mobile phone’s flashlight signaling from inside the complex.
“The fire was massive, and was inside the casino, so it was difficult for our water cannons to reach it,” observed a firefighter on the video posted online by the fire department. He said that was the reason the fire continued burning for such a long time.
The blaze, which started around midnight Wednesday, was finally put out at 2 p.m. Thursday, said Sek Sokhom, head of Banteay Meanchey’s information department. He said a local Buddhist temple was being prepared to receive the dead.
The province’s deputy governor, Ngor Meng Chroun, told Cambodia’s Bayon Radio the death toll had reached 16, with about 50 other people injured. The number of deaths appeared likely to rise, as more bodies of those trapped inside were discovered and critically hurt people succumbed to their injuries.
Banteay Meanchey police chief Sithi Loh said 360 emergency personnel and 11 firetrucks had been sent to the scene of the fire, whose cause was not yet known. The casino employed about 400 workers.
“Right now, we are trying to bring the dead bodies from the building down. I don’t think there will be any survivors because of very thick smoke. Even we all (the rescue staff) have to wear proper gear when we go inside the building, otherwise we cannot breathe at all,” said Montri Khaosa-ard, a staff member of Thailand Ruamkatanyu Foundation, a social welfare organization that sends volunteers to the sites of emergencies.
Thai and Cambodia rescue teams worked side-by-side in Thursday’s search of the badly burned premises.
Thailand’s public television network, Thai PBS, reported that 50 Thais, both staff and customers, had been trapped inside the casino complex. It reported that Cambodian authorities requested help to deal with the fire from Thailand, which sent five firetrucks and 10 rescue vans.
Poipet in western Cambodia is opposite the city of Aranyaprathet in more affluent Thailand, and there is busy cross-border trade and tourism.
Thai PBS cited reports that Aranyaprathet Hospital’s emergency ward was full and other victims had to be sent to other hospitals.
Casinos are illegal in Thailand, but neighboring countries such as Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos host the lucrative industry. Cambodia has an especially active casino industry because the Southeast Asian country is also a popular tourist destination with convenient international connections.
The Grand Diamond City casino is just a few meters from the border checkpoint with Thailand and popular with customers who make the four-hour drive from the Thai capital, Bangkok.
MANILA: Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said China has agreed to discuss fishing rights in the South China Sea, as he pushed for a “direct communication line” with Beijing on maritime differences.
China has agreed to “sit down” and talk about Filipinos’ fishing rights in the South China Sea, Marcos said, adding he has asked the Philippine Coast Guard and the Department of Foreign Affairs “to put together…a map of these fishing grounds” that will be presented to Beijing.
In remarks made to reporters while on board a plane to Washington, Marcos also said a Philippines-China “direct communication line” must be finally adopted, when asked about his thoughts on a recent maritime confrontation between the two countries.
“The overall priority is to safeguard our maritime territory,” he said, in remarks issued by his office.
The Chinese embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Philippines accused China’s coast guard on Friday of “aggressive tactics” following a recent incident during a Philippine coast guard patrol close to the Philippines-held Second Thomas Shoal, a flashpoint for previous altercations located 195km off its coast.
The United States has urged China to stop harassing Philippine vessels in the South China Sea, while Beijing said it was willing to handle maritime differences with countries of concern through friendly consultations, while warning Washington against interference.
“This is the kind of thing that… we’re hoping to avoid, that this time it was a little more dangerous because they were close,” Marcos said. “That can cause casualties on both sides.”
China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea, with a “nine-dash line” on maps that stretches more than 1,500km off its mainland and cuts into the exclusive economic zones of Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia. An international arbitral ruling in 2016 dismissed that line as having no legal basis.
ASUNCION : Paraguay’s ruling candidate Santiago Pena, 44, scored a big win in the country’s presidential election on Sunday, tightening the conservative Colorado Party’s political grip in the country and defusing fears about the end of diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
Pena, who has pledged to maintain Paraguay’s long-standing Taiwan relations, had 42.7 percent of the vote with over 99 percent of ballots counted, a more than 15-point lead over center-left rival Efrain Alegre, who has argued for switching allegiance to China.
“Thank you for this Colorado victory, thank you for this Paraguayan victory,” Pena said in a speech. Alegre acknowledged the result. Current President Mario Abdo congratulated Pena as “president-elect,” as did the leaders of Brazil and Argentina.
Colorado and right-wing party candidates also performed strongly in congressional elections and governor races, with some provinces recording a historic Colorado majority over opposition rivals.
The election result leaves Pena facing a challenge to rev up Paraguay’s farm-driven economy, shrink a major fiscal deficit and navigate rising pressures from soy and beef producers to ditch Taiwan in favor of China and its huge markets.
“We have a lot to do, after the last years of economic stagnation, of fiscal deficit, the task that awaits us is not for a single person or for a party,” Pena said in his victory speech, calling for “unity and consensus.”
It also underscores the dominance of the Colorado Party, which has ruled for all by five of the last 75 years and has a fierce campaign machine, despite rising discontent from some voters over the slowing economy and corruption allegations.
“Once a Colorado always a Colorado,” said Eugenio Senturion, 65, as he voted on Sunday at his local polling station in the area of Jara, Asuncion.
Dry weather helped voter turn-out, analysts said, with queues to cast ballots long after polling stations were formally meant to close at 4 p.m. (2000 GMT).
“All day we’ve observed high levels of participation,” an observer for the Organization of American States (OAS) electoral mission said.
Not all voters were happy, however, reflected in a larger-than-expected share for populist Paraguayo Cubas who had almost 23 percent of the vote in third place, reflecting wider support for anti-establishment candidates around Latin America.
“I’m worried about crime. All the candidates are the same for me,” said 34-year-old mother of three, Maria Jose Rodas, as a busload of voters arrived at the inner-city polling station. “Nothing will change.”
At the Mariscal Francisco Solano López school in the capital Asuncion, Ramona Oddone was one of the first in line to cast her ballot and was hopeful for a new direction.
“Look at all the young people taking part — that shows people want change,” the 79-year-old retired schoolteacher told Reuters. “They need jobs and I need a better pension.”
The Colorado Party has dominated politics in the landlocked South American country since the 1950s. But its popularity has been hit by a slowing economy and graft allegations.
The build-up to the election has been dominated by the economy, corruption allegations and the candidates’ views on Taiwan. Paraguay is one of only 13 nations to maintain formal diplomatic ties with the democratically governed island that China views as its territory.
Taiwan’s ambassador in Asuncion offered his congratulations to Pena on behalf of President Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
“Based on shared values such as democracy and freedom and the traditional friendship between the two countries, our country will continue to deepen cooperation and exchanges with the new government of Paraguay,” the ministry said.
Alegre had criticized those ties, which have made it hard to sell soy and beef to China, a major global buyer. Pena had said he would maintain ties with Taiwan.
Alegre on Sunday warned of reports of voter obstruction in the north of the country and said he would not “give in” to attempts to prevent citizen participation.
Fiorella Moreno, 23, who sells ice cream, felt that none of the candidates offered hope to her generation.
“I didn’t want to vote, I feel everything is in decline,” she said. “But not voting makes me part of the problem.”
LONDON: Two doctors employed by the UK’s National Health Service said they missed the last flight out of Khartoum on Saturday because it was too dangerous to travel, and accused the UK of not giving them enough support.
Sudanese Irish doctor Mustafa Abbas, 44, and his 38-year-old Sudanese British wife Sarra Eljak are currently in Wad Madani, 220 km south of the capital, with their four children: Danya, 12, Menna, 11, Anne, seven, and Mohammed, six months. They are over 800 km from Port Sudan, from where they hope to catch a ship to Saudi Arabia.
Eljak told PA Media: “It’s extremely dangerous to reach the evacuation site (in Khartoum) and the area is still experiencing attacks.
“I can’t take this risk with my children. They (the UK government) should consider people with families. I don’t want to put my kids’ life in danger. I feel like we have been left without support.”
Eljak, from Slough in southeast England, said she had concerns about the “very long journey” to Port Sudan with her young children in tow.
“I came with my six-month-old baby who was born premature. He takes a certain type of formula milk and now I run out of this. This place where I’m staying right now, there is a pandemic of malaria.”
Abbas added: “As a father, it’s really difficult. Every minute of every day, (the children) ask you when we are going to leave. They say, ‘we are homesick, we miss our friends,’ and it’s difficult to give them any answers.
“The big countries are just leaving the military and militia to fight and kill innocent people. At the end of the day, we are all human and we should look after each other.”
The couple and their children were in Sudan to see out the holy month of Ramadan with family in Khartoum. They planned to leave on April 24 after celebrating Eid Al-Fitr.
Fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces broke out in the capital and elsewhere on April 15, forcing the family to flee to Wad Madani.
“All of a sudden, we just woke up hearing shooting guns and military helicopters everywhere,” Eljak told the Guardian. “Our front door was shot at and we found the bullets inside the house. At any point you have the sense that you are going to lose one of your family members.”
Eljak said she was worried about the effect the situation was having on her family.
“If they (the children) hear the bang of a closing door, they scream. They all went through different panic attacks. My oldest girl, Danya, refused to eat and drink for four days.
“Every one of my kids are saying if they arrive in the UK safely, they will never come back to Sudan. This makes a tear in my heart.”
LONDON: An Australian man captured on CCTV allegedly spitting in the face of an imam in Indonesia could spend more than one year in jail.
Footage purportedly of Brenton Craig Abbas Abdullah McArthur has gone viral on social media in the country. It shows him walking up to Basri Anwar, an imam at a mosque in Bandung, and engaging him in conversation before appearing to spit at him.
Anwar is then seen to run away while McArthur, wearing a baseball cap, leaves the mosque.
Police said McArthur, originally from Perth, Western Australia, and whose visa had expired, was tracked to Soekarno-Hatta Airport, where he was arrested attempting to board a flight home.
Budi Sartono, chief of Bandung’s local police, said: “We immediately asked immigration to stop him and cancel him from leaving the country.
“We immediately picked him up at the airport and took him to Bandung police station for interrogation.”
Kumparan, a local media website, said McArthur, who was accompanied to the police station by Australian consular officials, had been charged under laws relating to carrying out “unpleasant acts and insults,” which carry up to 14 months in jail.
On Instagram, he denied any wrongdoing, claiming he had been the victim of racism.
McArthur said: “Stop crying all your racist tears. I am a Muslim, and this is just racist, threatening a bule (Indonesian term for a foreigner) and laughing being a coward.”
Anwar told an Indonesian news site he believed McArthur was “disturbed” by a recitation of the Qur’an over a loudspeaker.
A spokesperson for Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was ready to provide consular assistance to an Australian man detained in Indonesia.
LONDON: A British pilot has been jailed for being involved in a plot to smuggle four Albanians from Belgium into Britain.
Richard Styles was arrested alongside Silvano Turchet and Vijayakumar Sivakumar after the National Crime Agency thwarted their plan in March last year.
Styles, from Hertfordshire, was arrested at Deenethorpe Airfield near Corby, in Northamptonshire after flying a twin-engine plane to the airfield from Belgium with three men and a woman on board who were attempting to evade immigration checks.
Joking as he was arrested by officers, he said: “I normally get arrested for drugs, so it is a bit strange.”
The NCA found he had worked with former pilot Turchet to rent the six-seater Piper Seneca for £1,500.
Turchet had paid for the jet to be stored in a hangar before the flight on March 23.
Investigators believe the men were in contact with an Albanian, known as Tim K, who arranged for the passengers to meet him in Belgium.
The surveillance team was waiting for the plane when it returned to the country the next day.
Meanwhile, Sivakumar, who had previously been convicted for trying to smuggle someone into the UK in the boot of his car, was also arrested.
Phone records showed Sivakumar had been in contact with Tim K before the flight.
Crown Prosecution Service specialist prosecutor, Sarah Jennings, said all three defendants were involved in a planned and co-ordinated attempt to bypass immigration controls.
“The CPS worked extremely closely with investigators to build this case including the National Crime Agency and international law enforcement in Belgium.
“The evidence we presented showed the three men working together in the run up to the offence including on the day they were caught, unaware that the NCA were waiting as the plane landed,” she added.
All three men were charged with facilitating a breach of immigration law, and Styles was sentenced to seven years in prison, Turchet to seven-and-a-half years, and Sivakumar to four-and-a-half years.