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Author: AFP

  • Eight stabbed, hundreds arrested at London’s Notting Hill Carnival

    Eight stabbed, hundreds arrested at London’s Notting Hill Carnival

    Eight people were stabbed, and police arrested hundreds during last weekend’s Notting Hill Carnival, one of the world’s largest street festivals held annually in west London.

    Updating on their policing operation late Monday, the capital’s Metropolitan Police said five people were stabbed on the final day of the world-renowned three-day celebration of British Afro-Caribbean identity.

    That followed three knifings on Sunday, with three of the victims of the violence over the long weekend left in a life-threatening condition, the force said.

    On Monday, officers made at least 230 arrests, including 49 for possession of an offensive weapon, in addition to scores of arrests the previous day.

    Three firearms were seized, and 35 officers were also injured during the event, which attracts around a million people annually over the August bank holiday weekend.

    The policing numbers were similar to last year, with ten stabbings and around 300 arrests

    Hundreds of thousands of revellers packed the streets of west London for the carnival, filling the Notting Hill neighbourhood and surrounding districts with colour, costumes, dancing and music.

    Around 7,000 officers were on duty for the event, which has repeatedly been marred by violence, in particular knife crime, but is enjoyed by the vast majority incident-free.

    However, the Met’s deputy assistant commissioner, Ade Adelekan, said he was “tired of saying the same words every year” after a woman attending the carnival with her child was among those stabbed.

    “We only very narrowly avoided a fatality,” he added, urging carnival-goers to report any crimes they witness.

    The celebration of British Afro-Caribbean culture traces its roots back to the 1950s when the first surge in arrivals from former British colonies post-World War II occurred.

    Feathered dancers, steel bands and earth-shaking sound systems feature in the vibrant yearly event.

  • SpaceX postpones historic mission featuring first private spacewalk

    SpaceX postpones historic mission featuring first private spacewalk

    SpaceX on Tuesday postponed once more its attempt to launch a daring orbital expedition featuring an all-civilian crew. The expedition aims to carry out the first-ever spacewalk by private citizens.

    The Polaris Dawn mission, organized by billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, was set to launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida during a four-hour window early Wednesday.

    But SpaceX announced Tuesday it was pushing back the launch plans “due to unfavorable weather forecasted in Dragon’s splashdown areas off the coast of Florida,” in a message on X.

    An earlier attempt on Tuesday was scrapped due to a helium leak on a line connecting the tower to the rocket.

    Riding atop a Falcon 9 rocket, the SpaceX Dragon capsule is set to reach a peak altitude of 870 miles (1,400 kilometres) — higher than any crewed mission in more than half a century since the Apollo era.

    Mission commander Isaacman will guide his four-member team through the mission’s centrepiece: the first-ever spacewalk carried out by non-professional astronauts, equipped with sleek, newly developed SpaceX extravehicular activity (EVA) suits.

    Rounding out the team are mission pilot Scott Poteet, a retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel; mission specialist Sarah Gillis, a lead space operations engineer at SpaceX; and mission specialist and medical officer Anna Menon, also a lead space operations engineer at SpaceX.

    The quartet underwent more than two years of training in preparation for the landmark mission, logging hundreds of hours on simulators as well as skydiving, centrifuge training, scuba diving, and summiting an Ecuadoran volcano.

    Polaris Dawn is set to be the first of three missions under the Polaris program, a collaboration between Isaacman, the founder of tech company Shift4 Payments, and SpaceX.

    Isaacman declined to reveal his total investment in the project, though reports suggest he paid around $200 million for the SpaceX Inspiration4 mission in September 2021, the first all-civilian orbital mission.

    Polaris Dawn will reach its highest altitude on its first day, venturing briefly into the Van Allen radiation belt, a region teeming with high-energy charged particles that can pose health risks to humans over extended periods.

    On day three, the crew will don their state-of-the-art EVA spacesuits — outfitted with heads-up displays, helmet cameras, and advanced joint mobility systems — and take turns to venture outside their spacecraft in twos.

    Each will spend 15 to 20 minutes in space, 435 miles above Earth’s surface.

    Also on their to-do list are testing laser-based satellite communication between the spacecraft and Starlink, SpaceX’s more than 6,000-strong constellation of internet satellites, in a bid to boost space communication speeds, and conducting nearly 40 scientific experiments.

    These include tests with contact lenses embedded with microelectronics to continuously monitor changes in eye pressure and shape.

    After six days in space, the mission will conclude with a splashdown off the coast of Florida.

  • South Asia air pollution fell in 2022, but remains major killer: report

    South Asia air pollution fell in 2022, but remains major killer: report

    A surprise improvement in air quality in South Asia in 2022 drove a decline in global pollution, with favourable weather a likely factor, a new report said Wednesday.

    But the region continues to breathe the world’s most-polluted air, with its residents losing more than 3.5 years of life expectancy on average, the annual Air Quality Life Index (AQLI) warned.

    Globally, most countries have either no pollution standards or are failing to meet what they have set, subjecting their citizens to air quality that causes a broad range of health problems.

    For two decades, air pollution has increased annually in South Asia, but satellite data for 2022 — the most recent year available — showed a surprise 18 percent fall.

    The declines were recorded in every country in the region apart from Sri Lanka, according to the report, produced by the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute (EPIC).

    “While it is difficult to conclusively determine what reduced PM2.5 levels across South Asia, it is safe to posit that favourable meteorological conditions may have played a part,” the report said, referring to tiny particulates that can travel deep into the body.

    The widespread nature of the decline, along with the above-average rainfall across the region in 2022, lend support to that theory.

    “Only time will tell whether policy changes are having an impact,” the report added, warning that people in South Asia are still breathing air eight times more polluted than the World Health Organization deems safe.

    “Continued observations, efforts towards policy enforcement and monitoring impacts of policy interventions will be critical for understanding and sustaining these reductions,” the report said.

    The decline in South Asia led to a nine percent global drop in air pollution, even as poor air quality spiked elsewhere, including in the Middle East and North Africa, with concentrations up 13 percent from a year earlier.

    The report warned an ongoing lack of air quality data on the ground is hampering policy-making and implementation.

    “Highly polluted countries that have little or no air quality data often fall into a bad feedback cycle where having little data leads to little attention or policy investment in the issue, which reinforces little demand for data,” said Christa Hasenkopf, director of EPIC’s Clean Air Program.

    Earlier this year, the centre launched a $1.5 million fund to finance the installation of air quality monitors that offer open data worldwide.

    Air pollution as a whole receives relatively little funding despite its outsized impact on human health.

    For example, in some of Africa’s most-polluted nations, air pollution “is a more serious threat to life expectancy than HIV/AIDS, tropical diseases, malaria or water, sanitation and handwashing”, the report said.

    There are bright spots, however, including China’s remarkably successful efforts to combat dirty air.

    It took measures including restricting the number of cars in big cities, reducing heavy industry capacity and banning new coal plants from certain regions.

    It has reduced air pollution by 41 percent since 2013, meeting its national standards and adding an average of two years of life expectancy for its citizens, AQLI said.

    Still, even in China, pollution remains more than five times higher than WHO guidelines, and the benefits of Beijing’s measures are unevenly spread.

    Air quality remains poor across several major provinces, and in some prefectures has actually increased since 2013.

  • Nearly 300,000 Bangladeshis in emergency shelters after floods

    Nearly 300,000 Bangladeshis in emergency shelters after floods

    Nearly 300,000 Bangladeshis were taking refuge in emergency shelters Saturday from floods that inundated vast areas of the low-lying South Asian country, disaster officials said.

    The floods were triggered by heavy monsoon rains and have killed at least 42 people in Bangladesh and India since the start of the week, many in landslides.

    “My house is completely inundated,” Lufton Nahar, 60, told AFP from a relief shelter in Feni, one of the worst-hit districts near the border with India’s Tripura state.

    “Water is flowing above our roof. My brother brought us here by boat. If he hadn’t, we would have died.”

    The nation of 170 million people is crisscrossed by hundreds of rivers and has seen frequent floods in recent decades.

    Monsoon rains cause widespread destruction every year, but climate change is shifting weather patterns and increasing the number of extreme weather events.

    Highways and rail lines were damaged between the capital Dhaka and the main port city of Chittagong, making access to badly flooded districts difficult and disrupting business activity.

    The flooding also comes just weeks after a student-led revolution toppled its government.

    Among the worst affected areas is Cox’s Bazar, a district home to around a million Rohingya refugees from neighbouring Myanmar.

    Tripura state disaster agency official Sarat Kumad Das told AFP that 24 people had been killed on the Indian side of the border since Monday.

    Another 18 had been killed in Bangladesh, according to disaster management ministry secretary Md Kamrul Hasan.

    “285,000 people are living in emergency shelters,” he said, adding that 4.5 million people in total had been affected.

    Recovering from unrest

    When the floods hit, Bangladesh was recovering from weeks of civil unrest that culminated in the August 5 toppling of autocratic ex-leader Sheikh Hasina.

    With an interim government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus still finding its feet, ordinary Bangladeshis have been crowdfunding relief efforts.

    They have been organised by the same students who led the protests that sparked the ouster of Hasina, who remains in India after fleeing Dhaka.

    Crowds visited Dhaka University on Friday to offer cash donations as students loaded rice sacks and crates of bottled water onto vehicles for areas affected by the deluge.

    Much of Bangladesh is made up of deltas where the great Himalayan rivers, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, wind towards the sea after coursing through India.

    Several tributaries of the two transnational rivers were still overflowing.

    However, forecasts showed rain was likely to ease in the coming days.

  • New Coppola film trailer axed for using fake movie reviews 

    New Coppola film trailer axed for using fake movie reviews 

    A trailer promoting Francis Ford Coppola’s new film “Megalopolis” has been withdrawn after it was found to have incorporated fake movie reviews, reportedly generated by artificial intelligence.

    Coppola’s wildly ambitious, decades-in-the-making movie, which hits theaters next month and stars Adam Driver, has starkly divided critics.

    A trailer released this week drew parallels to earlier works by the revered Hollywood director that also initially left some professional reviewers cold before going on to become classics — suggesting “Megalopolis” can do the same.

    “True genius is often misunderstood,” a voiceover began, before quotes from famous critics calling “The Godfather” a “sloppily self-indulgent movie” and “Apocalypse Now” a “spectacular failure” were presented on the screen.

    The problem? None of those quotes were real.

    Instead, the trailer appears to have used AI-generated imitations of the type of withering put-downs associated with renowned reviewers such as Pauline Kael.

    In at least one case, a criticism appears to have been lifted from a review of an entirely different film

    The trailer was quickly recalled, with Hollywood studio Lionsgate offering “our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola” for an “inexcusable error in our vetting process.”

    “We screwed up. We are sorry,” said a statement.

    Lionsgate has since parted company with the marketing consultant behind the trailer, trade outlet Variety said Friday. Meanwhile Deadline reported that the quotes were generated by AI.

    The furor comes at a time when Hollywood is roiled by the encroaching impact of AI. Fears the technology could replace entertainment industry jobs — from actors to writers — were central to last summer’s devastating strikes.

    The trailer episode is just the latest controversy to hit “Megalopolis,” an already hugely divisive epic.

    Legendary director Coppola has said he spent $120 million of his own money to make the film, selling a stake in his California vineyard.

    But its much-hyped world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival left the industry confounded.

    Critics’ responses ranged from “a true modern masterwork” to a “catastrophe.”

    Driver stars as a seemingly magical architect whose efforts to rebuild a decaying city into a futuristic utopia are thwarted by its resentful mayor (Giancarlo Esposito).

    The movie also stars Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf and Dustin Hoffman.

    It receives its North American premiere at the Toronto film festival next month, before being released in US theaters on September 27.

    The controversy has provoked theories among some Hollywood observers that the entire unseemly debacle could have been staged to provoke headlines.

    Lionsgate did not respond to an AFP request for comment.

    But a source familiar with the marketing plan told AFP the studio did not deliberately fabricate the quotes, and removed the trailer as soon as it became aware of the situation.

  • BTS’ Suga ‘reflecting’ on disappointing fans with drunk e-scooter incident

    BTS’ Suga ‘reflecting’ on disappointing fans with drunk e-scooter incident

    A member of K-pop mega group BTS arrived at a South Korean police station Friday for questioning, telling reporters he was “very sorry” for driving an electric scooter while drunk.

    Suga, 31, was found by police lying on the ground next to his e-scooter late at night on August 6, with a blood alcohol level well over the legal limit.

    Wearing a black suit, Suga bowed in front of journalists outside the police station in Seoul’s fashionable Yongsan district.

    “I’m sorry, I’m very sorry. I sincerely reflect on the fact I caused disappointment to many fans and people. I will cooperate fully with the investigation. I am sorry again,” he said before entering the station.

    He did not answer reporters’ questions on the details of the case.

    The singer, currently performing mandatory military duties as a social service agent, has already revoked his driving licence and been fined.

    But he still needs to answer police questions as officers said he was too drunk to respond at the time of the incident.

    Suga has admitted to driving drunk and apologised to fans on social media.

    Experts said the punishment would depend on what kind of e-scooter he was driving.

    If he was riding a sophisticated e-scooter rather than a simple kick-board, Suga “could be punished for violating the Road Traffic Act”, lawyer Cha Hong-soon said.

  • Harris pledges to get Gaza ceasefire deal ‘done’ while promising support for Israel’s ‘right to defend itself’

    Harris pledges to get Gaza ceasefire deal ‘done’ while promising support for Israel’s ‘right to defend itself’

    Kamala Harris pledged Thursday to get a Gaza ceasefire and said as US president, she would stand with Ukraine and not “cosy up” to dictators like her Republican opponent, Donald Trump.

    “Now is the time to get a hostage deal and a ceasefire deal done,” the vice president told supporters at the Democratic National Convention as she accepted the party’s presidential nomination.

    Harris said that she and President Joe Biden “are working to end this war such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.”

    US support for its ally Israel in the conflict against Hamas in Gaza has become one of the most divisive issues in the Democratic Party, and at times has threatened to overshadow the party’s attempt to unite against Trump.

    Harris said Hamas had caused “unspeakable” violence in its surprise attack on Israel on October 7, triggering the Israeli offensive. At the same time, she said the devastation in Gaza was “heartbreaking.”

    “I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself, and I will always ensure that Israel has the ability to defend itself,” she said.

    Attacking Trump for his frequent denigration of NATO and Ukraine, she said, “As president, I will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies.”

    And she called out Trump’s public praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, saying, “I will not cosy up to tyrants and dictators.”

    Tyrants are “rooting for Trump because, you know, they know he is easy to manipulate with flattery and favours. They know Trump won’t hold autocrats accountable because he wants to be an autocrat himself.”

  • Harris vows ‘new way forward’ for America as she accepts nomination

    Harris vows ‘new way forward’ for America as she accepts nomination

    Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic presidential nomination in Chicago on Thursday before a rapturous crowd, pledging a “new way forward” and warning that Donald Trump will take America backwards if he wins November’s blockbuster election.

    The 59-year-old sought to strike a presidential tone as she delivered a message of unity and patriotism for Americans after one of the most extraordinary turnarounds in US political history.

    “With this election, our nation has a precious, fleeting opportunity to move past the bitterness, cynicism, and divisive battles of the past — a chance to chart a new way forward,” Harris said to huge cheers from tens of thousands of pumped-up supporters.

    “And I want you to know: I promise to be a president for all Americans.”

    The convention became a giant party to celebrate Harris’s astonishing ascent from something of a political afterthought to Democratic standard bearer upon President Joe Biden’s surprise decision to end his reelection bid.

    A sea of waving Stars and Stripes flags and chants of “USA” filled the arena as jubilant Democrats anointed Harris.

    She was later joined on stage by her running mate Tim Walz and their families, as they held their arms aloft while 100,000 red, white and blue balloons tumbled from the ceiling.

    Country act The Chicks sang a version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” while pop star Pink also performed as the Democrats rolled out a list of celebrity backers.

    ‘President who unites us’

    But it was Harris’s time to shine on the biggest night of her political life, after becoming the first Black woman to be nominated by a major US party.

    She reached out to voters across America’s bitter political divide, promising to bring economic opportunity and protect their personal freedoms on key issues like abortion.

    “I will be a president who unites us around our highest aspirations,” she vowed.

    Harris then launched a broadside at 78-year-old Trump, whose campaign has been upended by having to face a woman two decades younger, rather than the increasingly frail Biden, 81.

    “We know what a second Trump term would look like,” she said, saying he wanted to “pull our country back to the past.”

    She laid out her personal story as a child of a single working mother, and her career as a prosecutor, saying she has the background and experience to serve the country in contrast to Trump who she said only works for himself and “his billionaire friends.”

    Turning to foreign policy, she accused Trump of trying to “cozy up” to foreign autocrats like Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    Harris pledged instead to “stand strong” with Ukraine as it fights Russia’s invasion and support NATO allies — again all in stark contrast to Trump’s isolationist stance.

    On the hugely divisive issue of Israel’s war in Gaza, Harris went further than the rhetoric of her boss Biden by calling the scale of suffering in the Palestinian enclave “heartbreaking”.

    She vowed to get a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, and cheers erupted when she vowed “self-determination” for the Palestinian people.

    Pro-Palestinian protesters have demonstrated throughout the Democratic convention, with several thousands rallying outside it again on Thursday.

    ‘Ready on day one’

    The Democrats have been riding a wave of energy and enthusiasm since Harris stepped up. She has wiped out former president Trump’s lead in the polls, drawn enormous crowds and raised record funds.

    The torch having well and truly been passed, Biden gave a farewell speech on the first day of the convention and said he had called Harris to wish her luck.

    “I am proud to watch my partner Kamala Harris accept our nomination for president. She will be an outstanding president because she is fighting for our future,” Biden, who is on holiday in California, said on X.

    Barack Obama, who along with his wife Michelle delivered rousing support for Harris at the convention on Tuesday, said Harris had “showed the world what I have known to be true.

    “She is ready on day one to be President and represents the best of America. Let’s get to work.”

    Yet Democrats will also be trying to temper their hopes.

    Harris told reporters after her speech that the Democrats were the “underdogs” in the election, with a nail-biting sprint to November against a combative opponent.

    As he struggles to recalibrate his own campaign, Trump is increasingly resorting to personal insults, racially charged attacks, and dark rhetoric.

    He gave a play-by-play commentary on Harris’s speech on his Truth social platform, accusing her of making the United States a “failing nation” while part of the Biden administration.

    “She’s done nothing for three and a half years but talk, and that’s what she’s doing tonight, she’s complaining about everything but doing nothing!” he wrote.

  • Nine believed dead after plane crashes in Thai jungle

    Nine believed dead after plane crashes in Thai jungle

    BANGKOK: Rescuers scoured the Thai jungle on Friday (Aug 23) for nine missing people after a turboprop plane crashed southeast of the capital, Bangkok, though authorities expected no survivors.

    The aircraft went down in the jungle of Chacheongsao province on Thursday, and all on board were believed dead, Thai officials said.

    Nine people – including two pilots and seven passengers – were travelling from Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport to Trat province, an area on the Gulf of Thailand known for its beaches, when the plane went down.

    “It happened at around 3:10 pm (4:10 pm, Singapore time). We are trying to find those missing, but we believe that they are all dead,” Chacheongsao governor Chonlatee Yangtrong told reporters at the scene on Thursday.

    According to local media, the passengers comprised four Thais and five Chinese, including two children aged 12 and 13.

    More than 300 military personnel and volunteers have been deployed in the search, and authorities have launched an investigation to identify the cause of the crash.

    They have found some body parts, as well as pieces of the aircraft, authorities said.

    But heavy rainfall is hampering the search.

    “We are not planning to stop until we find them, although there are some waterlogged areas,” Chonlatee said.

  • Six-year-old boy found alive in Vietnam forest after four days

    Six-year-old boy found alive in Vietnam forest after four days

    A six-year-old boy missing for four days was found alive in a forest in a mountainous part of northern Vietnam, police said Thursday.

    The child was reported missing on Saturday after he failed to return home with his siblings from a celebration at a relative’s house in Yen Bai province.

    Police in Lam Giang commune launched a search for the boy and “even dried up a pond as they were afraid he had fallen,” an officer, who declined to give his name, told AFP.

    Over the past four days, more than 200 people joined a search for the boy, according to state media.

    He was finally found on Wednesday, the police official said.

    “We were told that the boy was tired. They gave him things to eat and checked his health. He is ok now,” the police official told AFP.

    State media reported that a man had heard crying and discovered the exhausted boy covered in mud, sitting in a cassava bush in the forest.

    Lam’s mother, Ly Thi Phai, told the VietnamNet news site of her relief.

    “I was so happy that my child had returned alive,” she said.

    “I cried because he looked thinner and weaker than before he disappeared.”

    According to state media, the boy said he had become lost in the forest and the more he walked, the more disorientated he became.

    To survive, he said he drank water from a stream and picked leaves and wild fruits he recognised.