Alaska Airlines grounds 737 Max 9 planes after section blows out mid-air
By Thomas Mackintosh & Kathryn Armstrong
BBC News
A passenger plane lost a section of its fuselage in mid-air forcing it to make an emergency landing in the US state of Oregon.
The Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 turned back minutes into its flight to California after an outer section, including a window, fell off on Friday.
There were 177 passengers and crew on board and it landed safely in Portland.
The airline said it would temporarily ground all 65 of its 737 Max 9 aircraft to conduct inspections.
Boeing said it was aware of the incident and was “working to gather more information”.
Bangladesh: polling booths set alight on eve of general elections
Four people also killed in suspected arson attack on a train, which police say was aimed at scaring people before vote
Polling booths have been set on fire in Bangladesh on the eve of general elections.
On Friday four people, including two children, died in an apparent arson attack on a train in Bangladesh. Police said they had arrested seven people in connection with the incident.
The fire on the passenger train, which raced through four coaches, was aimed at scaring people before the vote, a police official said, though authorities did not immediately name any individuals or groups as suspects.
North Korea fires artillery close to border for second day
Pyongyang fired another 60 artillery rounds following the more than 200 fired the day before. Tensions between north and south have been escalating for months.
The North Korean military fired more than 60 rounds of artillery close to a disputed maritime border with its southern neighbor on Saturday.
“North Korean forces conducted artillery fire with over 60 rounds from the northwest area of Yeonpyeong Island today between approximately 16:00 and 17:00 (0700 to 0800 GMT),” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
The barrage came a day after Pyongyang fired over 200 rounds of artillery in the same area. In both cases, the shells landed in a buffer zone set up between the two countries in 2018.
Luxury hotel plans threaten East Jerusalem’s Armenian quarter
Activists say a controversial deal to build a luxury hotel could destroy part of East Jerusalem’s historical Armenian quarter, accusing the company behind the plan of paying people to seize land by force. As Armenian Christians celebrate Christmas on Saturday, those who call Jerusalem’s Old City home say they are worried for their future.
In a corner of Jerusalem’s Old City near the Cathedral of Saint James, the fight for a plot of land has become tied to the future of the Armenian quarter.
It is the spot where survivors of the Armenian genocide found a safe haven more than a hundred years ago.
But in 2021 a Jewish-Australian investor signed a deal with a representative of the Armenian clergy to build a luxury hotel. Now activists are trying to save this land from demolition.
“Basically we are fighting for our existence,” says Hagop Djernazian, a student and co-founder of Save the ARQ, an NGO dedicated to preserving the Armenian Quarter.
Quake-hit Noto woefully short of medical care and supplies
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
January 6, 2024 at 17:31 JST
Yutaka Kobayashi has rushed to several disaster areas over the years to provide emergency medical care, but the situation he encountered in the Noto Peninsula region of Ishikawa Prefecture is “the worst ever,” he said.
Kobayashi, who heads Sakura General Hospital in Oguchi, Aichi Prefecture, assembled a small team and set off Jan. 2 for Suzu, one of the hardest hit areas from the magnitude-7.6 earthquake that hit on New Year’s Day.
The situation there was nothing like what he experienced after the magnitude-9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 that claimed nearly 20,000 lives or the magnitude-7.0 Kumamoto Earthquake in 2016 that killed close to 300 people.
Famine in Gaza ‘around the corner,’ as people face ‘highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded,’ UN relief chief says
Famine is “around the corner” as people in Gaza face the “highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded,” according to UN emergency relief chief Martin Griffiths.
Citing a death toll in the tens of thousands, attacks on medical facilities and a lack of functioning hospitals, Griffiths said in a statement issued Friday that Gaza had become “a place of death and despair.”
“Hope has never been more elusive,” he added.
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