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North Korean detained after crossing land border

CLIMBER DIES ON PAKISTAN MOUNTAIN SKARDU: A Czech mountaineer fell to her death on the world’s ninth-highest peak, Pakistan officials said yesterday, becoming the first casualty of the summer climbing season in the country. Klara Kolouchova, 46, the first Czech woman to summit the world’s two highest mountains, died on Thursday after falling on the lower slopes of Nanga Parbat. Diamer district senior local government official Nizam-ud-Din said one of her team members reported the death. “The location of her body will be traced, then appropriate rescue operations will be initiated to retrieve the body by AFGHANISTAN KILLED ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s army said yesterday it has killed 30 militants attempting to cross the border from Afghanistan over the last three days. The militants belonged to the Pakistan Taliban or its affiliated groups, the military said, accusing India of backing them. “A large quantity of weapons, ammunition and explosives was recovered.“ Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif lauded the security forces for “thwarting an infiltration attempt”. – AFP Myanmar rejects UN report on child soldiers PHNOM PENH: Myanmar has denied claims made in a United Nations (UN) report on the recruitment of child soldiers and the ill-treatment of minors in the country’s civil conflict. The UN Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict Report for 2024 said the number of violations against children inflicted by all groups involved in the war was worrying. The report, released in June, said the UN verified 2,138 grave violations against 1,762 children last year and 121 violations that occurred in previous years. The UN also received reports of some 1,200 grave violations that are pending verification. Myanmar’s Committee on Prevention of Grave Violations against Children in Armed Conflict said the accusations are misleading and false. “Myanmar rejects the distorted figures and baseless accusations in the report. Myanmar remains committed to exerting its utmost efforts to safeguard the rights and safety of children,” it said yesterday. Myanmar called on the UN to adopt a credible and constructive approach while issuing reports. The UN alleges that violations committed by military forces and militias include the denial of humanitarian access, the abduction of children to fight in the conflict, and attacks on schools and hospitals. However, the Myanmar commission said as of December, only 98 cases involving minors were reported to relevant authorities. Ninety-three minors were verified and have been discharged and returned to their guardians or parents, with financial support, while 18 suspected cases related to minors are under investigation. – Bernama helicopter service.” – AFP MILITANTS FROM

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making it to the South. Defections across the land border that divides the peninsula are relatively rare. The number of successful escapes dropped significantly from 2020 after the North sealed its borders, purportedly with shoot-on-sight orders along the land frontier with China, to prevent the spread of Covid-19. No unusual acitivities by the North Korean military have been detected, the JCS said yesterday. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, who took office last month, has vowed a more dovish approach towards Pyongyang compared with his hawkish predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol. “Politics and diplomacy must be handled without emotion and approached with reason and logic,” he said on Thursday. “Completely cutting off dialogue is really a foolish thing to do.” – AFP

after they offered to guide him safely out of the DMZ, the JCS added. It said “relevant authorities” would investigate the detailed circumstances of the incident. North Koreans are typically handed to Seoul’s intelligence agency for screening when they arrive in the South. The incident comes after a North Korean soldier defected to the South by crossing the MDL in August last year. Another North Korean defected to the South last year across the de facto border in the Yellow Sea, arriving on Gyodong island off the peninsula’s west coast near the border between the Koreas. Tens of thousands of North Koreans have fled to South Korea since the peninsula was divided by war in the 1950s, with most going overland to neighbouring China first, then entering a third country, such as Thailand, before finally

o Military identified man near demarcation line and conducted tracking, surveillance: Seoul

Indonesian rescuers widened their search for dozens of missing people yesterday after a ferry sank in rough seas on the way to the resort island of Bali, with six bodies recovered. The ferry carrying at least 65 people, including passengers and crew, was making a 5km crossing from eastern Java island to Bali when it tilted and sank in bad weather on Wednesday, witnesses and officials said. As of yesterday morning, 30 people were missing after 29 were plucked from the water to safety. Rescuers said one of the six deceased who were found was a three-year-old boy. Tearful survivors described their horror when the ferry went down, including one man who lost his wife. “I was joking around with my wife, and then the ferry tilted. It all happened very fast,“ Febriani, 27, told AFP on Thursday. “I jumped with my wife. I managed to get hold of something SEOUL: A North Korean who crossed the heavily fortified land border into the South has been detained and taken into custody, Seoul’s military said yesterday. The North Korean, identified as a male civilian, managed to cross the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) in the midwestern part of the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) on Thursday, said Seoul’s joint chiefs of staff (JCS). The MDL is the de facto border that runs through the middle of the DMZ, the border area separating the two Koreas, which is one of the most heavily mined places on earth. “The military identified the individual near the MDL and conducted tracking and surveillance,”

but my wife slipped away.” Rescuers carried out searches by sea and air yesterday, expanding their efforts along the coastlines of eastern Java and Bali, said national search and rescue agency operations official Ribut Eko Suyatno. “The land search rescue unit was asked to comb through the Ketapang beach from north to south, likewise for Gilimanuk.“ But as of yesterday afternoon, no further victims had been found. The ferry passage from Java’s Ketapang port to Gilimanuk port in Bali, one of the busiest crossings in the country, takes around one hour and is often used by people travelling between the islands with a vehicle. Local rescue officials said the KMP Tunu Pratama Jaya sank 25 minutes into its journey. At least 306 rescuers were deployed yesterday for the search effort, said the Java-based Surabaya search and rescue agency. the JCS said in a statement. It then “carried out a standard guiding operation to secure custody”, it added. The operation took about 20 hours, according to Seoul, after the man was detected by a military surveillance device sometime between 3am and 4am (1800 and 1900 GMT) on Thursday. The mission to safely guide him to the South involved a considerable number of South Korean troops and took place in an area difficult to navigate due to dense vegetation and landmine risks, the JCS said. The man stayed mostly still during the day and South Korea’s military approached him at night. He willingly followed the troops

Indonesia widens search for missing ferry passengers GILIMANUK: Hundreds of

police officers. At least four survivors were found on Thursday after saving themselves by climbing onto a lifeboat. Initial search efforts were hampered by bad weather, with waves as high as 2.5m and strong winds. – AFP

The search was temporarily halted overnight and resumed at 8am (0000 GMT) yesterday in Bali. Rescuers had deployed inflatable boats, larger rescue vessels and a helicopter to aid the search on Thursday, involving dozens of personnel, including navy and

The search was temporarily halted overnight and resumed at 8am (0000 GMT) yesterday in Bali. – AFPPIC

Chinese national missing in Thailand rescued BEIJING: A Chinese national who went missing in Thailand after accepting a photoshoot job has been rescued, according to China’s embassy in Bangkok, which cautioned Chinese citizens against accepting random job offers. The embassy said in a trafficked to Myanmar after arriving in Thailand for a magazine cover photoshoot in early June. His sister, who received a suspicious call from him weeks ago when he was at an unidentified location in Myanmar, had reported him missing to police in Guangzhou and Bangkok, said Chinese state broadcaster CCTV. concerns about human trafficking and fraudulent employment schemes targeting Chinese nationals abroad grow. Criminal networks have trafficked hundreds of thousands of people to scam compounds across Southeast Asia, many along the Thai-Myanmar border, where victims are forced to work in illegal online schemes, according to the United Nations.

scam compound in Myanmar to work. He was eventually freed by Thai police. After that case, China and Thailand agreed to set up a coordination centre in Bangkok to investigate and address the scam complexes. The Chinese embassy in Myanmar published a long notice on WeChat yesterday, addressing the “emergence of new telecommunication network fraud methods”. It listed tips and 20 key phrases to look out for, aimed at educating the public in identifying fraud. – Reuters

statement the rescue was a joint effort by various parties but did not release details. It did not provide the name or gender of the individual. China’s state-backed local media reported yesterday that a 23-year-old Chinese man with the surname Zhong had been tricked and

The embassy in Bangkok warned Chinese citizens to be vigilant against dubious “high-paying jobs” overseas, clarifying that Thailand requires foreign nationals to obtain appropriate permits to work there. The warning comes as

The latest incident echoes a similar case that caught national interest in January, when a 31-year-old Chinese actor was duped into a film job in Thailand, only to be kidnapped and taken to an online