All 9 passengers and crew feared dead in Thailand plane crash

All nine people on board a small passenger plane are believed to be dead after the aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff from Bangkok’s main airport in Thailand on Thursday afternoon.

There were five tourists from Hong Kong on board, as well as two cabin crew members and a pilot and co-pilot, all four from Thailand.

The crash occured 11 minutes after departure, the country’s civil aviation authority confirmed.

The plane, a Cessna Caravan C208B, reportedly lost contact with air traffic control and crashed in a mangrove swamp in Chachoengsao province.

The plane was on its way to Trat, a coastal province located about 275km (171 miles) southeast of Bangkok.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand reported that the turboprop plane, operated by the Thai Flying Service Company, took off from Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport at 2.46pm local time. However, 11 minutes later, air traffic control lost radio and radar contact with the aircraft, which was about 35km southeast of the airport at that point.

According to the Bangkok Post, search and rescue efforts continued into Thursday night.

It stated that the wreckage of the small plane was discovered in the muddy terrain of a mangrove forest and search and rescue teams found women’s clothing and a photo of three foreign women at the crash site.

Local police said search teams were collecting the wreckage, but as of Thursday evening, no sign of the plane’s occupants had been found. However, the Associated Press, citing a provincial government spokesperson, stated that after approximately an hour of searching rescuers discovered fragmented body parts in the swampy terrain.

The search efforts have also been hampered by high tide flooding the area near the mouth of the Bang Pakong River.

The cause of the crash is still unknown.

Thailand confirms Asia’s first case of dangerous new mpox variant

Thailand has confirmed Asia’s first known case of a new, more dangerous strain of mpox in a European traveller.

The patient, a 66-year-old man who arrived from an unnamed African country on 14 August, has tested positive for the Clade 1b variant, which is deadlier and more transmissible.

“Thailand’s Department of Disease Control wishes to confirm the lab test result which shows mpox Clade 1b in a European patient,” the department said in a statement.

The man had minimal contact with other people after he arrived in Thailand and sought medical attention the following day after he experienced symptoms similar to mpox, authorities said.

“We have monitored 43 people who have been in close contact with the patient and so far they have shown no symptoms, but we must continue monitoring for a total of 21 days,” the department said.

Earlier, Thongchai Keeratihattayakorn, head of the Department of Disease Control, told Reuters: “After he arrives from the flight there is very little timeframe where he comes into contact with others.

“He arrived around 6pm and on the next day, 15 August, he went to see the doctor at the hospital.”

He had earlier told AFP that the department had done a test and “they definitely have mpox and it’s definitely not Clade 2”.

“We are convinced the person has the Clade 1 variant, but we have to wait to see the final result in the lab for two more days.”

Thailand previously detected 800 cases of the Clade 2 variant but not any of Clade 1 or Clade 1b.

The European traveller had been placed in quarantine after his arrival in Bangkok, and lab tests were conducted to confirm the strain.

The department added that anyone travelling to Thailand from the 42 designated “risk countries” must register and undergo testing upon arrival.

There are two distinct clades or natural groups of the mpox virus: Clade 1 and Clade 2.

Clade 2 was responsible for the global outbreak which started in 2022. Clade 1 is considered more severe and is classified as a high consequence infectious disease.

The WHO has declared a public health emergency due to a new mpox outbreak in several African nations, with at least three cases now reported outside the continent.

More than 17,000 cases and 571 deaths have been confirmed in Africa so far this year.

In Thailand, authorities have mandated that all international airport disease control checkpoints and ports, particularly at Don Muang and Suvarnabhumi airports and Laem Chabang port, screen passengers arriving from Africa, the Bangkok Post reported.

The Philippines also recently reported its first mpox case of the year, involving a 33-year-old Filipino male with no travel history, the Department of Health announced on Monday. The patient is currently recovering in a hospital.

“We’re lucky because this mpox we found [here] was the original variety, clade 2. Mpox entered the country and [is] probably circulating in our community,” country’s health secretary Teodoro Herbosa was quoted as saying by news channel ANC.

Elsewhere in the region, Indonesia is implementing screening measures at its entry points. The Malaysian health ministry also announced it will start preventive measures, including increased surveillance at international entry points, requiring travellers from countries with mpox cases to monitor their health for 21 days.

Vietnam’s health ministry stated in a directive on Monday that it will monitor for “suspected cases at the border” and report them to a central database.

At least 12 Pakistan police officers killed in ambush by bandits

At least 12 police officers have been killed in Pakistan’s deadliest attack of its kind by bandits in the eastern province of Punjab, officials said.

The toll rise by one on Friday after a wounded officer died in hospital.

Thursday’s attack with guns and rocket-propelled grenades also wounded eight officers. It took place in the Kacha area in Rahim Yar Khan district, which is known for hideouts along the Indus River where hundreds of heavily armed bandits evade police.

Punjab police chief Usman Anwar said police killed a bandit leader who was behind the attack named Bashir Shar. In a statement, Anwar said the operation against the robbers is still ongoing, and it will continue until the last bandit is eliminated in the province.

Senior police and government officials will attend the funerals of slain officers later Friday.

Bandits often rob people traveling on highways in Punjab and elsewhere in the country. Some areas in Punjab are so dangerous that people avoid traveling after sunset to avoid getting robbed, though police have cleared most of the so-called “no-go areas.”

According to police, the bandits ambushed police when one of the vehicles carrying officers broke down while passing through flooded farm fields. Pakistan has been lashed by monsoon rains since July.

The attack was denounced by President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, who released statements to express sorrow and described the slain officers as martyrs.

Pakistan has witnessed a surge in violence, mostly blamed on militants, in recent years but the death of so many police officers in one attack in unprecedented.

Police said the robbers took advantage of the darkness to attack police. In a statement, they said that the “morale of the police is high, and such cowardly actions by robbers cannot lower the morale of the police.”

Two dead after jumping to escape hotel fire as air mattress fails

A fire at a hotel in Bucheon, South Korea, killed seven people and injured dozens of others on Thursday.

Two of the victims reportedly died after jumping from the eighth floor of the hotel onto an air mattress provided by the fire department, which flipped upon impact.

The fire was first reported at about 7.39pm local time on Thursday. Of the seven people who died, five were killed by smoke inhalation, according to Cho Seon-ho, chief of the Gyeonggi provincial fire services.

The other two victims died after jumping from a window, trying to land on an inflatable mattress set up by firefighters. The first person hit the edge of the cushion, causing it to flip and fatally injure the second person, who jumped immediately after.

The fire reportedly started on the eighth floor, likely due to an electrical fault. The hotel has nine storeys.

The damage is believed to be extensive because the rooms lacked sprinklers, the local fire officials said on Friday. The hotel was built before sprinklers were legally required. The fire, however, did not spread throughout the building.

Videos from the site of the fire showed smoke billowing from the eighth floor. The name of the hotel was not immediately available.

At the time of the fire, more than 20 guests were inside the hotel, according to Yonhap news agency. Pictures from the site also showed several fire tenders and ambulances outside the hotel.

Those injured in the fire have been taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

The victims’ bodies were reportedly found lying in staircases and halls. In June this year, a massive fire at a lithium battery factory in Hwaseong, located 45km south of Seoul, killed 23 people.

Nepal lifts TikTok ban imposed for disrupting ‘social harmony’

Nepal on Thursday decided to lift its ban on Tiktok, nine months after it restricted the video-sharing social media app for disrupting “social harmony”.

The government’s decision came about during a cabinet meeting, reported the state-run National News Agency.

“A decision to remove the ban on TikTok has been made,” the minister for communications and information technology, Prithvi Subba Gurung, told reporters.

This comes a week after TikTok’s South Asia division requested Gurung that the ban be lifted and that it would follow Nepal’s regulations, according to ministry spokesperson Gajendra Kumar Thakur.

However, TikTok has to fulfil certain conditions before it can resume operations, and has been given three months to do so.

“Now onwards, TikTok has to help promote Nepal’s tourism; invest in digital literacy efforts; support to uplift Nepal’s public education system; and be mindful of the language used on its platform,” said Gurung.

“After TikTok assured the government that it would fulfil these conditions, we decided in principle to allow TikTok to resume operations in Nepal.”

“We’re excited to be able to continue enabling Nepali voices and creativity,” said a spokesperson for TikTok.

TikTok was banned in Nepal in November 2023 by the then prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government, on the grounds that it “disturbs social harmony and disrupts family structures and social relations,” according to former minister for communications and information technology Rekha Sharma.

At the time, there was no further discussion or clarity on what had triggered the ban.

There were dozens of protests in Kathmandu when the ban was announced, with several saying the ban had not only cut off a source of income for multiple influencers, it also shut down an avenue for free speech.

“My life changed a lot because of TikTok, a lot. So many recognise me because of TikTok wherever I go,” said 39-year-old Nepalese influencer Anjana Aryal, whose TikTok had nearly 600,000 followers.

Aryal made close to $3,000 (£2,287) in a single month from endorsement deals and even sold her own brand of pickles, all of which came to a stop once the ban came into effect.

“People were earning, running businesses or just being entertained on TikTok. Everyone has been affected now and they don’t know what to do,” she said.

China’s ByteDance-owned TikTok is banned in several countries, including India and Afghanistan, with the UK, Australia, and the European Union restricting its use.

It was reported last year when the ban took effect that more than 1,600 TikTok-related cyber crime cases had been registered over the last four years in Nepal.

According to the Internet Service Providers’ Association of Nepal (ISPAN), TikTok had about 2.2 million users in Nepal.

While TikTok has not managed to catch up to the number of users on Meta’s social media apps – Facebook and Instagram – it is far more popular with users between the ages of 16 and 24.

Manish Adhikari, another influencer whose content followed cars and Nepalese start-ups, said he had moved to Instagram, but was struggling to fulfil his endorsement deals with brands because his views and audience were nowhere close to the reach he enjoyed on TikTok.

“Brands started to call me … and I wondered if I was getting out of business, is my work going to stop?” Adhikari said.

Earlier this year, researchers aimed to figure out how TikTok’s algorithm worked, in an effort to understand its appeal.

However, researchers weren’t able to figure it out entirely, referring to the platform’s algorithm as a “black box”.

“The algorithm is such a black box to the public and regulators. And to some extent, it probably is to TikTok itself,” Franziska Roesner, a computer scientist at the University of Washington, said.

TikTok influencer faces backlash for ‘promoting’ Taliban during travel

A social media influencer travelling through Afghanistan and posing with Taliban fighters has been attacked for her posts about the hardline regime. In the country, millions of girls and women are denied education, jobs, and other basic rights.

Somali-American influencer Marian Abdi, who goes by the name Geenyada Madow on her social media channels, was seen posting her photos and videos from Kabul, Bamyan, and other Afghan cities, mainly dressed in a full-length burqa.

Several Afghan women pointed out their erasure from public spaces by the militants as Ms Abdi posted her videos marking Afghanistan as a tourist destination. One of her posts on Twitter/X was captioned “Met with the Tali*an”, accompanied by the hashtag #viral2024. Social media users asked the TikToker and YouTuber if she asked the Taliban why they have stoned women and banned them from schools and colleges.

“ln a time when Afghan girls and women are deprived of their most basic rights, it is deeply troubling and unacceptable to see someone like Geenyada Madow, who has gone to Afghanistan and lobbies for the Taliban,” said Niloofar Naeimi, a human rights activist on Afghan women’s issues. “This action disregards the suffering and pain of millions of Afghan women who face oppression and persecution under the Taliban’s rule,” she said.

Videos by the influencer also showed the grim reality of Afghanistan under the Taliban, as women didn’t often feature in the videos she shot in the country. Ms Abdi was seen strolling the markets of Kabul and driving around in the city but in the company of a male tourist guide.

Ms Abdi was seen being greeted by Afghan men on the streets and markets as she claimed that she was the first Black Muslim person to have travelled to the war-ravaged nation. In her social media bio on Twitter/X, Ms Abdi said she “loves exploring and sharing the realities of misunderstood countries”.

In one of her videos on YouTube she said she met with Taliban fighters but did not record the interaction as she was not allowed to do so. Ms Abdi said she was “confused” and “scared”.

“I was super nervous, I am confused… the fact that they would even allow me to talk to them. I couldn’t record our conversation because they wouldn’t allow me and my battery died. They asked me where I am from as they can see I’m a foreigner,” she said in her video.

“I said I’m Somali; they’re like okay are you from the West. I said yes, I’m from America they’re like okay welcome,” she said.

The influencer also claimed that she asked the Taliban why Afghan girls and women were not allowed to study beyond the sixth grade. She said she was met with different “reactions of their faces” and replies. She said she took their permission before asking the question to be “respectful” to them.

“The only answer that made sense that came out of one of their mouths was we’re a new country… new government and things will change… everything takes time. I was like that’s it, they said yeah,” the content creator said.

She defended herself against the remarks and addressed the social media backlash, claiming that she only asked for the photo to show to people that she met the Taliban fighters.

“It is simply to say this is my experience, this is what I saw, this is how they treated me. I actually asked for the photo to show the people that I met them and that this is the interaction we had. I am for all women’s rights and I would love to see one day women getting education and working. Please don’t take everything out of context. Don’t judge me for one photo,” the influencer said.

“Nice memories with the Taliban; did you ask about the stoning of Afghan girls or you were just too busy posing for photos with the Taliban?” asked another user on Twitter/X.

“Anyone supporting the Taliban’s oppressive regime while living in comfort abroad is part of the problem. They’re turning a blind eye to the suffering of millions of women and girls trapped in their homes, stripped of their basic rights and freedoms,” said Freshta Razbaan, lawyer and co-chair of the Afghan Advisory Committee at Prosecutors For Prosecutors (PFP) Campaign.

“Promoting such a brutal regime is inexcusable. Instead of being silent or complicit, we should all be standing up against this cruelty,” she said.

Boy, 6, missing for five days found deep inside forest in Vietnam

A six-year-old boy, who went missing in a hilly forest area in Vietnam, has been found alive after five days. It is being hailed as a “miracle” rescue.

Dang Tien Lam, who lives in the Van Yen district in northeast Vietnam, went missing on 17 August after he went to play with his siblings near a stream and decided to return home alone.

But hours after he failed to return, police were alerted and a search operation was launched to find Lam.

More than 200 people, including police officers, soldiers, militia members and local volunteers were mobilised to find the boy.

Investigators scanned surveillance footage from nearby areas to eliminate the possibility of kidnapping and also drained fish ponds and scoured streams, district head Ha Duc Anh said.

He was finally found on Wednesday after a local farmer heard faint cries in the woods as he was returning to his tent. Ly Van Nang found Lam sitting among cassava bushes. He said the boy was so exhausted and weak that he was unable to stand.

Mr Nang said the boy asked him to carry him as he could not stand up.

“I picked him up, and he said he was tired and hungry, asking if I had anything to eat,” Mr Nang recounted.

Pictures showed a mud-covered frail boy in a red T-shirt drinking juice while sitting on a chair. He was also pictured in a hospital receiving care.

Lam said he survived on leaves and wild fruit during his time in the forest, according to reports.

He was found some 6km deep into the woods from where he went missing.

The police said finding Lam alive was a “miracle” and congratulated the family for the safe return of the boy, saying “Congratulations on returning safely to your family.”

Mr Nang said, “[The boy told me] that when he got lost, he could not find his way home. And the more he walked, the more he could not find a way out.”

Trading in Asian markets is mixed and muted ahead of a key Fed Chair speech

Asian shares were mixed in muted trading Friday ahead of a speech by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell that might deliver clues on how quickly and deeply the Fed may cut interest rates.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 0.5% to 38,408.44. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.1% to 8,017.10. South Korea’s Kospi edged down 0.1% to 2,704.79. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 0.4% to 17,569.38, while the Shanghai Composite gained 0.3% to 2,856.73.

Japan‘s plans for interest rates were also closely watched. Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda in his comments to parliament appeared to indicate more increases may be coming, but they would be gradual. The Bank of Japan was closely monitoring the recent gyrations in stock prices and currencies but saw recent wage increases as a positive sign, he said.

Japan’s economy was dragged down for years by deflation, a gradual decline in prices that reflects a stagnant economy. The bank ended negative interest rates in March then raised rates in July.

“We stuck to a very loose monetary policy until March. The point was our commitment to that until it’s confirmed the economy is on track to realize a gradual, stable rise in prices that’s sustainable,” Ueda told lawmakers.

Data is due next week on GDP, or gross domestic product, the value of a nation’s products and services, from the U.S., Canada, Germany and India.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 fell 0.9% for its worst day following a two-week rally. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 177 points, or 0.4%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 1.7%.

Weighing on stocks was a mixed picture on the U.S. economy, which has been slowing under the weight of high interest rates meant to get inflation under control.

One report showed slightly more U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week than expected.

A second report suggested U.S. business activity remains deeply split. Growth for services businesses is accelerating, according to preliminary data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. But the country’s manufacturing sector appears to be contracting at a more severe rate.

“Growth has become increasingly dependent on the service sector as manufacturing, which often leads the economic cycle, has fallen into decline,” said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

The Fed has pulled its main interest rate to the highest level in more than two decades. With inflation slowing, the wide expectation is for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates at its next meeting in September, which would be the first easing since the COVID-19 pandemic crash of 2020.

That’s why so much attention is on Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where Powell will speak Friday at an economic symposium that’s been home to big Fed policy announcements in the past.

One danger is if expectations for coming cuts have gone overboard among investors. U.S. companies continue to report mostly better-than-expected profits for the springtime.

Shares of Zoom Video Communications, one winner of the pandemic that saw its fortunes weaken afterward climbed 13% after delivering better results and revenue than expected.

Overall, more stocks fell on Wall Street than rose, including Nvidia, which was the heaviest single weight on the S&P 500.

All told, the S&P 500 fell 50.21 points to 5,570.64. The Dow dropped 177.71 to 40,712.78, and the Nasdaq lost 299.63 to 17,619.35.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 3.86% from 3.80% late Wednesday.

In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude rose 9 cents to $73.10 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 10 cents to $77.32 a barrel.

In currency trading, the U.S. dollar fell to 145.78 Japanese yen from 146.24 yen. The euro cost $1.1131, up from $1.1115.

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AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed. Yuri Kageyama is on X: https://x.com/yurikageyama