AFP, Seoul
South Korea fired warning shots at one of the North’s patrol boats as it strayed across the border, Seoul’s defence ministry said, raising tensions while a rare reunion for families separated by the peninsula’s 1950-53 war was underway.
The South’s navy were launching a crackdown on Chinese fishing boats illegally operating off the country’s western coast Saturday when it spotted the patrol vessel and fired five warning shots.
The North Korean ship returned across the border soon afterwards without firing back, the defence ministry added.
17 killed in Indonesia bar fire
AP, Manado
Seventeen people were killed in a fire that raced through a packed karaoke bar early Sunday on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, and 71 others were hospitalized for smoke inhalation.
Witnesses told authorities the fire started at around 1 a.m. on the second floor of the three-story building as hundreds of people were singing in private rooms at the Inul Vizta Karaoke club in downtown Manado, the capital of North Sulawesi province, said the city’s police chief, Col. Rio Permana.
Workers were unable to put out the fire with extinguishers. It took firefighters several hours to bring the blaze under control.
Afghan Kunduz bombing death toll rises to 30
AP, Kabul
The number of people killed when U.S. forces bombed a trauma hospital in northern Afghanistan earlier this month has risen to 30, the international medical charity Doctors Without Borders, which ran the clinic, said on Sunday.
The death toll includes “10 known patients, 13 known staff and seven unrecognizable bodies,” the organization said in a statement. The clinic in Kunduz was bombed by U.S. forces on Oct. 3.
Russia ‘tried to hack MH17 inquiry system’
AFP, The Hague
Russian spies likely tried to hack into the Dutch Safety Board’s computer systems to access a sensitive final report into the shooting down of flight MH17 over Ukraine, experts said Friday.
The cyberattacks were revealed by security experts Trend Micro which blamed a shadowy group dubbed Operation Pawn Storm, “an active economic and political cyber-espionage operation” that has targeted the White House and NATO in the past.
4 death in Oklahoma parade crash
AP, Stillwater
Lawn chairs, blankets and water bottles were strewn in the street and bodies remained at the scene as Oklahoma State University fans walked past an intersection where a woman had plowed her car into a homecoming parade crowd hours earlier and killed four people.
Some lingered Saturday to look at the aftermath that also included a gray car with a smashed side and shattered windshield, and a crumpled motorcycle.
Dozens more were injured in the collision that sent some spectators flying through the air.
The driver is suspected of being under the influence, and investigators were awaiting results of blood tests to determine if she was impaired by drugs or alcohol.
