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Pilot killed in crash with Beijing's tallest building, local government says13 others, who were not on board, being treated for injuriesA ‌light aircraft crash into Beijing's tallest building on Friday killed the pilot and injured ​13 people who were not ‌on board, the local government said following the unusual accident for the ‌Chinese capital, where airspace ⁠is heavily restricted.Those ‌injured are receiving medical treatment and authorities are ‌investigating the incident, Chaoyang district government said in a statement Saturday."A single-engine, two-seat light ⁠sport aircraft collided with a high-rise building while flying near the East third ring road in Chaoyang, at 5:55pm on June 26," said the statement, which was posted on social media."There was only one person on board, the pilot, who died," the statement added, without giving any further details of the possible cause of the crash.Damage to the exterior of the skyscraper appeared to be limited to a hole caused by ​the loss of two large glass panels. The gap had been temporarily boarded up as of Saturday.The 528m-high building, known as CITIC Tower or China Zun, is in Beijing's Central Business District, about ‌6 km (3.7 miles) from the Forbidden City, ⁠which is visited ​by thousands of tourists each day.It is also near Zhongnanhai, a compound that ​houses the offices of China's top political leadership. The last aircraft crash in Beijing was in 2022, when a tourist helicopter crashed during a flight between the Changping and Fangshan districts, killing the two pilots on board.Pictures posted on social media in China in the aftermath of Friday's crash showed debris from the plane and the identifier B-12PP. Reuters could not immediately verify the images.Data from global flight tracking service provider Flightradar24 reviewed by Reuters showed an aircraft with registration number B-12PP was in the air at around 5:30pm on Friday in Beijing's northeastern suburbs.It flew in a ‌wide circle before heading in ‌the direction of downtown Beijing, about 50⁠km away, the Flightradar24 data showed. Tracking then stopped at 0955 GMT, with coordinates showing it ⁠already in the downtown Chaoyang district.The ⁠aircraft was a small two-seat, single-engine light-sport Aurora SA60L made by China's Sunward, Flightradar24 data shows.An aircraft matching the registration number was shown as being owned and operated by Beijing-based Dongshi Shuangyue General Aviation, a promotional video published by the company in 2024 on Chinese social media showed.The Financial Times, citing a person with knowledge of the incident, reported that the aircraft belonged ​to the company.Reuters could not immediately ascertain if the company owned and operated the aircraft when the crash occurred or if the pilot involved was affiliated with the company.A Dongshi Shuangyue General Aviation employee contacted by Reuters Saturday said she was not sure whether B-12PP belonged to the company, without providing further information.The company video, which was removed from the social media account on Friday evening, said a 30-minute sightseeing tour out of the small Shifuosi airport would cost 880 yuan ($129).The company offers low-altitude sightseeing flights, hands-on flight experience programs and ‌aviation training in the suburban ​Pinggu district, about 50km from downtown Beijing. 

Qatar's ‌interior ministry ​said an explosion ‌resulting from ‌a "technical ⁠accident" ‌occurred on Sunday ‌at a factory ⁠in Ras Laffan, an industrial city north of the capital Doha and site of the ​country's core LNG processing operations.It said several injuries ‌were reported but ⁠no ​leak that "threatens safety".The ​ministry did not give the exact location of the explosion, but a source with knowledge of the matter said ‌it occurred at ‌the ⁠Barzan gas plant ⁠in ⁠Ras Laffan and was due to an "operational error".A Reuters witness had said ​a loud boom was heard in Doha.

The owner of an illegally operated care home in Sri Lanka was remanded in custody yesterday, a day after a fire killed 12 residents and injured six others, officials said.Isuru Anushka, of the Maupiya Sewana home, was ordered to be held until June 11 as investigations opened into Wednesday's fire, one of the deadliest on the island for decades.A magisterial inquiry into the incident was told by officials that the facility was not authorised to operate as a care home and had not met the minimum standards set by regulators."Police have been ordered to investigate violations of regulations governing the care of the elderly," an officer told reporters following a preliminary court hearing.The inquiry was also told that 11 residents of the home were burnt to death at the home, while the 12th victim succumbed to severe burns at a local hospital.Another six escaped with complications from smoke inhalation.Forensic experts combed through the wreckage of the single-storey building and discovered seven charred bodies yesterday morning, raising the death toll to 12 from the initial five on Wednesday.An AFP photographer saw the owner in handcuffs being escorted to the scene yesterday, as police interviewed survivors and neighbours.In addition to elderly residents, the facility also housed young people with mental health issues.The youngest victim was a 17-year-old boy, police said.Police said initial witness accounts suggested that the fire originated in a storeroom where dozens of mattresses were stacked.Police spokesman Frederick Wootler said 51 residents and staff rescued on Wednesday had been moved to a nearby government school. 

Unmarked tunnels, missing trackers and fake doors have been uncovered during an initial probe into ‌the deadliest mining tragedy in China in over 15 years, with the government ​vowing to leave no stone ‌unturned, state media reported yesterday.At least 82 people were killed by a ‌gas explosion late ⁠on Friday at the ‌Liushenyu mine in the coal-rich province of ‌Shanxi in northern China. Two remained unaccounted for with a further 128 hospitalised, state media said.The ⁠blast is the deadliest mining accident in China since 2009, when a gas explosion at the Xinxing Mine in Heilongjiang province killed 108 people.While the cause of Friday's incident remains under investigation, the official Xinhua news agency yesterday said concealed mining tunnels, falsified drawings and outsourced and unregistered miners, who had not been provided with required life-saving location trackers, were contributing factors to the deadly incident.'YIN-YANG DRAWINGS'The mine, controlled by Shanxi Tongzhou Coal Coking Group, maintained ​two separate sets of plans and surveillance systems, Xinhua said. One set matched the actual operations while the other was used to deal with official inspections, with some mining areas hidden from regulatory oversight.Reuters was ‌not able to contact officials ⁠from the company, as according ​to state media they have been detained.Coal mined from the concealed and ​unregulated tunnels is not included in the official production figures and went untaxed.The two sets of plans are known colloquially as "yin-yang drawings": one kept in the open for inspectors to scrutinise and the other kept in the dark.Similar profit-driven practices are not uncommon in coal mines across China despite crackdowns, the national mine safety administration has said.The Liushenyu mine "used wire mesh and woven plastic sacks sprayed with mortar, to make fake doors that looked very much like the rock wall of the mine tunnel," Xinhua said.Workers would be tipped off by someone outside whenever inspectors came, and they would shut the fake ‌doors, smear coal ash to blend them ‌in with the rest of the ⁠underground passage.MISSING TRACKERS, ALARMSIn order to evade detection, the mine operator hired subcontracted labour to ⁠work in the concealed tunnels without providing ⁠them with required identification-location trackers or logging them in the official entry record.Authorities would have been able to monitor where the miners were underground had they been equipped with trackers, including in emergency situations.When the blast occurred on Friday, the official log showed only 124 workers had gone underground, according to footage shown on state broadcaster CCTV on Monday. In fact a total of 247 workers ​were working in the mine, suggesting that 123 had been untracked in tunnels outside official purview.The lack of accurate maps and miners' location information has severely hampered rescue operations, state media said.The Liushenyu mine — classified as a "high-gas mine" with elevated blast risk — also deliberately avoided installing gas-monitoring equipment to further evade authorities' supervision, the state radio broadcaster said in a separate report yesterday.The issues were not unknown to authorities before Friday's tragedy. In 2025, the mine operator was "fined after regulators discovered concealed working faces, but the penalty failed to serve as an effective deterrent, ‌and the company continued illegal ​production," Xinhua said.Some mines across China have halted or reduced production following the incident for safety inspections. 

A tourism video promoting Japan's tsunami-hit Fukushima region is airing on billboards across Seoul, in what a Japanese official called a first since the 2011 nuclear accident.The 30-second clip was produced by Japan's Reconstruction Agency, a government body that deals with the aftermath of the 2011 disaster.It featured several well-known sites and carried captions reading: "Now time to visit Fukushima with 15 years of recovery."The Fukushima catastrophe unfolded in March 11, 2011 when a powerful earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands of people triggered one of the world's worst nuclear accidents."As we reach the turning point marking the 15th anniversary of the earthquake, we hope this will showcase Fukushima's recovery and the appeal of its food and tourism," a representative of the Japanese embassy in Seoul told AFP Wednesday, adding it will run through to Sunday.More than 9.4mn South Koreans visited Japan in last year, making them the largest group among all foreign visitors to the country, according to official Japanese data.But overnight stays by South Koreans in Fukushima are still only about one-tenth of pre-tsunami levels, according to Japan's broadcaster NHK.Since 2013, South Korea has maintained a ban on seafood imports from eight Japanese prefectures, including Fukushima, due to concerns about radiation contamination.China banned imports of Japanese seafood in 2023 after Japan started releasing treated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima plant into the sea.Beijing later resumed some imports but then reportedly reversed course in November as part of an ongoing diplomatic rift with Tokyo. 

At least 24 people were killed, and 18 others injured when a passenger bus collided with a truck in the southern Indian state of Telangana. Indian police said the accident occurred as the bus, carrying about 70 passengers, was traveling to Hyderabad, the state capital.Reports indicate that the truck, which was transporting gravel, collided with the bus at high force, trapping several passengers inside. Initial investigations suggest that excessive speed and loss of control by the truck driver were the likely causes of the accident.Police said the dead included the drivers of the bus and the truck, as well as a 10-month-old baby and its mother. Authorities have launched an investigation into the accident.Traffic accidents are common in India as a result of overloading, poor infrastructure and reckless driving.

Fifteen people, mostly children, died when a boat sank in a lake in northeastern Ghana. Ghanaian authorities reported that 11 children, aged between two and 14 (five boys and six girls), were among the dead in the accident on Lake Volta in the Oti Region. A statement issued by the Maritime Authority stated that the children and other victims were traveling from Okuma to Bovime when their boat capsized, noting that four adults survived. The statement added that the incident was a serious and unacceptable violation of safety standards. The statement noted that a specialized team has been deployed to determine the cause of the sinking, noting that preliminary findings indicate that the boat was overloaded. The authority confirmed that it will form a high-level investigation committee with the Ministry of Transport, and will launch an ongoing process to enforce lakeside safety measures to ensure compliance with passenger limits and lifejacket regulations. Boating accidents are common on Lake Volta, often caused by overloading and collisions with tree trunks. In August, six people were killed in a similar accident, and 18 people died in May 2023 after their boat struck a submerged tree trunk.

Secretary-General of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, on Sunday extended his condolences to the government and people of Qatar following the deaths of several members of the Amiri Diwan in a traffic accident in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. In a post on X, Aboul Gheit said that he is praying to Almighty Allah to bestow upon the deceased His mercy and forgiveness, and grant their families patience and solace.

The Embassy of the State of Qatar to the Arab Republic of Egypt expressed its deep sorrow and grief over the death of three members of the Amiri Diwan in a tragic traffic accident in Sharm el-Sheikh, which occurred while they were performing their official duties.The deceased were identified as Saud bin Thamer Al-Thani, Abdullah Ghanem Al Khayarin, and Hassan Jaber Al Jaber. The accident also left two others injured: Abdullah Issa Al Kuwari and Mohammed Abdulaziz Al Buainain.In a statement issued on Sunday, the embassy confirmed that it had immediately begun following up on the incident with the relevant Egyptian authorities. The statement added that the bodies of the deceased and the injured will be transferred to Doha today on a Qatari flight, noting that the injured are currently receiving the necessary medical care at Sharm El Sheikh International Hospital.The embassy extended its sincere condolences and deepest sympathies to the families of the deceased and wished the injured a speedy recovery.It also expressed its appreciation to the concerned authorities in the sisterly Arab Republic of Egypt for their cooperation, attentiveness, and prompt response in following up on the incident and providing all necessary assistance.

Five people were killed, and eight others injured in a traffic accident in central China. Xinhua News Agency, citing local police in Hubei Province, reported that a traffic accident occurred in Wangying Township, Lichuan City, killing five people and injuring eight others. Preliminary investigations indicate that none of the injured are in critical condition. In September of last year, six people were killed, and seven others were injured in a traffic accident in Zhuzhou City, Hunan Province in central China.

At least 26 people were killed when a boat capsized in the Niger River in Kogi State, southern Nigeria. Local sources reported that the accident occurred while the boat was carrying traders from Ibaji to a market in Ilushi, Edo State, when it capsized in the river. The death toll is expected to rise. Boat capsizing incidents in Nigeria are common due to overloading, poor maintenance, and failure to adhere to safety regulations. A similar incident occurred in early September in Niger State, resulting in the deaths of at least 32 people.

Eight people were killed, and 14 others injured on Monday in a bus accident on the Eastern Desert Road in Beni Mazar, Minya Governorate, southern Egypt. Egypt's Ministry of Health and Population reported that 34 ambulances were dispatched to the scene, transporting the injured to hospitals. Minya Governorate has witnessed several similar accidents on desert roads in recent years.