分类： world

A massive 7.8-magnitude earthquake that tore through the restive southern Philippine region of Mindanao on Monday has left at least 35 people dead, sparked widespread damage, and triggered urgent disaster response efforts from both the Philippine government and regional neighbor Australia.

The powerful tremor caused a building housing popular local fast-food chain Jollibee to collapse, sent terrified schoolchildren fleeing for safety across the Soccsksargen region, and prompted immediate tsunami warnings across the island archipelago. As of Wednesday, emergency search and rescue teams were still working through piles of rubble to recover victims, with at least 12 people remaining unaccounted for.

In an official statement released shortly after the disaster, Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong confirmed the country stands ready to deploy humanitarian assistance to the Philippines should Manila request support. “Our thoughts are with the Australian-Filipino community, the people of the Philippines, and all those affected by the earthquake near Mindanao,” Wong said. “We stand with our close friends at this time of great difficulty.” Wong is currently in Berlin for scheduled bilateral talks with European leaders focused on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and efforts to reopen the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has moved quickly to coordinate a national response, directing all relevant government agencies to deploy resources to affected areas and suspending all classes across Mindanao until further notice. In a social media update addressed to the public, Marcos Jr. said he remains in constant contact with regional disaster teams and local government leaders on the ground. “The national government is moving and we will not leave Mindanao behind,” he emphasized.

Mindanao, the southernmost major island of the Philippines that shares a maritime border with Malaysia, has a long history of recurring security and humanitarian crises. For decades, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) waged an armed separatist insurgency against the Philippine central government, while the jihadist criminal network Abu Sayyaf Group has also maintained a persistent presence in the region. In 2017, the Philippine military launched a months-long campaign to liberate the city of Marawi from Islamic State-affiliated militant groups that had seized control of large swathes of the urban area. More recently, the two men accused of carrying out the 2024 Bondi Beach shooting in Sydney are alleged to have traveled to Davao City, Mindanao’s largest urban center, in 2025.

A high-stakes trial centered on one of the most brazen cultural theft rings in recent European history opens Tuesday in Paris, where seven Georgian nationals will answer for charges connected to the systematic theft of rare 19th-century Russian literary classics valued at more than 1.25 million euros from leading institutional libraries across the continent.

The case is the culmination of a multi-year cross-border investigation into a string of identical heists that targeted rare collections across Germany, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, and France. Law enforcement and judicial officials have linked the thefts to a sophisticated organized criminal network that operated across European borders for years, outwitting library security protocols through carefully planned deception.

Targeted works included first and early editions from iconic Russian literary figures Alexander Pushkin and Nikolai Gogol, with the total collective value of all stolen volumes across Europe estimated in the millions of euros. All seven defendants facing the Paris tribunal have been charged with criminal conspiracy and intent to commit theft; several also face additional charges for stealing cultural items on public display. If convicted, they could receive prison sentences of up to 10 years.

Two of the accused are being tried in absentia, and international arrest warrants remain active for their detention. Two other defendants, identified only as 50-year-old Mikheil Z. and 49-year-old Beqa T. by French judicial procedure, are already serving prison sentences for identical theft convictions in Lithuania and Estonia respectively, and have been temporarily extradited to France to stand trial for their alleged roles in the French heists. Last year, Mikheil Z. was sentenced to three years and four months in a Lithuanian prison for stealing 19th-century publications worth 606,000 euros, while Beqa T. received a three-year-and-six-month sentence in Estonia for similar crimes.

French investigating judges who reviewed the case file shared with Agence France-Presse confirm the network’s operational method was consistent across all targeted institutions. Thieves would first pose as academic researchers to gain access to the rare reading rooms of major libraries, where they would photograph, measure, and document the target volumes before leaving. They would later return to swap the authentic rare books with near-identical high-quality forgeries that evaded detection for months.

In France, the heists unfolded in 2023 across three major cultural institutions: the Diderot Library at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Lyon, the National Library of France (BnF) in Paris, and the University Library of Languages and Civilisations (BULAC), also in Paris. Court records show that between March and October 2023, Mikheil Z. visited the BnF 40 times, requesting access to rare Pushkin manuscripts under the pretense of writing academic research on democratic themes in 19th-century Russian literature. It was not until November 2023 that library staff discovered nine authentic rare works had been swapped for fakes, with the BnF alone suffering an estimated loss of 650,000 euros.

When questioned by investigators, Mikheil Z. confessed to stealing the volumes but claimed he acted alone, stating his motive was purely financial greed and that he had sold all stolen books to buyers in Russia. A curious development in the case came in June 2024, when Russia’s Litfond auction house listed a second edition of Pushkin’s *The Prisoner of the Caucasus* — a volume matching the description of one stolen from the BnF — in its public auction catalogue. Litfond representatives provided French authorities with documentation claiming the book had been acquired from a private Russian owner between 2014 and 2015, years before the French heist.

Investigative judges have put forward two competing working theories for the network’s motive: beyond simple financial profit, the thefts may be connected to a broader push to “repatriate” Russia’s cultural heritage at a time of unprecedentedly strained relations between Moscow and Western Europe following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. To date, none of the stolen volumes have been recovered.

Despite the loss, the BnF remains committed to its core public mission, according to the institution’s lawyer Alexandre de Konn. “The National Library of France has not given up hope of recovering these works,” de Konn told Agence France-Presse. “It remains true to its mission: to continue making heritage open to the public while constantly strengthening its protection.”

The cross-border investigation that led to the 2024 arrests and this week’s trial was made possible by a joint investigation team launched under the auspices of Europol and Eurojust, the European Union’s law enforcement and judicial coordination agencies, formed specifically to dismantle the theft ring after heists were reported across multiple member states.

A powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck off the coast of Mindanao, the southern major island of the Philippines, on June 8 has left 41 people dead, more than 450 injured, and thousands displaced, with disaster response efforts hampered by ongoing aftershock risks and widespread infrastructure damage, according to latest updates from national and local disaster management agencies.

The quake, which triggered immediate tsunami warnings across the Pacific region that forced thousands of coastal residents in the Philippines and neighboring Indonesia to evacuate to higher ground, was followed by a cascade of powerful aftershocks that began just two hours after the initial tremor, with hundreds of smaller seismic events continuing to rock the disaster zone in the days after the main shock. By midday the day after the quake, all tsunami warnings had been lifted, with the highest recorded waves reaching just 20 centimeters off Japan’s Pacific coast, well below dangerous thresholds.

Sarangani province, the hardest-hit region, faces particularly acute challenges: local government officials confirmed Tuesday that several remote communities remain completely cut off from outside aid, with damaged roads and a collapsed bridge expected to block access for at least a week. Some isolated areas can only be reached by helicopter, and repeated aftershocks have forced rescue teams to proceed with extreme caution to avoid being caught in further structural collapses.

“There are still aftershocks, so the rescuers are very cautious in their approach. That’s a challenge,” regional civil defence chief Rodrigo Sosmena told reporters during a Tuesday briefing.

The widespread damage to buildings has left medical facilities across the region unable to operate normally, forcing medical teams to treat patients in makeshift outdoor wards set up under the scorching tropical sun. At a hospital just outside General Santos, the region’s largest urban center, reporters with Agence France-Presse witnessed one young mother successfully give birth behind a temporary fabric screen, with medical staff guiding her through the delivery in the open air.

In Glan municipality, where 13 residents were killed after being buried by landslides that hit their residential areas, a local hospital administrator told AFP that all 60 of the facility’s patients had been moved to outdoor beds after structural inspections found severe damage to the building that rendered it unsafe for occupancy. “The hospital sustained a lot of damage,” the staff member said. “The municipal engineer decided we could not use the building.” As of Tuesday morning, only four people remained listed as missing across the entire disaster zone.

Recovery efforts have resumed in General Santos after pausing overnight, with search and rescue teams and specialized canine units working through the rubble of a collapsed local grocery store to reach two employees who were trapped when the building crumbled. A local rescuer told reporters the operation had shifted from active rescue to recovery, though a senior regional official later clarified that no formal decision on this shift had yet been made. The Philippine Coast Guard is also still searching for two swimmers who went missing off a local beach resort when the quake triggered violent churning of coastal waters.

Social media videos verified by AFP have captured the scale of the destruction: one clip shows the full collapse of a General Santos shopping center that housed a popular Jollibee fast food outlet, while another shows an empty school building crumpling to the ground. A third video, posted to a local school’s official Facebook page, captures young students screaming as they cling to their teachers during the violent shaking, with a flimsy metal structure visible toppling in the background before the clip cuts off. The school’s caption confirmed no one was injured when the structure fell.

This latest major seismic event comes just eight months after two powerful earthquakes, measuring magnitude 7.4 and 6.7, hit eastern Mindanao in October of the previous year, killing at least eight people.

Two months after a ceasefire brokered with the United States paused open hostilities between Israel and Iran, a new wave of tit-for-tat strikes reignited global fears of a full-scale regional war, pushing Australia and Germany to issue a joint condemnation of Iran’s actions and call for urgent de-escalation. While the two sides agreed overnight to halt the recent exchange of attacks, the road to a durable, lasting peace remains deeply uncertain, as Israel continues its military campaign to dislodge the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah from southern Lebanon.

In a joint statement released during diplomatic talks in Berlin, Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles joined their German counterparts Johann Wadephul and Boris Pistorius to unequivocally denounce Iran’s recent escalatory moves. The statement specifically called out Iran’s actions in and around the strategic Strait of Hormuz, including targeted attacks on commercial merchant vessels and repeated threats of further hostile action. Against the backdrop of widening conflict and a worsening humanitarian catastrophe across the Middle East, the two nations urged all involved parties to strictly adhere to international law and prioritize the protection of innocent civilian lives.

Ministers also highlighted the severe spillover effects of the ongoing tensions on the global economy and international supply chains, reaffirming their shared commitment to open markets and rules-based trade for energy resources, liquid fuels, and downstream commodities. They called on Iran to immediately and unconditionally reestablish free, safe, and unimpeded passage for all shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint that handles nearly a fifth of the world’s oil trade, and reiterated their full support for a negotiated diplomatic resolution to the broader conflict.

The joint diplomatic action comes as Australian officials warn that the current ceasefire between Israel and Iran remains extremely fragile, and that domestic public frustration is growing over the ongoing disruptions caused by the stop-start cycle of conflict. Assistant Immigration Minister Matt Thistlewaite told ABC Radio National that many Australians are increasingly irritated by the persistent closure of large sections of the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, which has driven up fuel prices across Australia’s domestic markets. These higher energy costs have already begun to filter through to everyday household goods including food and groceries, adding additional upward pressure on national inflation that has stretched household budgets thin.

“Australians are becoming increasingly frustrated with the stop-start nature of this conflict… we want to see this conflict brought to an end as quickly as possible. We want this temporary ceasefire to become a permanent,” Thistlewaite said, adding that the Australian government has maintained ongoing dialogue with Israeli ambassador Hillel Newman in the wake of Israel’s recent deep incursion into Lebanon, the deepest such advance in nearly 30 years.

Thistlewaite confirmed that Australian diplomatic discussions have centered on pressing Israel to end its military incursions into southern Lebanon, abide by existing ceasefire terms, and negotiate a long-term settlement for the region. Echoing the Australian government’s longstanding policy, which is backed by United Nations resolutions, he noted that a lasting two-state solution for Israel and Palestine remains the only path to sustainable peace across the Middle East.

“Until we can say that the parties are willing to look to negotiate something like that, it makes it very difficult for this conflict to come to an end,” he added.

On a separate issue, Thistlewaite rejected calls for Australia to follow Italy’s lead in launching an independent investigation into allegations of sexual assault and mistreatment of passengers on an activist flotilla detained en route to Gaza, which included multiple Australian citizens. Israeli authorities have outright denied the allegations.

The current round of hostilities dates back to March 2, when Hezbollah entered the conflict on Iran’s side, prompting massive retaliatory action from Israel. Since that time, more than 3,600 Lebanese people have been killed, and at least one million have been displaced from their homes. Separate negotiations are already underway between Israel and Lebanon to reach a lasting peace, decades after Israeli troops advanced all the way to Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War in an effort to oust the Palestine Liberation Organisation and install a pro-Israel government in Beirut.

Hezbollah, which rose to prominence fighting to end Israel’s 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon, has rejected claims that it is bound by existing agreements between the Lebanese government and Israel, further complicating efforts to reach a lasting regional settlement.