Foreign News
Westfield Bondi mall attack: Sydney knife suspect identified by police
A knife-wielding man who killed six people in a Sydney shopping centre before being shot dead has been identified by Australian police.
Joel Cauchi, 40, sent the crowded Westfield Bondi Junction complex into panic on Saturday when he began stabbing people with a long blade.
Five women and a man died. Several others, including a baby, were injured. Authorities said the attack was most likely “related to the mental health” of Mr Cauchi.
Asked whether she believes he was targeting women, New South Wales Police Commissioner Karen Webb told reporters on Sunday it would be “an obvious line of inquiry”. But she added she would not describe the stabbings as an “act of terror”, reiterating that police believed there was “no ideological motivation”.
Mr Cauchi, from neighbouring state Queensland, was previously known to police. Initial searches of a small storage unit he owned in Sydney had not shed light on a possible motive, the commissioner said. Authorities said they were still trying to notify families of the victims, noting two appeared to have no relatives in Australia.
But the family of Ashlee Good – the injured baby’s mother – say she was among those killed. Witnesses have told local media that Ms Good desperately passed the infant to bystanders in the moments after she was wounded.
“The mum got stabbed and the mum came over with the baby and threw it at me and (I) was holding the baby,” one man told Nine News.
The nine-month-old girl “had surgery overnight and is currently in a critical condition and is in ICU,” Health Minister Ryan Park told ABC news.
“Now, we certainly are hoping that she gets through this but there is a long way to go.”
Ms Good’s family said they were “reeling from the terrible loss of Ashlee, a beautiful mother, daughter, sister, partner, friend, all-round outstanding human and so much more”.
“We appreciate the well-wishes and thoughts of members of the Australian public who have expressed an outpouring of love for Ashlee and our baby girl,” the family said in a statement on Sunday.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australians were “waking up to try to deal with the shock and trauma” of what had happened.
Describing the attack as “unspeakable and really just beyond comprehension”, Mr Albanese again praised the actions of a lone senior policewoman who confronted Mr Cauchi and shot him dead as horror gripped the mall.
“The wonderful inspector who ran into danger by herself and removed the threat that was there to others, without thinking about the risks to herself,” the prime minister said, thanking her and emergency teams.
Police identified her on Sunday as Inspector Amy Scott, adding she had no current plans to speak publicly about the incident.
Authorities said nine people had been taken to hospital after the stabbings, and another three people had sought medical attention overnight. About 40 paramedics were initially involved in the response.
The shopping centre in Sydney’s affluent east remained closed on Sunday and forensic investigators pored over the scene. Outside, tributes of flowers began to pile up.
Many world leaders have expressed shock. New Zealand leader Christopher Luxon said all New Zealanders were thinking of those affected, while UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said they were “in the thoughts and prayers of the British people”.
Pope Francis said he was deeply saddened by the “senseless tragedy” and offered prayers. King Charles added he and Queen Camilla were “utterly shocked” and “our hearts go out to the families and loved ones”.
(BBC)
The Philippine House of Representatives has voted to impeach Vice-President Sara Duterte for a second time, threatening her plan to run for president in 2028.
Monday’s vote moves the impeachment process to the Senate for trial, where if convicted, the daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte will be disqualified from holding public office.
The 47-year-old is leading early surveys to replace her ally-turned-bitter foe, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
The case against the vice-president stemmed from her alleged misuse of public funds and public threats against Marcos, his wife and his cousin, the former House speaker.
Duterte was impeached on the same grounds in 2025, but the Supreme Court blocked it on a technicality before the
senate trial could start.
The case was revived this year. Last week, a House committee that looked into the evidence against the vice-president ruled that there was sufficient grounds to impeach her.
Duterte described the case as “nothing more than a scrap of paper” in a formal written response. She refused to appear in the committee hearings which she said had been politically motivated.
After the impeachment vote on Monday, Duterte’s defence counsel said in a statement that “the burden now rests on the accusers to substantiate their claims” according to the law.
Monday night’s impeachment vote served as a barometer of Marcos’ support in the House. 257 of the 290 lawmakers in attendance voted to impeach Duterte, more than the one-thirds required to advance the case to trial.
But unlike in the House, a conviction in the Senate is uncertain, if a trial does start and runs its course.
In Philippine politics that is dominated by patronage and dynastic alliances, House members, who are elected per legislative district are friendlier to the incumbent president, compared to senators.
The country’s 24 senators are elected on the national level and the Senate is a traditional springboard for those hoping to run for president or vice-president in the future.
In the 2025 mid-term vote, where half of the Senate was elected, candidates allied with Duterte fared better than those who ran under Marcos’ coalition.
But the outcome of an impeachment vote will be difficult to predict under the country’s multi-party system with shifting alliances.
Duterte announced her intention to run for president in February, much earlier than expected. Marcos is limited by the constitution to a single six-year term.
She holds a 17-point lead over her nearest rival based on a survey in March by Manila pollster WR Numero.
In the 2022 elections, Duterte was the survey frontrunner to succeed her father, but she formed an alliance with Marcos and ran for vice-president instead to consolidate their support bases and fend off a reformist wave. The pair won by a landslide.
But the alliance soon unravelled as they pursued divergent political agendas.
Marcos’ allies in the House, led by cousin, then speaker Martin Romualdez, investigated allegations of fund misuse in Duterte’s office.
At the height of public scrutiny, Duterte hosted a late night online press conference, where she said she told one person that “if I get killed, go kill BBM [President Marcos], [First Lady] Liza Araneta, and [House Speaker] Martin Romualdez”.
Then in March last year, Marcos allowed theInternational Criminal Court to arrest Rodrigo Duterte and detain him at The Hague, where he now awaits trial for crimes against humanity over the hundreds who died in his so-called war on drugs.
[BBC]
A car bombing at a police post, followed by an intense firefight, has killed at least 21 officers in northwestern Pakistan, according to police and security sources.
An alliance of armed groups known as the Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan has claimed responsibility for the attack in Bannu, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, late on Saturday.
[Aljazeera]
A person has died after jumping an airport perimeter fence in the US state of Colorado and being struck by a Frontier Airlines plane, according to authorities.
Denver International Airport said the unusual incident occurred late Friday, after the unidentified individual gained access to the tarmac.
It said the “pedestrian jumped the perimeter fence and was hit just two minutes later while crossing the runway”.
A brief engine fire followed the collision, which was put out by emergency responders, according to the airport.
It said that 12 of the 231 people on board suffered minor injuries, with five hospitalised.
The airport said investigators had examined the fence line where the individual entered and “found it to be intact”.
It added that the struck individual “is not believed to be an employee of the airport”.
“We are extremely saddened by this incident and express our sympathies to those involved,” the airport said.
Both local authorities and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) were investigating the incident.
Airport safety in the US came under renewed scrutiny earlier this year amid a prolonged shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which temporarily left both Transportation Security Agents (TSA) and air traffic controllers working without pay.
While instances of people being killed on airport tarmacs are rare, Friday’s incident came a day after a Delta employee was killed after an airport vehicle struck an airbridge at Orlando International Airport.
In March, two pilots were killed after an Air Canada Express plane crashed into a fire-rescue vehicle at LaGuardia Airport in New York.
About 225,000 people travel through Denver International Airport a day.
[Aljazeera]
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