World

El Salvador's police chief, known for leading the country's "war" on gangs, was killed in a helicopter crash along with several others, the army said on Monday.

National Civil Police Director Mauricio Arriaza Chicas led El Salvador's crackdown on criminal gangs since March 2022, a campaign that has netted nearly 82,000 suspected gang members under a system that allows arrests without warrants.

Emerging from the head of the world's tallest bronze Buddha and climbing down to its right ear, two specialist cleaners gave the imposing Japanese statue an annual spruce up Monday to help it look its gleaming best.

Using high-pressure water guns, the pair blasted dust and bird droppings off the Ushiku Daibutsu monument, which soars skywards over Ushiku city, northeast of Tokyo.

The death toll in Vietnam from Typhoon Yagi jumped to 59, state media reported on Monday, as business leaders said the storm had been a "disaster" for the country's vital manufacturing sector.

Yagi, according to meteorologists the most powerful typhoon to hit northern Vietnam in 30 years, downed bridges, tore roofs off buildings and damaged factories after making landfall on Saturday carrying winds in excess of 149 kilometers (92 miles) per hour.

The descendants of the Eiffel Tower's designer say they will fight to stop the Olympic rings being left on the tower as the mayor of Paris plans.

The family of the legendary engineer Gustave Eiffel said they "oppose any alteration that negatively impacts respect for the work" of their ancestor, adding they had already consulted lawyers about blocking the change.

Dili (East Timor) (AFP) – When Pope Francis becomes the first pontiff to visit an independent East Timor, he will confront a clergy beset by child abuse scandals that have been largely ignored by the deeply Catholic country's freedom heroes.

Cases include Nobel-winning Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, who helped Asia's youngest nation free itself from Indonesian occupation, but who the Vatican secretly punished over claims he had sexually abused young children for decades.

1. North Toraja (AFP) – A family on an Indonesian island poses with a relative dressed in a school uniform, while an elderly member of the local community stands patiently as loved ones put a sarong and a white shirt around him.

But the student is not off to class and their forebear is not going out -- they are both dead.

A family of four was killed on Sunday after heavy rain caused a hillside to give way and collapse onto a house in the mountainous Hoa Binh province of northern Vietnam, according to state media.

Rabat (AFP) – Reconstruction has been slow in the year since a deadly earthquake struck Morocco's High Atlas region, with only a fraction of the damaged homes rebuilt, authorities said.

More than 55,000 permits have been issued but just 1,000 homes have so far been rebuilt, the authorities said this week.

Pezeshkian will head a high-ranking Iranians delegation to Baghdad to meet senior Iraqi officials.

The visit comes at the invitation of Iraq's premier, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, the official IRNA news agency quoted Iran's ambassador to Baghdad Mohammad Kazem Al-Sadegh as saying.

Kenyan police stepped up their investigations Saturday into a prime school dormitory blaze that killed 17 boys, as families faced an agonising wait for news of their missing loved ones.

Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua had said on Friday that 70 youngsters were still unaccounted for after the fire broke out at Hillside Endarasha Academy in the central Nyeri county around midnight Thursday.

Super Typhoon Yagi uprooted thousands of trees and swept ships and boats out to sea, killing one person, as it made landfall in northern Vietnam on Saturday, after leaving at least 23 dead through southern China and the Philippines.

The typhoon hit Hai Phong and Quang Ninh provinces, packing winds exceeding 149 kilometers (92 miles) per hour, Vietnam's National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting said.