MOSCOW (Reuters) -- A Russian cargo ship called Ursa Major sank in the Mediterranean Sea overnight after an explosion ripped through its engine room and two of its crew are still missing, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday. The vessel, built in 2009, was controlled by Oboronlogistika, a company that is part of the Russian Defense Ministry’s military construction operations, which had previously said it was en route to the Russian far eastern port of Vladivostok with two giant port cranes lashed to its deck. The Foreign Ministry’s crisis centre said in a statement that 14 of the ship’s 16 crew members had been rescued and brought to Spain, but that two were still missing. It did not say what had caused the engine room explosion. Russia’s embassy in Spain was cited by the state RIA news agency as saying it was looking into the circumstances of the sinking and was in touch with the authorities in Spain.

 

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MANILA (Reuters) -- The Philippines’ defense minister on Tuesday justified the country’s deployment of a U.S. medium-range missile system and plans to acquire its own, despite opposition from China, a longstanding rival in the South China Sea. “Any deployment and procurement of assets related to the Philippines’ security and defense fall within its own sovereign prerogative and are not subject to any foreign veto,” minister Gilberto Teodoro said in a statement. There is a plan to acquire a missile system with mid-range capability, Philippine army chief Roy Galido said on Monday, adding “there are negotiations because we see its feasibility and adaptability.” Reuters reported in September the United States had no immediate plan to withdraw the Typhon missile system from the Philippines and was testing the feasibility of its use in a regional conflict, which China said risked causing a geopolitical confrontation. China on Monday reiterated it firmly opposes its deployment. It urged the Philippines to “quickly pull out the Typhon missile system as publicly pledged, and stop going further down the wrong path,” foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a regular press conference on Monday.

 

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MOSCOW (AFP) -- A Russian court on Tuesday sentenced a U.S. man to 15 years in a penal colony for “espionage”, Russian news agencies reported. Moscow City Court sentenced the man, named as Gene Spector, to “15 years to be served in a strict-regime penal colony”, taking into account a sentence the defendant had already received for bribery, RIA Novosti state news agency reported. It published a photograph of Spector in the defendant’s cage, wearing glasses and a dark jacket. The trial, except for the sentencing, took place behind closed doors due to the secret nature of the case, news agencies reported. Spector was born in 1972 in Leningrad and his Russian name is Yevgeny Mironovich, the agency reported. Now a U.S. citizen, he lives in the city of Saint Petersburg in northwest Russia and is married with children.

 

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BERLIN (AFP) -- Germany’s president said Tuesday that a deadly car-ramming attack on a Christmas market had cast a “dark shadow” over this year’s celebrations but urged the nation not to be driven apart by extremists. In his traditional Christmas address, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier sought to issue a message of healing four days after the brutal attack in the eastern city of Magdeburg killed five people and left over 200 wounded. A Saudi doctor, Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, 50, was arrested Friday at the scene of the attack in which a rented SUV ploughed at high speed through the crowd of revellers, bringing death and chaos to the festive event. “A dark shadow hangs over this Christmas,” said the head of state, pointing to the “pain, horror and bewilderment over what happened in Magdeburg just a few days before Christmas”. He made a call for national unity as a debate about security and immigration is flaring again: “Hatred and violence must not have the final word. Let’s not allow ourselves to be driven apart. Let’s stand together.”

 

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PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) -- At least 207 people were killed by members of the Wharf Jeremie gang in Haiti’s portside neighborhood of Cite Soleil earlier this month, the United Nations said in a report on Monday, revising up a death toll it initially estimated at 187. In a new report on the massacre, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said at least 134 men and 73 women, most of them elderly residents accused of witchcraft, were killed in less than a week of mass executions, abductions, and raids by some 300 members of the Wharf Jeremie gang. Gang leader Monel “Mikano” Felix ordered the attacks after his child got sick, accusing local residents of causing the illness through Voudou. Many of the victims were abducted from Voudou temples and religious ceremonies, the UN said. Mikano’s gang has controlled a small but strategic area between key ports, surrounding warehouses and national highways out of the capital for some 15 years, according the UN. Over 5,300 people have been killed in Haiti since January and more than 12,000 since the start of 2022, according to the U.N., while over 700,000 have been internally displaced.