Copter crash on slope kills 9 Japanese
TOKYO — Japanese authorities said all nine people aboard a search-and-rescue helicopter that crashed in a mountainous area are confirmed dead.
The Bell 412EP helicopter carrying seven rescue workers from the Gunma prefecture and two from a flight service company lost contact an hour after takeoff Friday and crashed. The helicopter was on a planned two-hour flight to monitor a mountain trail opening for climbers this weekend.
Rescue aircraft dispatched by the Defense Ministry had found the bodies of eight of the crew members at the site, and a ninth man was missing. Prefectural officials said the last person aboard was found early today and pronounced dead.
The cause of the crash is under investigation.
Television footage showed debris of the helicopter scattered on the mountainside, apparently after it crashed after tearing through trees.
Japanese media quoted witnesses as saying the helicopter was flying extremely low in foggy weather minutes before the crash.
Syria strikes rebel turf, kills 22 people
BEIRUT — Government airstrikes on opposition-held territory in northwest Syria killed at least 22 people, a monitoring group said Friday, as the U.N.’s children’s agency warned a new battle in the war-torn country could affect the lives of 1 million children.
Government forces unleashed a wave of airstrikes across Idlib, Aleppo and Hama provinces after days of building up ground forces at the edge of opposition territory, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The group said 14 people were killed in the Aleppo province and another eight in the province of Idlib.
Fears have been building for days of a government offensive against the last major bastion for the opposition, centered in the Idlib province and along the edges of the Aleppo and Hama provinces.
U.N. agencies are warning a campaign to capture Idlib would aggravate an already dire humanitarian situation.
Food, water and medicine are already in short supply in the largely rural Idlib province, which is now home to over 1 million Syrians displaced from their homes by government offensives in other parts of the country, said UNICEF, the U.N. children’s agency.
Some 350,000 children, many already living in refugee camps, are at risk of displacement, said the agency.
A local search-and-rescue group said in an initial report on the airstrikes that at least one child had been killed.
India monsoon toll rises to 26 people
NEW DELHI — Torrential monsoon rains have killed at least 26 people in flooding, landslides and house collapses in the southern Indian state of Kerala with more than 15,500 people taking shelter in state-run relief camps.
Top elected state official Pinarayi Vijayan said the flood situation has become “very grim’” with the opening of sluice gates of nearly two dozen overflowing water reservoirs.
Shibu, a relief official, said Friday that nearly 200 army soldiers joined rescue workers in the worst-hit Ayannkulu, Idukki and Wayanad areas.
At least 26 people have been killed in the state since Wednesday, said Shibu, who uses one name.
Monsoon rains kill hundreds of people every year in India. The monsoon season runs from June to September.
U.K. man pleads guilty in attack plot
LONDON — A Muslim convert pleaded guilty Friday to plotting an Islamic State group-inspired van attack on crowds in London’s busy Oxford Street shopping district.
During a hearing at London’s Central Criminal Court, Lewis Ludlow admitted preparing acts of terrorism and fundraising for the militant group.
Prosecutors say the 26-year-old wrote down his attack plans, saying Oxford Street was an “ideal” target because it was busy and “it is expected nearly 100 could be killed.”
Police found the notes ripped up in a garbage bin and pieced them together. Ludlow’s list of “potential attack sites” also included the Madame Tussauds wax museum, St. Paul’s Cathedral and a Shia temple in Romford, east London.
Evidence recovered from Lewis’ phone included a video of him swearing allegiance to the Islamic State and pictures of crowded areas, which prosecutors said were taken during “hostile reconnaissance.”
Ludlow, from Rochester in southern England, was stopped at Heathrow Airport in February as he tried to board a flight to the Philippines, where prosecutors say he planned to join Islamic State militants. They say he later plotted to attack London, and that he set up a Facebook account called Antique Collections as a front to send money to militants in the Philippines.
Lewis, who was arrested on April 18, admitted preparing terrorist acts and funding terrorism.
Judge Nicholas Hilliard set sentencing for Nov. 2.