QUICK READ

Egypt

SIX people were injured when an “unidentified drone” fell on a town near the border with Israel yesterday.

An army spokesman said the drone crashed into “a building next to Taba hospital”, in the town of the same name, across the border from the Israeli resort of Eilat.

Earlier yesterday, Egypt’s

television, which is linked to state intelligence, reported “a rocket” falling on Taba “as part of the current escalation in Gaza”. Images circulating online and in Egyptian media showed a damaged building and blown-up vehicles.

Egypt has played a key mediator role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Israeli army has been using drones to attack Hamas in Gaza and for surveillance, while Hamas and other armed groups, which have fired barrages of rockets towards Israel, have deployed their own drones. |

News Malaysia

MALAYSIA’S royalty chose an influential sultan from the southern state of

Johor to be the country’s next king.

The position is ceremonial but oversees major appointments such as the prime minister and serves as the head of Islam in the Muslim-majority country and the commander-in-chief of its armed forces.

Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with an arrangement where the throne changes hands every five years between rulers of the nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty.

Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar, pictured right, was appointed the country’s 17th king after a conference of rulers in the capital Kuala Lumpur. He will be sworn in after King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah’s, left, term expires on January 31 next year. |

Mexico Halloween

AlQahera

HURRICANE Otis caused at least 27 deaths and major damage as it lashed Mexico’s resort city of Acapulco as a scale-topping category 5 storm, officials said.

The storm partially destroyed many buildings, leaving gaping holes in the walls of high-rise towers.

“Acapulco is a total disaster. It is not what it was before,” said 24-year-old

Eric Hernandez. “The shops had all been looted, people were fighting for things.”

Others said an overflowing river and collapsed bridges had cut off communities near Acapulco, home to about 780 000 people. |

A BAN on alcohol came into force around Tokyo’s tourist hotspot Shibuya yesterday in an attempt to discourage raucous Halloween gatherings a year after a deadly tragedy in South Korea.

Nearly 160 people were crushed to death in a narrow alleyway in Seoul on October 29, last year, after tens of thousands of people poured into Itaewon for holiday festivities.

In Tokyo, tens of thousands of people, Japanese and foreign alike, have thronged the narrow streets around Shibuya in past years, many dressed up in Instagram-ready zombie costumes. |