NEWS OF THE DAY
1 Iran threat: A senior Iranian security official on Thursday threatened Israel with harsh “reactions” if the Jewish state “continues to attack” Iranian and government forces in Syria. The semi-official Fars news agency quoted Ali Shamkhani of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council as saying that in case of further air strikes, Israel “will face reactions that would cause sorrow and penitence.” Earlier this month, Israel attacked the airport in the Syrian capital Damascus with missiles believed to have targeted arms depots of Iranian forces and the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group — both allies of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s troops in the civil war. Israel has claimed that it has struck more than 200 Iranian targets in Syria over the past 18 months. Iran has maintained that its forces in Syria are in an advisory role to the Syrian army in its war on Islamic State militants and armed opposition groups. Iran does not recognize Israel and supports militant groups opposed to Israel including Hamas and Hezbollah.
2 Lethal floods: Nigerian authorities say the death toll from large-scale flooding in recent weeks has jumped to nearly 200 people. The National Emergency Management Agency said Thursday the toll is up from the 100 reported last week. It says more than 1,000 other people have been injured, with more than 800,000 affected overall since late August. A national disaster has been declared in four of Nigeria’s 36 states after heavy rains.
3 Corruption coverup: Brazil’s state oil company Petrobras says it has agreed to pay $853.2 million in penalties for covering up bribes to Brazilian politicians and political parties. Petrobras said in a Thursday securities filing that said Brazil will receive 80 percent of that amount and the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission will receive 10 percent each.
4 Terror plot: Seven men were arrested Thursday in the Netherlands on suspicion of plotting a large-scale extremist attack that Dutch prosecutors said they think was foiled following a months-long investigation. The national prosecutor’s office said heavily armed police arrested the men in the towns of Arnhem, about 62 miles south of Amsterdam, and Weert in the southern Netherlands close to the borders of Germany and Belgium. The investigation was launched by intelligence suggesting the alleged ring leader, a 34-year-old man of Iraqi heritage, wanted to carry out an attack at the site of a large event and cause multiple casualties. The suspects allegedly wanted to use bomb vests and assault rifles to do harm at the event, and planned to detonate a car bomb at another location, prosecutors said.
5 Plane chaser: An Irish man who missed his flight at Dublin Airport was arrested Thursday for running after the plane on the tarmac in a bid to flag it down. Witnesses said a man in his 20s broke through an airport door and ran toward the Ryanair plane, which was about to take off for Amsterdam, at around 7 a.m. Declan Harvey, who was at the airport, said he could hear a man shouting “Wait!” at the plane before he was tackled to the ground by airport workers. The airport said that a man became “agitated” after he and a woman arrived at the gate too late for their flight. It said the man “broke through a door and made his way onto the apron, trying to flag the aircraft down.” Patrick Kehoe, 23, later appeared in a Dublin court charged with criminal damage to a door lock.