World News

Man arrested after explosive found in luggage at US airport

FBI agents have arrested a man who allegedly brought an explosive device to a Pennsylvania airport on Monday.

Mark Muffley, 40, is accused of putting the device in his checked bag for a flight to Orlando, Florida.

He fled the airport after his name was called over the loud speaker, agents say, and was arrested at home later that evening.

Blinken and Lavrov meet for first time since invasion

US Secretary of State Antony

Blinken has told his Russian counterpart the US will support Ukraine “for as long as it takes”.

Mr Blinken met briefly with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of the G20 summit in India.

It is the first time the two have spoken face to face since the start of the Ukraine war one year ago.

A senior State Department official said the discussion in Delhi lasted less than 10 minutes.

Mr Blinken also told Mr Lavrov that Russia should release Paul Whelan, an imprisoned American citizen, and that Russia should rejoin the New START nuclear arms control treaty that it recently withdrew from.

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials say they spotted the device during a routine screening.

A State Department official told reporters that Mr Blinken had “disabused” Mr Lavrov of any idea that US support for Ukraine is wavering.

The official did not say how Mr Lavrov responded, but said that there was no indication that Russia will change course in the near term.

Officials say Mr Muffley checked in for Allegiant Air Flight 201 at Lehigh Valley International Airport, 65 miles (105km) north of Philadelphia, on Monday morning.

About an hour later, TSA screeners discovered the suspicious item and called FBI specialists, including a bomb technician, to examine the device.

In charging documents, FBI bomb technician Jared Witmier said a 3 inch (7.5cm) device hidden in the lining of the suspect’s rolling suitcase was found to contain fuses and explosive powder.

There was a quick fuse, which appeared to be a part of the original manufacture of the

The suspect was seen on airport cameras leaving the airport compound, and a hobby fuse, which seemed to have been added post-manufacture, according to the criminal complaint.

The “powder is suspected to be a mixture of flash powder and the dark granulars that are used in commercial grade fireworks”, the FBI court document says.

“The black powder and flash powder are susceptible to ignite from heat and friction and posed a significant risk to the aircraft and passengers.”

The bag also contained “a can of butane, a lighter, a pipe with white powder residue, a wireless drill with cordless batteries” and two circuit breakers that were taped together.

Five minutes after he was paged over the airport loud speaker, Mr Muffley was seen by security cameras leaving the airport, the court papers say. He was traced to his home in Lansford, Pennsylvania, later on Monday. He is charged with possession of an explosive in an airport and possessing or attempting to place an explosive or incendiary device on an aircraft.

He is due in court on Thursday. (BBC)

Japan just found 7,000 islands it didn’t know it had

Japan has recounted its islands –and discovered it has 7,000 more than it previously thought.

Digital mapping by the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI) recently found there to be 14,125 islands in Japanese territory, more than double the figure of 6,852 that has been in official use since a 1987 report by Japan’s Coast Guard.

However, the GSI this week stressed that the new figure reflected advances in surveying technology and the detail of the maps used for the count – it did not change the overall area of land in Japan’s possession.

It said that while there is no international agreement on how to count islands, it had used the same size criterion as the previous survey 35 years ago.

That entailed counting all naturally occurring land areas with a circumference of at least 100 meters (330 feet).

The new number does not include any artificially reclaimed land.

The islands surrounding Japan have been at the heart of several territorial disputes.

Japan lays claim to the Russianheld southern Kuril islands, which Tokyo calls the Northern Territories, a dispute that dates to the end of World War II, when Soviet troops seized them from Japan.