World
Chile’s former president Sebastian Pinera dies in helicopter crash

Chilean ex-President Sebastian Pinera died in a helicopter crash on Tuesday, sending the country he led for two terms into mourning and prompting an outpouring of condolences from leaders across Latin America, Reuters reported.
The helicopter carrying Pinera, 74, and three others plunged into a lake in southern Chile. The former president was pronounced dead shortly after rescue personnel arrived at the scene. The other three passengers survived.
Two sources told Reuters Pinera was the pilot, although officials have not confirmed that, nor the helicopter’s intended destination.
Pinera often spent the Southern Hemisphere summers near the picturesque lakes that dot Chile’s south, and frequently piloted his own helicopter.
President Gabriel Boric declared three days of national mourning, while preparations have begun for a state funeral on Friday for the former leader, who served two non-consecutive terms between 2010 and 2022.
Interior Minister Carolina Toha said the ex-president’s body had been recovered from the lake, near the town of Lago Ranco, read the report.
“We remember him for the way he dedicated his life to public service,” said Toha, who has been helping to lead efforts to battle deadly wildfires in recent days.
Pinera was perhaps best known abroad for his role overseeing the spectacular rescue in 2010 of 33 miners who were trapped underneath the Atacama desert. The event became a global media sensation and was the subject of a 2014 movie, “The 33.”
In Chile, he was known as a successful businessman whose first term was boosted by rapid economic growth but who was often seen as out-of-touch with the country’s fast-changing society.
Both his presidencies were marred by frequent protests – of students demanding education reform in the first term, and of wider and often violent protests against inequality in his second term that ended with the government promising to draft a new constitution.
After leaving the presidency, Pinera remained active in politics, speaking out on issues like the attempt to draft a new constitution – which ultimately failed – and backing conservative politicians in the region, including Argentine President Javier Milei.
Former Argentine President Mauricio Macri expressed his sadness at the news of Pinera’s death. “He was a good person, committed like no one else to Chile and to the values of freedom and democracy in Latin America,” he said.
The son of a prominent centrist politician, Pinera was a Harvard-trained economist who made his fortune introducing credit cards to Chile in the 1980s.
He was also a major shareholder in the flagship airline formerly known as LAN, local soccer team Colo-Colo, and a television station, although he sold most of those holdings when he took over the presidency in March 2010. As of 2024, he was ranked 1,176 on Forbes’ global rich list, with a net worth of $2.7 billion, Reuters reported.
Known for a driven and competitive personality, one friend described Pinera as someone who could be a bully, reluctant to delegate responsibility.
He was also a risk-taker who enjoyed deep-sea diving.
Running for election to the presidency after a spell as a center-right senator, he wooed moderate voters by portraying himself as the leader of a new right and an entrepreneur who made his fortune with hard work.
At the same time, he distanced himself from the 1973-1990 rule of General Augusto Pinochet, when more than 3,000 suspected leftists were killed or “disappeared.”
He lost his first attempt at the top job in 2005 to popular center-left leader Michelle Bachelet, but she was barred constitutionally from running for a second consecutive term and in 2009 he beat ex-president Eduardo Frei by a small margin.
That ended the 20-year rule of the center-left and fended off the bitter memories of Pinochet’s bloody dictatorship that had hurt the right in past elections.
His honeymoon with the electorate was short-lived, though, and his stiff manner contrasted with the more amiable Bachelet, who both preceded and succeeded him as president.
Despite plaudits for his government’s economic record, many Chileans felt he did not do enough to tackle deep inequality or address inadequacies in the country’s education system.
Pinera and his wife Cecilia Morel had four children.
World
Israel receives shipment of heavy bombs cleared by Trump
The MK-84 is an unguided 2,000-pound (907-kg) bomb, which can rip through thick concrete and metal, creating a wide blast radius, Reuters reported.

Israel has received a shipment of heavy MK-84 bombs from the United States, after U.S. President Donald Trump lifted a block imposed on the export of the munitions by the administration of predecessor Joe Biden, the defence ministry said on Sunday.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Trump said he lifted a Biden-era block on the export of the bombs to Israel despite a ceasefire agreement being in place because he believed in “peace through strength.”
“They contracted for the weapons a long time ago with the Biden administration, and then Biden wouldn’t deliver the weapons. But I look at it differently. I say, ‘peace through strength,'” Trump told reporters after returning to West Palm Beach, Florida, after a short trip to Daytona Beach. “They were sitting there. Nobody knew what to do with them. They bought them.”
The MK-84 is an unguided 2,000-pound (907-kg) bomb, which can rip through thick concrete and metal, creating a wide blast radius, Reuters reported.
The Biden administration declined to clear them for export to Israel out of concern about the impact on densely populated areas of the Gaza Strip.
The Biden administration sent thousands of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Palestinian Hamas militants from Gaza but later held up one of the shipments. The hold was lifted by Trump last month.
“The munitions shipment that arrived in Israel tonight, released by the Trump administration, represents a significant asset for the Air Force and the IDF and serves as further evidence of the strong alliance between Israel and the United States,” Defence Minister Israel Katz said late on Saturday.
The shipment arrived after days of concern about whether a fragile ceasefire in Gaza agreed last month would hold, after both sides accused each other of violating the terms of the deal to halt fighting to allow the exchange of hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli jails, read the report.
Washington has announced assistance for Israel worth billions of dollars since the war began.
World
Zelenskiy says Ukraine has ‘low chance’ of survival without US backing

Ukraine has little chance of surviving Russia’s assault without U.S. support, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday after phone calls this week by U.S. President Donald Trump with Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Probably it will be very, very, very difficult. And of course, in all the difficult situations, you have a chance. But we will have low chance – low chance to survive without support of the United States,” Zelenskiy said in an interview on the NBC News program “Meet the Press.”
An excerpt was released on Friday from the interview, which will be broadcast on Sunday. Reuters reported.
Trump discussed the war on Wednesday in separate calls with Putin and Zelenskiy, in the U.S. president’s first big step toward diplomacy in a conflict he has promised to end quickly.
Trump later said he did not think it was practical for Kyiv to join NATO and that it was unlikely Ukraine would get back all its land. Russia, which annexed Crimea in 2014, launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Ukraine demands Russia withdraw from captured territory and says it must receive NATO membership or equivalent security guarantees to prevent Moscow from attacking again.
Zelenskiy said in the interview that Putin wanted to come to the negotiating table not to end the war but to get a ceasefire deal to lift some global sanctions on Russia and allow Moscow’s military to regroup.
“This is really what he wants. He wants pause, prepare, train, take off some sanctions, because of ceasefire,” Zelenskiy said.
Trump said his call with Putin was a good conversation that lasted over an hour, while the Kremlin said it lasted nearly an hour and a half. Zelenskiy’s office said Trump and Zelenskiy spoke for about an hour. Trump said the call “went very well.”
World
US VP Vance threatens sanctions, military action to push Putin into Ukraine deal

U.S. Vice President JD Vance said the U.S. could hit Moscow with sanctions and potential military action if Russian President Vladimir Putin does not agree to a peace deal with Ukraine that guarantees Kyiv’s long-term independence, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
“There are economic tools of leverage, there are of course military tools of leverage” the U.S. could use against Putin, Vance said in an interview with the newspaper, according to Reuters.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday discussed the war with Russian President Vladimir Putin and separately with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and told U.S. officials to begin talks on ending the nearly three-year-long conflict.
The phone calls came shortly after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Ukraine’s military allies in Brussels that a return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders – before Russia annexed Crimea – was unrealistic and that the U.S. does not see NATO membership for Kyiv as part of a solution.
Ukrainians on Thursday worried that Trump was preparing to sell out their country following his phone call Putin.
However, Trump on Thursday said that Ukraine would be involved in peace talks with Russia. He told reporters at the White House that Ukraine would have a seat at the table during any peace negotiations with Russia over ending the war.
Kyiv said it would be premature to speak with Moscow at a security conference on Friday.
“I think there is a deal that is going to come out of this that’s going to shock a lot of people,” the newspaper quoted Vance as saying.
“The president is not going to go in this with blinders on,” Vance said. “He’s going to say, ‘Everything is on the table, let’s make a deal.’”
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