It will be investigated by the remotely-operated Russian Panther Plus submarine, while the US oceanographic research vessel Atlantis continues exploring the search area, the navy announced Saturday.

Argentina has received help from 13 countries in its search for the San Juan submarine.

It has abandoned hope of finding survivors and is concentrating only on finding the vessel, which in its last message reported that seawater had entered the ventilation system, causing a battery on the diesel-electric vessel to short-circuit and start a fire.

An unusual noise heard in the ocean near the last known position of the San Juan, three hours after its final contact, was “consistent with an explosion,” the navy said in late November.

Other reported contacts detected weeks ago amounted to nothing — with some arising from a fishing boat which sank years previously.//AFP

 At least 37 people, including call centre staff from an American firm, are believed to have perished in a fire that tore through a shopping mall in the southern Philippine city of Davao, local authorities said on Sunday.

President Rodrigo Duterte broke the sad news to relatives of the 37 missing persons (not 28 as reported earlier) who were anxiously waiting for news across the ill-fated mall around 2:30 a.m.

“Let us pray for them,” said Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte, who accompanied his father and sister, Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio.

Most of the victims were workers of BPO firm SSI, which held office at the uppermost floor of the mall.

President Duterte, himself a Davao native, visited distraught relatives outside the burning building overnight but told them there was “zero” chance their loved ones had survived, witnesses told AFP.

Firemen found one body as the blaze was brought under control Sunday, Davao Mayor Sara Duterte, the president’s daughter, told reporters.

Firemen have concluded that all those trapped in the building are dead, she said, adding: “They assessed that no one would survive in that heat and with that thick, black smoke.”

The deadly fire adds fresh misery for the mainly Catholic Philippines at Christmas as the death toll from a tropical storm that hit the south on Friday topped 200 and displaced tens of thousands of others.

The blaze started at the four-storey NCCC Mall on Saturday morning sending thick plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky over Davao.

With low wages but strong English language skills, the Philippines is a popular destination for international companies to set up customer call centres.

The mall’s top floor housed a 24-hour call centre for US multinational SSI, a market research company.

Jimmy Quimsing, a retired seaman, was one of the relatives desperately waiting for news.

His 25-year-old son Jim Benedict worked at the call centre and had not been in contact since the fire broke out.

Quimsing said he spoke to President Duterte and had been told to prepare for the worst.

“He told us zero, no one would survive under these circumstances,” he told AFP.

Duterte’s special assistant Christopher Go confirmed the bulk of the conversation to AFP.

Paolo Duterte, the president’s son and the vice mayor of Davao, also wrote on Facebook that fire officials had told him there was “zero” chance of anyone trapped surviving the blaze.

– ‘No ventilation’ –

In a statement on its local Facebook page SSI Philippines Davao said it would set up a “command centre” for relatives of those missing.

“Please continue to pray for everyone’s safety,” the firm added.

Davao fire marshal Honeyfritz Alagano said the blaze may have started with a spark on the third floor of the mall, which had a furniture section.

“One of our firemen here has a kid who is an (call centre) agent in there. He told us some of them went to collect their stuff at their lockers and were trapped,” Alagano told AFP.

“The mall is an enclosed space with no ventilation. When our firemen tried to enter they were pushed back by smoke and fire,” she said.

Deadly blazes occur regularly in the Philippines, particularly in slum areas where there are virtually no fire safety standards.

“It’s possible that while they were working, they did not immediately notice the fire spreading,” Davao police officer Ralph Canoy told AFP, referring to the call centre workers.

Davao, with a population of about 1.5 million people, is the biggest city in the southern Philippines. It is about 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) south of Manila, the nation’s capital

The president served as mayor for more than two decades and continues to go home there on weekends from his work at the presidential palace in Manila.

His daughter succeeded him as he ran for president, with one of his sons also winning the vice mayoralty post.

Most of those killed by the recent tropical storm were also in the southern region of Mindanao.

There have also been horrific fires in bigger buildings and factories, where corruption and exploitation mean supposedly strict standards are often not enforced.

Seventy-two people were killed in 2015 when a fire tore through a footwear factory in Manila. Survivors of that blaze blamed barred windows and other sweatshop conditions for trapping people inside the factory.

In the deadliest fire in the Philippines in recent times, 162 people were killed in a huge blaze that gutted a Manila disco in 1996.//AFP

Tropical Storm Tembin has lashed the nation’s second-largest island of Mindanao since Friday, triggering flash floods and mudslides.

The Philippines is pummelled by 20 major storms each year on average, many of them deadly. But Mindanao, home to 20 million people, is rarely hit by these cyclones.

Rescuers retrieved 36 bodies from the Salog River in Mindanao on Saturday, as officials reported more fatalities in the impoverished Zamboanga peninsula.

The bodies were swept downriver from a flooded town upstream called Salvador, Rando Salvacion, the Sapad town police chief, told AFP. Authorities in Salvador said they had retrieved 17 other bodies upstream.

Salvador and Sapad are in Lanao del Norte, which is one of the provinces hardest hit by Tembin.

The death toll for the Zamboanga peninsula also rose to 28, and police said 81 people were missing after mud and rocks swept down coastal communities in Sibuco and other fishing towns.

Tembin struck less than a week after Tropical Storm Kai-Tak left 54 dead and 24 missing in the central Philippines.

The deadliest typhoon to hit the country was Haiyan, which killed thousands and destroyed entire towns in heavily populated areas of the central Philippines in November 2013.

Tembin is expected to hit the tip of the western island of Palawan late Saturday, the state weather service said.

“Minimum estimate of civilian dead 10,000,” the then British ambassador Alan Donald said in a telegram to London.

The document, made public more than 28 years after the event, was seen by AFP at Britain’s National Archives.

The estimate, given on June 5, 1989, the day after the crackdown, is almost 10 times higher than estimates commonly accepted at the time, which generally reported a toll ranging from several hundred to more than a thousand dead.

But French sinologist Jean-Pierre Cabestan said the British figure was credible, pointing out that recently declassified US documents gave a similar assessment.

“That’s two pretty independent sources which say the same thing,” said Cabestan, a professor at Hong Kong Baptist University.

The British ambassador’s report was “not particularly astonishing considering how crowded it was in Beijing, the number of people mobilised” against the Chinese government, said Cabestan, who was in the Chinese capital in the days leading up to the crackdown.

Donald’s account gave horrific details of the violence unleashed on the night of June 3-4 when the army entered Beijing to end seven weeks of protests on Tiananmen Square, the symbolic heart of Communist power.

During their advance, armoured personnel carriers “opened fire on the crowd (both civilians and soldiers) before running over them in their APCs,” wrote the ambassador, who said his source was a person who “was passing on information given him by a close friend who is currently a member of the State Council”, the Chinese cabinet.

Once the soldiers arrived in Tiananmen Square, “students understood they were given one hour to leave square but after five minutes APCs attacked,” Donald wrote.

“Students linked arms but were mown down including soldiers. APCs then ran over bodies time and time again to make ‘pie’ and remains collected by bulldozer. Remains incinerated and then hosed down drains.”

At the end of June 1989, the Chinese government had said suppression of the “counterrevolutionary riots” had killed 200 civilians and several dozen police and military.

Nearly three decades after the crackdown, the communist regime continues to forbid any debate on the subject, mention of which is banned from textbooks and the media, and censored on the Internet.

Tropical Storm Tembin struck Mindanao, the archipelago nation’s second-largest island on Friday, triggering flash floods and mudslides that have since erased a remote village from the map.

The Philippines is pummelled by 20 major storms each year on average, many of them deadly. But Mindanao, home to 20 million people, is rarely hit by these cyclones.

Floodwaters started ebbing over the island on Saturday, authorities said, adding that more than 12,000 of its 20 million residents have now fled their homes.

Police reported 19 deaths in the mountain village of Dalama near Tubod town, and 26 others in surrounding towns and cities of Lanao del Norte province, one of the hardest-hit areas.

“The river rose and most of the homes were swept away. The village is no longer there,” Tubod police officer Gerry Parami told AFP by telephone.

Police, soldiers and volunteers used shovels to dig through mud and debris in a bid to recover bodies in the farming village of about 2,000 people, Parami added.

Elsewhere, boulders brought down by flash floods buried around 40 houses in the town of Piagapo, killing at least 10 people, civil defence officer Saripada Pacasum of Lanao del Sur province said.

“We’ve sent rescuers but they’re making little progress due to the rocks,” he said, adding the storm had killed eight other people elsewhere in Lanao del Sur.

Reports of more deaths were slowly trickling in from other parts of the island, which is experiencing power and communication outages due to the storm.

An area of particular concern was the impoverished Zamboanga peninsula, with Mindanao local television saying at least three towns there were hit by floods.

Five people were confirmed killed and 25 missing after flood waters submerged part of Sibuco town, while three others were killed in landslides in a nearby province, officials said.

“It is possible that they disregarded the warning of the local government” about the flooding risks, Sibuco mayor Norbideiri Edding told Manila radio station DZMM.

“We’re hoping that they are still alive,” he said of the missing.

Three people were meanwhile killed by landslides in the mountainous province of Bukidnon, police said.

Tembin struck less than a week after the devastating Tropical Storm Kai-Tak left 54 dead and 24 missing in the central Philippines.

The deadliest typhoon to hit the country was Haiyan, which killed thousands and destroyed entire towns in heavily populated areas of the central Philippines in November 2013.

Tembin was forecast to smash into the tip of the western island of Palawan late Saturday, the state weather service said.

Nineteen deaths were reported near the town of Tubod on Friday on Mindanao, the archipelago nation’s second-largest island, where Tropical Storm Tembin unleashed flash floods and mudslides erased a remote village from the map, police said.

“The river rose and most of the homes were swept away. The village is no longer there,” Tubod police officer Gerry Parami told AFP by telephone.

“The houses were toppled by mud and logs and only the stumps of a few concrete homes are left,” Parami said.

Police, soldiers and volunteers were digging through the rubble of Dalama, a farming village of about 2,000 people, using shovels in search of more bodies, he added.

Four others were killed in nearby towns and cities, police said, while seven people perished in Lanao del Sur province according to civil defence officials there.

Four people were listed as missing after being buried in landslides or being swept away by floodwaters, while more than 12,000 have fled their homes.

The Philippines is pummelled by 20 major storms each year on average, many of them deadly. But Mindanao, home to 20 million people, is rarely hit by these cyclones.

After slicing across Mindanao on Friday, Tembin sped west over the Sulu Sea with gusts of 95 kilometres an hour.

It was forecast to smash into the tip of the western island of Palawan late Saturday, the state weather service said.

Tembin struck less than a week after Tropical Storm Kai-Tak devastated the central Philippines, leaving 54 dead and 24 missing.

The deadliest typhoon to hit the country was Haiyan, which left 7,350 people dead and destroyed entire towns in heavily populated areas of the central Philippines in November 2013.

The council unanimously adopted a US-drafted resolution that also orders the repatriation of North Korean workers sent abroad to earn revenue for Kim Jong-Un’s regime.

It is the third raft of sanctions imposed on Pyongyang this year and comes as the United States and North Korea show no signs they are willing to open talks on ending the crisis on the Korean peninsula.

US President Donald Trump Friday hailed the move, saying the international community was pushing for peace with the isolated regime.

“The United Nations Security Council just voted 15-0 in favor of additional Sanctions on North Korea. The World wants Peace, not Death!” Trump tweeted.

The resolution bans the supply of nearly 75 percent of refined oil products to North Korea, puts a cap on crude deliveries and orders all North Korean nationals working abroad to be sent back by the end of 2019.

The United States put forward the draft text on Thursday following negotiations with China, Pyongyang’s ally and main supplier of oil.

Describing North Korea as “the most tragic example of evil in the modern world,” US Ambassador Nikki Haley said the new sanctions are “a reflection of the international outrage at the Kim regime’s actions.”

The resolution “sends the unambiguous message to Pyongyang that further defiance will invite further punishment and isolation,” she said.

The measures are in response to North Korea’s test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on November 28 that marked an advance in Pyongyang’s drive to threaten the US mainland with a nuclear strike.

Trump has threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea if it attacks the United States while North Korea insists the world must now accept that it is a nuclear power.

Last month, Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to cut off oil to the North, a move that would cripple its struggling economy.

Crude oil supplies were capped at four million barrels per year and a ceiling of 500,000 barrels of refined petroleum products, including diesel and kerosene, was set for next year, down from two million barrels in a previous resolution.

If North Korea carries out another nuclear or ICBM test, “then the Security Council will take action to restrict further the export to the DPRK of petroleum,” said the resolution.

The United States had initially sought to expel within a year tens of thousands of North Koreans, most of whom are working in Russia and China, but that deadline was extended to two years after Russia objected.

To prevent North Korea from circumventing sanctions, all countries were authorized to seize, inspect and impound ships suspected of carrying illegal cargo to and from North Korea.

– Sanctions only a means –

The measure bans sales of all industrial machinery, trucks, iron, steel and other metals to North Korea and bars exports of food, machinery, electrical equipment, earth, stone, wood and vessels produced in the reclusive state.

Addressing the council, China and Russia condemned North Korea’s behavior but made the case for urgently opening diplomatic channels to ease tensions and move towards settling the crisis.

“Sanctions are only a means,” said Chinese Deputy Ambassador Wu Haitao. “One should not expect to settle the problems through unilateral sanctions or pressure.”

“We all must, we are all duty-bound, to provide opportunities for diplomacy to function,” said Russian Deputy Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov.

A total of 15 North Korean officials, most of whom work in banking, were added to the UN sanctions blacklist along with the ministry of the people’s armed forces, which manages army logistics for the country.

An earlier list contained 19 names, later reduced to 16, but a final version listed 15 North Koreans, who will be subjected to a global visa ban and assets freeze.

Since September last year, North Korea has carried out its sixth and largest nuclear test and a series of advanced missile launches which are banned under UN resolutions.

The United States has led the drive at the Security Council to tighten sanctions aimed at piling pressure on Kim’s regime to come to the negotiating table.

French Ambassador Francois Delattre welcomed the new measures, saying “this resolution bites.”

“Maximum firmness today is our best antidote to the risk of war,” he said.

The European Union said in a statement that it too is planning to adopt tougher sanctions against North Korea early next year.

Tow truck driver Everitt Aaron Jameson, 26, was planning to target the city’s busy Pier 39 tourist spot, according to an affidavit submitted by FBI Special Agent Christopher McKinney.

The suspect outlined to undercover agents how he wanted to use explosives to target crowds at the pier between December 18 and 25 because “Christmas was the perfect day to commit the attack.”

Jameson professed not to need an escape plan as he was “ready to die,” according to the document.

The suspect’s home in Modesto, California, was raided by FBI agents on Wednesday, where they allegedly found his last will and testament along with several weapons and ammunition.

Jameson attended basic training with the Marine Corps in 2009 and graduated with a “sharpshooter” rifle qualification, according to the FBI, but was discharged after failing to disclose a history of asthma.

According to McKinney, Jameson selected Pier 39 because “he had been there before and knew it was a heavily crowded area.”

“Jameson explained that he also desired to use explosives and described a plan in which explosives could ‘tunnel’ or ‘funnel’ people into a location where Jameson could inflict casualties,” McKinney stated.

The suspect inadvertently revealed his plans to an undercover FBI agent he believed to be a senior leader of the Islamic State group, according to the court document.

Jameson said the US needed “another attack like New York or San Bernardino,” adding that he wanted to use vehicles and firearms to carry out an attack.

“Today, our incredible law enforcement officers have once again helped thwart an alleged plot to kill Americans,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement.

“The threat from radical Islamic terrorism is real — and it is serious — but the American people can be assured that the Department of Justice remains vigilant in protecting our homeland,” he added.

According to the criminal complaint, Jameson “has espoused radical jihadi beliefs, including authoring social media posts that are supportive of terrorism.”

He had voiced support for the October 31 attack in New York in which a jihadist drove a pick-up truck into a crowded bike path, killing eight people, said the FBI, and was active on Facebook, “liking” pro-IS posts.

He “loved” a post on November 29 of a terror propaganda image of Santa Claus standing in New York with a box of dynamite.

He was charged in the Eastern District Court of California with attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization and faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

“He was under surveillance by law enforcement, and the public was never in imminent danger,” the FBI said in a statement.