ZIM NEW YORK

The number of people confirmed dead after a boat carrying members of Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya community sank near the Thailand-Malaysia border rose to 11 on Monday, authorities said, with about 70 people believed to have been on board the capsized vessel.The status of another boat carrying 230 passengers remained unclear, Malaysian authorities said, adding that 13 survivors had been found so far, mostly Rohingya. Thai authorities said they had recovered four bodies, including two children, adding to the seven found by Malaysia's maritime agency.

The Trump administration will hold an auction for drilling oil and gas off the U.S. Gulf next month and has proposed another in a waterway in southern Alaska, it said on Friday.The lease sale in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, which President Donald Trump refers to as the Gulf of America, will make about 80 million acres available. The sale, which will take place on December 10, will be the first of 30 sales in the region through 2040 that were included in Trump's tax law which he signed in July.The Gulf's offshore continental shelf spans roughly 160 million acres, with an estimated 29.59 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and 54.84 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

The commissioning of China's latest aircraft carrier this week marks a new chapter in its military modernisation effort but security analysts and regional diplomats say tough challenges lie ahead before it can be made fully operational.President Xi Jinping attended the commissioning and flag-presenting ceremony of the Fujian in Hainan province on Wednesday, and boarded the vessel for an inspection tour, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.The Fujian is China's third aircraft carrier, with a flat flight deck and electromagnetic catapults for take-offs that make it a potentially far more powerful naval weapon than China's first two Russian-designed carriers.

The South Korean-owned Philly Shipyard in the United States does not currently have the capability to build a nuclear-powered submarine, Prime Minister Kim Min-seok said on Thursday during a parliamentary hearing.His remarks come after U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on social media last week that he had given approval for South Korea to build a nuclear-powered submarine and that it would be built in the Philadelphia shipyard.Trump posted the comment on his Truth Social platform after South Korea's President Lee Jae Myung asked him during a summit to let his country, an ally of the U.S., have fuel for nuclear-powered submarines equipped with conventional weapons.

Pirates have boarded a Malta-flagged products tanker off Somalia, maritime security sources said on Thursday, while the vessel's manager said the ship's 24 crew members were safe.Attacks on vessels by armed assailants in recent days have raised concerns for shipping lanes in a region across which critical energy and goods are transported to global markets.The Hellas Aphrodite, which was carrying gasoline, was en route from India to South Africa when a "security incident" took place on Thursday morning, its Greek manager Latsco Marine Management said, without providing details.