INDIA
Bus fire kills 25
At least 25 people were killed and eight injured after a bus caught fire overnight on an expressway yesterday, police said. The bus was traveling to Pune when it hit a pole and overturned after midnight, causing its diesel tank to catch fire, senior police officer Baburao Mahamuni said. “There were about 30-35 people in the bus. Twenty-five people have died and eight others are injured,” he said. Three children were among the dead, a police officer told reporters.
MOLDOVA
Man kills two at airport
A Tajikistan national who was denied entry at Chisinau International Airport grabbed a guard’s weapon and fatally shot two security officers on Friday, officials said. One traveler was also wounded. The man was being escorted by officials when he “took the gun of a border guard” and opened fire, authorities said. Special forces then intervened, subdued the suspect and handcuffed him, leaving him seriously injured. Tajik authorities said he was wanted in relation to the kidnapping of a local bank official.
NAMIBIA
Fur seal hunting begins
An annual sea hunt that started yesterday is expected to cull 86,000 brown fur seals despite a decrease in demand for pups and mounting opposition from conservationists. The seals are hunted for their prized fur for a once thriving global trade. Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources Derek Klazen on Friday said that fewer pups had been harvested in the past few years due to a drop in demand. Previously sold to the fur trade in Europe, market demand has drastically decreased following a 2009 EU ban on seal imports. China is now the main market for the cull.
SINGAPORE
Suicides up 26%: report
Suicides rose nearly 26 percent last year to their highest level in more than two decades, reflecting the “unseen mental distress” in the city-state, Samaritans of Singapore said in an annual report. The suicide rates among young people aged 10 to 29 and elderly people aged 70 to 79 were particularly concerning, it said in a news release. A total of 476 people killed themselves last year, “the highest recorded suicide deaths since 2000,” up from 378 the year before, it said.
UNITED NATIONS
Peacekeepers to leave Mali
The UN Security Council on Friday voted unanimously to immediately end its peacekeeping mission in Mali as demanded by the country’s military junta, which has brought in mercenaries from Wagner Group to help fight an Islamic insurgency. Mali, which has grappled with the insurgency for more than a decade, has seen its relations with the international community become strained in part because the ruling junta brought in the Russian mercenaries. The French-drafted resolution required the mission yesterday to start the withdrawal of more than 15,000 personnel.
UNITED NATIONS
NASA reconnects with craft
Long time, no speak: NASA has re-established contact with the intrepid Ingenuity Mars helicopter after more than two months of radio silence, the space agency said on Friday. The mini rotorcraft, which hitched a ride to the Red Planet with the Perseverance rover in early 2021, has already survived well beyond its initial 30-day mission to prove the feasibility of its technology in five test flights. Data so far indicate that it is in good shape, NASA said.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS