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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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