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.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
Hundreds of thousands of Guyana citizens living at home and abroad would receive a payout of about US$478 each after the country announced it was distributing its “mind-boggling” oil wealth. The grant of 100,000 Guyanese dollars would be available to any citizen of the South American country aged 18 and older with a valid passport or identification card. Guyanese citizens who normally live abroad would be eligible, but must be in Guyana to collect the payment. The payout was originally planned as a 200,000 Guyanese dollar grant for each household in the country, but was reframed after concerns that some citizens, including
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
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