INDIA
Nine die in train fire
At least nine people were killed yesterday after a train coach parked in Tamil Nadu caught fire when a passenger tried to make tea, officials said. The coach, which had been detached from a train, was stationed at the Madurai railway yard when the fire broke out before dawn. “It was a single, stationary coach booked by a private tourist operator. Somebody tried to make tea and it caused the fire,” Madurai District spokesman Sali Thalapathi said. “Nine people have died, three of them are women. Nine others are injured, but their injuries are not life-threatening.”
CANADA
Town evacuated due to fire
Wildfires in the Northwest Territories on Friday forced the evacuation of the entire town of Hay River, a community of about 4,000 people on the Great Slave Lake, authorities said. The government of the Northwest Territories ordered everyone in town, including essential workers, to go to the Hay River/Merlyn Carter Airport and await further instructions. “Anyone who remains in Hay River is doing so at their own risk,” the government said in an alert on Friday. “There will be no emergency services or response available.”
UNITED KINGDOM
Web suicide sales probed
The National Crime Agency on Friday said it had launched an investigation into the deaths of 88 people who bought substances to assist with suicide from Canadian Web sites. The agency said that “at this early stage there are no confirmed links between the items purchased from the Web sites and cause of death in any of these cases.” The announcement came after Canadian Kenneth Law, 57, was arrested in Ontario in early May and charged with two counts of counseling and aiding suicide. He is accused of selling a lethal substance to people across the world, with Canadian police alleging that he sent at least 1,200 packages to more than 40 countries.
DENMARK
Koran burnings face ban
The government on Friday said it plans to ban Koran burnings after a string of desecrations of Islam’s holy book in the Scandinavian nation sparked anger in Muslim countries. The government intends to “criminalize the improper treatment of objects of significant religious importance to a religious community,” Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard told reporters. He said the proposed legislation was aimed especially at burnings and desecrations in public places. Hummelgaard said that Koran burnings were a “fundamentally contemptuous and unsympathetic act” that “harm Denmark and its interests.” He said that national security was the main “motivation” for the ban.
UNITED STATES
Jets warn plane near Biden
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) on Friday scrambled fighter jets to wave off a civilian aircraft that had entered temporarily restricted air space near Lake Tahoe, where President Joe Biden and Jill Biden were vacationing. The crews of two F-16s fired flares to catch the attention of the pilot of the civilian craft and escorted it out of the restricted airspace without further incident, NORAD said in a statement. No information about the civilian aircraft or its pilot was released. Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the incursion was “not of protective interest” and had no impact on Secret Service operations.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home