INDIA
Soldiers missing after storm
Twenty-three army soldiers were missing yesterday after a cloudburst triggered flash floods in the northeastern state of Sikkim, the army said in a statement. The flooding occurred along the Teesta River in Lachen valley, the statement said, adding that some army camps and vehicles were submerged under watery mud and that search efforts were under way. The army said that water released from a nearby dam also caused water levels to rise. Defense authorities told the Press Trust of India news agency that 80 locals had been safely evacuated. The agency reported that a bridge over the Teesta River was also washed away in the floods early yesterday.
RUSSIA
TV journalist sentenced
Former TV journalist Marina Ovsyannikova, who captured world attention when she burst into a news broadcast with a placard that read: “Stop the war” and “They’re lying to you,” was sentenced in absentia yesterday to eight-and-half years in jail. Ovsyannikova was fined for her original protest, less than three weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year, in what it called a “special military operation.” She later faced criminal prosecution for “spreading knowingly false information about the Russian Armed Forces” in connection with a protest in July last year, when she stood on a river embankment opposite the Kremlin and held up a poster calling President Vladimir Putin a murderer and his soldiers fascists. “How many more children must die before you will stop?” the poster read. Ovsyannikova, 45, fled the country with her daughter for an unspecified European country a year ago after escaping from house arrest, her lawyer said.
COLOMBIA
Amy apologizes for killings
The army on Tuesday apologized for the first time for the deaths of civilians executed by soldiers to inflate performance numbers as they fought leftist guerrillas. The government has said that 6,402 civilians died as part of this policy from 2004 to 2008, with slain civilians dressed up in guerrilla fatigues in some cases. On Tuesday, the army asked forgiveness from the families of 19 of those who were part of the larger group. “We acknowledge that painful acts were committed by members of the national army that should never have happened,” army Commander Luis Ospina said during an event in Bogota. He said that soldiers had “tainted the legitimacy” of the army. The policy of inflating army kill numbers with civilian deaths included rewards for soldiers such as days of leave and decorations.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
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
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
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