AFGHANISTAN
Earthquake kills one
A magnitude 6.3 earthquake yesterday hit the western part of the country, causing one death and dozens of injuries, officials said, predicting the toll could rise amid reports of landslides and building collapses. The US Geological Survey said the epicenter was 40km northwest of the region’s largest city, Herat, and was followed by five aftershocks with magnitudes of 5.5, 4.7, 6.3, 5.9 and 4.6. Crowds of residents and shopkeepers fled buildings in the city at about 11am as the quakes began, causing 25 injuries and a single fatality, a Taliban government spokesperson said. National Disaster Management Authority spokesman Mullah Jan Sayeq said the initial toll was “preliminary” and he feared it would rise as “in the rural and mountainous areas there have been landslides as well.”
SINGAPORE
Fires lower air quality
The air quality yesterday fell into the unhealthy range, official readings showed, due to increased forest fires from neighboring Indonesia. At 2pm, the 24-hour Pollutant Standards Index readings in the eastern and central part of Singapore was above 100, levels at which people are advised to reduce prolonged strenuous outdoor activities. Transborder haze is a perennial problem in Southeast Asia as regulatory loopholes make it hard for authorities to eliminate Indonesia’s slash-and-burn land clearing practices. The National Environment Agency said that 212 hot spots were detected on Indonesia’s nearby Sumatra Island on Friday, up from 65 on Thursday and 15 the day before. A brief shift in the wind direction on Friday afternoon blew some of the lighter haze toward Singapore, worsening the island nation’s air quality, it said.
MEXICO
Sixteen migrants die in crash
At least 16 migrants from Venezuela and Haiti died early on Friday in a bus crash in the south, authorities said. The National Immigration Institute and prosecutors in Oaxaca said the dead included two women and three children, and 29 people were injured. There was no immediate information on their condition. Photos from the scene showed the bus rolled over onto its side on a curvy section of highway. The cause of the crash in Tepelmeme is under investigation. The institute said that a total of 55 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, were aboard the vehicle. It was the latest in a series of migrant deaths in Mexico amid a surge in migrants traveling toward the US border. Because migration agents often raid regular buses, migrants and smugglers often seek out risky forms of transportation, such as unregulated buses, trains or freight trucks.
UNITED STATES
Pakistani flies to space
Adventurer Namira Salim on Friday became the first Pakistani to travel into space, riding aboard Virgin Galactic’s fifth successful flight in five months, the US company announced. Salim, who previously traveled to both poles and has also parachuted over Mount Everest, was among the first customers to buy a ticket with billionaire Richard Branson’s space company after it was founded almost two decades ago. “I love my title: ‘first Pakistani astronaut.’ It’s like being a very special princess of the country. Maybe nicer than being a princess,” Salim said in 2012. Virgin Galactic said that Salim is also a resident of Monaco and the United Arab Emirates. That makes her the first person from Monaco and the first Emirati woman to travel to space, it added.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
DISASTROUS VISIT: The talks in Saudi Arabia come after an altercation at the White House that led to the Ukrainian president leaving without signing a minerals deal Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was due to arrive in Saudi Arabia yesterday, a day ahead of crucial talks between Ukrainian and US officials on ending the war with Russia. Highly anticipated negotiations today on resolving the three-year conflict would see US and Ukrainian officials meet for the first time since Zelenskiy’s disastrous White House visit last month. Zelenskiy yesterday said that he would meet Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the nation’s de facto leader, after which his team “will stay for a meeting on Tuesday with the American team.” At the talks in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, US
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