INDONESIA
Flood death toll reaches 21
The death toll from flash flooding and landslides on Sumatra has risen to 21, an official said yesterday, with six people still missing. Torrential rains on Thursday triggered the disaster in Pesisir Selatan Regency in West Sumatra province, with more than 75,000 people forced to evacuate. “As of Sunday, 21 people were found dead and six people remained missing,” said Fajar Sukma, an official from West Sumatra disaster mitigation agency. A village on a hillside in the Sutera subdistrict was struck hard, with about 200 families in the area left isolated after a landslide followed by flash flooding, Fajar said.
NIGERIA
More kids kidnapped
Gunmen on Saturday kidnapped 15 students from their Islamic seminary in northwestern Sokoto State, local sources said, days after the mass abduction of more than 280 schoolchildren in nearby Kaduna State. Seminary staff said the gunmen stormed Gidan Bakuso village in Gada District at about 1am on Saturday, rounding up the pupils as they slept outdoors. “The gunmen were passing by the school with a woman they kidnapped from another part of town and the pupils were awoken by her cries,” said Liman Abubakar, the head of the seminary. “The bandits seized 15 of the pupils, aged between eight and 14, and took them away along with the woman,” he added.
PAKISTAN
Zardari elected president
Lawmakers on Saturday elected Asif Ali Zardari as the country’s president for the second time. He is the widower of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and the father of former minister of foreign affairs Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari. Zardari secured 411 votes from national and provincial lawmakers. His opponent, Mehmood Khan Achakzai, who is backed by the party of imprisoned former prime minister Imran Khan, received 181 votes. The presidency is a largely ceremonial role that Zardari previously held from 2008 to 2013.
TANZANIA
Nine die from turtle meat
Eight children and an adult died after eating sea turtle meat on Pemba Island in the Zanzibar Archipelago, while 78 other people were hospitalized, authorities said on Saturday. Sea turtle meat is considered a delicacy in Zanzibar, even though it periodically results in deaths from chelonitoxism, a type of food poisoning. The adult who died late on Friday was the mother of one of the children who succumbed earlier, Mkoani District Medical Officer Haji Bakari said. The turtle meat was consumed on Tuesday, he said. Laboratory tests had confirmed that all the victims had eaten sea turtle meat, he said.
INDONESIA
Pilots probed for napping
The Ministry of Transportation on Saturday said it would investigate local airline Batik Air after two of its pilots were found to have fallen asleep during a recent flight. A pilot and copilot were simultaneously asleep for approximately 28 minutes during a flight from South East Sulawesi to the capital, Jakarta, on Jan. 25, a preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Committee said. The incident resulted in a series of navigation errors, but the Airbus A320’s 153 passengers and four flight attendants were unharmed during the two-hour-and-35-minute flight. A committee report said that the captain, who obtained permission to rest, awoke 28 minutes later to find that the copilot was asleep and the plane was not on the correct path.
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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