PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Landslide rescuers arrive
Rescue crews yesterday arrived at the site of a massive landslide in the remote highlands, helping villagers search for hundreds of people feared dead under towering mounds of rubble and mud. The disaster struck an isolated part of Enga Province at about 3am on Friday, wiping out swathes of the hillside settlement as villagers slept. “While verified casualty numbers are still pending, people living in the approximately 60 destroyed homes are unaccounted for,” a UN situation report said. So far, at least four bodies have been recovered, said a UN official based in the capital Port Moresby. A rapid response team of medics, military and police began pouring into the disaster zone yesterday morning after a journey complicated by the rugged terrain and damage to major roads.
INDIA
Heatwave hits election
As people participate in the next-to-last phase of voting in the world’s largest election, temperatures were forecast to surge to 47°C in the capital, New Delhi. More than 111 million people in 58 constituencies across eight states and federal territories are eligible to vote in the general election’s sixth phase, which recorded a turnout of 10.82 percent in the first two hours of the 11-hour poll. The overall turnout in the same phase of the last elections in 2019 was about 63 percent. “There is a concern, but we hope that people will overcome the fear of the heatwave and come and vote,” Delhi Chief Electoral Officer P. Krishnamurthy said. The Election Commission has deployed paramedics with medicines and oral hydration salts at polling stations in Delhi, which have additionally been equipped with mist machines, shaded waiting areas and cold water dispensers for voters. In some parts of the northern state of Haryana, people residing near polling booths also pitched in to help voters beat the heat, handing out cold drinks, dry fruits and milk free of charge.
MEXICO
Hijackers steal avocados
Highway bandits made off with more than 36 tonnes of avocados, federal prosecutors said on Friday. The Attorney General’s Office said the avocados were stolen in two separate robberies in the western state of Michoacan, Mexico’s main producer of the fruit. In both cases, armed men stopped freight trucks carrying about 18 tonnes each, and stole the shipments. Avocado growers have long been targeted by drug cartel extortion demands in Michoacan, but hijackings of entire shipments are rare.
UNITED STATES
Sean Kingston arrested
Rapper and singer Sean Kingston and his mother allegedly committed more than US$1 million in fraud in the past few months, stealing money, jewelry, a Cadillac Escalade and furniture, documents released on Friday said. Kingston, 34, and his 61-year-old mother, Janice Turner, have been charged with conducting an organized scheme to defraud, grand theft, identity theft and related crimes, arrest warrants released by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office said. The two were arrested on Thursday after a SWAT team raided Kingston’s rented mansion in suburban Fort Lauderdale. Turner was arrested in the raid, while Kingston was arrested at Fort Irwin, an army training base in California’s Mojave Desert where he was performing. Kingston, who had a No. 1 hit with Beautiful Girls in 2007, is being held at a California jail awaiting his return to Florida. His mother was being held on Friday at the Broward County jail on US$160,000 bond.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
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