BALKANS
Blackout hits four nations
A major hours-long power outage on Friday hit much of the southern European region as it sweltered in an early heat wave that sent temperatures soaring to more than 40°C. Montenegrin authorities said that an outage that lasted for several hours in the country’s power distribution system left almost the entire nation without electricity, while similar problems were reported in the coastal areas of Croatia, and in Bosnia and Albania. Nada Pavicevic, a spokeswoman for Montenegro’s state power distribution company, described the outage as a “disturbance of regional proportion,” and said authorities were still working to determine what happened. The exact cause of the outage was not immediately clear as the regional power grid has been overloaded for days because of overconsumption and the use of air-conditioning in high temperatures. Bosnia’s state power company said the outage there was caused by problems in a regional distribution line, while Albania’s state power company said the “extreme heat” caused the problem. Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Albania share the Adriatic Sea coastline and the power grids in the region remain interconnected, decades after the Balkan wars in the 1990s.
SWITZERLAND
Richest UK family sentenced
A court on Friday sentenced to jail four members of Britain’s richest family, the Hindujas, branding them “selfish” for exploiting Indian staff at their Geneva mansion. Lawyers for the members of the Swiss-Indian family — who were not present in court — said they would appeal the verdict. The defendants were acquitted of human trafficking, but convicted on other charges in a stunning verdict for the family, whose fortune is estimated at ￡37 billion (US$47 billion) by the Sunday Times. Prakash Hinduja, 78, and his wife, Kamal Hinduja, 75, each got four years and six months, while their son, Ajay Hinduja, 56, and his wife, Namrata Hinduja, 50, received four-year terms, the judge ruled. They were convicted of “usury” for having taken advantage of their vulnerable immigrant staff to pay them a pittance. During the trial the family were accused of bringing servants from their native India and confiscating their passports once they got to Switzerland. Prosecutor Yves Bertossa accused the Hindujas of spending “more on their dog than on their domestic employees.” The family paid the household staff about 325 francs (US$364) a month, up to 90 percent less than the going rate, the judge said.
UNITED STATES
‘Fake elector’ case dropped
A Nevada judge on Friday dismissed an indictment against six Republicans accused of submitting certificates to the US Congress falsely declaring former US president Donald Trump the winner of the state’s 2020 presidential election, potentially cutting from four to three the number of states with criminal charges pending against so-called “fake electors.” Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford said he would take the issue to the state Supreme Court after Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus ruled that Las Vegas was the wrong venue for the case. “The judge got it wrong and we’ll be appealing immediately,” Ford told reporters. The judge called off the trial, which had been scheduled for January next year, for defendants including Nevada Republican Party chairman Michael McDonald, Republican National Party committee member Jim DeGraffenreid and Republican national and Douglas County committee member Shawn Meehan.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
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