PHILIPPINES
Firecracker depot blast kills 5
Five people, including a four-year-old child, were killed in a massive explosion at a pyrotechnics warehouse in Zamboanga, emergency services said yesterday. The Saturday afternoon blast tore a large hole in the ground, sent debris careening into nearby buildings and houses and ignited a blaze, fire investigator Luigi Chan said. Four warehouse workers and the four-year-old son of one of the staffers were killed, Chan said. The city disaster office confirmed the death toll and said another 38 people had been injured in the incident, eight of them seriously. Authorities said they were investigating the cause of the explosion, which created a 20m crater, dismantled the depot’s walls and rained rubble on a nearby soft drinks factory, a grains and flour warehouse and area homes.
FRANCE
One dead in wedding attack
One person was killed and five others wounded in Thionville when several masked gunmen opened fire at a wedding ceremony, police sources said yesterday. Sources suggested that the attack in the northeastern city was linked to a settling of scores between drug traffickers. The shooting took place at a reception hall overnight on Saturday to yesterday, with about 100 people in attendance. Two people were seriously injured and one of them was in a critical condition. The shooters fled the scene. “At a quarter past one in the morning, a group of people went outside to smoke in front of the hall, and then three heavily armed men arrived and opened fire in their direction,” police said. The assailants arrived in a 4X4 vehicle, “probably a BMW,” the source said. Members of law enforcement believe that a settling of scores linked to drug trafficking was behind the violence.
UKRAINE
Missile strike kills seven
Russian missiles on Saturday slammed into a town in southern Ukraine, killing seven civilians, including children, and wounding dozens more, local authorities reported. Officials published photographs of bodies stretched out under picnic blankets in a park in Vilniansk, and deep craters in the blackened earth next to the charred, twisted remains of a building. Thirty-six people were wounded in the attack, authorities said, and declared a day of mourning yesterday. Vilniansk is in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, less than 30km from the local capital and north of the front lines, as Russian forces continue to occupy part of the province. Zaporizhzhia Governor Ivan Fedorov said that three children were among the dead and nine more were wounded.
UNITED STATES
Rescuers help dolphins
Animal rescuers were on Saturday trying to keep dozens of dolphins away from shallow waters around Cape Cod, Massachusetts, after 125 of the creatures stranded themselves a day earlier. Teams found one group of 10 Atlantic white-sided dolphins swimming in a dangerously shallow area at dawn on Saturday, and managed to herd them out into deeper water, the International Fund for Animal Welfare said. Scouts also found a second group of 25 dolphins swimming close to the shore near Eastham, the organization said, adding that herding efforts were ongoing as the tide dropped throughout the morning. Ten dolphins died during the stranding Friday at The Gut — or Great Island — in Wellfleet, at the Herring River. The organization said it was the largest mass-stranding it had dealt with on the Cape during its 26-year history in the area.
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
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