CATALONIA
Puigdemont to stay in exile
Fugitive Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont on Saturday said he had had no intention of handing himself in to authorities during a brief visit to Spain earlier this week. Puigdemont, who fled abroad after leading a failed 2017 independence bid for Catalonia, defied an arrest warrant to return to Spain on Thursday. He delivered a speech to thousands gathered outside the Catalan regional parliament in Barcelona before slipping away. “I never had any intention of handing myself in to a judicial authority that is neither competent to persecute us... nor to render justice, but is motivated by political objectives,” Puigdemont said in a video published on social media site X. On Friday, Puigdemont had revealed he was back in Belgium, where he has lived in exile for the past seven years. The 61-year-old had been hoping to enter the Catalan regional parliament building to take part in a vote to pick a new leader for the wealthy northeastern region. Instead, he disappeared into the crowd as the Catalan regional police force launched a search. Speaking from his home in Waterloo, close to the Belgian capital, Puigdemont said he had been hoping to “enter parliament to take part in the session and exercise my right to speak and to vote.” However, a heavy police presence at the park near parliament where he gave a speech had convinced him to abandon those plans to avoid “certain arrest,” he said.
UGANDA
Landslide kills eight people
A landslide at a landfill in the capital, Kampala, has killed eight people, the city’s authorities said on Saturday. The incident happened late on Friday after heavy rainfall when sections of the landfill collapsed, covering some nearby houses, Ugandan media reported. Kampala Capital City Authority said government and Red Cross personnel were searching the site and had rescued 14 people. “On a very sad note, eight people have so far been found dead, six adults and two children. The rescue operation is still ongoing,” the authority said on its X account. The landfill, known as Kiteezi, has served as Kampala’s sole garbage dump for decades and had turned into a big hill. Residents have long complained of hazardous waste from the site polluting the environment and posing a danger to people. Parts of Uganda have been experiencing heavy rains in recent weeks causing flooding and landslides, although no fatalities had previously been reported.
UTAH
‘Toilet Bowl’ collapses
A large geological feature in southern Utah known as the “Double Arch,” the “Hole in the Roof” and sometimes the “Toilet Bowl” has collapsed, US National Park Service officials said on Friday. No injuries were reported. The popular arch in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area fell on Thursday, and park rangers suspect that changing water levels and erosion from waves in Lake Powell contributed to its demise. Michelle Kerns, superintendent of the recreation area that spans the border of Utah and Arizona, said the collapse serves as a reminder to protect the mineral resources that surround the lake. “These features have a life span that can be influenced or damaged by manmade interventions,” she said in a statement. The arch was formed from 190 million-year-old Navajo sandstone originating in the late Triassic to early Jurassic periods. The fine-grained sandstone has endured erosion from weather, wind and rain, the statement said. The recreation area encompasses nearly 5,180 square kilometers and is popular among boaters and hikers.
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
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
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
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