UKRAINE
Missile hits Reuters staff
A member of the Reuters team covering the war in Ukraine was missing and two others were hospitalized after a strike on a hotel in the eastern city of Kramatorsk on Saturday. In a statement, the news agency said that the Hotel Sapphire, where a six-person Reuters crew was staying, was hit “by an apparent missile strike.” Three other staff members have been accounted for, it said. “We are urgently seeking more information, working with the authorities in Kramatorsk, and supporting our colleagues and their families. We will give an update when we have more information,” it added. The General Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement on Telegram that it had opened a “pre-trial investigation” into the strike.
PAKISTAN
Bus crashes kill 34
At least 34 people were yesterday killed in two separate bus accidents, including 12 pilgrims who had been trying to reach Iran, rescue officials said. At least 22 people, including a child, were killed when the bus they were travelling in plunged into a ravine near the town of Azad Pattan on the border between Punjab province and Kashmir, said Farooq Ahmed, a spokesman for Rescue 1122 emergency services in Punjab. In a separate incident, 12 men died when their bus crashed into a ravine on the Makran Coastal Highway in Balochistan, after being prevented from crossing into Iran. On Saturday, the bodies of 28 pilgrims who died in a bus crash in Iran were returned to Pakistan.
FRANCE
Arson suspect arrested
Police on Saturday arrested a man suspected of setting fires and causing an explosion at a synagogue in what officials suspect was a terror attack, Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin said. “The suspected perpetrator of the criminal fires at the synagogue has been detained,” Darmanin wrote on X, adding that officers who made the arrest came under fire. Police earlier said they were hunting for a man who, draped in a Palestinian flag, was believed to have set fires at a synagogue and triggered an explosion that injured an officer in the seaside resort of La Grande Motte. Interim Prime Minister Gabriel Attal earlier visited the site of the attack along with Darmanin. “We narrowly avoided an absolute tragedy,” he said, adding that “if the synagogue had been filled with worshippers ... there probably would have been human victims.”
THAILAND
Authorities raid bitcoin mine
Authorities raided an illegal bitcoin mine west of Bangkok after residents complained of frequent blackouts in the area for more than a month, local authorities said yesterday. Police and officials from the Provincial Electricity Authorities raided the house in Ratchaburi town on Friday. “We found bitcoin mining rigs, pointing to people using this house to operate a mine and using power they didn’t fully pay for,” chief district security officer Jamnong Chanwong said. Records showed that electricity consumption in the house was large, but they had paid for very little of it, he said. Jamnong said his team tried to enter the house on Thursday, but a guard denied them entry. They then returned with a search warrant and found most of the equipment had been moved. The house had been rented by a company for about four months, but the power outages began last month when the mine likely became fully operational, he said.
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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