NIGER
Experts inspect eruptions
Local authorities and France’s Areva group have sent experts to investigate eruptions, smoke and fumes spouting from a mountain in the northern uranium mining district of Arlit, state media said on Thursday. Earlier this week, residents reported two days of activity. Geologists and chemists dispatched on Tuesday to take samples found cracks in the mountainside and rocks 400m away. There were no reports of injuries or damage to mines. “According to the witnesses who alerted the authorities, when they heard explosions, they initially thought it was an earthquake or a volcanic eruption,” state radio said in a report. “The mountain rumbled, giving the impression that it was collapsing. Black smoke rose and there was a smell of gas, as it was coming from fuel,” the report added. There were no further details immediately available.
SOUTH AFRICA
Alleged bomber charged
Prosecutors said a Nigerian suspect would be tried at the High Court in January for terrorism and attempting to harm Nigeria’s president in deadly car bombings last year. Henry Okah was arrested after the deadly Oct. 1 bombings in the Nigerian capital that killed 12 people during independence celebrations. Prosecution spokesman Mthunzi Mhaga said Okah was presented on Wednesday with a five-count indictment charging he orchestrated the attacks from exile in South Africa. The 46-year-old Okah has denied involvement in the attacks. The explosions were claimed by a militant group in Nigeria’s oil-rich delta region that Okah said he sympathizes with but does not lead.
GREECE
Firefighting aid sought
Firefighters were battling at least seven large wildfires early yesterday from the Turkish border to the outskirts of Athens. The government had asked its European partners for water-dropping planes, and Spain and France responded by offering two planes each that are expected to arrive later yesterday. Portugal and Italy were also expected to contribute. The civilian protection authority said it was forced to seek help due to the large number of forest blazes across the country — about 90 broke out over the previous 24 hours — and the high risk of fire over the next few days when high winds will be scouring a countryside desiccated by months of summer heat. A state of emergency was declared in two areas in the northeast and west.
UNITED KINGDOM
Police brace for carnival
Police will be on high alert at the Notting Hill Carnival in London this weekend amid fears that Europe’s biggest street festival could be marred by a repeat of this month’s devastating riots. The annual extravaganza attracts a million spectators to see floats with powerful sound systems packed with outlandishly dressed dancers make their way through west London. The festivities tomorrow and Monday’s highpoint almost did not take place at all this year in the wake of riots that erupted in the capital and spread across England, leaving five people dead. However, the organizers were not ready to admit defeat in the face of an outbreak of civil disobedience, especially because the carnival itself originated as an act of defiant celebration in response to race riots in the 1950s. The carnival was founded in 1964 following the disturbances in Notting Hill six years earlier, which saw clashes between whites and newly arrived immigrants from the West Indies.
UNITED STATES
Papayas alert issued
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday issued an “import alert” after nearly 100 cases of salmonella in 23 states were linked to papayas imported from Mexico. Under the FDA alert, papayas from Mexico can be denied entry unless the importer proves they have been tested by an independent lab. “US and Mexican officials have been working closely together to find the source or sources of contamination of salmonella in fresh papayas entering the US from Mexico,” the FDA said in a statement.
BRAZIL
Murder plot woman freed
A 44-year-old woman was acquitted on Thursday of ordering the murder of her father, who raped her for 35 years and impregnated her 12 times, a court spokesman said. Severina Maria da Silva was charged with arranging the contract killing of her father in November 2005 and had confessed to the crime. She said that upon realizing her father was planning to rape one of their daughters, she had hired two men to kill him in his home in the northeastern city of Caruaru. Prosecutors told the jury that the woman should be freed as “she had no other solution but to commit the crime,” the spokesman for the court in Pernambuco state said. Though the woman had become pregnant a dozen times, only five of the children survived. The two men hired to commit the murder were each sentenced to 17 years in prison.
UNITED STATES
Students face kidnap charge
Two Chinese citizens have been indicted on charges they kidnapped a college classmate from his Rhode Island apartment as part of a plot to steal his US$80,000 Porsche. Attorney Peter Neronha said 25-year-old Zhenpeng “Todd” Hu, of Malden, Massachusetts, and 27-year-old Shengfeng “Alex” Cui, of East Providence, Rhode Island, are each charged with conspiracy and kidnapping. Hu is in custody and will be arraigned on Tuesday. An arrest warrant has been issued for Cui, who is believed to have fled the country. Prosecutors say the men assaulted, blindfolded and bound the victim on April 2 as part of a plan to steal his brand new Porsche.
UNITED STATES
Couple steals wedding feast
A couple of Pennsylvania newlyweds are behind bars after police said they were caught shoplifting food from a supermarket for their wedding reception. The Centre Daily Times reports 32-year-old Arthur Phillips III and his bride, 22-year-old Brittany Lurch, were arrested last Saturday after taking more than US$1,000 in merchandise from a supermarket in Centre Hall. Patton Township police said the couple was captured on surveillance footage loading a shopping cart and leaving the store without paying. The newspaper said the couple admitted taking the items when arrested. The newlyweds told officers they took the food for their wedding reception that afternoon.
UNITED STATES
Actors add burger to family
Actor brothers Donnie and Mark Wahlberg have licensed the name of a hamburger from a western New York chain of drive-in-style restaurants and plan to use it for their new eatery in Boston. Executives with Tom Wahl’s told the Democrat and Chronicle the brothers have licensed the “Wahlburger” name from the company so they can use it when they open a burger joint named Wahlburgers Restaurant in their hometown. Tom Wahl’s serves a cheeseburger called a Wahlburger and owns the federal trademark rights to the name.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion