MADAGASCAR
Cyclone kills at least 38
At least 38 people have been killed by Cyclone Enawo this week, a National Bureau of Risk and Disaster Management official said. “The damage is enormous wherever the cyclone has gone,” bureau Executive Secretary Thierry Venty said late on Friday on national TV. He said 38 people had been killed nationwide by the cyclone, including a family who died in a landslide, while an estimated 153,000 people have been displaced by storm waters. Enawo hit the nation’s vanilla producing northeastern coast on Tuesday morning, destroying roads and cutting off communications with Antalaha District, which has a population of 230,000 people. More than 116,000 people have been directly affected by the cyclone, but Venty did not say how many of those were displaced or had their property damaged. Late on Thursday, the meteorological office said the cyclone’s power had “significantly weakened,” with the storm moving at speeds of 45-50kph.
MEXICO
At least 242 bodies found
Authorities have found at least 242 bodies in hidden graves in eastern Veracruz state that were discovered by mothers searching for their missing children, officials said on Friday. The bodies were found over a six-month period, with the first discovered in August last year near the city of Veracruz by the volunteer collective known as El Solecito, formed by relatives of those who have disappeared. The collective turns over the digging of the graves to forensic experts. A total of 124 graves have been located, and after combing through nearly all of them, 242 skulls were found, a senior official of the prosecutor’s office told reporters on condition of anonymity. Another person close to the investigation, who also asked not to be identified, said the graves contained “a lot of young women’s clothes, credentials, shoes and garments that look like they belong to inner-city kids.” Veracruz, one of the nation’s most violent states, is the scene of bloody disputes between the Los Zetas and Jalisco Nueva Generacion drug cartels. According to a military source involved in the work with El Solecito, the victims “probably were buried by criminals in league with the local authorities.” The source also asked to remain anonymous. Elsewhere, hidden graves have been found containing hundreds of bodies. In January, 56 bodies were found in a grave in northern Nuevo Leon state, where drug cartels vie for control of the routes toward the US.
UNITED STATES
Herbal tea leaves two sick
Two people in San Francisco were left critically sick after drinking tea from the same Chinatown herbalist. The tea leaves bought at Sun Wing Wo Trading Co contained the plant-based toxin aconite, the California Department of Public Health said on Friday. A man in his 50s last month and a woman in her 30s this month became critically ill within an hour of drinking the tea, and both remain hospitalized, health officials said. Each person grew weak then had life-threatening abnormal heart rhythms that required resuscitation and intensive care. Aconite — also known as monkshood, helmet flower and wolfsbane — is used in Asian herbal medicines, but it must be processed properly to be safe. Health officials are working to find the original source of the tea leaves, and they are warning others to stop consuming it. “Anyone who has purchased tea from this location should not consume it and should throw it away immediately,” said Tomas Aragon, health officer for the city and county of San Francisco. “Aconite poisoning attacks the heart and can be lethal.”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of