UNITED KINGDOM
At least four die after blast
Four people were killed in an explosion and fire in a three-story building in Leicester, England, police said yesterday. “At this stage, there are four confirmed fatalities and four people remain in hospital, one with serious injuries,” Leicestershire Police said in a statement about the blast on Sunday evening. Officers said that the cause had yet to be determined. Firefighters worked through the night to control the blaze, which tore through the building in a residential area west of the city’s center. Police Superintendent Shane O’Neill warned that the toll could yet rise further.
MEXICO
Candidate fights accusations
Mexican presidential candidate Ricardo Anaya, one of the main contenders in the Mexican presidential election to be held in July, on Sunday rejected corruption allegations against him and accused the government of trying to smear his campaign, which is running second in most polls. Anaya, candidate of the Citizen Front for Mexico coalition, presented the attorney general’s office with a letter denying allegations by rivals that he had benefited from illicit property deals in Queretaro State, his home state in central Mexico. At the center of the dispute is the purchase and sale of real estate in an industrial park in the state from 2014 to 2016. Anaya said the deals were completely legitimate, setting out the various transactions in a video posted on social media. “Everything I’ve done has been legal, and above all, 100 percent transparent,” Anaya said in the video.
ARGENTINA
Crew’s relatives seek funds
Relatives of the 44 Argentine submarine crew members who disappeared in the southern Atlantic Ocean in November last year have launched a fundraising effort to continue the search for the missing vessel. The social media campaign was created after bidding on a contract to search for the ARA San Juan was suspended. The Argentine government has offered a reward of US$5 million “to those persons who provide information and useful data” leading to the submarine’s location. “We are searching for the truth and you can join us. We are raising funds to hire vessels with up-to-date technology,” the families said in their call for donations to two bank accounts for local and foreign currency.
UNITED STATES
Weinstein Co to go bankrupt
The board of directors of The Weinstein Co late on Sunday said that the New York film and TV studio planned to file for bankruptcy after talks to sell it collapsed, several media outlets reported. The company had been seeking a deal that would spare it from bankruptcy after more than 70 women accused film producer Harvey Weinstein, its ex-chairman and once one of Hollywood’s most influential men, of sexual misconduct including rape. Weinstein denies having non-consensual sex with anyone.
BELGIUM
Rubens’ old castle for sale
Elewijt Castle, at which Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens spent the final five years of his life, is up for sale for 4 million euros (US$4.9 million). The sale includes three buildings: a six-bedroom sandstone residence with a high-ceilinged private chapel; a four-bedroom villa; a tower complex, a drawbridge and moat. The fireplace in the living room has Rubens’ coat of arms chiseled into it. In total, residents can make use of 33 rooms and amble over 8 hectares of lush, rolling meadow. The owner has gradually restored the castle since 1955 and in 2009 it was granted heritage designation.
AUSTRALIA
National’s leader sworn in
National Party lawmakers yesterday elected Michael McCormack as their leader, meaning he automatically became deputy prime minister under their coalition agreement with the prime minister’s conservative Liberal Party. McCormack replaces Barnaby Joyce, who resigned on Friday as both party leader and a Cabinet minister. “I want to make sure that people know that in me they will have a fighter. I have a huge challenge ahead of me,” the 53-year-old lawmaker said after his election. He was later sworn in as deputy prime minister as well as minister for infrastructure and transport, portfolios that Joyce had held.
ISRAEL
Crew error caused crash
The downing of an F-16 warplane earlier this month by a Syrian anti-aircraft missile resulted from a “professional error” by the crew, the military said on Sunday. Its investigation found that an anti-aircraft missile shot down the warplane while it was returning from a bombing raid on Iran-backed positions in Syria on Feb. 10. A summary of the investigation released by the military said that the crew had chosen “to complete the mission and not defend themselves sufficiently. Their actions did not correlate with standard procedure while under enemy fire.”
SOUTH SUDAN
Famine risk escalating
A report by the UN and government says more than 6 million people are at threat of extreme hunger without aid, up about 40 percent from a year ago. Ross Smith of the UN’s World Food Programme said there “are unprecedented levels of food insecurity’’ for the nation. The UN says one in three people in the nation have been forced from their homes by the conflict, resulting in the worst production of the country’s staple grains since the fighting began in late 2013.
NIGERIA
Girls’ kidnapping confirmed
The government on Sunday confirmed that 110 girls were missing after a Boko Haram school attack in the northeast, following days of silence on the children’s fate. “The federal government has confirmed that 110 students of the Government Science and Technical College in Dapchi, Yobe State, are so far unaccounted for, after insurgents believed to be from a faction of Boko Haram invaded their school on Monday [last week],” the Ministry of Information and Culture said in a statement.
AUSTRALIA
Mullet king crowned
The small town of Kurri Kurri in New South Wales, which claims to have created the mullet, a hairstyle favored by 1970s rock stars, on Saturday picked the best of more than 150 specimens over the weekend. “Here in Kurri, we believe that we actually created the mullet,” said Laura Johnson, who runs the Chelmsford Hotel and came up with the idea of the festival. A winner was declared in each of five categories, ranging from everyday and grubby, to red-haired, women’s and juniors. The highly coveted award for the ‘best mullet of all’ went to Shane “Shag” Hanrahan, who began growing his mane in 1986. “I don’t know what to say, I’ve got stage fright,” he said.
VIETNAM
Five nabbed in heroin bust
Five men are under arrest for allegedly attempting to smuggle US$2.5 million worth of heroin into China after police shot at their vehicle packed with nearly 100kg of heroin as they tried to flee. The men were caught between Friday and Saturday in northern Cao Bang Province.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema