INDONESIA
Flood sweeps through school
Police said that torrential rains had triggered floods and landslides on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, killing at least 11 children at a devastated school. Police chief Irsan Sinuhaji said that a river late on Friday overflowed in North Sumatra’s Mandailing Natal district and swept away 20 children at an Islamic school. Rescuers retrieved the bodies of 11 children from water and mud, and were still searching for the other children, he said. Rains cause frequent landslides and flash floods in Indonesia, where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near flood plains.
NIGERIA
Oil pipeline fire kills 16
Sixteen people were killed on Friday after a fire broke out on an oil pipeline in the southeast, a Nigerian National Petroleum Corp spokesman said. The state oil company said that the fire occurred along the Osisioma axis, near the Aba depot, and emergency services were deployed to the scene. It added that production would be affected, as the firm had to stop pumping oil on the line, although “not adversely,” as it also transports crude oil by road. “The incident might have been caused by suspected oil thieves who had hacked into the line to intercept the flow of petrol from Port Harcourt to Aba,” the company said in an earlier statement.
LEBANON
Navy, UN rescue boat people
The navy and a UN force have rescued 32 Syrian refugees whose boat broke down as they attempted to reach Cyprus, the navy said on Friday. The UN Interim Force in Lebanon said that it found the craft on Thursday morning after receiving reports of a missing boat. The “small white boat,” carrying 19 men, six women and seven children, was stranded at sea northwest of Beirut, it said. “The boat was out of fuel and the passengers had been without food and water for four days,” it said in a statement. It said navy vessels arrived and transported the passengers to Beirut on Thursday night.
PAKISTAN
Rights campaigner released
Authorities on Friday released a Pashtun rights activist after holding her for several hours upon her arrival in the country. Gulalai Ismail was detained as soon as she arrived at Islamabad International Airport from London. Amnesty International called for her immediate release, saying that she was being “detained solely for her peaceful human rights work.” Ismail is a critic of the Pakistani military’s operations in the country’s tribal regions, during which many innocent civilians have been killed. She has been a supporter of the Pashtun Protection Movement, a group that denounces perceived high-handedness by security forces and their operations in the country’s northwestern regions. It calls for judicial probes into those killed by the military in its war on terror.
AUSTRALIA
Gay students to be protected
Private or religious schools are to be barred from expelling students on the basis of their sexuality, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said yesterday. “I will be taking action to ensure amendments are introduced as soon as practicable to make it clear that no student of a non-state school should be expelled on the basis of their sexuality,” Morrison said in a statement. The statement, which urged parliament to tackle the issue over the next two weeks, follows an offer of support by the largest opposition party, the Labor Party, to repeal legal exemptions that allow religious schools to discriminate. INDONESIA
Flood sweeps through school
Police said that torrential rains had triggered floods and landslides on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, killing at least 11 children at a devastated school. Police chief Irsan Sinuhaji said that a river late on Friday overflowed in North Sumatra’s Mandailing Natal district and swept away 20 children at an Islamic school. Rescuers retrieved the bodies of 11 children from water and mud, and were still searching for the other children, he said. Rains cause frequent landslides and flash floods in Indonesia, where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near flood plains.
NIGERIA
Oil pipeline fire kills 16
Sixteen people were killed on Friday after a fire broke out on an oil pipeline in the southeast, a Nigerian National Petroleum Corp spokesman said. The state oil company said that the fire occurred along the Osisioma axis, near the Aba depot, and emergency services were deployed to the scene. It added that production would be affected, as the firm had to stop pumping oil on the line, although “not adversely,” as it also transports crude oil by road. “The incident might have been caused by suspected oil thieves who had hacked into the line to intercept the flow of petrol from Port Harcourt to Aba,” the company said in an earlier statement.
LEBANON
Navy, UN rescue boat people
The navy and a UN force have rescued 32 Syrian refugees whose boat broke down as they attempted to reach Cyprus, the navy said on Friday. The UN Interim Force in Lebanon said that it found the craft on Thursday morning after receiving reports of a missing boat. The “small white boat,” carrying 19 men, six women and seven children, was stranded at sea northwest of Beirut, it said. “The boat was out of fuel and the passengers had been without food and water for four days,” it said in a statement. It said navy vessels arrived and transported the passengers to Beirut on Thursday night.
PAKISTAN
Rights campaigner released
Authorities on Friday released a Pashtun rights activist after holding her for several hours upon her arrival in the country. Gulalai Ismail was detained as soon as she arrived at Islamabad International Airport from London. Amnesty International called for her immediate release, saying that she was being “detained solely for her peaceful human rights work.” Ismail is a critic of the Pakistani military’s operations in the country’s tribal regions, during which many innocent civilians have been killed. She has been a supporter of the Pashtun Protection Movement, a group that denounces perceived high-handedness by security forces and their operations in the country’s northwestern regions. It calls for judicial probes into those killed by the military in its war on terror.
AUSTRALIA
Gay students to be protected
Private or religious schools are to be barred from expelling students on the basis of their sexuality, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said yesterday. “I will be taking action to ensure amendments are introduced as soon as practicable to make it clear that no student of a non-state school should be expelled on the basis of their sexuality,” Morrison said in a statement. The statement, which urged parliament to tackle the issue over the next two weeks, follows an offer of support by the largest opposition party, the Labor Party, to repeal legal exemptions that allow religious schools to discriminate.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in