INDIA
Bus crash kills 29
At least 29 people were killed yesterday after a bus careered off one of India’s busiest roads, which has become known as the “highway to hell” because of its poor safety record. The driver was suspected to have fallen asleep before the bus crashed into a railing and fell into a drain between two flyovers on the Yamuna expressway, which connects New Delhi with Agra, the city famed for the Taj Mahal. Eighteen people were injured, some critically, police said. The 165km expressway was India’s longest six-lane highway when it opened in 2012, but about 900 people been killed on the road since, according to authorities. The state-run bus was taking more than 50 people from Lucknow in northern Uttar Pradesh to Delhi when the accident happened at about 4.15am about 20km outside of Agra. It fell more than 12m into a drain below the road, crushing the roof of the bus. Running water in the drain complicated rescue efforts, police said. “Twenty nine persons have died and 18 others are injured,” Agra district magistrate N.G. Ravi Kumar said.
TAJIKISTAN
Prisoner poisoning probed
The nation has opened a criminal investigation after 14 prisoners were fatally poisoned while they were being transported between jails, the Ministry of Justice said yesterday, suggesting that another inmate might have given them contaminated bread. The incident happened on Sunday as more than 100 prisoners, including eight women, were being transferred in a convoy from prisons in the north of the Central Asian country to jails in the south. The ministry said in a statement that a prisoner handed around bread to a group of 16 inmates traveling in one of the vehicles during a stop on the journey. It said that “16 prisoners, who were in the back of one of the cars, experienced nausea, dizziness, vomiting” half an hour after consuming the bread. Medical staff were only able to save the lives of two of the prisoners, according to the statement, which was relayed by the Khovar state information agency. The state prosecutor had opened a criminal case into the incident, the ministry said.
NIGER
More US forces sought
President Mahamadou Issoufou called for greater US involvement in the fight against Islamist insurgencies in west Africa — at a time when US President Donald Trump is scaling back the US’ military presence on the continent. Too little is being done to combat the fighters, Issoufou said on Saturday in an interview in the capital, Niamey. Militants have carried out attacks in Mali, Nigeria, Chad, Burkina Faso and Niger. Other countries in the region, including Ivory Coast and Ghana, have stepped up security in the face of the growing threat. Niger is already at the center of an international effort to fight the insurgencies in the Sahel, an arid area on the southern fringe of the Sahara. France and the US have a military presence in Niger — the US built a US$110 million drone base in northern Niger and has deployed special forces on the ground. “I propose an international coalition, like you see in Syria or Iraq, to fight terrorism in the Sahel and the Lake Chad basin,” Issoufou said. “When I say an international force, this also includes the US.” The extent of US involvement in Niger was unclear until four US soldiers were killed in an ambush by more than 100 Islamist militants in the southwest of the country in 2017. Their deaths prompted an investigation by the Pentagon and a fierce debate about US military involvement in Africa.
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
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
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the