■ THAILAND
School torched in south
Suspected Muslim insurgents burned down a school in the restive south yesterday, a day after detonating two bombs that killed one person and left 71 wounded, police said. Arsonists torched the school in Narathiwat province at about 1am local time when it was empty, Lieutenant Anurak Chathapon said. Nobody was injured but the two-story schoolhouse was destroyed. The attack bore the trademark of Muslim insurgents, Anurak said.
■ GERMANY
Bus fire leaves 20 dead
A tour bus caught fire on a highway near the city of Hannover on Tuesday night, killing 20 people after a passenger reportedly sneaked a cigarette, police said. Survivors told authorities the fire broke out in the bathroom of the bus after a person apparently smoked a cigarette there, police spokesman Stefan Wittke said. When the door was opened, flames shot out and quickly engulfed the bus, he said. “Passengers who were sitting close to the exit could get away, but the others had no chance,” a fire department official said. In addition to the deaths, thirteen people were injured in the blaze, including three with serious burns, according to the fire department. The bus had 39 primarily elderly passengers and the driver aboard, the company that owns it said. Wittke, however, said 33 people were aboard the bus.
■ CHINA
Factory owner held
Authorities have detained the owner of a feed processing factory suspected of selling chicken feed tainted with an industrial chemical that was later found in eggs, state media reported. Xinhua news agency said late on Tuesday that authorities in Shenyang found that the factory mixed an ingredient tainted with melamine into feed sold to the country’s leading egg producer, Dalian Hanwei Enterprise Group. Xinhua said the owner of the Mingxing Feed Processing Factory, Gao Xingtao, was detained and the remaining tainted animal feed made by the factory was destroyed.
■ COLOMBIA
Army chief resigns
Army commander General Mario Montoya resigned on Tuesday after a probe tied scores of officers to the disappearance of a group of men who were later shot, dumped in mass graves and reported as killed in combat. The scandal has already forced President Alvaro Uribe to purge 27 officers from the army as the UN and rights groups call security forces to stop killing civilians to falsely inflate combat successes. Montoya had been the spearhead of Uribe’s recent military successes against rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
■ PUERTO RICO
Voters oust governor
Puerto Rico voted on Tuesday to oust an incumbent governor who is under indictment for allegedly violating campaign finance laws, electing a challenger who vowed to fight crime and spur the island’s economy. Governor Anibal Acevedo Vila conceded the election after Luis Fortuno of the New Progressive Party took a strong lead in early returns. Fortuno had 53 percent of the vote to 41 percent for the governor with 42 percent of ballots counted. The governor had urged islanders to support him despite a 24-count indictment charging him with wire fraud and other offenses for allegedly raising money illegally to pay off campaign debts from his terms as Puerto Rico’s nonvoting delegate to Congress from 2000 to 2004.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
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