UNITED STATES
Rare bat stages comeback
Wildlife officials say it might be time for a toast now that a once-rare bat important to the pollination of plants used to produce tequila is making a comeback. The Fish and Wildlife Service on Thursday proposed removing the lesser long-nosed bat from the endangered species list. Mexico delisted the bat in 2015, and if approved in the US, this would be the first bat ever removed from the nation’s list of threatened and endangered species. Federal officials said it has taken 30 years of conservation efforts by biologists and volunteers in Mexico and the US, as well as tequila producers in Mexico, to rebuild a healthy population.
UNITED STATES
Mardi Gras season starts
People in greater New Orleans on Friday braved the cold and rain to mark the start of the Mardi Gras season, standing in pre-dawn, windy lines to buy celebratory cakes and closing the evening on a rainy night with costumed street car rides. The holiday season begins on Epiphany, commemorating the day the Bible says the three wise men reached the baby Jesus Christ. Fat Tuesday, which marks the culmination of Mardi Gras season, falls on Feb. 28. Across the city people bought king cake, a traditional holiday bakery treat, to bring to their offices or home to share with family.
UNITED STATES
IS operative killed in raid
The US-based coalition has killed a senior Islamic State (IS) group facilitator in an airstrike in the extremists’ self-proclaimed capital of Raqa, Syria, the US military command said on Friday. Central Command identified the target as Mahmud al-Isawi, an IS operative who managed instructions and finances for IS leaders and provided propaganda and intelligence support. He was killed on Saturday last week, making him the 16th significant member of the network’s external operations killed last year. The long-time IS member provided to the group’s media and intelligence in Fallujah prior to his move to Raqa.
TURKEY
Refugees to be naturalized
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday announced that some of the millions of Syrian and Iraqis who have fled to Turkey would be given Turkish nationality. “Our interior ministry is carrying out work and under this work, some of them will be granted our nationality after all the necessary checks” have been carried out, Erdogan said in a speech broadcast on television. “There are highly qualified people among them, there are engineers, lawyers, doctors. Let’s make use” of that talent, he said.
FRANCE
Refugee helper acquitted
A court on Friday acquitted a man for helping refugees sneak into the country from Italy as immigration issues play a major role ahead of this year’s elections. “In France today we have the right to save people in distress,” said researcher Pierre-Alain Mannoni, who had faced a six-month suspended jail sentence for aiding Eritrean refugees who came into France from Italy. The prosecutor said during the trial in November last year in the southern city of Nice that people had a “duty” to help people, “but not help [illegal refugees] to stay and circulate” in the country. The judge ruled that the 45-year-old researcher at French national research center CNRS had helped three young Eritrean women to “protect their dignity.”
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
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