INDIA
Cyclone hits Lakshadweep
Cyclone Ockhi yesterday barreled into the southwestern Lakshadweep Islands after drenching the neighboring states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, claiming at least 14 lives with many fishermen still feared trapped at sea. Authorities including the National Disaster Management Authority, the coast guard and navy have rescued about 223 fishermen and evacuated thousands of people from cyclone-hit areas, officials said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spoken to the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, assuring him of support operations, including emergency funds, local media reported. Ockhi was forecast to travel north toward Mumbai and Gujarat in the next 48 hours, India Meteorological Department Director S. Sudevan said, but added that it is likely to lose intensity.
UNITED KINGDOM
NCSC warns over Kaspersky
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) on Friday warned government agencies to avoid using anti-virus software from Russian companies, the latest in a series of moves targeting Moscow-based security software maker Kaspersky Lab. In a letter to departmental permanent secretaries, NCSC CEO Ciaran Martin said Russian-made anti-virus software should not be used in systems containing information that would harm national security if it was accessed by the Russian government. He said the agency is in talks with Kaspersky Lab to develop a system to review its products for use in the nation. Kaspersky’s anti-virus software was banned from US government networks earlier this year over concerns the company has close ties to intelligence agencies in Moscow and that its software could be used to enable Russian spying. Kaspersky Lab said in a statement that it looked forward to working with the agency on the issue.
UNITED STATES
Do-gooders stop erratic car
Police said two Good Samaritans used their cars to stop a suspected drunken driver swerving all over a Pennsylvania highway. State police said the driver was traveling west on Interstate 76 in Butler County, north of Pittsburgh, at about 10pm on Thursday, when two people in separate vehicles saw him seemingly unable to keep his car in the lane and nearly hit a concrete barrier. Police said they managed to use their vehicles to box in the driver and bring him safely to a stop on the shoulder in North Sewickley Township. Frank Ray Blackmon, 53, was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, police said. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported that the charge is pending lab results. Police said his license has been suspended.
UNITED STATES
Mom jailed for fastening son
A woman accused of taping her two-year-old son to a wall so she could get housework done and streaming it live on social media has been sentenced to nine months in prison. Prosecutors said 19-year-old Shayla Rudolph was on Friday sentenced for attempted child endangerment. She was indicted in January on charges of child endangerment and abduction, but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge in October. Her attorney did not immediately return a message seeking comment. Prosecutors said the video streamed live on Jan. 1 showed the crying boy with his arms, head and ankles taped to the wall of their Reynoldsburg home in suburban Columbus, Ohio. Prosecutors said the boy’s mouth was covered by tape. Authorities said a TV station contacted police after receiving a copy of the video from an anonymous tipster.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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