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.
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
‘DOWNSIZE’: The Trump administration has initiated sweeping cuts to US government-funded media outlets in a move critics said could undermine the US’ global influence US President Donald Trump’s administration on Saturday began making deep cuts to Voice of America (VOA) and other government-run, pro-democracy programming, with the organization’s director saying all VOA employees have been put on leave. On Friday night, shortly after the US Congress passed its latest funding bill, Trump directed his administration to reduce the functions of several agencies to the minimum required by law. That included the US Agency for Global Media, which houses Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Asia and Radio Marti, which beams Spanish-language news into Cuba. On Saturday morning, Kari Lake, a former Arizona gubernatorial and US
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
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