INDIA
Search for missing trekkers
Rescuers are searching for four people from Britain, two from the US, an Australian and an Indian who went missing while climbing Nanda Devi in the Himalayas after reports of a heavy avalanche. The eight failed to return to base camp following their attempt to reach a summit at 6,477m on the nation’s second-highest peak on a previously unclimbed route. Authorities on Saturday sent out a search team of up to 20 people on foot, but they were not expected to reach the group’s last known camp for three days. An air force helicopter was scheduled to make a reconnaissance flight yesterday.
JAPAN
Train accident hurts 14
Fourteen passengers were injured after a driverless five-car train in Yokohama went in the wrong direction and crashed into a buffer stop, police said yesterday. Media reported that some injuries — the first resulting from an accident involving an automated train in 30 years — appeared to be serious, but not life-threatening. The train hit the buffer stop at Shin-Sugita station after traveling the wrong way for about 20m, Akihiko Mikami, president of the train operator, said in a midnight Saturday news conference.
The station is a terminal of the self-driving Kanazawa Seaside Line in Yokohama The line has shut down the line and it was uncertain when services would be resumed, Mikami said.
RUSSIA
TNT plant blast injures 79
The Ministry of Health said 79 people were injured on Saturday in an explosion in a plant manufacturing TNT in Dzerzhinsk. An investigation is under way, but the cause of the blast has not been determined. The ministry said 38 employees at the plant and 41 residents sought treatment after the blast and 15 were hospitalized, one in serious condition. The blast broke windows in about 180 residential buildings near the plant, the state news agency Tass reported, citing city authorities.
UNITED KINGDOM
Bomb found on officer’s car
Police in Northern Ireland discovered a bomb under a police officer’s car in Belfast on Saturday that they said was probably planted by militant nationalists intent on killing one of their officers The suspicious object was detected in the east of the city on Saturday and declared a viable improvised explosive device following examination by munitions officers. “Our belief is that this attempted murder was carried out by violent dissident republicans. They don’t care who they attack, they don’t care who they kill. They are simply anti-peace and anti-democracy,” Sean Wright, head of the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s Terrorism Investigation Unit, said in a statement.
FRENCH POLYNESIA
Cocaine haul found on boat
Police have seized 436kg of cocaine hidden on a yacht and arrested four men, the Papeete public prosecutor said on Saturday. Officers moved in on the boat at the Apataki atoll, in the Tuamotu Archipelago to the east of Tahiti, after spotting the vessel, which had sailed from Panama with four men of Italian and Peruvian nationalities onboard. An initial inspection of the boat on Wednesday found a compartment in the infrastructure containing 341 bricks and packages of cocaine weighing about 341kg, prosecutor Herve Leroy said. A further inspection after the boat was brought to Papeete found more drugs. The four men face up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
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
The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a Web site. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year, the
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