ISRAEL
Gaza fuel supply blocked
The government yesterday blocked fuel deliveries to the Gaza Strip, citing new incendiary balloons from the Palestinian enclave. The move follows “the release of arson balloons from the Gaza Strip toward the State of Israel,” which caused fires across the border, the Ministry of Defense department responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs said. Fuel transfers were halted at the Karem Shalom goods crossing yesterday morning and would remain blocked “until further notice,” it said in a statement. Balloons with attached incendiary devices are flown over the Gaza border by Palestinian protesters seeking to start fires in Israeli farmland. During regular demonstrations last year the balloons started hundreds of fires, though they have been curbed in recent months. Fuel deliveries, which are coordinated with the UN and paid for by Qatar, were agreed late last year as part of a truce between the Israeli government and Hamas.
VIETNAM
Virus hits industrial farms
The nation has culled nearly 10 percent of its pig herd to contain an African swine fever outbreak that has started hitting large-scale industrial farms, the government said in a statement yesterday. Earlier outbreaks have appeared mostly at small household farms, but have now started to occur at larger industrial operations, including Phu Son Farm in Dong Nai Province near Ho Chi Minh City, the statement said. “This is a very worrying sign as these farms have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of pigs each and therefore the damages would be significant,” the government said in a statement on its official Web site. African swine fever was first detected in the nation in February and has spread to farms in 60 of the 63 provinces, according to the statement.
INDIA
Arrests over lynching
Police yesterday arrested 11 people over the killing of a Muslim man, who was tortured and forced to chant Hindu slogans in the latest mob violence to shock the nation. Two police officers have also been suspended over the handling of the lynching of Tabrez Ansari, captured on a video that went viral on social media. The 24-year-old is seen in the video crying and pleading as a mob in Jharkhand State forces him to chant “Jai Sri Ram” (hail Lord Ram). Ansari had been accused by villagers of carrying out a burglary. He was tied to a pole and beaten for up to 12 hours before police first detained him in Seraikela, and then took him to hospital, where he died on Saturday. Media reports said Ansari’s wife has accused police of deliberately taking him to jail first — instead of a hospital — despite the critical injuries he suffered.
UNITED KINGDOM
F-35s fly Mideast missions
Secretary of Defense Penny Mordaunt said that the nation’s most advanced military aircraft, the Lightning F-35B, has flown its first missions over Syria and Iraq as part of the ongoing operations against the Islamic State group. A statement released yesterday quoted Mordaunt as saying that the jets’ first operational mission from a British airbase in Cyprus, where they have been undergoing training since May 21, is “a significant step into the future for the UK.” Military officials had said there were no plans for the aircraft to conduct combat missions during their stay at RAF Akrotiri, but it was decided that they were ready to make their operational debut because of their “exceptional performance.” Officials said the aircraft did not fire any weapons when flying alongside Typhoon jets.
UNITED KINGDOM
Hangovers hurt economy
The nation’s economy suffers a ￡1.4 billion (US$1.8 billion) cost from people coming to work either hungover or still drunk, the London-based Institute for Alcohol Studies review of a survey of 3,400 employees found. The respondents on average judged themselves to be 39 percent less effective when they persist in going into work despite having had one too many beforehand. The analysis factored that result together with average labor costs to reach the estimate on economic damage. The government underestimates the overall economic cost of alcohol, because it does not take into account “presenteeism” by drunk or hungover people, otherwise its measurement of such damage would be ￡8.7 billion, the researchers said.
UNITED STATES
Stars read Mueller report
Top actors ranging from John Lithgow, Kevin Kline, Joel Grey to Jason Alexander, Alfre Woodard and Annette Bening took part on Monday night in a live reading of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Mark Hamill, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Sigourney Weaver made recorded video appearances during the performance of The Investigation: A Search for Truth in Ten Acts at New York City’s Riverside Church. The Investigation was created by playwright and actor Robert Schenkkan.
URUGUAY
Italian mobster flees prison
A top Italian crime boss escaped during Sunday night from the Montevideo prison where he was awaiting extradition to Italy, the Ministry of the Interior said on Monday. Rocco Morabito, as a key figure in the Calabria-based ’Ndrangheta, and three other inmates got out “through the roof” of a prison about midnight before making their way “through a neighboring farm and robbing its owner,” the ministry said. Morabito has been on the run from Italy since 1994 and was sentenced there to 30 years in prison for drug trafficking. He was arrested in Montevideo in 2017.
HONDURAS
FUSINA fire on students
Military police known as FUSINA on Monday opened fire on protesting students at the National Autonomous University of Honduras, wounding at least five, campus and hospital officials said. Hundreds of students at the Tegucigalpa school were calling for President Juan Orlando Hernandez to resign. “About 40 military police entered the university campus without authorization,” the university’s director of institutional development, Armando Sarmiento, told the media. FUSINA said the “alleged students” had attacked with “modified Molotov cocktails to make them more lethal,” adding that two officers had been burned.
UNITED STATES
Accuser not my type: Trump
President Donald Trump on Monday again vigorously denied E. Jean Carroll’s allegations that he sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s in a New York department store dressing room, adding: “She’s not my type.” In an interview with The Hill in the Oval Office, Trump said: “Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it never happened. It never happened, OK?” Carroll was “totally lying,” he said. Carroll makes the allegation in her new book, an excerpt of which was published by New York magazine last week. Carroll on Monday told CNN that he “just went at it” after he cornered her and that she never went to the police because she was afraid of repercussions, but now she was considering filing a complaint.
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
RSS