INDIA
Bus crash kills 29
At least 29 people were killed yesterday after a bus careered off one of India’s busiest roads, which has become known as the “highway to hell” because of its poor safety record. The driver was suspected to have fallen asleep before the bus crashed into a railing and fell into a drain between two flyovers on the Yamuna expressway, which connects New Delhi with Agra, the city famed for the Taj Mahal. Eighteen people were injured, some critically, police said. The 165km expressway was India’s longest six-lane highway when it opened in 2012, but about 900 people been killed on the road since, according to authorities. The state-run bus was taking more than 50 people from Lucknow in northern Uttar Pradesh to Delhi when the accident happened at about 4.15am about 20km outside of Agra. It fell more than 12m into a drain below the road, crushing the roof of the bus. Running water in the drain complicated rescue efforts, police said. “Twenty nine persons have died and 18 others are injured,” Agra district magistrate N.G. Ravi Kumar said.
TAJIKISTAN
Prisoner poisoning probed
The nation has opened a criminal investigation after 14 prisoners were fatally poisoned while they were being transported between jails, the Ministry of Justice said yesterday, suggesting that another inmate might have given them contaminated bread. The incident happened on Sunday as more than 100 prisoners, including eight women, were being transferred in a convoy from prisons in the north of the Central Asian country to jails in the south. The ministry said in a statement that a prisoner handed around bread to a group of 16 inmates traveling in one of the vehicles during a stop on the journey. It said that “16 prisoners, who were in the back of one of the cars, experienced nausea, dizziness, vomiting” half an hour after consuming the bread. Medical staff were only able to save the lives of two of the prisoners, according to the statement, which was relayed by the Khovar state information agency. The state prosecutor had opened a criminal case into the incident, the ministry said.
NIGER
More US forces sought
President Mahamadou Issoufou called for greater US involvement in the fight against Islamist insurgencies in west Africa — at a time when US President Donald Trump is scaling back the US’ military presence on the continent. Too little is being done to combat the fighters, Issoufou said on Saturday in an interview in the capital, Niamey. Militants have carried out attacks in Mali, Nigeria, Chad, Burkina Faso and Niger. Other countries in the region, including Ivory Coast and Ghana, have stepped up security in the face of the growing threat. Niger is already at the center of an international effort to fight the insurgencies in the Sahel, an arid area on the southern fringe of the Sahara. France and the US have a military presence in Niger — the US built a US$110 million drone base in northern Niger and has deployed special forces on the ground. “I propose an international coalition, like you see in Syria or Iraq, to fight terrorism in the Sahel and the Lake Chad basin,” Issoufou said. “When I say an international force, this also includes the US.” The extent of US involvement in Niger was unclear until four US soldiers were killed in an ambush by more than 100 Islamist militants in the southwest of the country in 2017. Their deaths prompted an investigation by the Pentagon and a fierce debate about US military involvement in Africa.
GLORY FACADE: Residents are fighting the church’s plan to build a large flight of steps and a square that would entail destroying up to two blocks of homes Barcelona’s eternally unfinished Basilica de la Sagrada Familia has grown to become the world’s tallest church, but a conflict with residents threatens to delay the finish date for the monument designed more than 140 years ago. Swathed in scaffolding on a platform 54m above the ground, an enormous stone slab is being prepared to complete the cross of the central Jesus Christ tower. A huge yellow crane is to bring it up to the summit, which will stand at 172.5m and has snatched the record as the world’s tallest church from Germany’s Ulm Minster. The basilica’s peak will deliberately fall short of the
FRAYED: Strains between the US-European ties have ruptured allies’ trust in Washington, but with time, that could be rebuilt, the Michigan governor said China is providing crucial support for Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and could end the war with a phone call, US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said. “China could call [Russian President] Vladimir Putin and end this war tomorrow and cut off his dual-purpose technologies that they’re selling,” Whitaker said during a Friday panel at the Munich Security Conference. “China could stop buying Russian oil and gas.” “You know, this war is being completely enabled by China,” the US envoy added. Beijing and Moscow have forged an even tighter partnership since the start of the war, and Russia relies on China for critical parts
Two sitting Philippine senators have been identified as “coperpetrators” in former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s crimes against humanity trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC), documents released by prosecutors showed. Philippine senators Ronald Dela Rosa and Christopher Go are among eight current and former officials named in a document dated Feb. 13 and posted to the court’s Web site. ICC prosecutors have charged Duterte with three counts of crimes against humanity, alleging his involvement in at least 76 murders as part of his “war on drugs.” “Duterte and his coperpetrators shared a common plan or agreement to ‘neutralize’ alleged criminals in the Philippines
In a softly lit Shanghai bar, graduate student Helen Zhao stretched out both wrists to have her pulse taken — the first step to ordering the house special, a bespoke “health” cocktail based on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). “TCM bars” have popped up in several cities across China, epitomizing what the country’s stressed-out, time-poor youth refer to as “punk wellness,” or “wrecking yourself while saving yourself.” At Shanghai’s Niang Qing, a TCM doctor in a white coat diagnoses customers’ physical conditions based on the pulse readings, before a mixologist crafts custom drinks incorporating the herbs and roots prescribed for their ailments.
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