INDIA
Floods kill 113 people
Heavy rains have killed at least 113 people in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states over the past three days, officials said yesterday, as flood waters swamped a major city, inundated hospital wards and forced the evacuation of inmates from a jail. An official said that at least 93 people had died in Uttar Pradesh since Friday after its eastern areas were lashed by intense monsoon showers. Rising water levels forced authorities to shift 900 inmates from a prison in eastern Ballia District, police officer Santosh Verma said. In Bihar, the death toll from the latest bout of rain had reached 20 as of yesterday, a state government official said. State capital Patna has been badly hit, with waist-deep flood waters across many streets, and entering homes, shops, and even the wards of a major hospital. The Meteorological Department yesterday said it expected the intensity of rainfall over Bihar to drop and showers over Uttah Pradesh to abate this week.
UNITED KINGDOM
Johnson denies groping
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office has denied allegations he made unwanted sexual advances toward two women 20 years ago. Journalist Charlotte Edwardes wrote in a column for the Sunday Times that Johnson put his hand on her thigh at a dinner party thrown by the magazine he was editing at the time. She said a woman she spoke with after the dinner who was sitting on Johnson’s other side said the same thing happened to her. Johnson’s office issued a brief statement late on Sunday stating: “The allegation is untrue.” Edwardes responded via Twitter: “If the prime minister doesn’t recollect the incident then clearly I have a better memory than he does.”
AUSTRALIA
Car mows down kangaroos
Police are calling for witnesses to come forward after 20 kangaroos were killed by a vehicle in “acts of animal cruelty” in the New South Wales town of Merimbula. Authorities believe one vehicle drove through the suburb of Tura Beach between 10:30pm and 11:30pm on Saturday night, targeting and killing the animals. Twenty kangaroos, including joeys, were killed and three remaining joeys are in veterinary care, said Janine Green, a volunteer with Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service, who discovered the kangaroos. Green alleged the culprit drove a white ute with a spotlight to intentionally run over the animals. “They were driving around and around and had a spotlight. So the kangaroos were just startled and standing there,” she said. “They were driving up on the footpaths… It was football final night so a lot of people would have been drinking. So lucky nobody was walking home. Detectives from the south coast police district are investigating.
NEW ZEALAND
Asics shop broadcasts porn
Pornography played on giant television screens at an Asics sports store in Auckland’s Queen Street for hours over the weekend after hackers took over the shop’s computer systems. It only stopped after employees arrived to open the store on Sunday morning. The Japanese company has apologized to anyone who was inadvertently subjected to the material and said it was working with its software and online security suppliers to make sure it did not happen again. Police and Internet body Netsafe has also been alerted to the hacking, the company said. Witnesses said the pornography played from 1am to 10am on Sunday. The store manager told the New Zealand Herald he was “100 percent sure” that his staff members were not responsible for the incident.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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