CHAD
‘Accidental’ strike kills four
A bomb “accidentally dropped” from a warplane onto the home of a senior army officer on Friday, killing four people and wounding two near N’Djamena, a prosecutor and an air force officer told reporters. The blast destroyed the home of Mahamat Saleh Arim, deputy commander of the presidential guard and a close ally of President Idriss Deby Itno, a journalist at the scene near the Adji Kossei airbase said. The warhead struck just meters from the national headquarters of Operation Barkhane, a French-led military campaign fighting extremists in the region. “An investigation is under way to determine the circumstances of this incident,” said N’Djamena High Court public prosecutor Youssouf Tom, who visited the scene. Two women and two children were killed, an air force official said. “The plane was taking off when the bomb broke loose, and hit a private residence in the city that houses soldiers’ families next to the airbase,” an air force officer added on condition of anonymity.
UKRAINE
No radiation found in smoke
Thick smoke on Friday hung over Kiev as forest fires smoldered on in the Chernobyl nuclear zone, but city officials said that no radiation spike had been detected. The acrid haze hindered visibility all over the city of 3 million people and the smell of smoke permeated homes as Kiev jumped to the top of high air pollution rankings. A forest fire broke out almost two weeks ago close to the Chernobyl reactor that exploded in 1986 in the world’s worst nuclear accident. On Tuesday, authorities said that the blaze had been largely extinguished thanks to heavy rain. However, 1,000 firefighters aided by two airplanes and three helicopters were on Friday still battling a number of small blazes in the wooded area about 80km north of Kiev, the State Emergency Service said. The sky became clearer in the evening as Kiev dropped from the top of the list to seventh place in the ranking compiled by IQAir Group. The smog has been blown in by strong winds from dozens of forest fires in surrounding regions, including from the nuclear exclusion zone around the Chernobyl power plant. Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov and service head Mykola Chechotkin reassured President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that the smog does not pose a chemical or radiation threat. Kiev authorities made similar assurances to residents.
UNITED STATES
Trump eyes resuming rallies
President Donald Trump on Friday said that he hopes to resume holding the political rallies that were a hallmark of his presidency before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the nation. “I hope we can do rallies. It’s great for the country,” Trump told a news conference, calling the events “a tremendous way of getting the word out.” Like millions of Americans, Trump has for weeks been largely confined to his home — in his case, the White House — as part of mass social distancing measures. Although there seems to be little chance of holding packed gatherings with thousands of people in the near future, Trump said that they would eventually be “bigger than ever.” He announced that he would be making a rare trip out of Washington to deliver the commencement address at West Point in New York, which is scheduled for May 23. Throughout his time in office, Trump has held campaign-style rallies nationwide and he had been set to ramp up the rhythm ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election. Trump said that he would not want to hold rallies where social distancing is in force, adding: “It loses a lot of flavor.”
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
‘MOBILIZED’: While protesters countered ICE agents, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz activated the state’s National Guard to ‘support the rights of Minnesotans’ to assemble Hundreds of counterprotesters drowned out a far-right activist’s attempt to hold a small rally in support of US President Donald Trump’s latest immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Saturday, as the governor’s office announced that National Guard troops were mobilized and ready to assist law enforcement, although not yet deployed to city streets. There have been protests every day since the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ramped up immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul by bringing in more than 2,000 federal officers. Conservative influencer Jake Lang organized an anti-Islam, anti-Somali and pro-US Immigration and Customs Enforcement
NASA on Saturday rolled out its towering Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft as it began preparations for its first crewed mission to the Moon in more than 50 years. The maneuver, which takes up to 12 hours, would allow the US space agency to begin a string of tests for the Artemis 2 mission, which could blast off as early as Feb. 6. The immense orange and white SLS rocket, and the Orion vessel were slowly wheeled out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and painstakingly moved 6.5km to Launch Pad 39B. If the
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