IRELAND
Gas station blast kills seven
The number of people killed in an explosion at a gas station in County Donegal on Friday has risen to seven, with search and recovery efforts continuing, police said yesterday. The explosion happened shortly after 3pm at the Applegreen station on the outskirts of Creeslough. Eight people were receiving treatment in hospital, police said. They have not addressed the cause of the explosion. Photographs from the scene showed a residential unit above the station store with walls blown out and a partially collapsed roof, and debris scattered across the forecourt where several vehicles were parked. Local Sinn Fein lawmaker Pearse Doherty said at the scene on Friday that the “massive explosion” was heard from miles around, adding that the gas station was the only supermarket in the village, also housing a post office and hairdressers and that it would have been busy at that time.
INDIA
Twelve die in bus fire
At least 12 people died and two were in critical condition after a bus caught fire in Nashik yesterday, a police official said. More than 30 injured were being treated at the local Civil Hospital, while an investigation into the cause of the accident was underway, another local police said. The bus caught fire after hitting a diesel tanker, local media reports said. Videos on social media showed the bus engulfed in a massive ball of fire. “Anguished by the bus tragedy in Nashik. My thoughts are with those who have lost their loved ones in this mishap,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on Twitter, adding that families of the deceased would receive 200,000 rupees (US$2,415) each, while the injured would get 50,000 rupees each.
HONG KONG
Diamond sells for US$57m
A rare pink diamond on Friday sold for HK$453.2 million (US$57.73 million), setting a record for price per carat paid at auction for any diamond or gemstone Sotheby’s said. The 11.15-carat Williamson Pink Star fetched the second-highest price paid at auction for any jewel, Sotheby’s added. The winning bid, by an undisclosed buyer from Boca Raton, Florida, was more than twice the estimated US$21 million sale price. The stone was the second-largest pink diamond to be sold at auction. Pink diamonds are the rarest of the precious gems and the most in-demand on the global market. The world record for a pink diamond was set in 2017, when a stone known as the CTF Pink Star was sold in Hong Kong for US$71.2 million.
NEW ZEALAND
About 250 pilot whales die
About 250 pilot whales died after beaching on Chatham Island where the shark risk makes attempts to refloat them too dangerous, the government said yesterday. The pilot whales, members of the dolphin family, were reported to have been stranded on Friday on the northwest of the island, the Department Of Conservation said. “We do not actively refloat whales on the Chatham Islands due to the risk of shark attack to both humans and the whales themselves,” it said in a statement. A trained team euthanized surviving whales to prevent further suffering, it said. Indigenous peoples of New Zealand and Chatham Island were present to give support, it added. Such strandings are “not uncommon” in the Chatham Islands, off the eastern coast of South Island, it said, adding that the largest recorded event involved an estimated 1,000 whales in 1918.
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
A team of doctors and vets in Pakistan has developed a novel treatment for a pair of elephants with tuberculosis (TB) that involves feeding them at least 400 pills a day. The jumbo effort at the Karachi Safari Park involves administering the tablets — the same as those used to treat TB in humans — hidden inside food ranging from apples and bananas, to Pakistani sweets. The amount of medication is adjusted to account for the weight of the 4,000kg elephants. However, it has taken Madhubala and Malika several weeks to settle into the treatment after spitting out the first few doses they
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