INDONESIA
Flood death toll reaches 21
The death toll from flash flooding and landslides on Sumatra has risen to 21, an official said yesterday, with six people still missing. Torrential rains on Thursday triggered the disaster in Pesisir Selatan Regency in West Sumatra province, with more than 75,000 people forced to evacuate. “As of Sunday, 21 people were found dead and six people remained missing,” said Fajar Sukma, an official from West Sumatra disaster mitigation agency. A village on a hillside in the Sutera subdistrict was struck hard, with about 200 families in the area left isolated after a landslide followed by flash flooding, Fajar said.
NIGERIA
More kids kidnapped
Gunmen on Saturday kidnapped 15 students from their Islamic seminary in northwestern Sokoto State, local sources said, days after the mass abduction of more than 280 schoolchildren in nearby Kaduna State. Seminary staff said the gunmen stormed Gidan Bakuso village in Gada District at about 1am on Saturday, rounding up the pupils as they slept outdoors. “The gunmen were passing by the school with a woman they kidnapped from another part of town and the pupils were awoken by her cries,” said Liman Abubakar, the head of the seminary. “The bandits seized 15 of the pupils, aged between eight and 14, and took them away along with the woman,” he added.
PAKISTAN
Zardari elected president
Lawmakers on Saturday elected Asif Ali Zardari as the country’s president for the second time. He is the widower of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and the father of former minister of foreign affairs Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari. Zardari secured 411 votes from national and provincial lawmakers. His opponent, Mehmood Khan Achakzai, who is backed by the party of imprisoned former prime minister Imran Khan, received 181 votes. The presidency is a largely ceremonial role that Zardari previously held from 2008 to 2013.
TANZANIA
Nine die from turtle meat
Eight children and an adult died after eating sea turtle meat on Pemba Island in the Zanzibar Archipelago, while 78 other people were hospitalized, authorities said on Saturday. Sea turtle meat is considered a delicacy in Zanzibar, even though it periodically results in deaths from chelonitoxism, a type of food poisoning. The adult who died late on Friday was the mother of one of the children who succumbed earlier, Mkoani District Medical Officer Haji Bakari said. The turtle meat was consumed on Tuesday, he said. Laboratory tests had confirmed that all the victims had eaten sea turtle meat, he said.
INDONESIA
Pilots probed for napping
The Ministry of Transportation on Saturday said it would investigate local airline Batik Air after two of its pilots were found to have fallen asleep during a recent flight. A pilot and copilot were simultaneously asleep for approximately 28 minutes during a flight from South East Sulawesi to the capital, Jakarta, on Jan. 25, a preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Committee said. The incident resulted in a series of navigation errors, but the Airbus A320’s 153 passengers and four flight attendants were unharmed during the two-hour-and-35-minute flight. A committee report said that the captain, who obtained permission to rest, awoke 28 minutes later to find that the copilot was asleep and the plane was not on the correct path.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
A colossal explosion in the sky, unleashing energy hundreds of times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. A blinding flash nearly as bright as the sun. Shockwaves powerful enough to flatten everything for miles. It might sound apocalyptic, but a newly detected asteroid nearly the size of a football field now has a greater than 1 percent chance of colliding with Earth in about eight years. Such an impact has the potential for city-level devastation, depending on where it strikes. Scientists are not panicking yet, but they are watching closely. “At this point, it’s: ‘Let’s pay a lot of attention, let’s
The administration of US President Donald Trump has appointed to serve as the top public diplomacy official a former speech writer for Trump with a history of doubts over US foreign policy toward Taiwan and inflammatory comments on women and minorities, at one point saying that "competent white men must be in charge." Darren Beattie has been named the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a senior US Department of State official said, a role that determines the tone of the US' public messaging in the world. Beattie requires US Senate confirmation to serve on a permanent basis. "Thanks to
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump