TANZANIA
Factory explosion kills 11
An explosion at a sugar factory killed 11 people and injured two others, police said on Thursday, with at least three foreigners among the dead. The accident occurred on Wednesday night at a facility in the eastern Morogoro region operated by Mtibwa Sugar, one of the nation’s main producers of the commodity. “The factory accident caused [the] death of 11 people and two others were injured,” regional police commander Alex Mkama told reporters. The fatalities included a Kenyan, an Indian and a Brazilian national, Mkama was quoted by the Citizen newspaper as saying. “There are reports that a steam pipe had leakage which caused the explosion,” he said. A pipe connecting one of the factory boilers with a turbine had burst causing the blast, said Shabani Marugujo, commander of the fire and rescue services in Morogoro.
UNITED STATES
Tornado kills five people
A deadly tornado that wreaked havoc in Greenfield, Iowa, left four people dead and nearly three dozen injured, officials said, while a fifth person was killed elsewhere. The twister that tore through the city on Tuesday was rated at least an EF3 by the National Weather Service and was so destructive that it took authorities more than a day to account for the area’s residents. It is believed that the number of people injured is likely higher, the Iowa Department of Public Safety said. The fifth person was killed about 40km from Greenfield when her car was blown off the road in a tornado, the Adams County Sheriff’s Office said. Monica Zamarron, 46, died in the crash on Tuesday afternoon, officials said. Officials have not yet released the names of the other victims. The severe weather turned south on Wednesday. In Texas, officials issued an emergency declaration in Temple, a city of more than 90,000 people north of Austin, after powerful storms ripped through the area.
JAPAN
‘Doge’ meme dog dies
The Japanese shiba inu dog whose photo inspired a generation of oddball online jokes and the US$23 billion Dogecoin cryptocurrency beloved by Elon Musk died yesterday, her owner said. “She quietly passed away as if asleep while I caressed her,” Atsuko Sato wrote on her blog, thanking the fans of her dog called Kabosu, which was the face of the “Doge” meme.
VIETNAM
Hanoi fire kills 14 people
An overnight fire in an apartment building on a narrow alley in Hanoi killed 14 people and injured six others, state media said yesterday. The apartment building could only be accessed through an alley just 2m wide, preventing firetrucks from reaching it, and firefighters eventually contained the fire by using hoses, state media said. The fire started at about 12:30am and was accompanied by several explosions, the Vietnam News Agency said. It took an hour to extinguish. Neighbor Nguyen Thanh Trung said he was asleep when he heard the explosions and rushed out to see what was happening. “I could feel the shock at my house,” he said, adding that he along with others got a ladder to break the window to help people escape. State media reported the building had 24 residents at the time, seven in the owner’s family and 17 tenants. The injured are stable and being treated at Hanoi Transport Hospital. The fire started in the small courtyard in front of the building that was used as a garage for the sale and repair of electric bikes, state media reported. Trung said the family would often charge the bikes’ batteries at night.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
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