ISRAEL
Aid resumes under pressure
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday acknowledged that his decision to resume aid to Gaza came from pressure from allies. In a video statement posted to social media, Netanyahu said that Israel’s allies had voiced concern about “images of hunger.” Israel’s “greatest friends in the world,” had said there is “one thing we cannot stand. We cannot accept images of hunger, mass hunger. We cannot stand that. We will not be able to support you,” he said, without mentioning specific nationalities. “Therefore to achieve victory, we need to somehow solve the problem,” he said. The aid that would be let in would be “minimal,” he said without specifying precisely when it would resume. The weekslong halt on aid deepened as already dire humanitarian crisis and prompted warnings of famine from food experts.
INDONESIA
Landslide kills six people
Torrential rains yesterday forced a halt to the search for 14 missing people in Papua after a landslide killed six workers at a gold mine and injured four, officials said. The rains had triggered Friday’s landslide, which hit a small mine run by residents of the Arfak mountains of West Papua province, National Authority for Disaster Management spokesman Abdul Muhari said, adding that the search is to resume today. The search effort was hampered by “damaged roads and mountainous tracks as well as bad weather,” said Yefri Sabaruddin, head of a team of 40 rescuers, including police and military officials, who retrieved five bodies. Yesterday’s tally was updated from an earlier figure of one dead and 19 missing.
NEPAL
Two foreign climbers die
An Indian climber and another from Romania died on Mount Lhotse, the world’s fourth-tallest peak, hiking officials said yesterday, taking the season’s death toll to at least eight. Rakesh Kumar, 39, of India died on Sunday while descending from the 8,516m mountain’s summit, said Mohan Lamsal of Makalu Adventure, the local company that organized his climb. “He was coming down from the 8,000m-high fourth camp when he suddenly collapsed,” Lamsal said. “Efforts to revive him by his Sherpa guide failed.” Romanian Barna Zsolt Vago, 48, died the same day when he was going up to the Lhotse peak, Rajan Bhattarai of his Himalayan Guides company said. Further details of the incidents were not available. At least eight people have died on the Himalayas in Nepal, including two on Mount Everest during the current climbing season that ends this month.
INDONESIA
Twin-peaked volcano erupts
Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on the island of Flores erupted shortly after midnight yesterday, sending an ash cloud 1.2km above its peak. The volcano erupted once more at 9:36am, the volcanology agency reported. The latest rumblings follow authorities on Sunday evening raising the alert level of the 1,584m twin-peaked volcano to the highest in the nation’s four-tiered system. “Lewotobi Laki-Laki’s activities are still high,” geological agency head Muhammad Wafid said on Sunday. “The potential for a larger eruption than before can occur,” he said in a statement. Wafid urged residents to wear masks to protect themselves from volcanic ash, while telling people not to carry out any activities at least six kilometres from the crater. The volcano in November last year erupted multiple times, killing nine people, canceling scores of international flights to Bali and forcing the evacuation of thousands.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
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