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.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
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