The President of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Embalo, issued a decree today dissolving the parliament after an attempted coup in the West African nation. Violence had erupted between members of the national guard and special forces of the presidential guard on Thursday night in the capital, Bissau, leaving two people dead before the army ordered its forces…
Eleven hikers were found dead today and another 12 were missing after a volcano erupted in Indonesia, with rescuers racing to carry injured and burned survivors down the mountain on foot. Rescuers worked through the night to find dozens of hikers stranded on Mount Marapi on the island of Sumatra after it spewed an ash…
Israeli air strikes killed two Syrian pro-Hezbollah fighters when they hit sites belonging to the Iran-backed group near Damascus early on Saturday, a war monitor told the newsmen. The strikes near Damascus came less than 24 hours after the end of a Gaza truce between Hezbollah ally Hamas and Israel. “Two Syrian fighters working for…
Israeli airplanes today resumed their bombardment of Gaza. Palestinian civilians fled for safety, and rocket sirens blared in southern Israel, as war resumed after a week-long truce expired with no agreement to extend it. The Israeli military declared that it had “resumed combat operations”, accusing Hamas of breaking the cease-fire first by firing rockets. It…
A US Osprey military aircraft with eight crew on board crashed on Wednesday off the coast of Japan, the coastguard said. “We received information that the US military’s Osprey crashed off Yakushima Island,” a spokeswoman told the newsmen. “We were also notified that there were eight crew members on board,” she added. “There is no…
Officials of the Sierra Leone government have disclosed that nearly 2,000 inmates escaped during Sunday’s attack on a military barracks, a prison and other locations in the country. The Acting Director-General of the Sierra Leone Correctional Service, Colonel Shek Masakui, said the attack lasted two hours. According to a situation report that prison officials shared…
An elevator carrying workers to the surface at a giant South African platinum mine plunged out of control killing 11 and injuring 75, the mine operators said Tuesday. Impala Platinum said the “devastating accident” happened on Monday at its Rustenburg mine, northwest of Johannesburg, as more than 80 employees were leaving a shaft at the…
Indian military engineers were preparing to dig by hand Monday to reach 41 workers trapped in a collapsed road tunnel for 16 days, a rescue operation hit by repeated setbacks. Soldiers plan to use a so-called “rat-hole mining” technique, digging by hand to clear the rocks and rubble over the remaining nine metres (29 feet),…
At least 18 people were killed in lightning strikes across western India’s Gujarat state during unseasonably intense storms on Sunday, officials said. Such big rainstorms are not expected in Gujarat during winter months, and fierce downpours caught many off guard. While flash floods and lightning kill dozens of people in India each year, scientists warn…
Hamas fighters were set Sunday to release a third group of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a day after freeing captives including a young woman snatched from a desert rave. In a sign of the fragility of the exchanges, the latest swap Saturday was delayed for hours after Hamas accused Israel of breaching…