GLOBAL SNAPSHOT
Marines hurt in fire
LOS ANGELES: Fifteen US Marines were injured yesterday, five critically, when their amphibious assault vehicle caught fire during a training exercise, a military spokesman said. The incident occurred at Camp Pendleton, California while a Marine battalion was undergoing a combat readiness evaluation, Marine spokesman Paul Gainey confirmed.
Kaspersky ban
NEW YORK: Worries rippled through the consumer market for antivirus software after the US Government banned federal agencies from using Kaspersky Labs software yesterday. The US Department of Homeland Security cited concerns about possible ties between unnamed Kaspersky officials and the Kremlin and also Russian intelligence services.
Colombia cops it
BOGOTA: US President Donald Trump is threatening that he may decertify Colombia as a partner in the drug war.The shock rebuke for Washington’s staunchest ally in Latin America came because of what Mr Trump called the “extraordinary” growth of coca cultivation and cocaine production to record levels over the past year.
Mayors face probe
MADRID: Spain’s public prosecutor has ordered a criminal probe of more than 700 Catalan mayors cooperating with an October 1 independence referendum deemed illegal by Madrid. Catalan municipal associations called on all the region’s mayors to protest in Barcelona this weekend.
Bocelli joins robot
PISA: Tenor Andrea Bocelli has brought down the house at Pisa’s Teatro Verdi by performing with an unusual conductor: a robot. The white, two-armed YuMi robot, designed by the Swiss company ABB for factory assembly lines, led Bocelli and the Lucca Philharmonic Orchestra in Verdi’s La Donna e Mobile at Pisa’s inaugural International Robotics Festival.
Exercises spark fear
MOSCOW: Russia was last night due to launch major joint military exercises with Belarus along the European Union’s eastern flank – a show of strength that has rattled nervous NATO members. Moscow says the “purely defensive” drills involve 12,700 troops but NATO claims Russia is massively underreporting the scale of the exercises, which some of the alliance’s eastern members insist could see more than 100,000 take part.