News in Brief

Suspect arrested for St Petersburg blast

A man has been arrested on suspicion of setting off an explosion at a supermarket in St Petersburg last Wednesday, injuring 18 people.

Officials did not identify the suspect or provide any details about his motive. They did say the suspect organised and carried out the attack on his own. Isil earlier claimed responsibility for the explosion. President Vladimir Putin has called the explosion a terror attack, adding that he ordered security agencies to kill terror suspects on the spot if they resist arrest.

81 reporters were killed during 2017

At least 81 reporters were killed doing their jobs in 2017, while violence and harassment against media staff has skyrocketed, the world’s biggest journalists’ organisation has said.

In its annual Kill Report, the International Federation of Journalists said the reporters lost their lives in targeted killings, car bombs and crossfire incidents. More than 250 journalists were in prison in 2017. The number of deaths as of December 29 was the lowest in a decade, down from 93 in 2016.

The largest number were killed in Mexico, but many also died in conflict zones in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

Two mass graves discovered in Raqqa

Dozens of Syrian militants and their families were yesterday taken by bus from an area besieged by government forces near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, part of a deal to clear the district of insurgents.

The evacuations came as two mass graves were discovered in the northern province of Raqqa, where the Isil held sway for more than three years.

The evacuation allows Syria to reassert control over areas near the Golan Heights that were captured by Israel from Syria during the 1967 Middle East war.

Israel has publicly warned against the accumulation of Iranian and Iranian-backed forces at its border. Iran had arranged for thousands of militiamen from across the region to fight on behalf of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

In northern Syria, Sana reported that “dozens of bodies” of civilians and troops killed by Isil were discovered in two mass graves in a village near the northern city of Raqqa, once the de facto capital of Isil.

Isil carried out public killings in its once self-declared caliphate, beheading, shooting and stoning perceived offenders to death, as well as drowning them in large pools while locked in metal cages.

Ukranian hostages freed after standoff

Ukrainian police yesterday freed the remaining hostages being held in a post office by an man believed to be strapped with explosives, and arrested the hostage taker after an hours-long standoff in the city of Kharkiv.

Solo climbers banned from Mount Everest

Nepal has banned solo climbers from scaling its mountains, including Mount Everest, in an attempt to reduce accidents. The new regulations also prohibit double amputee and blind climbers from attempting to reach the summit of the world’s highest peak.

A tourism official said the law had been revised to make mountaineering safer and to decrease deaths.