Dozens killed in Us-led air strike on al-shafa
US AUTHORITIES seized about 18.5tons of cocaine with a street value of $500million (R7billion) in the eastern Pacific Ocean, the US Coast Guard said on Friday.
The cocaine was taken off the Coast Guard cutter James in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday, after it was confiscated from 15 drug smuggling vessels in international waters.
Multiple US Coast Guard cutters helped seize the drugs of Mexico, Central and South America, it said.
Some 49 suspects were arrested and will be prosecuted in southern Florida, the Miami Herald reported.
Cocaine remains one of the most popular illegal drugs in the US, where most of the world’s cocaine is consumed, report federal officials.
“There are signs that cocaine use and availability is on the rise in the US for the first time in a decade,” said the State Department. | MOSCOW: Forty-seven people were injured and 17 others detained in France during the ongoing protests against fuel price hikes, local media reported, citing the country’s Interior Ministry yesterday.
One woman was knocked down and killed in the south-eastern French Isere department amid the protests, when a female driver bumped into a crowd of protesters blocking the traffic.
According to France Info radio station, three out of the 47 injured people were in a grave condition.
Reports suggest that most of the injuries happened when drivers bumped into blockades. | NO SKILLS
JAPAN’S cybersecurity and Olympics minister has told Parliament he has never used a computer in his life. Yoshitaka Sakurada, 68, was named to the two posts last month by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, having never held a cabinet position before during his 22 years in Parliament. | BANGUI: More than 40 people were killed and dozens wounded in Central African Republic in an attack on a Catholic mission sheltering 20 000 refugees, a regional lawmaker said.
The attack happened on
Thursday in Alindao, a town 300km east of the capital Bangui. Thousands of people were forced to flee when the mission was set on fire, the UN said.
“We have counted 42 bodies so far, but we are still searching for others. The camp has been burnt to the ground and people fled into the bush and to other IDP (internally displaced person) camps in the city,” Alindao lawmaker Etienne Godenaha told Reuters.
A humanitarian source confirmed that more than 40 people were killed.
UN humanitarian co-ordinator in Central African Republic Najat Rochdi said in a statement: “This vicious cycle of repeated attacks against civilians is unacceptable.”
Thousands have died and a fifth of Central African Republic’s
4.5 million population have fled their homes in a conflict that broke out after mainly Muslim Seleka rebels ousted President Francois Bozize in 2013, provoking a backlash from Christian anti-balaka militias. Depite electing a new leader in 2016, the country has continued to face political instability and tit-for-tat inter-communal violence.
| DAMASCUS: Several civilians were killed in the Syrian settlement of al-shafa in the province of Deir ez-zor as a result of airstrikes by the international coalition led by the US, Syria’s state broadcaster reported yesterday.
Earlier yesterday, the Sana news agency reported the death of 40 civilians in the village of al-buqa in the same province as a result of the coalition’s airstrikes.
The exact number of those killed and wounded in al-shafa was not reported.
The coalition regularly strikes the city of Hajin and the nearby settlements in Deir ez-zor. Syrian media repeatedly reported civilian casualties and the use of white phosphorus in the coalition’s airstrikes. The Syrian authorities called on the UN to take measures against the perpetrators and to stop the illegal presence of the coalition in the country’s territory. The Pentagon’s spokesperson then stated that the US coalition did not disclose the ammunition used in Syria, but insisted it complied with international standards.
The Us-led coalition of more than 70 members has been conducting military operations against the Islamic State terrorist group (banned in Russia) in Syria and Iraq since September 2014. The coalition’s activities in Syria are authorised neither by the Syrian government, nor by the UN Security Council. |