Gantz company to face criminal probe
Tel Aviv: Israel’s leading opposition figure Benny Gantz has denied wrongdoing after media reports said officials would examine an allegedly shady deal between a company he headed and the country’s police.
The reports said Mr Gantz is not a suspect in the affair, but the development comes less than two weeks before national elections and during a campaign by his Blue and White party that has tried to focus attention on prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s indictment for corruption charges.
“It all sounds like political pressure to get this thing on the public’s agenda,” Mr Gantz told Israeli Army Radio. “I am totally at ease. This was checked in the past and no criminal suspicion was found.”
Israel holds elections on March 2, the third vote in less than a year after two polls in 2019 ended inconclusively, with neither Mr Netanyahu nor Mr Gantz able to forge a 61-seat majority government.
Wallan: Two people were killed when a Sydney to Melbourne express train derailed near the Victorian town of Wallan, officials say.
Several other passengers were being treated for injuries, emergency services said.
One person was airlifted to a hospital in Melbourne.
Images showed a number of twisted carriages had left the track, with one on its side. It was unclear what caused the train to derail.
Paramedics from Ambulance Victoria said that “a large number of people are being assessed but are not believed to be seriously injured”.
They added that four people were being taken to hospital “in a stable condition”.
The train was reportedly carrying about 160 passengers when it left the tracks at 7:50am yesterday, some 28 miles north of Melbourne, the Victorian state capital.
Philadelphia: Namibia has become the first African country to export red meat to the US, after nearly two decades of negotiations.
The state-owned Meatco’s first shipment of meat, 25 tonnes of beef, set off towards Philadelphia this week, news agency Reuters reports.
Minister of International Relations Netumbo Nandindaitwah was pleased that the southern African country was able to “finally export meat to the lucrative and big US market”.
Namibia is expected to export 860 tonnes of beef in 2020.
“Namibia will benefit economically from tapping into the largest consumer market with purchasing power of
$13 trillion, and US consumers will benefit from access to Namibia’s high-quality, free-range, grass-fed beef,” the news agency quotes US Ambassador to Namibia Lisa Johnson as saying.