NEWS OF THE DAY
1 Slave labor: The auto parts maker Continental became the latest German company to issue a confessional study of its Nazi past Thursday, saying it was “a pillar of the National Socialist armaments and war economy” that employed around 10,000 slave laborers, often in inhumane conditions. During the war, when Continental supplied tires for military aircraft and vehicles, the company used concentration camp inmates to test products and the inmates sometimes died as a result, according to the study by Paul Erker, a historian at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich commissioned by Continental to examine its past.
2 Ousted president: Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, Mali’s ousted president, was released from detention and driven to his home in the West African country’s capital early Thursday, nine days after a military coup brought an end to his seven years in power. A heavy security escort took Keïta to his house in Sebeninkoro, a residential neighborhood of Bamako, capping his abrupt fall after military officers with guns arrested him, took him to their base and forced him to resign on television. The coup plotters — who refer to themselves as the National Committee for the People’s Salvation — have presented themselves as having carried out the will of the people.
3 Lethal floods: The death toll from two days of heavy flooding in northern and eastern Afghanistan rose to at least 150 on Thursday, with scores more injured as rescue crews searched for survivors beneath the mud and rubble of collapsed houses, officials said. Heavy rains, compounded by mudslides, often threaten remote areas of Afghanistan, where infrastructure is poor. Summer often brings heavy rainfall and flooding to the country’s north and east. Powerful flood waters in the mountainous Parwan province dislocated thousands of large rocks that caused major injuries and destroyed entire homes, burying people under the rubble, officials said. Several excavators reached the area and were digging for those stuck beneath the rubble.
4 Navalny probe: Russian authorities said Thursday they have found no indication that opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s coma, which his allies and German doctors treating him believe may have been brought about by poisoning, was caused by a criminal act. A preliminary inquiry started last week hasn’t found any indication of “deliberate criminal acts committed against” Navalny, Russia’s Prosecutor General’s office said. The statement comes amid growing pressure from the West to investigate the sudden illness of the Kremlin’s fiercest critic and authorities’ apparent reluctance to do so. Navalny is in a Berlin hospital, where doctors found indications of “cholinesterase inhibitors” in his system. It blocks the breakdown of a key chemical in the body, acetycholine, which transmits signals between nerve cells. 5 Syria collision: The Russian military blamed U.S. troops Thursday for a collision of Russian and U.S. military vehicles in Syria’s northeast. U.S. officials said this week that a Russian vehicle sideswiped a lightarmored U.S. military vehicle, injuring four Americans, while two Russian helicopters flew overhead, one as close as 70 feet from the U.S. vehicle. U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot said a Russian vehicle struck the American vehicle near Dayrick, in northeast Syria. He blamed the Russian military for “unsafe and unprofessional actions” that breached deconfliction protocols between the two countries. The U.S. and Russia have protocols to prevent collisions and other incidents and their military commanders have frequent conversations to try to avoid contact.