KANO: Fourteen people were killed on Saturday when a bus collided with a petrol tanker in central Nigerian Niger state, a road safety official told AFP Sunday.
The passenger bus rammed into the on-coming petrol tanker as the driver tried to overtake another bus outside Kusobogi village, 80 km from the state capital Minna, Kumar Tsukwan, head of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) in Niger state, said.
“Fourteen people died in the head-on collision while six others were injured and taken to hospital for medical attention,” Tsukwan said.
He blamed “speeding and wrongful overtaking” by the bus driver for the accident.
The bus was heading to the northern city of Kaduna from the Nigerian economic capital Lagos, Tsukwan said.
Road accidents are common on Nigeria’s poorly maintained roads due largely to speeding and disregard to traffic rules.
Last week 23 people died when a truck laden with goods and passengers overturned in northern city of Kano.
Last year Nigeria recorded 9,570 road accidents which resulted in 5,421 deaths, according FRSC data.
14 die in central Nigeria road crash: official
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14 die in central Nigeria road crash: official
Nations urged to make UN summit a ‘turning point’ for oceans
- Nations will be under pressure to deliver more than just rhetoric at a UN oceans summit in France next week, including much-needed funds to better protect the world’s overexploited and polluted seas
The third UN Ocean Conference (UNOC) seeks to build global unity and raise money for marine conservation even as nations disagree over deep-sea mining, plastic trash and overfishing.
On Sunday, hosts France are expecting about 70 heads of state and government to arrive in Nice for a pre-conference opening ceremony, including Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Oceans are “in a state of emergency” and the June 9 to 13 meeting “will not be just another routine gathering,” said UN under-secretary-general Li Junhua.
“There’s still time to change our course if we act collectively,” he told reporters.
Most countries are expected to send ministers or lower-level delegates to the summit, which does not carry the weight of a climate COP or UN treaty negotiation or make legally binding decisions.
The United States under President Donald Trump — whose recent push to fast-track seabed mining in international waters sparked global outrage — is unlikely to send a delegation at all.
France has promised the summit will do for ocean conservation what the Paris Agreement did for global climate action.
Nations present are expected to adopt a “Nice Declaration“: a statement of support for greater ocean protection, coupled with voluntary additional commitments by individual governments.
Greenpeace has slammed the text — which was agreed after months of negotiation — as “weak” and said it risked making Nice “a meaningless talking shop.”
Pacific leaders are expected to turn out in force and demand, in particular, concrete financial commitments from governments.
“The message is clear: voluntary pledges are not enough,” Ralph Regenvanu, environment minister for Vanuatu, told reporters.
The summit will also host business leaders, international donors and ocean activists, while a science convention beforehand is expected to draw 2,000 ocean experts.
France has set a high bar of securing by Nice the 60 ratifications needed to enact a landmark treaty to protect marine habitats outside national jurisdiction.
So far, only 28 countries and the European Union have done so. Olivier Poivre d’Arvor, France’s oceans envoy, says that without the numbers the conference “will be a failure.”
Bringing the high seas treaty into force is seen as crucial to meeting the globally-agreed target of protecting 30 percent of oceans by 2030.
The summit could also prove influential on other higher-level negotiations in the months ahead and provide “a temperature check in terms of ambition,” said Megan Randles, head of Greenpeace’s delegation at the Nice conference.
In July the International Seabed Authority will deliberate over a long-awaited mining code for the deep oceans, one that Trump has skirted despite major ecological concerns.
That comes in the face of growing calls for governments to support an international moratorium on seabed mining, something France and roughly 30 other countries have already backed.
And in August, nations will again seek to finalize a binding global treaty to tackle plastic trash after previous negotiation rounds collapsed.
Countries and civil society groups are likely to use the Nice meeting to try to shore up support ahead of these proceedings, close observers said.
Nations meeting at UN conferences have struggled recently to find consensus and much-needed finance to combat climate change and other environmental threats.
Oceans are the least funded of all the UN’s sustainable development goals but it wasn’t clear if Nice would shift the status quo, said Angelique Pouponneau, a lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States.
“With so many competing crises and distractions on the global agenda, it’s hard to be confident that the level of ambition needed will actually show up,” Pouponneau told AFP.
Costa Rica, which is co-hosting the conference with France, said public and private commitments of $100 billion with “clear timelines, budgets and accountability mechanisms” could be expected.
“This is what is different this time around — zero rhetoric, maximum results,” Maritza Chan Valverde, Costa Rica’s permanent representative to the UN, told reporters.
Pepe Clarke, oceans practice leader from WWF, told AFP there was “an understandable level of skepticism about conferences.”
But he said Nice must be “a turning point... because to date the actions have fallen far short of what’s needed to sustain a healthy ocean into the future.”
Explosions caused 2 bridges in western Russia to collapse, officials say
- 7 people were killed in the first incident, in which a bridge in Bryansk region collapsed on top of a passenger train
- Hours later, officials said a second train derailed when the bridge beneath it collapsed in nearby Kursk region
Explosions caused two bridges to collapse and derailed two trains in western Russia overnight, officials said Sunday, without saying what had caused the blasts. In one of the incidents, seven people were killed and dozens were injured.
The first bridge, in the Bryansk region on the border with Ukraine, collapsed on top of a passenger train on Saturday, causing the casualties. The train’s driver was among those killed, state-run Russian Railways said.
In that collapse, a freight train was thrown off its rails onto the road below as the explosion collapsed the bridge, local acting Gov. Alexander Khinshtein said Sunday. The crash sparked a fire, but there were no casualties, he said.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, the country’s top criminal investigation agency, said in a statement that explosions had caused the two bridges to collapse, but did not give further details. Several hours later, it edited the statement, which was posted on social media, to remove the words “explosions” but did not provide an explanation.
The committee said that it would be investigating the incidents as potential acts of terrorism.
Rescue workers cleared debris from both sites, while some of those injured were transported to Moscow for treatment. Photos posted by government agencies in Bryansk appeared to show train carriages ripped apart and lying amid fallen concrete from the collapsed bridge. Other footage on social media was apparently taken from inside vehicles on the road that had managed to avoid driving onto the bridge before it collapsed.
Bryansk regional Gov. Alexander Bogomaz announced three days of mourning for the victims, starting Monday.
Damage to railway tracks was also found Sunday by inspectors working on the line elsewhere in the Bryansk region, Moscow Railway said in a statement. It did not say whether the damage was linked to the collapsed bridges.
In the past, some officials have accused pro-Ukrainian saboteurs of attacking Russia’s railway infrastructure. The details surrounding such incidents, however, are limited and cannot be independently verified.
Ukraine’s military intelligence, known by the Ukrainian abbreviation GUR, said Sunday that a Russian military freight train carrying food and fuel had been blown up on its way to Crimea. It did not claim the attack was carried out by GUR or mention the bridge collapses.
The statement said Moscow’s key artery with the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia region and Crimea has been destroyed.
Russia forces have been pushing into the region of Zaporizhzhia in eastern Ukraine since Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Russia took Crimea and annexed it in 2014.
FBI says 6 injured in Colorado attack by man with makeshift flamethrower who yelled ‘Free Palestine’
FBI says 6 injured in Colorado attack by man with makeshift flamethrower who yelled ‘Free Palestine’
- The suspect, identified by the FBI as 45-year-old Mohamed Sabry Soliman, was taken into custody
- Suspect yelled 'Free Palestine' as he attacked protesters with a makeshift flamethrower, say police
BOULDER, Colorado: A man with a makeshift flamethrower yelled “Free Palestine” and threw an incendiary device into a group that had assembled to raise attention for Israeli hostages in Gaza, law enforcement officials said Sunday. Six people were injured, some with burns.
The suspect, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, was expected to face charges in connection with the attack the FBI was investigating as a terrorist act.
The burst of violence at the popular Pearl Street pedestrian mall, a four-block area in downtown Boulder, unfolded against the backdrop of a war between Israel and Hamas that continues to inflame global tensions and has contributed to a spike
in antisemitic violence in the United States. It occurred barely a week after a man who also yelled “Free Palestine” was charged with fatally shooting two Israeli embassy staffers outside of a Jewish museum in Washington.
“Sadly, attacks like this are becoming too common across the country,” said Mark Michalek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Denver field office, which encompasses Boulder. “This is an example of how perpetrators of violence continue to threaten communities across the nation.”
The six victims who were wounded range in age from 67 to 88 and the injuries spanned from serious to minor, officials said.
The attack occurred as people with a volunteer group called Run For Their Lives was concluding their weekly demonstration to raise visibility for the hostages who remain in Gaza. Video from the scene shows a witness shouting, “He’s right there. He’s throwing Molotov cocktails,” as a police officer with his gun drawn advances on a bare-chested suspect who is holding containers in each hand.
Lynn Segal, 72, was among about 20 people who gathered Sunday. They had finished their march in front of the courthouse when a “rope of fire” shot in front of her and then “two big flares.”
She said the scene quickly turned chaotic as people worked to find water to put out flames and find help.
Segal, who said she is Jewish on her father’s side and has supported Palestine for more than 40 years, was concerned that she might be accused of helping the suspect because she was wearing a pro-Palestine shirt.
“There were people who were burning, I wanted to help,” she said. “But I didn’t want to be associated with the perpetrator.”
Authorities did not disclose details about Soliman but said they believe that he acted alone and that no other suspect was being sought. No criminal charges were immediately announced but officials said they would move to hold Soliman accountable. He was also injured and was taken to the hospital to be treated, but authorities didn’t elaborate on the nature of his injuries.
FBI leaders immediately declared the attack an act of terrorism and the Justice Department denounced it as a “needless act of violence, which follows recent attacks against Jewish Americans.”
“This act of terror is being investigated as an act of ideologically motivated violence based on the early information, the evidence, and witness accounts. We will speak clearly on these incidents when the facts warrant it,” FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said in a post on X.
Israel’s war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250 others. They are still holding 58 hostages, around a third believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s military campaign has killed over 54,000 people in Hamas-run Gaza, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants. The offensive has destroyed vast areas, displaced around 90 percent of the population and left people almost completely reliant on international aid.
The violence comes four years after a shooting rampage at a grocery store in Boulder, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northwest of Denver, that killed four people. The gunman was sentenced to life in prison for murder after a jury rejected his attempt to avoid prison time by pleading not guilty by reason of insanity.
Multiple blocks of the pedestrian mall area were evacuated by police. The scene shortly after the attack was tense, as law enforcement agents with a police dog walked through the streets looking for threats and instructed the public to stay clear of the mall.
High energy costs threaten UK manufacturing’s future, industry warns
- Manufacturing association Make UK said it should cancel climate levies imposed on industrial energy costs and adopt a fixed industrial energy price
MANCHESTER, England: Britain needs to cut industrial energy bills that are the highest among major advanced economies if its aspirations for a healthy manufacturing sector are to succeed, industry body Make UK said on Monday.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government is working on an industrial strategy to put British manufacturing — hit hard by Brexit, soaring energy costs and global trade wars — on a solid footing for the years ahead.
Manufacturing association Make UK said it should cancel climate levies imposed on industrial energy costs and adopt a fixed industrial energy price.
Britain had the highest industrial energy prices out of any International Energy Agency member country in 2023, reflecting its dependence on gas and its role in setting electricity prices.
“If we do not address the issue of high industrial energy costs in the UK as a priority, we risk the security of our country,” Make UK chief executive officer Stephen Phipson said.
“We will fail to attract investment in the manufacturing sector and will rapidly enter a phase of renewed de-industrialization.”
Britain has de-industrialized — defined as the share of manufacturing in overall economic output — faster than in any other major European country over the last 30 years, according to a Reuters analysis of national accounts data.
Manufacturing hit a record low 9 percent of economic output last year, crowded out by the dominant services sector which now drives the majority of the country’s exports — a first among Group of Seven advanced economies.
Alan Johnson, a senior executive for manufacturing, supply chain and purchasing at Nissan Motor, said its Sunderland plant in the north east of England had the highest energy costs out of any of its facilities in the world.
“The proposals being put forward by Make UK ... would send a strong message to investors that the UK remains committed to creating a more competitive environment for electric vehicle manufacturing,” Johnson said.
Ukraine destroys 40 aircraft deep inside Russia ahead of peace talks in Istanbul
- Ukraine's President Zelensky says 117 drones were used in the attack on Russian air bases
- 34 percent of Russia’s fleet of air missile carriers with damages estimated at $7 billion, says Ukraine military
KYIV, Ukraine: A Ukrainian drone attack has destroyed more than 40 Russian planes deep in Russia’s territory, Ukraine’s Security Service said on Sunday, while Moscow pounded Ukraine with missiles and drones just hours before a new round of direct peace talks in Istanbul
A military official, who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to disclose operational details, said the far-reaching attack took more than a year and a half to execute and was personally supervised by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
In his evening address, Zelensky said that 117 drones had been used in the operation. He claimed the operation had been headquartered out of an office next to the local FSB headquarters. The FSB is the Russian intelligence and security service.
The military source said it was an “extremely complex” operation, involving the smuggling of first-person view, or FPV, drones to Russia, where they were then placed in mobile wooden houses.
“Later, drones were hidden under the roofs of these houses while already placed on trucks. At the right moment, the roofs of the houses were remotely opened, and the drones flew to hit Russian bombers,” the source said.
Social media footage shared by Russian media appeared to show the drones rising from inside containers while other panels lay discarded on the road. One clip appeared to show men climbing onto a truck in an attempt to halt the drones.
Long-range bombers targeted
The drones hit 41 planes stationed at military airfields on Sunday afternoon, including A-50, Tu-95 and Tu-22M aircraft, the official said. Moscow has previously used Tupolev Tu-95 and Tu-22 long-range bombers to launch missiles at Ukraine, while A-50s are used to coordinate targets and detect air defenses and guided missiles.
The Security Service of Ukraine said that the operation, which it codenamed “Web”, had destroyed 34 percent of Russia’s fleet of air missile carriers with damages estimated at $7 billion. The claim could not be independently verified.
Russia’s Defense Ministry in a statement confirmed the attacks, which damaged aircraft and sparked fires on air bases in the Irkutsk region, more than 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) from Ukraine, as well as the Murmansk region in the north, it said. Strikes were also repelled in the Amur region in Russia’s Far East and in the western regions of Ivanovo and Ryazan, the ministry said.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was briefed on Ukraine’s attack Russia during a stop at Nellis Air Force Base and was monitoring the situation. A senior defense official said on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters that the US was not given notification before the attack. The official said it represented a level of sophistication the US had not seen before.
Also on Sunday, Russia’s top investigative body said that explosions had caused two bridges to collapse and derailed two trains in western Russia overnight, killing seven in one of the incidents and injuring dozens more. Russian officials, however, did not say what had caused the blasts and the word “explosions” was later removed from an Investigative Committee press release.
Attack ahead of talks
The drone attack came the same day as Zelensky said Ukraine will send a delegation to Istanbul for a new round of direct peace talks with Russia on Monday.
In a statement on Telegram, Zelensky said that Defense Minister Rustem Umerov will lead the Ukrainian delegation. “We are doing everything to protect our independence, our state and our people,” Zelensky said.
Ukrainian officials had previously called on the Kremlin to provide a promised memorandum setting out its position on ending the war before the meeting takes place. Moscow had said it would share its memorandum during the talks.
Russian strike hits an army unit
Russia on Sunday launched the biggest number of drones — 472 — on Ukraine since the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine’s air force said.
Russian forces also launched seven missiles alongside the barrage of drones, said Yuriy Ignat, head of communications for the air force. Earlier Sunday, Ukraine’s army said at least 12 Ukrainian service members were killed and more than 60 were injured in a Russian missile strike on an army training unit.
Ukrainian army commander Mykhailo Drapatyi later Sunday submitted his resignation following the attack. He was a respected commander whose leadership saw Ukraine regain land on the eastern front for the first time since Kyiv’s 2022 counteroffensive.
The training unit was located to the rear of the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) active front line, where Russian reconnaissance and strike drones are able to strike. Ukraine’s forces lack troops and take extra precautions to avoid mass gatherings as the skies across the front line are saturated with Russian drones looking for targets.
