Three killed, dozen others hospitalized after crowd surge at India Hindu festival

Hindu devotees walk in a procession accompanying three large chariots housing deities, in Puri, India, on June 28, 2025. (AP)
Short Url
Updated 29 June 2025
Follow

Three killed, dozen others hospitalized after crowd surge at India Hindu festival

  • Tens of thousands of devotees gathered in the coastal town of Puri to catch a glimpse of the Hindu deities onboard three chariots
  • The festival, one of Hinduism’s most revered events, draws hundreds of thousands of devotees annually from across India and world

NEW DELHI: Three people were killed and more than a dozen hospitalized Sunday following a sudden crowd surge and stampede at a popular Hindu festival in eastern India, local authorities said.

“There was a sudden crowd surge of devotees for having a glimpse of the Hindu deities during which a few people either fainted, felt suffocated or complained of breathlessness,” said Siddharth Shankar Swain, the top government official in Puri.

Swain told The Associated Press that 15 people were rushed to a local government hospital, where three people were pronounced dead. Autopsies are planned to determine the exact causes of death. The other 12 people have been discharged.

Tens of thousands of devotees gathered in the coastal town early Sunday at Shree Gundicha Temple, near the famous Jagannatha Temple, to catch a glimpse of the deities onboard three chariots, Swain said.

The coastal temple town of Puri comes alive each year with the grand “Rath Yatra,” or chariot festival, in one of the world’s oldest and largest religious processions. The centuries-old festival involves Hindu deities being taken out of the temple and driven in colorfully decorated chariots.

The festival is one of Hinduism’s most revered events and draws hundreds of thousands of devotees annually from across India and the world.

Naveen Patnaik, a former top elected official of Odisha state where Puri is located, said in a social media post that “no government machinery (was) present to manage the surging crowds, highlighting a shocking lapse in duty.”

“While I refrain from accusing the government of criminal negligence, their blatant callousness has undeniably contributed to this tragedy,” he said.

Patnaik called the incident a “stampede” that “exposes the government’s glaring incompetence in ensuring a peaceful festival for devotees.”

In a social media post, Mohan Charan Majhi, the top elected official of Odisha, apologized for the incident, saying it occurred “due to stampede among devotees” amid excitement to have a glimpse of the deities.

Majhi said the security negligence will be investigated immediately.

“This negligence is inexcusable,” he said, adding that concrete action will be taken against the persons involved.


El Salvador frees jailed Venezuelan migrants in US prisoner deal

Updated 7 sec ago
Follow

El Salvador frees jailed Venezuelan migrants in US prisoner deal

  • The 252 men were accused – without evidence – of being gang members and flown to the notorious ‘anti-terror’ jail last March
  • On Friday, after months of legal challenges and political stonewalling, the men arrived at an airport near Caracas
MAIQUETIA, Venezuela: Hundreds of Venezuelans swept up in Donald Trump’s immigration dragnet were abruptly freed from a maximum security Salvadoran jail and sent home as part of a prisoner swap Friday, ending a months-long high-profile ordeal.
The 252 men were accused – without evidence – of being gang members and flown to the notorious CECOT “anti-terror” jail last March.
There, they were shackled, shorn and paraded before cameras – becoming emblematic of Trump’s immigration crackdown and drawing howls of protest.
On Friday, after months of legal challenges and political stonewalling, the men arrived at an airport near Caracas.
The Trump administration said they were released in exchange for 10 Americans or US residents held in Venezuela, and an undefined number of “political prisoners.”
“Today, we have handed over all the Venezuelan nationals detained in our country,” Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said on social media.
The migrants’ return to Venezuela sparked tearful celebrations from family members who had heard nothing from them in months.
“I don’t have words to explain how I feel!” said Juan Yamarte. “My brother (Mervin) is back home, back in Venezuela.”
Mervin’s mother said she could not contain her happiness. “I arranged a party and I’m making a soup,” she said.
The men had been deported from the United States under rarely used wartime powers and denied court hearings.
Exiled Salvadoran rights group Cristosal believes that just seven of the 252 men had criminal records.
Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro thanked Trump for “the decision to rectify this totally irregular situation.”
In the United States, families were also excited to see their loved ones return. One had been imprisoned for nearly a year.
Global Reach, an NGO that works for wrongly detained Americans, said one of the men freed was 37-year-old Lucas Hunter, held since he was “kidnapped” by Venezuelan border guards while vacationing in Colombia in January.
“We cannot wait to see him in person and help him recover from the ordeal,” it quoted his younger sister Sophie Hunter as saying.
Uruguay said one of its citizens, resident in the United States, was among those liberated after nine months in Venezuelan detention.
Another plane arrived at Maiquetia airport earlier Friday from Houston with 244 Venezuelans deported from the United States and seven children who Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said had been “rescued from the kidnapping to which they were being subjected.”
The children were among 30 who Caracas says remained in the US after their Venezuelan parents were deported.
Clamping down on migrants is a flagship pursuit of Trump’s administration, which has ramped up raids and deportations.
It has agreed with Maduro to send undocumented Venezuelans back home, and flights have been arriving near daily also from Mexico, where many got stuck trying to enter the United States.
Official figures show that since February, more than 8,200 people have been repatriated to Venezuela from the United States and Mexico, including some 1,000 children.
The Venezuelans detained in El Salvador had no right to phone calls or visits, and their relatives unsuccessfully requested proof of life.
Bukele had CECOT built as part of his war on criminal gangs, but he agreed to receive millions of dollars from the United States to house the Venezuelans there.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other rights groups have denounced the detentions as a violation of human rights.

Trump says he thinks 5 jets were shot down in India-Pakistan hostilities

Updated 11 min 48 sec ago
Follow

Trump says he thinks 5 jets were shot down in India-Pakistan hostilities

  • The US president did not specify which side’s jets he was referring to
  • Indian general said in late May that India switched tactics after losses

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Friday up to five jets were shot down during recent India-Pakistan hostilities that began after an April militant attack in India-administered Kashmir, with the situation calming after a ceasefire in May.

Trump, who made his remarks at a dinner with some Republican US lawmakers at the White House, did not specify which side’s jets he was referring to.

“In fact, planes were being shot out of the air. Five, five, four or five, but I think five jets were shot down actually,” Trump said while talking about the India-Pakistan hostilities, without elaborating or providing further detail. Pakistan claimed it downed five Indian planes in air-to-air combat. India’s highest-ranking general said in late May that India switched tactics after suffering losses in the air on the first day of hostilities and established an advantage before a ceasefire was announced three days later. India also claimed it downed “a few planes” of Pakistan. Islamabad denied suffering any losses of planes but acknowledged its air bases suffered hits.

Trump has repeatedly claimed credit for the ceasefire between India and Pakistan that he announced on social media on May 10 after Washington held talks with both sides. India has differed with Trump’s claims that it resulted from his intervention and his threats to sever trade talks.

India’s position has been that New Delhi and Islamabad must resolve their problems directly and with no outside involvement.

India is an increasingly important US partner in Washington’s effort to counter China’s influence in Asia, while Pakistan is a US ally.

The April attack in India-administered Kashmir killed 26 men and sparked heavy fighting between the nuclear-armed Asian neighbors in the latest escalation of a decades-old rivalry.

New Delhi blamed the attack on Pakistan, which denied responsibility while calling for a neutral investigation. Washington condemned the attack but did not directly blame Islamabad.

On May 7, Indian jets bombed sites across the border that New Delhi described as “terrorist infrastructure,” setting off an exchange of attacks between the two countries by fighter jets, missiles, drones, and artillery that killed dozens until the ceasefire was reached.


Trump pulls US from World Health pandemic reforms

Updated 21 min 39 sec ago
Follow

Trump pulls US from World Health pandemic reforms

  • Trump on returning to office on January 20 immediately began his nation’s withdrawal from the UN body
  • Senior officials disassociated the US from a series of amendments to the International Health Regulations

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s administration said Friday the United States was rejecting changes agreed last year for the World Health Organization on its pandemic response, saying they violated the country’s sovereignty.

Trump on returning to office on January 20 immediately began his nation’s withdrawal from the UN body, but the State Department said the language from last year would still have been binding on the United States.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who is a longtime critic of vaccines, said the changes “risk unwarranted interference with our national sovereign right to make health policy.”

“We will put Americans first in all our actions and we will not tolerate international policies that infringe on Americans’ speech, privacy or personal liberties,” they said in a joint statement.

Rubio and Kennedy disassociated the United States from a series of amendments to the International Health Regulations, which provide a legal framework for combatting diseases, agreed last year at the World Health Assembly in Geneva.

“We regret the US decision to reject the amendments,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement posted on X.

He stressed the amendments “are clear about member states sovereignty,” adding that the WHO cannot mandate lockdowns or similar measures.

The changes included a stated “commitment to solidarity and equity” in which a new group would study the needs of developing countries in future emergencies.

Countries have until Saturday to lodge reservations about the amendments. Conservative activists and vaccine skeptics in Britain and Australia, which both have left-leaning governments, have waged public campaigns against the changes.

The amendments came about when the Assembly failed at a more ambitious goal of sealing a new global agreement on pandemics.

Most of the world finally secured a treaty this May, but the United States did not participate as it was in the process of withdrawing from the WHO.

The United States, then under president Joe Biden, took part in the May-June 2024 negotiations, but said it could not support consensus as it demanded protections for US intellectual property rights on vaccine development.

Rubio’s predecessor Antony Blinken had welcomed the amendments as progress.

In their rejection of the amendments, Rubio and Kennedy said the changes “fail to adequately address the WHO’s susceptibility to the political influence and censorship – most notably from China – during outbreaks.”

WHO’s Ghebreyesus said the body is “impartial and works with all countries to improve people’s health.”


‘Frightening’: Trump’s historic power grab worries experts

Updated 37 min 40 sec ago
Follow

‘Frightening’: Trump’s historic power grab worries experts

WASHINGTON: Donald Trump has spent six months testing the limits of his authority like no other modern US president, say analysts — browbeating Congress and the courts in a power grab that may come to define his second term.
Since January, the Republican leader has repeatedly pushed to secure more power for himself, calling for judges to be axed, firing independent watchdogs and sidestepping the legislative process.
Barbara Perry, a University of Virginia professor and an expert on the presidency, called Trump’s successes in shattering the restraints on his office “frightening.”
“All presidents have been subject to Congress’s and the Supreme Court’s checks on their power, as well as splits in their own political parties,” she said.
“Trump has faced almost none of these counterpoints in this second term.”
It is all a far cry from his first stint in office, when Trump and his supporters believe he was hamstrung by investigations and “deep state” officials seeking to frustrate his agenda.
But those guardrails have looked brittle this time around as Trump has fired federal workers, dismantled government departments and sent military troops into the streets to quell protest.
He has also sought to exert his influence well beyond traditional presidential reach, ruthlessly targeting universities and the press, and punishing law firms he believes have crossed him.

Checks and balances

The US system of checks and balances — the administration, the courts and Congress as equal but separate branches of government — is designed to ensure no one amasses too much power.
But when it comes to Trump’s agenda — whether ending diversity efforts and birthright citizenship or freezing foreign aid — he has largely dodged the hard work of shepherding bills through Congress.
Policies have instead been enacted by presidential edict.
Six months in, Trump has already announced more second-term executive orders than any American leader since Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s.
He has even sought to bend the economy to his will, escalating attacks on the chief of the independent central bank in a bid to lower interest rates.
Once a robust restraining force against presidential overreach, the Republican-led Congress has largely forsaken its oversight role, foregoing the investigations that previous presidents have faced.
That has left the judiciary as the main gatekeeper.
But Trump has managed partly to neuter the authority of the federal bench too, winning a Supreme Court opinion that mostly reduces the reach of judges’ rulings to their own states.
In his first term the high court made Trump immune from prosecution for actions taken as part of his official duties — no matter how criminal.
And almost every time Trump has turned to the country’s highest legal tribunal to rein in the lower courts in his second term, it has obliged.

The shadow of US President Donald Trump is shown on the text of The Declaration of Independence during the first presidential debate with Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden at Case Western Reserve University on September 29, 2020 in Cleveland, Ohio. (AFP/File)

'Project 2025'
His long shadow has extended far beyond Washington’s institutions, pushing into private realms his predecessors avoided.
Trump has picked fights with elite universities, prestigious law firms and the press — threatening funding or their ability to do business.
The arts haven’t escaped his clunking fist either, with the 79-year-old taking over the running of the Kennedy Center in Washington.
Trump has claimed falsely that the US Constitution gives him the right to do whatever he wants as the ultimate authority over government activities.
This so-called “unitary executive theory” was pushed in the “Project 2025” blueprint for government produced by Trump’s right-wing allies during last year’s election campaign.
Although he disavowed “Project 2025” after it became politically toxic, Trump’s own platform made the same claims for expansive presidential powers.
Pessimistic about the other branches’ ability to hold the administration to account, the minority Democrats have largely been limited to handwringing in press conferences.
Political strategist Andrew Koneschusky, a former senior Democratic Senate aide, believes the checks on Trump’s authority may ultimately have to be political rather than legal or constitutional.
He points to Trump’s tanking polling numbers — especially on his signature issue of immigration following mass deportations of otherwise law-abiding undocumented migrants.
“It’s not entirely comforting that politics and public opinion are the primary checks on his power,” Koneschusky said.
“It would be better to see Congress flex its muscle as a co-equal branch of government. But it’s at least something.”

 


Australia delivers Abrams tanks to Ukraine for war with Russia

Updated 19 July 2025
Follow

Australia delivers Abrams tanks to Ukraine for war with Russia

  • Ukraine has taken possession of most of the 49 tanks given by Australia, says defense minister
  • Australia is one of the largest non-NATO contributors to Ukraine as it defends itself from Russian aggression

SYDNEY: Australia’s government said on Saturday it had delivered M1A1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine as part of a A$245 million ($160 million) package to help the country defend itself against Russia in their ongoing war.
Australia, one of the largest non-NATO contributors to Ukraine, has been supplying aid, ammunition and defense equipment since Moscow invaded its neighbor in February 2022.
Ukraine has taken possession of most of the 49 tanks given by Australia, and the rest will be delivered in coming months, said Defense Minister Richard Marles.
“The M1A1 Abrams tanks will make a significant contribution to Ukraine’s ongoing fight against Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion,” Marles said in a statement.
The tanks formed part of the A$1.5 billion ($980 million) that Canberra has provided Ukraine in the conflict, the government said.
Australia has also banned exports of alumina and aluminum ores, including bauxite, to Russia, and has sanctioned about 1,000 Russian individuals and entities.
Australia’s center-left Labor government this year labelled Russia as the aggressor in the conflict and called for the war to be resolved on Kyiv’s terms.