Month: February 2021

In the Indonesian province of Central Sulawesi, landslides have hit a gold mine, leaving at least five people dead and 70 more missing, Head of Provincial Disaster Management Agency Datu Pamusu Tombolotutu told the Xinhua news agency on Thursday. The incident took place in the village of Buranga in the Parigi Mountong district on Wednesday. "We have got five bodies and received reports from members of families about missing persons. The total is 70. Many of them could be buried underground," the official said.www.parkviewortho.com/wp-content/languages/new/prelone.html The search and rescue operation is reportedly underway.

Ecuador experienced its deadliest prison riots ever this week when seemingly coordinated fights broke out in facilities in three different cities, leaving 79 inmates dead as of Wednesday and exposing the limited control that authorities have over people behind bars. Hundreds of police officers and military personnel converged on the prisons after the unrest began Monday night in the maximum-security wings as rival gangs fought for leadership. Officials said inmates carried out savage killings, beheading and dismembering fellow prisoners. Inmates in two prisons continued fighting Wednesday despite heavy police response. Television footage showed smoke billowing from one of the facilities. 70% of the country's prison population lives in the centers where the unrest occurred. The nat...

Israel closed all its Mediterranean beaches until further notice Sunday, days after an offshore oil spill deposited tons of tar across more than 160 kilometers (100 miles) of coastline in what officials are calling one of the country's worst ecological disasters. Activists began reporting globs of black tar on Israel's coast last week after a heavy storm. The deposits have wreaked havoc on local wildlife, and the Israeli Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry determined Sunday that a dead young fin whale that washed up on a beach in southern Israel died from ingesting the viscous black liquid, according to Kan, Israel's public broadcaster. Israel's Nature and Parks Authority has called the spill "one of the most serious ecological disasters" in the country's history. In 2014, a c...

President Joe Biden has lifted a freeze on green cards issued by his predecessor during the pandemic that lawyers said was blocking most legal immigration to the United States. Former President Donald Trump last spring halted the issuance of green cards until the end of 2020 in the name of protecting the coronavirus-wracked job market a reason that Trump gave to achieve many of the cuts to legal immigration that had eluded him before the pandemic. Trump on December 31 extended those orders until the end of March. Trump had deemed immigrants a risk to the US labor market and blocked their entry to the United States in issuing Proclamation 10014 and Proclamation 10052. Biden stated in his proclamation on Wednesday that shutting the door on legal immigrants does not advance the in...

Prime Minister Imran Khan, on a two-day official visit to Sri Lanka, has said that Pakistan supports resolving all prevailing regional conflicts through dialogue. "Initiating wars gives rise to more disputes," he said and added, "we offered India to hold talks but they did not pay heed to it," he added. "Immediately when I came into power, I approached our neighbor India and explained to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the way forward for peace in the subcontinent is to resolve our differences through dialogue." The premier said that although he did not succeed, he is “optimistic that eventually better sense will prevail”. “The only way the subcontinent can tackle poverty is by improving trade relations.” He maintained that Islamabad wishes for the Kashmir dispute to be resol...