5,000 under evacuation orders as New Mexico wildfire rages

The fire has destroyed more than 200 homes and killed two people since it broke out Tuesday near the village Ruidoso, a vacation spot that draws thousands of tourists and horse racing fans every summer. (Reuters)
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Updated 16 April 2022
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5,000 under evacuation orders as New Mexico wildfire rages

  • The hotlines lit up Friday afternoon as people in the village called in to report more smoke
  • Authorities reiterated that it was still too early to start letting people in to see the damage

Douglas Siddens’ mother was among those who made it out with just the clothes on her back when a deadly, wind-fueled wildfire ripped through a mountain community in southern New Mexico.
The RV park where she lived was reduced to “metal frame rails and steel wheels,” said Siddens, who managed the site
“I had like 10 people displaced. They lost their homes and everything, including my mom,” he said.
The fire has destroyed more than 200 homes and killed two people since it broke out Tuesday near the village Ruidoso, a vacation spot that draws thousands of tourists and horse racing fans every summer.
Hundreds of homes and summer cabins dot the surrounding mountainsides. The RV park that Siddens managed is near where an elderly couple was found dead this week outside their charred residence.
Elsewhere in the US, crews have been battling large fires this week in Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado, where a new blaze forced evacuations Friday along the Rocky Mountain’s eastern front near Lyons about 18 miles (29 kilometers) north of Boulder.
That fire was burning in the Blue Mountains near the Larimer-Boulder county line about 20 miles (32 kilometers) southeast of Estes Park, the east entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.
In New Mexico, power was restored to all but a few hundred customers, but evacuation orders for close to 5,000 people remained in place.
Donations poured in from surrounding communities all too familiar with just how devastating wildfires can be.
It was a decade ago that fire ripped through part of the village of Ruidoso, putting the vacation spot on the map with the most destructive wildfire in New Mexico’s recorded history when more than 240 homes burned and nearly 70 square miles (181 square kilometers) of forest were blackened by a lightning-sparked blaze.
On Friday, Mayor Lynn Crawford was rallying heartbroken residents once again as firefighters tried to keep wind-whipped flames from making another run at the village. She said the response from their neighbors has been amazing.
“So we have plenty of food, we have plenty of clothes, those kinds of things but we still appreciate and need your prayers and your thoughts,” the mayor said during a briefing. “Again, our hearts go out to the family of the deceased, to those that have lost their homes.”
Authorities have yet to release the names of the couple who died. Their bodies were found after worried family members contacted police, saying the couple had planned to evacuate Tuesday when the fire exploded but were unaccounted for later that day.
While many older residents call Ruidoso home year round, the population of about 8,000 people expands to about 25,000 during the summer months as Texans and New Mexicans from hotter climates seek respite.
Fans also flock to Ruidoso Downs, home to one of the sport’s richest quarter-horse competitions. The racing season was expected to start May 27, and horses that board there aren’t in any danger as fire officials use the facility as a staging ground.
Part-time residents have taken to social media over the last few days, pleading with fire officials for updates on certain neighborhoods, hoping their family cabins weren’t among those damaged or destroyed.
The hotlines lit up Friday afternoon as people in the village called in to report more smoke. Fire information officer Mike DeFries said that was because there were flare-ups within the interior of the fire as the flames found pockets of unburned fuel.
While the fire didn’t make any runs at the lines crews had established, he said it was still a tough day for firefighters due to single-digit humidity, warmer temperatures and the wind.
Authorities reiterated that it was still too early to start letting people in to see the damage. They asked for patience as fire crews put out hot spots and tried to build a stronger perimeter around the blaze.
“It’s still an active fire area in there and it’s not a safe place,” DeFries said. “It’s going to require patience. At the same time, every step that we’re taking is designed to suppress this fire and to get people back home as soon as possible.”
New Mexico authorities said they suspect the fire, which has torched more than 9.5 square miles (24 square kilometers) of forest and grass, was sparked by a downed power line and the investigation continued Friday.
Hotter and drier weather coupled with decades of fire suppression have contributed to an increase in the number of acres burned by wildfires, fire scientists say. The problem is exacerbated by a more than 20-year Western megadrought that studies link to human-caused climate change.


Lavrov says NATO spending increase won’t significantly affect Russia’s security

Updated 7 sec ago
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Lavrov says NATO spending increase won’t significantly affect Russia’s security

  • NATO allies on Wednesday agreed to raise their collective spending goal to 5% of GDP over the next decade
MOSCOW: NATO’s decision to increase defense spending will not significantly affect Russia’s security, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday.
NATO allies on Wednesday agreed to raise their collective spending goal to 5 percent of gross domestic product over the next decade, citing what they called the long-term threat posed by Russia and the need to strengthen civil and military resilience.

Myanmar burns confiscated drugs worth around $300 million

Updated 3 min 27 sec ago
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Myanmar burns confiscated drugs worth around $300 million

  • The destroyed drugs included opium, heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana, ketamine and the stimulant known as ice
  • Myanmar has a long history of drug production linked to political and economic insecurity caused by decades of armed conflict
YANGON: Officials in Myanmar’s major cities destroyed about $300 million worth of confiscated illegal drugs Thursday.
The destroyed drugs included opium, heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana, ketamine and the stimulant known as ice, or crystal meth, Yangon Police Brig. Gen. Sein Lwin said in a speech at a drug-burning ceremony.
The drug burnings came nearly a month after UN experts warned of unprecedented levels of methamphetamine production and trafficking from Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle region, where the borders of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet, and Myanmar’s eastern Shan State in particular.
The production of opium and heroin historically flourished there, largely because of the lawlessness in border areas where Myanmar’s central government has been able to exercise only minimum control over various ethnic minority militias, some of them partners in the drug trade.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a May report that the political crisis across the country after the military takeover in 2021 — which led to a civil war — has turbocharged growth of the methamphetamine trade.
In the country’s biggest city, Yangon, a massive pile of drugs worth more than $117 million went up in a blaze, Sein Lwin said.
Similar events to mark the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking also occurred in the country’s second-largest city of Mandalay, and in Taunggyi, the capital of eastern Myanmar’s Shan state, all areas close to where the drugs are produced.
A police official from the capital Naypyitaw told The Associated Press that the substances burned in three locations were worth $297.95 million. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information has not yet been publicly announced.
Myanmar has a long history of drug production linked to political and economic insecurity caused by decades of armed conflict. It has been a major source of illegal drugs destined for East and Southeast Asia, despite repeated efforts to crack down.
That has led the flow of drugs to surge “across not only East and Southeast Asia, but also increasingly into South Asia, in particular Northeast India,” the UN said last month. Drugs are increasingly trafficked from Myanmar to Cambodia, mostly through Laos, as well as through maritime routes linking Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, with Sabah in Malaysia serving as a key transit hub, it added.
The UN agency labeled Myanmar in 2023 as the world’s largest opium producer.

Indonesia launches first medical tourism special economic zone in Bali

Updated 14 min 9 sec ago
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Indonesia launches first medical tourism special economic zone in Bali

  • Sanur medical tourism zone will include international hospital, specialist clinics, research centers
  • Initiative also aims to stem high number of Indonesians who annually seek health treatment overseas

JAKARTA: Indonesia has launched its first medical tourism special economic zone in Sanur, on the resort island of Bali, marking a major step in the country’s efforts to develop world-class healthcare services integrated with tourism.

In recent years Indonesia has been working to reform its healthcare sector to improve service standards and reduce the outflow of Indonesians seeking treatment overseas, including in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, who spend up to 150 trillion rupiahs ($9.2 billion) abroad annually.

The Sanur medical tourism zone will include a range of facilities, including an international hospital, specialist clinics, medical research centers and a garden with over 380 medicinal plant species.

“I think this is the first of its kind in our country — we envisioned creating a special economic zone offering world-class healthcare services,” President Prabowo Subianto, who inaugurated the project on Wednesday, said during his speech.

Indonesia, a country of more than 270 million people, has about seven doctors for every 10,000 people, according to World Health Organization data. This is below Thailand with nine doctors, the Philippines with eight doctors and Australia with 41 doctors per 10,000.

To transform healthcare in the country, Indonesian lawmakers passed into law a health bill last year that allows foreign medical specialists to practice and be based in the country.

The Sanur medical tourism zone is also part of the government’s efforts “to provide the best healthcare services to all of its citizens,” Prabowo said.

“There are many Indonesian citizens who seek healthcare abroad, which affects our foreign exchange reserves. With this initiative, we can provide healthcare services that are on par with the best in the world.”

Indonesian officials hope the new special economic zone will not only boost the country’s health sector, but put Bali on the global map as a top destination for health and wellness tourism.

As the country’s top overall tourist destination, Bali welcomed 6.3 million international travelers in 2024.

The idea to develop a special zone dedicated to world-class healthcare does have the potential to effectively stem the number of Indonesians seeking medical services abroad, said Kharisma Utari, a researcher with Women’s World Banking.

“But I think we need to remember that quality healthcare cannot be solely developed from one hub. If this stands alone without improving the entire healthcare system nationally, there is a risk of this turning into a gimmick or a mere symbol,” Utari told Arab News on Thursday.

“Quality healthcare should be enjoyed evenly and inclusively across all regions, not just in one exclusive zone,” she added. “State budget should be directed to strengthen basic services that could reach all people.”


‘Thrown out like trash’ from Iran, Afghans return to land they hardly know

Updated 26 June 2025
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‘Thrown out like trash’ from Iran, Afghans return to land they hardly know

  • More than 1.2 million Afghans deported from neighboring Iran since March 2024, IMO says
  • Tehran had pledged mass deportations to counter growing local discontent over refugees

ISLAMABAD: Ghulam Ali begins his days in pain, his muscles aching from hauling grain on a rickety cart through the streets of Kabul, homesick for the country he called home for nearly four decades.

Ali is among more than 1.2 million Afghans deported from neighboring Iran since March 2024, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), after Tehran pledged mass deportations to counter mounting local discontent over refugees.

Thousands have also fled this month after Israeli and US airstrikes hit Iranian military targets.

For Ali, 51, whose family left Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion in the 1980s when he was just 10, Iran was home.

“I grew up there, worked there, buried my parents there,” he said during a midday break from work in Kabul, sipping green tea with a simple lunch of naan bread.

“But in the end, they threw us out like trash. I lost everything — my home, my little savings in cash, my dignity,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by video link.

Afghan refugees arrive in a truck from Pakistan, in Takhta Pul district in Kandahar province on June 24, 2025. (AFP)

Like many others, he has returned to a homeland he barely knew and one that has changed drastically.

Outsiders in their own country, many men struggle to support their family while women face severe restrictions on their daily life under the ruling Taliban.

Since late 2023, an estimated 3 million Afghans have been forced out of Iran and Pakistan, where they had sought safety from decades of war and, since the Taliban’s return to Kabul in 2021, from extremist rule.

Unwelcome abroad, they have returned to a homeland facing economic collapse and international indifference.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in his latest report on Afghanistan, called on countries hosting Afghan refugees to protect those in need and abide by international obligations to ensure any returns to Afghanistan are voluntary.

“Returnees face immense challenges... in particular securing housing, employment and access to basic services,” he said.

Up to 10,000 Afghan women, men and children are taking the Islam Qala border crossing from Iran on a daily basis, according to the Taliban authorities. Inside Afghanistan, humanitarian aid agencies say conditions are dire, with inadequate shelter, food shortages and no road map for reintegration.

“They return to a homeland that is dramatically unprepared to receive them,” warned Arafat Jamal, the UNHCR representative in Afghanistan in a statement last month.

The Taliban’s deputy minister for border and refugees affairs, Abdul Zahir Rahmani, also told local media this week that Afghanistan had seen a sharp increase in refugee returns since this month’s 12-day air war in Iran.

Many said they had no say in the matter.

Ali said he was arrested at a construction site in Mashhad, Iran’s second-biggest city, lacking documentation during a crackdown on refugees by the Iranian police.

He and his wife, six children, two daughters-in-law and five grandchildren were deported in March.

“We were treated like criminals,” he said. “They didn’t care how law-abiding or in need we were. They just wanted all Afghans out.”

The extended family — 15 people aged 5 to 51 — is now packed into a two-room, mud-brick house on Kabul’s western fringes.

Ali said his Persian-accented Dari draws sneers from fellow laborers – another reminder he doesn’t fit in. But he brushes off their mockery, saying his focus is on feeding his family.

“We can barely afford to eat properly,” his wife Shahla said by video as she sat cross-legged on a worn rug.

“Rent is 4,000 afghanis ($56) a month — but even that is a burden. One of my sons is visually impaired; the other returns home every day empty-handed.”

For women and girls, their return can feel like a double displacement. They are subject to many of the Taliban’s most repressive laws, including restrictions on their movement without a “mahram,” or male companion, and curbs on education and employment.

Afghan burqa-clad women and their children, walk at a refugee registration centre after their arrival from Pakistan, in Takhta Pul district in Kandahar province on June 24, 2025. (REUTERS)

On Kabul’s western edge, 38-year-old Safiya and her three daughters spend their days in a rented house packing candies for shops, earning just 50 afghanis for a day’s work, below Afghanistan’s poverty level of $1 a day.

Safiya said they were deported from Iran in February.

“In Tehran, I stitched clothes. My girls worked at a sweet shop,” said Safiya, who declined to give her last name.

“Life was tough, but we had our freedom, as well as hope … Here, there’s no work, no school, no dignity. It’s like we’ve come home only to be exiled again.”

During their deportation, Safiya was separated from her youngest daughter for a week while the family was detained, a spat over documents that still gives the 16-year-old nightmares.

In Iran, said Safiya, “my daughters had inspiring dreams. Now they sit at home all day, waiting.”

Afghans are also being forcibly deported from next-door Pakistan – more than 800,000 people have been expelled since October 2023, according to Amnesty International.

Born in Pakistan to Afghan refugee parents, Nemat Ullah Rahimi had never lived in Afghanistan until last winter, when police barely gave him time to close his Peshawar grocery store before sending him over the Torkham border crossing.

“I wasn’t allowed to sell anything. My wife and kids — all born in Pakistan — had no legal documents there so we had to leave,” said the 34-year-old.

Rahimi now works long hours at a tire repair shop at a dusty intersection on the edge of Kabul as he tries to rebuild a life.

“I can’t say it’s easy. But I have no choice. We’re restarting from zero,” he said. 


Several arrested in Serbia as tensions mount ahead of anti-corruption rally in Belgrade on weekend

Updated 26 June 2025
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Several arrested in Serbia as tensions mount ahead of anti-corruption rally in Belgrade on weekend

  • Protesting university students have called Saturday’s rally to press their demand for an early election
  • Authorities made similar arrests back in March, ahead of what was the biggest ever anti-government protest

BELGRADE: Police in Serbia have arrested several people accused of allegedly plotting to overthrow the government as tensions soared ahead of a major anti-government rally planned this weekend in the capital Belgrade.

Police said six were detained on Wednesday evening, suspected of “preparing criminal acts against the constitutional order and security of Serbia” and “calling for violent change of the constitutional order.”

At least one other university student was arrested earlier this week accused of preparing “an act of terrorism” based on his private conversations over a mobile phone. Hundreds on Thursday demonstrated against the arrest in Belgrade.

Protesting university students have called Saturday’s rally to press their demand for an early election after nearly eight months of almost daily anti-corruption demonstrations that have shaken the populist government of President Aleksandar Vucic.

Persistent protests started in November after a renovated rail station canopy collapsed that killed 16 people and which many blamed on rampant government corruption and negligence in state infrastructure projects. University students have been a key force behind the nationwide movement.

Vucic and his right-wing Serbian Progressive Party have refused the students’ demand for a snap vote, instead accusing the protesters of planning to spur violence at Saturday’s gathering.

Police alleged the detained group met last week in a hotel in the central town of Kraljevo to plan a violent change of government and attacks on police and pro-government media outlets. One of the suspects had a gun and ammunition, they said.

No other details were immediately available. Serbian media reported that those arrested include an opposition politician, veteran of the wars of the 1990s, and others.

Authorities made similar arrests back in March, ahead of what was the biggest ever anti-government protest in the Balkan country, which drew hundreds of thousands of people.

Vucic’s loyalists also set up a camp in a park outside his office which still stands. The otherwise peaceful gathering on March 15 came to an abrupt end when part of the crowd suddenly scattered in panic, triggering allegations that authorities used a sonic weapon against peaceful protesters, which they have denied.

Vucic, a former extreme nationalist, has become increasingly authoritarian since coming to power over a decade ago. Though he formally says he wants Serbia to join the European Union, critics say Vucic has stifled democratic freedoms as he strengthened ties with Russia and China.