HYDERABAD: India’s southern state of Andhra Pradesh wrapped up rescue efforts on Thursday at a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant where an explosion the previous day killed 17 people and injured nearly 40, a senior state official said.
The state’s worst such incident in recent years, Wednesday’s blast took place at the 40-acre unit of privately held Escientia Advanced Sciences in the Anakapalli district.
Nearly 40 people were injured and rescue operations had been completed, the official, Industries Secretary N. Yuvaraj, told Reuters.
Escientia did not immediately respond to a request for comment but government officials said they suspected an explosion in the chemical reactor.
Officials said they were scanning closed-circuit television footage and questioning the injured to decide if human error was responsible for the blast.
“Preliminary investigation shows ... there was some vapor leak that led to chemical reactions, which caused the explosion,” added Yuvaraj, who identified the solvent involved as methyl tert-butyl ether.
In a post on X, Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered condolences to the relatives of the dead.
India, known as the pharmacy of the world, is home to many plants that make pharmaceuticals.
A fire in the same district last year in a unit of Sahithi Pharma killed two people and injured five.
Death toll rises to 17 in blast at Indian pharmaceutical factory
https://arab.news/zedz7
Death toll rises to 17 in blast at Indian pharmaceutical factory
- Nearly 40 people were injured and rescue operations had been completed
Hezbollah ‘financier’ pleads guilty to evading US sanctions
- The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has said Bazzi “has provided millions of dollars to Hezbollah over the years, generated from his business activities in Belgium, Lebanon, Iraq and throughout West Africa”
NEW YORK: A former Lebanese diplomat accused of being a financier for the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement pleaded guilty Friday to evading US financial sanctions against him and his organization, branded as “terrorist” by the US government.
Mohammad Ibrahim Bazzi, 60, who holds Lebanese, British and Belgian citizenship, pleaded guilty in a federal court in New York to conspiracy to conduct unlawful transactions with an international terrorist, according to a statement from the US Department of Justice.
Bazzi had “accepted responsibility for his role in conspiring to secretly move hundreds of thousands of dollars from the United States to Lebanon in violation of sanctions placed on him for assisting the terrorist group Hezbollah,” US prosecutor Breon Peace said.
Bazzi faces up to 20 years imprisonment, as well as deportation and forfeiture of the $828,528 involved in illegal transactions.
No sentencing date has been set.
The State Department in May 2018 had declared Bazzi to be a “specially designated global terrorist” and offered a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture.
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has said Bazzi “has provided millions of dollars to Hezbollah over the years, generated from his business activities in Belgium, Lebanon, Iraq and throughout West Africa.”
In February 2023, he was arrested in Romania and extradited to the US.
The US attorney’s statement said Bazzi had worked with an accomplice, Talal Chahine, who remains on the loose in Lebanon.
It said the two men attempted to launder their transactions through purchases and fictitious loans of equipment for a restaurant in China, a property in Lebanon and a family loan to Kuwait.
According to investigative journalism outlet ProPublica, Bazzi was appointed honorary consul in Lebanon by the government of Gambia in 2005. The volunteer diplomat role helped him access unique connections and benefits, which can be ripe for abuse.
The United States has declared Hezbollah as a terrorist organization over its attacks on American military members, government employees and civilians abroad.
The militant group has been in Israel’s crosshairs amid the war in Gaza, with the commander of an elite Hezbollah unit killed in a Beirut strike on Friday.
It also followed two waves of explosions, on Tuesday and Wednesday, of communication devices used by Hezbollah members, which Hezbollah blamed on Israel.
Biden opens home to ‘Quad’ leaders for farewell summit
WILMINGTON, US: US President Joe Biden hosted Australia’s prime minister at his Delaware home Friday, at the start of a weekend summit with the so-called “Quad” group he has pushed as a counterweight to China.
Biden chose his hometown of Wilmington for a summit of leaders from Australia, India and Japan — the last of his presidency after he dropped out of the 2024 election against Donald Trump and handed the Democratic campaign reins to Kamala Harris.
After a one-on-one meeting at his property with Australia’s Anthony Albanese on Friday night, he will welcome Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at his beloved house on Saturday.
Biden will then host an “intimate” dinner and full four-way summit that day at his former high school in the city.
“This will be President Biden’s first time hosting foreign leaders in Wilmington as president — a reflection of his deep personal relationships with each of the Quad Leaders,” Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
Vice President Harris will not be attending, the White House said.
The Quad grouping dates back to 2007, but Biden has strongly pushed it as part of an emphasis on international alliances after the isolationist Trump years.
China was expected to feature heavily in their discussions amid tensions with Beijing, particularly a series of recent confrontations between Chinese and Philippine vessels in the disputed South China Sea.
“It will certainly be high on the agenda,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, adding that the four leaders had a “common understanding about the challenges that the PRC (People’s Republic of China) is posing.”
The White House, however, faced criticism for giving only limited access to the press throughout the weekend, with reporters questioning whether it was at the request of the notoriously media-shy Modi.
The Hindu nationalist was coaxed to take two questions during a state visit to the White House in 2023, but had not held an open press conference at home in his previous nine years in power.
The White House insisted Biden would not shy away from addressing rights issues with Modi, who has faced accusations of growing authoritarianism.
“There’s not a conversation that he has with foreign leaders where he doesn’t talk about the importance of respecting human and civil rights, and that includes with Prime Minister Modi,” Kirby said.
India is due to host the next Quad summit in 2025.
Biden is famously proud of his home in Wilmington, around 110 miles (176 kilometers) from Washington, and he frequently spends weekends there away from the confines of the White House.
It hit the headlines when classified documents were found in its garage, next to his Corvette sports car, in 2022. Biden was not charged.
Russia detains two dozen over deadly Moscow shootout
- The shootout involved the camps of Russia's richest woman Tatyana Bakalchuk and her estranged husband over control of retail giant Wildberries
- The chaotic shooting just a few streets from the Kremlin evoked memories of the 1990s in Russia, where corporate disputes were sometimes settled through violence
MOSCOW: Russia authorities ordered the detention of two dozen people including a Chechen mixed martial arts fighter on Friday over a shootout in central Moscow that left two people dead.
A group of men turned up at the offices of Russian retail giant Wildberries on Wednesday, in what CEO Tatyana Bakalchuk described as an armed takeover attempt by her estranged husband and two disgruntled former executives.
Bakalchuk — Russia’s richest woman — and her husband had for months been locked in a bitter dispute over a company merger deal that President Vladimir Putin had personally approved but which Chechen ruler Ramzan Kadyrov denounced as an illegal seizure.
Among the men remanded into custody on Friday was Umar Chichaev, a mixed martial arts fighter and deputy commander of a national guard unit linked to Kadyrov, according to Russian news agencies.
“The court granted the petition of law enforcement agencies and remanded Chichaev in custody for one month and 30 days,” Moscow’s Basmanny court ruled, according to the state-owned TASS news agency.
The shootout came just over six weeks after Wildberries finalized its merger deal with Russ, a Russian advertising firm that is several times smaller than the corporate giant.
Bakalchuk’s husband Vladislav denounced the merger as a huge mistake, and enlisted the help of Kadyrov in July to stop the deal.
Two security guards were killed in the shootout, which injured seven others.
Tatyana released a tearful video message on Wednesday accusing her husband of organizing the attack.
Bakalchuk founded Wildberries in 2004 while on maternity leave, selling clothes out of her Moscow apartment with her then-IT technician husband Vladislav.
The business has since become an industry leader and made Bakalchuk a billionaire, although her fortune took a hit from the recent merger, according to Forbes.
In July, she announced she had separated from Vladislav and was getting a divorce.
In total, 30 people have been detained over two days in connection with Wednesday’s shooting, state media reported.
Vladislav’s lawyers said on Thursday he had been arrested on suspicion of murder and other crimes.
But late Friday, he released a cryptic video on Telegram saying that he was at home and would continue to fight for his “family business.”
“The truth is on my side. May justice prevail,” he said in a message accompanying the video.
The chaotic shooting just a few streets from the Kremlin evoked memories of the 1990s in Russia, where corporate disputes were sometimes settled through violent turf wars and criminal means.
Ghana’s VP and former president among 13 candidates for election
- No party has won more than two consecutive terms in government in Ghana’s democratic history
ACCRA: Ghana’s Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia and ex-President John Dramani Mahama are among 13 candidates approved for the 2024 presidential poll, the electoral commission said on Friday.
Voters in the West African gold- and cocoa-producing nation head to the polls on Dec. 7 to elect a successor to President Nana Akufo-Addo, who will step down in January after serving the constitutionally mandated eight years.
Former President Mahama, 65, represents the main opposition National Democratic Congress, or NDC, party. Bawumia, a 60-year-old economist and former central banker, was picked by Akufo-Addo’s ruling New Patriotic Party as its candidate.
No party has won more than two consecutive terms in government in Ghana’s democratic history.
The commission said it had also accepted the candidacies of Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen, a former trade and industry minister who resigned from the ruling party to stand as an independent, Nana Kwame Bediako, a businessman competing for the first time for the top job, and Nana Akosua Frimpomaa, one of two women in the race.
On Tuesday, Mahama’s NDC party held nationwide protests against alleged irregularities, saying the electoral commission had illegally transferred voters to different voting stations without their knowledge.
The electoral commission said it would review a petition submitted by the party at the end of the demonstrations and provide a response in the coming days.
The allegations dent the electoral authority’s image when public confidence is low.
A July survey by pan-African research group Afrobarometer showed trust in Ghana’s electoral commission at a historic low since confidence polls started in 1999.
Missing Kenyans freed as rights groups blame security forces
- The Independent Police Oversight Authority has said it was looking into multiple complaints of unlawful arrests and abductions in the wake of large-scale anti-government protests that broke out in Kenya in June
NAIROBI: Three Kenyans at the heart of a high-profile abduction case have been freed, rights groups said on Friday, accusing security forces of keeping them captive for weeks after they took part in anti-government protests.
The three were allegedly abducted by men identifying themselves as police on Aug. 19 in Kitengela, some 30 km south of the capital Nairobi.
Images on social media showed two of the men, looking shaken, following their release late Thursday.
“Our partners have confirmed their release,” said Cornelius Oduor, of the Kenyan Human Rights Commission, said.
“(The images) clearly shows that the men were in distress ... It points to the fact that they have been in captivity.”
There has been no confirmation of where Bob Njagi, Aslam Longton and his brother Jamil Longton were held.
But Oduor said: “We strongly believe that they were taken by security agents of Kenya.”
The two brothers were dropped near the capital, according to tweets from the Kenyan Law Society, while Njagi presented himself to a nearby police station.
The case has dominated the Kenyan news in recent days after a court in Nairobi held the acting police chief, Gilbert Masengeli, in contempt for failing to appear to answer questions about the disappearance of the three men.
Having been given seven days to attend court or face a six-month prison sentence, Masengeli made a last-minute appearance on Friday and apologized for his absence, thus avoiding the conviction.
“We believe (the men’s release) was intended to provide immediate grounds for (Masengeli) to challenge his conviction,” said Oduor.
While the contempt charge against Masengeli was dropped, the case into the men’s disappearance was set to continue.
The Independent Police Oversight Authority has said it was looking into multiple complaints of unlawful arrests and abductions in the wake of large-scale anti-government protests that broke out in Kenya in June.
More than 60 people died during the protests themselves, leading to the resignation of police chief Japhet Koome.
Previous abduction cases have sparked furious protests in Kenya.
In February 2023, three police officers were handed sentences ranging from 24 years in jail to the death penalty for the brutal murder of rights lawyer Willie Kimani and two other people.
Their bodies were found wrapped in sacks and dumped in a river outside Nairobi in June 2016.
