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French navy seizes 10.7 tons of cocaine off African coast

French navy seizes 10.7 tons of cocaine off African coast
The French navy has seized 10.7 tonnes of cocaine with a street value of hundreds of millions of dollars from a Brazilian fishing boat in the Gulf of Guinea, officials said Wednesday. (AFP/File)
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Updated 20 March 2024
AFP
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French navy seizes 10.7 tons of cocaine off African coast

French navy seizes 10.7 tons of cocaine off African coast
  • French authorities requested the raid based on a tip-off from the US Drug Enforcement Administration
Updated 20 March 2024
AFP
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BREST: The French navy has seized 10.7 tons of cocaine with a street value of hundreds of millions of dollars from a Brazilian fishing boat in the Gulf of Guinea, officials said Wednesday.
The operation off the west African coast last Thursday targeted a Brazilian-flagged boat measuring around twenty meters (66 feet).
French authorities requested the raid based on a tip-off from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), France’s Atlantic maritime prefecture said.
The 10,693 kilogrammes of cocaine seized had an “estimated market value of nearly 695 million euros” ($754 million), the prefecture added.
The Brest public prosecutor’s office, which holds jurisdiction over such cases, ordered the destruction of the drugs but decided not to prosecute the crew.
The French navy stations one to two ships supported by a maritime patrol aircraft in the Gulf of Guinea as part of a longstanding securit operation.

Topics: French navy cocaine gulf of guinea US Drug Enforcement Administration

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Pakistan begins last anti-polio vaccination campaign of the year after a surge in cases

Pakistan begins last anti-polio vaccination campaign of the year after a surge in cases
Updated 6 sec ago
AP
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Pakistan begins last anti-polio vaccination campaign of the year after a surge in cases

Pakistan begins last anti-polio vaccination campaign of the year after a surge in cases
  • Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan remain the only two countries where the potentially fatal, paralyzing virus has not been stopped
  • Thousands of police officers deployed to protect the health workers following intelligence reports that insurgents could target them
Updated 6 sec ago
AP
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan began on Monday its last nationwide vaccination campaign for the year to protect 45 million children from polio after a surge in new cases hampered efforts to stop the disease, officials said.
According to the World Health Organization, Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan remain the only two countries where the potentially fatal, paralyzing virus hasn’t been stopped,
Pakistan has reported 63 confirmed cases since January.
Ayesha Raza Farooq, the prime minister’s adviser for the polio eradication program, said the anti-polio drive will continue until Dec. 22.
“As a mother, I am appealing to you to open your doors for health workers,” she said.
Pakistan regularly launches such campaigns despite violence affecting medical personnel who oversee the vaccinations and security forces escorting them. Militants falsely claim that vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
Authorities deployed thousands of police officers to protect the health workers following intelligence reports that insurgents could target them. However, gunmen opened fire Monday on police escorting polio workers in Karak, a city in the restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing a police officer and wounding a health worker, local police official Ayaz Khan said.
More than 200 polio workers and police assigned for their protection have been killed since the 1990s, according to health officials and authorities.
The latest anti-polio drive campaign began a day after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met with medical staff and vowed that Pakistan would win the war against polio.
Afghanistan reported at least 23 confirmed cases in 2024, according to data from the World Health Organization.
In September, the Afghan Taliban suddenly stopped a door-to-door vaccination campaign in Afghanistan, a devastating setback for polio eradication as the virus is one of the world’s most infectious and any unvaccinated groups of children where the virus is spreading could undo years of progress.

Filipino on Indonesia death row moved before transfer home

Filipino on Indonesia death row moved before transfer home
Updated 3 min 50 sec ago
AFP
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Filipino on Indonesia death row moved before transfer home

Filipino on Indonesia death row moved before transfer home
  • Mary Jane Veloso was arrested and convicted in 2010 after the suitcase she was carrying was found to be lined with 2.6kg of heroin
Updated 3 min 50 sec ago
AFP

JAKARTA: A Filipino inmate sentenced to death in Indonesia was moved to capital Jakarta before she is expected to fly home on Wednesday, after the government signed an agreement to repatriate her.

Mother of two Mary Jane Veloso, 39, was arrested and convicted in 2010 after the suitcase she was carrying was found to be lined with 2.6 kilograms (5.7 pounds) of heroin.

On Sunday, officers picked her up from a women’s prison in Yogyakarta province, an AFP journalist present said, before transporting her to another prison in Jakarta more than 418 kilometers away.

From there she will be flown back to the Philippines early Wednesday morning, I Nyoman Gede Surya Mataram, acting deputy for immigration and corrections coordination, told a press conference.

She will travel home on a Cebu Airlines flight shortly after midnight on December 18, he confirmed to reporters.

Foreign affairs ministry spokesman Roy Soemirat said they did not yet “have any formal information from our law enforcement agency on the details” of her transfer.

The Philippine embassy in Jakarta did not respond to a request for comment.

Both Veloso and her supporters said she was duped by an international drug syndicate, and in 2015, she narrowly escaped execution after her suspected recruiter was arrested.

She said on Friday in her first interview since the repatriation agreement that her release was a “miracle.”

Muslim-majority Indonesia has some of the world’s toughest drug laws and has executed foreigners in the past.

At least 530 people were on death row in the Southeast Asian nation, mostly for drug-related crimes, according to data from rights group KontraS, citing official figures.

According to Indonesia’s Ministry of Immigration and Corrections, 96 foreigners were on death row, all on drug charges, as of early November.

Topics: Philippines Indonesia Mary Jane Veloso

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Indian tabla maestro Zakir Hussain dies at 73

Indian tabla maestro Zakir Hussain dies at 73
Updated 16 December 2024
Reuters
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Indian tabla maestro Zakir Hussain dies at 73

Indian tabla maestro Zakir Hussain dies at 73
  • Hussain died in San Francisco from a chronic lung disease
  • He was the eldest son of legendary tabla player Ustad Alla Rakha
Updated 16 December 2024
Reuters

Zakir Hussain, considered one of the greatest players of the tabla or Indian drums and known for his “dancing fingers,” has died.

Hussain, 73, died in a San Francisco hospital from complications of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis — a chronic lung disease, his family said in a statement.

Zakir Hussain accepts the award for Best Global Music Performance for Pashto, by Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer & Zakir Hussain featuring Rakesh Chaurasia during the Premiere ceremony of the 66th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, California, US, on February 4, 2024. (REUTERS/File)

The eldest son of legendary tabla player Ustad Alla Rakha, Hussain was a child prodigy, beginning his professional career at the age of 12 accompanying Indian classical musicians.

By 18, he was touring internationally, winning acclaim for his accompaniment, dazzling solo performances and pioneering collaborative work with world musicians that elevated the status of the tabla in India and abroad.

Collaborators included George Harrison, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and jazz musician Herbie Hancock.

India's tabla maestro Zakir Hussain plays tabla during a cultural programme in the eastern Indian city of Patna on December 19, 2008. (REUTERS/File)

He was nominated for seven Grammy awards, winning four including three this year, according to the Grammy website. He was also the recipient of India’s highest honor for artists, the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award.

Topics: India Zakir Hussain Tabla Music Arab News Pakistan

Bangladesh to hold elections in late 2025 or early 2026: Yunus

Bangladesh to hold elections in late 2025 or early 2026: Yunus
Updated 16 December 2024
AFP
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Bangladesh to hold elections in late 2025 or early 2026: Yunus

Bangladesh to hold elections in late 2025 or early 2026: Yunus
  • Interim leader says that general elections would be held late next year or in early 2026
Updated 16 December 2024
AFP

DHAKA: Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus, who heads the caretaker government installed after an August revolution, said Monday that general elections would be held late next year or in early 2026.

Pressure has been growing on Nobel Peace Prize winner Yunus – appointed the country’s “chief adviser” after the student-led uprising that toppled ex-premier Sheikh Hasina in August – to set a date.

The 84-year-old microfinance pioneer is leading a temporary administration to tackle what he has called the “extremely tough” challenge of restoring democratic institutions in the South Asian nation of some 170 million people.

“Election dates could be fixed by the end of 2025 or the first half of 2026,” he said in a broadcast on state television.

Hasina, 77, fled by helicopter to neighboring India as thousands of protesters stormed the prime minister’s palace in Dhaka.

Her government was also accused of politicizing courts and the civil service, as well as staging lopsided elections, to dismantle democratic checks on its power.

Hasina’s 15-year rule saw widespread human rights abuses, including the mass detention and extrajudicial killings of her political opponents.

Yunus has launched commissions to oversee a raft of reforms he says are needed, and setting an election date depends on what political parties agree.

“Throughout, I have emphasized that reforms should take place first before the arrangements for an election,” he said.

“If the political parties agree to hold the election on an earlier date with minimum reforms, such as having a flawless voter list, the election could be held by the end of November,” he added.

But including the full list of electoral reforms would delay polls by a few months, he said.

Topics: Bangladesh Muhammad Yunus

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Taiwan receives first batch of US-made Abrams tanks

Taiwan receives first batch of US-made Abrams tanks
Updated 16 December 2024
AFP
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Taiwan receives first batch of US-made Abrams tanks

Taiwan receives first batch of US-made Abrams tanks
  • Washington has long been Taipei’s most important ally and biggest arms supplier, angering Beijing
  • The M1A2 tanks, the first batch of 108 ordered in 2019, arrived in Taiwan late Sunday
Updated 16 December 2024
AFP

TAIPEI: Taiwan has received 38 advanced Abrams battle tanks from the United States, the defense ministry said Monday, as the island boosts its military capabilities against a potential Chinese attack.
Washington has long been Taipei’s most important ally and biggest arms supplier — angering Beijing, which claims Taiwan as part of its own territory.
The M1A2 tanks — the first batch of 108 ordered in 2019 — arrived in Taiwan late Sunday and were transferred to an army training base in Hsinchu, south of the capital Taipei, the defense ministry said.
Abrams tanks, which are among the heaviest in the world, are a mainstay of the US military.
The M1A2s are the first new tanks to be delivered to Taiwan in 30 years, the semi-official Central News Agency said.
Taiwan’s current tank force consists of around 1,000 Taiwan-made CM 11 Brave Tiger and US-made M60A3 tanks, technology that is increasingly obsolete.
The government previously allocated the equivalent of more than $1.2 billion for the 108 Abrams.
Taiwan faces the constant threat of an invasion by China, which has refused to rule out using force to bring the self-ruled island under its control.
While it has a home-grown defense industry and has been upgrading its equipment, Taiwan relies heavily on US arms sales to bolster its security capabilities.
Taiwan requested the state-of-the-art M1A2 tanks in 2019. The rest of the order is expected to be delivered in 2025 and 2026, an army official said.
While US arms supplies to Taiwan are enshrined into law, a massive backlog caused by Covid-19 supply chain disruptions and US weapons shipments to Ukraine and Israel have slowed deliveries to Taiwan.
The backlog now exceeds $21 billion, according to Washington think tank Cato Institute.
Taiwan would be massively outgunned in terms of troop numbers and firepower in any war with China and in recent years has increased spending on its military.
Taipei allocated a record $19 billion for 2024 and next year’s budget is set to hit a new high, as it seeks to bolster a more agile defense approach.
China has increased military pressure on Taiwan in recent years, regularly deploying fighter jets and warships around the island.
Taiwanese authorities said last week that China had held its biggest maritime drills in years, with around 90 ships deployed from near the southern islands of Japan to the South China Sea.
The vessels simulated attacks on foreign ships and practiced blockading sea routes, a Taiwan security official said previously.

Topics: Taiwan US

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