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Devastating floods that have killed hundreds of people and displaced tens of thousands more in East Africa are now inundating parts of the Masai Mara, one of Africa’s greatest wildlife national reserves. On Wednesday, the Telek River broke its banks and overflowed into parts of the natural reserve, flooding many tourist camps. A spokesman for the Kenyan Red Cross, Munir Ahmed, said that more than 90 people have been evacuated, some by helicopter. “The situation in Masai Mara is so bad,” said Daniel Ikayo, the owner of a safari company that operates there. “There is water everywhere.”The floods in the reserve have added to the heavy damage to key economic resources in Kenya, including livestock, crops and infrastructure.

Persons: Masai Mara, Munir Ahmed, ”, Daniel Ikayo Organizations: Kenyan, Cross Locations: East Africa, Kenya

Europe’s top human rights court said in a landmark ruling on Tuesday that the Swiss government had violated its citizens’ human rights by not doing enough to stop climate change. But the court rejected climate-related cases brought by the former mayor of a coastal town in France and a group of young people in Portugal as inadmissible. The cases, the first of their kind to be heard at the court, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, are part of a broader movement of climate-related lawsuits that aim to use human rights law to push governments to act against global warming. The rulings focused on three cases, filed by members of the public in France, Portugal and Switzerland who argued that their governments, by not doing enough to mitigate climate change, were violating the citizens’ rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Organizations: Swiss, of Human Rights, European, Human Rights Locations: France, Portugal, Strasbourg, Switzerland

Nearly 100 people died and more than a dozen were missing after an overcrowded boat sank off the coast of Mozambique, the local authorities said on Monday. The vessel was carrying about 130 people, well above its capacity, Jaime Neto, the secretary of state of Nampula Province, where the disaster took place on Sunday, said on national television. Mr. Neto said the boat was headed to the Island of Mozambique from the town of Lunga. Since October, the southern African country has recorded about 15,000 cases of cholera, a waterborne disease, and 32 deaths, according to government data. Nampula Province has been one of the most affected areas, but Stéphane Foulon, the head of mission for Doctors Without Borders in Mozambique, said that there had been no recent cases reported in the district from which the boat had departed.

Persons: Jaime Neto, Neto, Stéphane Foulon Locations: Mozambique, Nampula Province, Lunga

A young student fatally shot a 12-year-old and wounded two others at a school in Finland on Tuesday, the police said, a rare act of violence by a child in a country that changed its gun laws after earlier school shootings but where gun ownership remains widespread. The police said they had arrested a suspect, also 12 years old, who had a handgun, about an hour after arriving at the Viertola school, in the city of Vantaa, about 10 miles north of Helsinki. “The shooting incident in Vantaa is deeply distressing,” Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said on X.Finland tightened its gun laws after two school shootings, in 2007 and 2008, in which 20 people died, including the perpetrators. Those shootings inspired a heated debate over firearm legislation in a country of hunters and gun enthusiasts. A law introduced in 2011 raised the age limit for acquiring handguns to 20 and made it compulsory for doctors to report anyone they deemed unfit to own a gun.

Persons: Petteri Orpo Locations: Finland, Vantaa, Helsinki

☆ Swiss Rescuers Find Bodies of Five Missing Skiers
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-11 | by ( Emma Bubola | More About Emma Bubola | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Five missing skiers were found dead in the Swiss Alps and the search was ongoing for a sixth member of their group, the local police said on Monday. The skiers set out from the Swiss resort town of Zermatt on Saturday morning, aiming for the village of Arolla, across a series of snow-covered peaks. A relative alerted rescue services on Saturday afternoon that the group of Swiss citizens age 21 to 58 had failed to arrive at the village, according to a statement from the Valais region’s police force. One of the skiers managed to call for help about an hour later, allowing rescuers to locate the group near the peak of the Tête Blanche mountain at about 11,000 feet of altitude, the commander of the force told a news conference on Monday. But severe weather conditions and a risk of avalanches forced the search to be suspended until the next day.

Locations: Swiss, Zermatt, Arolla, Valais

As Norway’s higher education minister, Sandra Borch was responsible for making sure that students played by the rules. When one of those students was acquitted of the offense of plagiarism, Ms. Borch appealed, taking the case to the nation’s Supreme Court. So it shocked the country when, just a few days later, Ms. Borch had to resign after it emerged that parts of her master’s thesis seemed identical to other reports that she had not referenced. “When I wrote my master’s thesis around 10 years ago, I made a big mistake,” Ms. Borch said at a news conference on Friday, when she stepped down. “I took text from other assignments without stating the sources.”The person who uncovered Ms. Borch’s misdeeds was Kristoffer Rytterager, a 27-year-old student in Oslo, who said he got “a bit pissed” that the minister went after an individual student for what he considered a minor mistake, and decided to look into the minister’s own academic work.

Persons: Sandra Borch, Borch, Ms, “, Kristoffer Rytterager Locations: Oslo

A Kenyan judge on Wednesday said that a doomsday cult leader who the authorities say directed his followers to starve themselves must undergo a mental health evaluation before prosecutors formally charge him with the murders of 191 children. Mr. Mackenzie had marketed Shakahola to his followers as an evangelical Christian sanctuary from what he claimed was the fast-approaching apocalypse. Mr. Mackenzie — who has denied the allegations — appeared in court on Wednesday in the Kenyan coastal city of Malindi. The judge, Mugure Thande, gave prosecutors until Feb. 6 to make sure that he and his co-defendants are fit to stand trial. The prosecutor’s office shared with journalists a list of charges that it intends to bring against Mr. Mackenzie and 30 of his followers, including 191 counts of child murder.

Persons: Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, Mackenzie, Shakahola, Mackenzie —, —, Mugure Thande Organizations: Kenyan, Mr Locations: Shakahola, Kenya, Malindi

☆ New Zealand Lawmaker Resigns After Shoplifting Allegations
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-16 | by ( Emma Bubola | More About Emma Bubola | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A lawmaker from New Zealand quit her job on Tuesday after allegations emerged that she had shoplifted from two clothing stores, actions she said were caused by stress affecting her mental health. I’m sorry,” said the lawmaker, Golriz Ghahraman, in a statement on Tuesday. Image Golriz Ghahraman in 2017. Credit... Hannah Peters/Getty ImageAllegations of shoplifting started appearing in New Zealand’s news media this month. Some reports also published a CCTV video that appeared to show Ms. Ghahraman taking a handbag from a clothing store. Leaders from her party, the center-left Green Party, confirmed that the police were investigating the episodes, which according to the news reports, happened in the cities of Auckland and Wellington last year.

Persons: “, ”, Golriz Ghahraman, ” Ms, Ghahraman, Golriz, Hannah Peters Organizations: New Zealand, United, Green Party Locations: New, United Nations, Iran, Auckland, Wellington

☆ 5 Dead, Including Suspect, and 2 Officers Wounded in Queens Stabbing
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-03 | by ( Emma Bubola | More About Emma Bubola | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Four family members, including two children, were stabbed to death at a home in Queens early Sunday morning, the police said. Two officers who responded to the location, 467 Beach 22nd Street in the Far Rockaway neighborhood, saw a man leaving with luggage, Chief Maddrey said. When they stopped him, the man stabbed one officer in the head and the other in the neck with a steak knife before one of the officers shot him. The suspect was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The wounds of the officers were not life threatening, Chief Maddrey said at the news conference, which was in front of Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where they were being treated.

Persons: Jeffrey Maddrey, Maddrey Organizations: Queens, New York Police Department, Jamaica Hospital Medical Center Locations: Rockaway, Jamaica

Some of the hostages were held in sweltering tunnels deep beneath Gaza, while others were squeezed into tight quarters with strangers or confined in isolation. There were children forced to appear in hostage videos, and others forced to watch gruesome footage of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack. As some hostages captured that day in the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel have been released, they have relayed these and other stories of their captivity to family members. The New York Times interviewed the family members of 10 freed hostages, who spoke on behalf of their relatives to relay sensitive information. The relatives who spoke to The Times described how the freed hostages, many of them children, were deprived of adequate food while in Gaza.

Organizations: New York Times, Times Locations: Gaza, Israel

☆ Government Offices in E.U. Can Ban Wearing of Religious Symbols
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-29 | by ( Emma Bubola | More About Emma Bubola | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

As an interpretation of European Union law, the decision could have effects that go beyond Belgium’s borders. Muslim groups, already concerned over the treatment of Muslims in Europe, expressed worry that it might enable employers to further marginalize Muslim women in the workplace. The woman filed suit, arguing that the decision violated her right to religious freedom and that she was being discriminated against. At the same time, it said, public administrations can decide to allow their employees to wear visible signs of their beliefs. The court added that these policies must be imposed in a consistent and systematic manner and must be limited to what is strictly necessary.

Organizations: European Union, Justice Locations: Belgium’s, Europe

Saudi Arabia won the bid to host the World Expo 2030 in a landslide on Tuesday, delivering a triumph to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, as he seeks to reshape the authoritarian country’s international image — and his own. Saudi Arabia won 119 of the 165 votes, easily defeating South Korea and Italy. The win gives Saudi Arabia the chance to bask in the global spotlight in the year that the crown prince’s plan to diversify the kingdom’s oil-dependent economy, “Vision 2030,” is meant to conclude. The victory also demonstrates how, once again, he has been able to wield the kingdom’s power, money and influence to overcome attempts to isolate Saudi Arabia over human rights concerns and efforts to stereotype it as a desert backwater with little to offer the world. He has sought to position himself as an indispensable global leader and the kingdom as a major destination for business and tourism.

Persons: Prince Mohammed bin Salman, ” Organizations: South, Saudi Locations: Saudi Arabia, Paris, South Korea, Italy

The police in Burlington, Vt., on Sunday were investigating the shooting of three students of Palestinian descent as a possible hate crime, the city’s mayor said. The three victims, all men in their 20s and students of American universities, were walking near the University of Vermont on Saturday when they were shot and wounded by a white man with a handgun, the police said in a statement on Sunday. Two of them were wearing a Palestinian kaffiyeh. Two of the victims were in stable condition; the third sustained much more serious injuries, the authorities said. “In this charged moment, no one can look at this incident and not suspect that it may have been a hate-motivated crime,” the chief of the Burlington police, Jon Murad, said.

Persons: Jon Murad Organizations: Sunday, University of Vermont, Burlington Locations: Burlington , Vt

☆ Rioters Clash With Police in Dublin After Children Hurt in Knife Attack
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-23 | by ( Emma Bubola | More About Emma Bubola | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Three young children and a woman in her 30s were injured near a school in Dublin on Thursday, the police said, an attack that was followed by destructive riots that they blamed on the far right weaponizing “misinformation” about the episode. An adult woman in her 30s and a 5-year-old girl sustained serious wounds in the attack, in which a knife was used, the police said, while a 5-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl were being treated for less serious injuries. The boy was later released from hospital. A suspect in the case was in custody, according to the Garda Síochána, the Irish police force. Drew Harris, the Garda police commissioner, said that the motive for the attack remained “entirely unclear.”The attack, which the police described as “a serious public order incident,” took place at Parnell Square East, in central Dublin, shortly after 1:30 p.m. on Thursday.

Persons: Drew Harris, ” Organizations: Garda, Irish, Parnell, East Locations: Dublin

Finland is closing all but one of its land border crossings with Russia, escalating a standoff between the two countries over an influx of migrants that Finnish officials blame on Moscow. Starting on Friday, only the Raja-Jooseppi crossing in northern Lapland will stay open to travelers, while all seven other land crossings will be closed. Last week, Finland closed four of the entry points. “Unfortunately, that did not manage to stop this phenomenon,” the Finnish prime minister, Petteri Orpo, said at a news conference on Wednesday night, adding that the situation at the border was deteriorating amid signs that the Russian authorities were helping asylum seekers make their way to the country. “We do not accept such activity,” he said, adding that Finland would take further measures if necessary.

Persons: Petteri Orpo, ” Locations: Finland, Russia, Moscow, Lapland

☆ Man Suspected of Killing 4 in Memphis Is Found Dead After Hourslong Manhunt
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-19 | by ( Emma Bubola | More About Emma Bubola | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A man suspected of fatally shooting three women and a 13-year-old girl in Memphis was found dead early Sunday with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the police said, ending an hourslong manhunt. The police said that the man, Mavis Christian Jr., 52, was involved in shootings at three locations on Saturday, in which four were killed and one was seriously injured. All of the victims were relatives of Mr. Christian, the police said. The police started looking for Mr. Christian on Saturday afternoon around 5:40 p.m., after the first shooting in a residential area in the southern part of Memphis. Two victims were pronounced dead on the scene, while a third, who is 15 years old, was taken to a hospital, a spokesman for the police said.

Persons: Mavis Christian Jr, Christian Locations: Memphis

They knew it would be perilous, but Jinan Al Salya and her family decided to heed Israeli directions to evacuate the northern Gaza Strip and head south. They fled their car before a shell hit it, sending it and their luggage up in flames, Ms. Al Salya, 20, said in a telephone interview. “I’m in total shock.” Ms. Al Salya said she believed the shell that hit the car had been fired by an Israeli tank; the Israeli military declined to comment on the incident. Despite intensifying Israeli ground operations, continued air and artillery strikes, a mounting death toll and a critical lack of resources, hundreds of thousands of people remain in northern Gaza. David Satterfield, U.S. special envoy for Mideast humanitarian issues, estimated on Saturday that at least 350,000 to 400,000 people remained in northern Gaza.

Persons: Al Salya, ”, “, Ms, Ahmed Ferwana, Al Shati, Ferwana, Iyad, David Satterfield Organizations: Jinan Al, The New York Times Locations: Jinan, Jinan Al Salya, Gaza, Rafah, Egypt, Jabaliya, Gaza City, Swiss

☆ French Nuns and Climate Activists Square Off Over Plans for a Megachurch
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-05 | by ( Emma Bubola | More About Emma Bubola | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

When climate activists protesting the building of a huge church complex in a natural park in the South of France scaled the construction site, the nuns gave chase. One sister grabbed an environmentalist climbing an excavator, but lost her grip and fell rolling into a pit. Two other nuns tried to hold down a protester, who shook loose. Sister Benoîte raced and tackled a running activist — and pushed him inside a ditch. “They lost,” said Sister Gaetane, who had also grabbed a protester.

Persons: Benoîte, —, ”, Gaetane, “ Locations: South, France

Eventually he found a ride, but he and the driver were terrified while driving from central Gaza on the enclave’s empty streets. Family members of those who could evacuate were sometimes barred from leaving, because they did not have foreign citizenship or the necessary documents, forcing people into difficult decisions. “We just want one thing: Help us to leave Gaza,” Ms. Abu Middain said. Mkhaimar Abu Sada, 58, an associate professor of political science at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, was accompanying his two sons, both in their 20s, at the Rafah crossing on Thursday. He said they had American citizenship, but that he was not allowed to leave because he has only an American green card.

Persons: ” Ala, ” Ala Al Husseini, Al Husseini, Israel, “, ”, Hisham Adwan, Al Qahera, Adala Abu Middain, Maha, Ms, Abu Middain, Matthew Miller, Mkhaimar Abu Sada, Lena Beseiso, Iyad Abuheweila, Vivian Yee, Anna Betts Organizations: American Embassy, State Department, Al, Azhar University Locations: Rafah, Gaza, Egypt, “, ”, ” Ala Al, Austrian, Cairo, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belgium, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, American

An airstrike that Israel said was targeting Hamas militants caused widespread damage in a densely populated neighborhood of Gaza on Tuesday. Hamas and hospital officials said numerous people were killed and wounded, as humanitarian organizations warned that the territory’s civilian population was at a breaking point. Hamas, the armed group that controls Gaza, and local doctors said hundreds of people had been wounded or killed at the Jabaliya refugee camp. Independent verification of the claim was not possible, but Israel itself described the strike as a “wide-scale” attack. The military claimed that an “underground terror infrastructure” — Hamas has built and extensive network of tunnels under the territory — had collapsed.

Persons: Marwan Sultan, “, Dr, Sultan, Ibrahim Biari, Biari, ”, — Organizations: Reuters, Crescent, Indonesian Hospital Locations: Israel, Gaza

☆ Denmark Aims a Wrecking Ball at ‘Non-Western’ Neighborhoods
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-26 | by ( Emma Bubola | More About Emma Bubola | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“The welfare society is fundamentally a community, which is based on a mutual trust that we all contribute,” Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, said in March at a summit of the country’s municipalities. That means more than 4,000 public housing units will need to be emptied or torn down. The decision of which housing remains public will be made by local governments and housing associations. The residents displaced are offered alternative public housing options in other buildings or neighborhoods. From the beginning, the program’s targeting of communities largely based on the presence of non-Western immigrants or their descendants has attracted widespread criticism.

Persons: Mette Frederiksen, Vollsmose Locations: country’s

On one side of the border crossing between Egypt and Gaza sit more than 100 trucks packed with desperately needed food, water and medical supplies. On the other wait more than 2 million Gazans now scraping by on dwindling stocks of basic human necessities. Officials and aid workers on Thursday were hammering out the logistics of opening the gates, saying that a U.N.-led deal had laid the groundwork to allow trucks carrying humanitarian aid to enter Gaza from Egypt, offering the renewed promise of relief to the besieged enclave. Aid organizations were told that the crossing would open on Friday morning, according to an aid official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The deal, officials said, includes the U.N. flag being raised at the crossing and international observers inspecting aid trucks before they enter Gaza.

Persons: Egypt — Organizations: Israel, Hamas Locations: Egypt, Gaza, Gazan, Rafah

Days after hundreds of Hamas terrorists from Gaza rampaged through border towns in a surprise assault that killed at least 1,400 Israelis, the region is bracing for further conflict. In response to the shocking incursion, Israel has been pummeling the Gaza Strip with airstrikes, and the Palestinian Health Ministry has said that more than 2,800 Palestinians have been killed. Israel has mobilized 360,000 reservists and troops are now massing at the border, leading to speculation that Israel will soon launch a ground offensive. In a region with a long history of conflict, fighting along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon escalated. And Hezbollah, the Lebanese armed group, announced that it had targeted four separate Israeli locations.

Organizations: Palestinian Health Ministry, United Locations: Gaza, Israel, United Nations, Lebanon, Lebanese

The Americans took off in a plane from Tehran just before 9 a.m. Eastern time and were expected to fly to Doha, the capital of Qatar. Officials said that they would be given brief medical checkups before flying to Washington on a U.S. government plane. Several of the Iranian American prisoners, who hold dual citizenship, had been moved from the notorious Evin prison to a hotel last month, according to officials at the State Department and the National Security Council. The U.S. government had deemed the five wrongfully detained. Their release comes after more than two years of quiet negotiations between Washington and Tehran.

Organizations: Iranian, White House, Officials, State Department, National Security Council Locations: Iran, Tehran, Doha, Qatar, Washington, U.S

☆ U.K. Flight Chaos Was a ‘One in 15 Million’ Problem, Controllers Say
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-06 | by ( Emma Bubola | More About Emma Bubola | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The technical failure that led to hundreds of flight cancellations and severe disruptions for thousands of people traveling in and out of Britain last week resulted from a “one in 15 million chance,” the country’s air traffic control service said on Wednesday. “We have processed 15 million flight plans with this system,” Martin Rolfe, the chief executive of Britain’s National Air Traffic Service, told the BBC’s “Today” program. And the service, he said, had “never seen this before.”On Wednesday, the service published a report based on an internal investigation of the event, detailing what Mr. Rolfe described as “an incredibly rare set of circumstances.”According to the report, the air traffic control system encountered two separate pieces of navigational data in one aircraft’s flight plan that had the same name. As a result, the system’s primary and backup computer systems both shut down to avoid passing incorrect information to the controllers.

Persons: “, ” Martin Rolfe, Rolfe Organizations: Britain’s National Air Traffic Service, ” Locations: Britain

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