STOCKHOLM (Anadolu) – Hundreds of people on Saturday gathered in Sweden’s capital to protest the burning of the Muslim holy book in the country. About 500 people attended the protest organized by the Party of Different Colors (Nyans) in front of the country’s parliament in Stockholm. The protesters were holding banners that read “Stop the burning of the Holy Qur’an” and “Stop insulting Muslims”. Last week, Rasmus Paludan, the leader of the far-right Stram Kurs (Hard Line) group, burned a copy of the Muslim holy book in Sweden’s southern Linkoping city. He also threatened to burn copies of the Qur’an during further rallies. Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Nyans leader Mikail Yuksel said that burning the Qur’an is a hate crime and has no place in democracies. He said that police should not allow the Paludan to burn the Qur’an. “Legally, we are telling you that this is wrong,” he added. Yuksel also conveyed his best wishes to the 104 police officers who were injured in the events that broke out due to the provocation and left roses to a police car.

 

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ABUJA (DW) – An explosion at an illegal oil refinery in southern Nigeria has killed at least 80 people, the emergency services said on Sunday. The explosion occurred late on Friday at the illegal site between the southern oil states of Rivers and Imo, police said. “We recovered at least 80 badly burnt bodies at the scene,” Ifeanyi Nnaji of the National Emergency Management Agency (Nema) in the area, told AFP, adding that the toll could rise further. “We learnt many bodies are in nearby bushes and forests as some illegal operators and their patrons scampered for safety.” Nnaji said that several burnt vehicles and jerry-cans used in scooping stolen crude and petroleum products littered the scene. The incident is the latest to hit oil-rich Nigeria in recent years. According to local media reports, more than 100 people were killed in the blast. Illegal crude refining is common in the southern-oil region where thieves vandalize pipelines to steal crude which they refine to sell on the black market. Most people in the oil-producing Niger delta live in poverty even though the country is the biggest oil producer on the continent, with output of around two million barrels per day.

 

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HOUSTON (Xinhua) – Thousands of residents have been asked to evacuate as “half the state” of New Mexico faces the threat of growing wildfires, authorities said on Saturday. More than 20 wildfires were burning in at least 16 of the state’s 33 counties, fueled by gusty winds and drought conditions, the state’s governor Michelle Lujan Grisham said at an online news conference on Saturday. “Half the state has a fire issue,” said the governor. Since Friday, a state of emergency has been declared for five counties. “This executive order makes funding and state resources available for communities battling ongoing wildfires,” she said. Earlier on Saturday, fire officials said that two large wildfires in northern New Mexico have merged and burnt a combined 42,341 acres. “Our risk season is incredibly and dangerously early,” the governor said. Local media reported that wildfire season in the region typically starts in May or June. According to local media reports, nearly a dozen large and uncontained wildfires are burning from Arizona to the Texas Panhandle in the U.S. Southwest due to windy and drought conditions. 

 

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TUNIS (AFP) – The death toll from several migrant shipwrecks off the Tunisian coast has risen to 17 people, a judicial official said on Sunday. On Saturday the Tunisian coast guard said four boats carrying 120 African migrants headed for Italy had sunk off the coast near the city of Sfax. Another 5 bodies were recovered on Sunday, adding to 12 found by the coast guard overnight, said Mourad Turki, spokesperson for Sfax Courts. The coast guard said 98 people had been rescued. The coastline of Sfax has become a major departure point for people fleeing conflict and poverty in Africa and the Middle East and seeking a better life in Europe. In recent months, dozens of people have drowned off the Tunisian coast, with an increase in the frequency of attempted crossings from Tunisia and Libya toward Italy. Hundreds of thousands of people have made the perilous Mediterranean crossing in recent years.

 

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TOKYO (AFP) – Rescuers said Sunday they had found nine people, most of them unresponsive, from a boat that sank off Japan’s northern coast with 26 on board a day earlier. “As of 11am (0200GMT), coastguard aircraft have rescued four people, local police aircraft rescued four people and a Self Defence Force aircraft rescued one person from waters or rocky coastal areas,” Japan’s coastguard said in a press release. Earlier, local officials and media said those retrieved so far were unresponsive, though the exact condition of all nine was not immediately clear. Those rescued so far were being taken to medical facilities, with national broadcaster NHK showing at least one person on a stretcher being moved by rescue workers from a helicopter to an ambulance. Search and rescue operations were continuing for others still missing from the Kazu I, which sent a distress signal at 1:13 pm (0413 GMT) on Saturday saying it was sinking in the frigid waters off Japan’s northeastern coast.

 

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CHICAGO (Dispatches) – Two men in their 40s were killed and two other men were injured in a shooting in Englewood Saturday night, police said.  Around 7:30 p.m., officers responded to reports of a shooting in the 1900 block of West Garfield Boulevard where four men were on the sidewalk when they were shot by someone in a gray vehicle driving by, the Chicago Police Department said in a media notification, The Chicago Tribune reported. According to disturbing new data by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, firearms have surpassed vehicle accidents as the leading cause of death among children and teenagers in North America.  As firearm deaths for all Americans reached a new peak in 2020 -- 45,222 -- researchers said the numbers were particularly troubling among people under 19 years old. Gun deaths in that age group saw a 29.5% jump from 2019 to 2020, which was more than twice as high as the relative increase in firearm deaths seen in the general population, according to the CDC, ABCNews reported.