YEREVAN (Anadolu) – Armenia’s government resigned on Sunday, as required by the country’s Constitution, after the country’s newly elected parliament convened for its first session in the capital Yerevan. The move was announced by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in a video address. “According to Article 158 of the Constitution, the government resigns on the day of the first session of the newly elected National Assembly,” he said. Under Armenia’s Constitution, the outgoing government continues to perform its duties in a caretaker capacity until a new cabinet is formed. The first session of Armenia’s newly elected National Assembly was marked by controversies as, for the first time in the country’s history, the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II, was not invited to attend, drawing criticism from opposition lawmakers.

 

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MOSCOW (Xinhua) – Three people were killed and 21 others injured after an improvised explosive device detonated at a restaurant in central Moscow, Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NAC) said Saturday. According to the NAC, a woman attempted to bring the explosive device into the restaurant located near Kudrinskaya Square. She was killed when the device detonated. One of the other two fatalities was a security guard who had prevented the woman from entering the restaurant with the explosive device, the NAC said. The third victim was a restaurant visitor. Earlier reports said the explosion occurred near a summer cafe in the Kudrinskaya Square area, killing three people and injuring 15.

 

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BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A plane carrying European tourists to view the famed Nazca Lines crashed into a field Saturday outside the Peruvian city of Nazca, killing 13 people, local authorities said. Nazca’s municipal government said the plane departed from the nearby city of Ica and was operated by Peruvian company Aerodiana. On its website, the airline said that it has offered scenic flights over the Nazca lines for the past 14 years using Cessna Grand Caravan planes. The Nazca Lines are a group of extensive geoglyphs scraped into the desert around Nazca hundreds of years ago by Peru’s Indigenous inhabitants. The lines form images of animals that can only be fully appreciated from planes or viewing towers.

 

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JAKARTA (AFP) - Five people have been found dead and 41 are missing after an Indonesian ferry carrying at least 250 people caught fire while at sea, officials say. The captain of the ship reported the fire - off Madura island - as the vessel sailed from the country’s second-largest city, Surabaya in East Java, to Makassar in South Sulawesi, according to Basarnas, the National Search and Rescue Agency. Footage played by local Indonesian news outlet iNews shows large numbers of people in life jackets on what appears to be a lifeboat. Other clips show people climbing down from the ferry that has flames and plumes of smoke coming from the top of the vessel. Basarnas posted a video to its TikTok, with a statement saying at 08:24 (02:24 GMT) the Surabaya Search and Rescue office received information that passenger ship KMP Mutiara Sentosa 2 was on fire.

 

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CEUTA, Spain (Reuters) - The death toll from Thursday’s mass rush into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco reached at least 72 on Sunday as five more bodies were found along Ceuta’s coast, officials said. More than 50,000 people crossed into Ceuta by land and sea in an unprecedented surge that began on Thursday at one of the European Union’s only two land borders with Africa, prompting alarm across the bloc. More than 48,000 returned to Morocco within 48 hours and more again over the weekend, Spanish authorities said.