News in Brief

Date: 20 April 2022 - 21:31

News ID: ۱۰۱۸۵۶

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — More than 500 Rohingya refugees escaped from detention in Malaysia early Wednesday following a protest but most have been rearrested, immigration officials said. The Immigration Department said 528 Rohingya fled after breaking a block door and barrier grill at a temporary detention center in northern Penang state. Police and other agencies were deployed and 362 detainees have been rearrested, the department said in a statement. “The search for the remaining detainees is continuing,” it said, without giving further details on what sparked the breakout.

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HAVANA (AP) — Two days before the opening of migration talks between Cuba and the United States, which have been paralyzed for four years, a high-ranking Cuban official lamented Washington’s “incoherent” and “differentiated” migration policies, and exhorted Washington to comply with current agreements. The migration meeting will take place amid a dramatic increase in arrivals of Cubans at the southern border of the United States. “We are noticing, and now much more these days, that there is a differentiated and incoherent approach by the United States toward the migratory issue,” Deputy Foreign Minister Josefina Vidal told a small group of journalists on Tuesday.

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LONDON (Al- Jazeera) - Politicians in Finland are due to start debating whether the country should seek membership in the NATO military alliance after Russia-Ukraine war prompted a spike in political and public support for joining the transatlantic bloc. The parliament session on Wednesday comes despite warnings by Russia of a nuclear buildup in the Baltic should Finland and neighboring Sweden join NATO. Finland’s 200 members of parliament have received a government-commissioned “white paper” that assessed the implications of NATO membership alongside other security options, such as increased bilateral defense agreements.

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ABUJA (Reuters) - Three people were killed and 19 injured after an explosion at a crowded market in Nigeria’s Taraba state in the east of the country, local police said on Wednesday. Nigeria is plagued by insecurity as armed gangs and an Islamist insurgency carry out attacks against communities and security targets in northern parts of the country. Usman Abdullahi, police spokesman for Taraba, said the blast in the rural Iware community occurred on Tuesday at a drinking spot in a section of a busy market, leaving three dead and more than a dozen people with injuries. “It is suspected to have been caused by improvised explosive device that detonated. Investigations are ongoing,” Abdullahi told Reuters via a phone message.

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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Authorities in Puerto Rico have said that an electronic toll collection system was the target of a cyberattack over the weekend, the latest such incident in recent years. The system, known as AutoExpreso, is run by a private operator called Professional Account Management. Officials said the FBI is investigating the attack and added that so far, it doesn’t appear any confidential information has been stolen. It wasn’t immediately clear when the system would be back online. The incident reported Saturday comes three months after an attack crippled the internet provider, phone system and official online page of Puerto Rico’s Senate.