News in Brief

Date: 02 August 2020 - 21:44

News ID: ۸۱۳۲۶

DOUALA (Reuters) -- Suspected militants from Takfiri group Boko Haram killed at least 13 people and wounded eight others in a grenade attack in northern Cameroon on Sunday, a security source and a local official told Reuters. The unidentified assailants threw a grenade into a group of people inside a camp for displaced people in the commune of Mozogo near the Nigerian border in the Far North region, said mayor Medjeweh Boukar. Boukar was informed by locals that 13 had died. A security official who confirmed the attack said that 2 wounded also died, bringing the toll to 15. Boko Haram has been fighting for a decade to carve out a Takfiri caliphate based in Nigeria. The violence, which has cost the lives of 30,000 people and displaced millions more, has frequently spilled over into neighboring Cameroon, Niger and Chad. In June last year, around 300 suspected Boko Haram militants swarmed onto an island on Lake Chad in Cameroon’s far north and killed 24 people, including 16 Cameroonian soldiers stationed at military outposts.

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CAIRO (Reuters) -- Egypt said that part of a seismic survey planned by Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean potentially encroached on waters where Cairo claims exclusive rights. An advisory issued last month by Turkey for the survey overlaps with Egypt’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), constituting "a violation and an attack on Egypt’s sovereign rights”, the Egyptian foreign ministry said in a statement. It did not give details, but said the potential encroachment came under point eight of Turkey’s advisory. Seismic surveys are part of preparatory work for potential hydrocarbons exploration.  The announcement of the survey escalated tensions between Turkey on one side and Greece and Cyprus on the other, amid conflicting claims to offshore hydrocarbon resources.  Turkey has since indicated it could pause exploration operations pending talks. Egypt is a regional rival of Turkey and has close relations with Greece and Cyprus.

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NEW DELHI (Reuters) -- Indian police raided rural hamlets and made arrests to break up a bootlegging cartel on Sunday, after 86 people died from consuming illegally-produced alcohol this week in the northwestern state of Punjab, officials said. Punjab police have so far arrested at least 25 people and conducted more than 100 raids across three districts, seizing hundreds of liters of liquor from villages and road-side eateries, the state’s police chief Dinkar Gupta said on Saturday. A government official said some of the seized liquid was denatured spirit, which is typically used in the paint and hardware industry. Deaths from illegally-produced alcohol, known locally as "hooch” or "country liquor”, are a regular occurrence in India, where many cannot afford branded spirits. Recent coronavirus-related lockdowns have also made it difficult for consumers to enjoy a regular tipple. On Friday, 10 men died in a southern Indian states after consuming sanitizer derived from alcohol, as local liquor shops were closed, police said.

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BANGKOK (Reuters) -- Thailand’s prime minister has ordered a second autopsy be conducted after the death of a key witness in a deadly hit-and-run case linked to the heir to the Red Bull energy drink fortune, amid public anger that the charges were dropped. Jaruchart Mardthong, 40, died in what police said looked like a motorcycle accident on Thursday, amid public suspicion about the exact cause of his death. Results of an initial autopsy have not yet been released. Local media said his family had planned to cremate the body on Sunday. He was a key witness in the police investigation into Vorayuth "Boss” Yoovidhya, who was accused of killing a police officer in 2012, according to deputy government spokeswoman Traisulee Traisoranakul. Police said last week that all charges against Vorayuth had been dropped, stirring public anger about the country’s entrenched culture of impunity for the rich and well-connected.

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MOSCOW/MINSK (Reuters) -- A dispute between Moscow and Minsk over the detention of more than 30 men who Belarus accused of being Russian mercenaries deepened, as the two sides contradicted each other about the group’s plans. The arrests this week, shortly before an Aug. 9 presidential election in Belarus, could further strain relations between Minsk and its traditional ally Russia, which soured after the neighbors failed to agree on an oil supply contract for this year. Russia said on Thursday that the men, who it described as employees of a private security firm, had stayed in Belarus after missing their connecting flight to Istanbul.  President Alexander Lukashenko cast doubt on this version. "There was no Istanbul... It’s clear that the group has had another goals. It is the task of the investigation to find out about those goals”, he said, according to state news agency Belta, after hearing reports from the heads of state security and investigation committee.

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HONG KONG (Reuters) -- Seven Chinese health officials were due to arrive in Hong Kong on Sunday, the first members of a 60-person team that will carry out widespread testing for COVID-19 in the territory as the global financial hub races to halt a third wave of illness.
China’s National Health Commission on Saturday announced their scheduled arrival. Members of the team are from public hospitals in Guangdong province while a specialist team of six from Wuhan, where the novel coronavirus first appeared, will help prepare part of the AsiaWorld Expo convention centre as a facility for COVID-19 patients.