WORLD - The African Mirror

Nov

18

2023

Drilling to rescue 40 men trapped in Indian tunnel halted after snag, cracking sound

WORLD

RESCUERS trying to reach 40 workers trapped in a collapsed highway tunnel in the Indian Himalayas since last weekend suspended work temporarily after hearing a sudden "cracking sound" and the drilling machine developed a snag. The men have been stuck in the hillside tunnel in Uttarakhand state since Sunday morning after it caved in and are safe, authorities said. During efforts to restart the drilling machine, a "large-scale cracking sound" was heard, according to a report from the state-run National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDCL). The sound "created a panic situation in the tunnel as well as to the team working,"…

Nov

17

2023

By NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI and EMILY ROSE

Medics fear for patients inside main Gaza hospital, cut off after Israelis arrive

WORLD

PALESTINIAN medics said that they are increasingly afraid for the lives of hundreds of patients and medical staff at Gaza's biggest hospital, cut off from all links to the outside world for more than a day after Israeli forces entered. Israel said its commandos were still searching through Al Shifa hospital on Thursday, more than a day after they entered its grounds as part of an offensive Israel says aims to wipe out Hamas militants in the Palestinian enclave. "The operation is shaped by our understanding that there is well-hidden terrorist infrastructure in the complex," an Israeli official said, declining to be identified.…

Nov

17

2023

By SAURABH SHARMA

Desperate families count the days until 40 Indian men can be freed from Himalayan tunnel

WORLD

AKASH Singh Negi has spent three sleepless nights outside a blocked highway tunnel under construction in the Indian Himalayas, shivering in the cold while waiting for his father to be rescued. Gabbar Singh Negi is one of 40 men trapped inside since Sunday morning when a portion of the tunnel collapsed and blocked their exit. Efforts to reach them have made little progress. Rescuers started using a new drilling machine sent in by New Delhi on Thursday. The plan is to create space for a pipe that can be used by the trapped men to crawl to safety. They have electricity for…

Nov

17

2023

By TREVOR HUNNICUTT and JEFF MASON

Biden calls Xi a dictator after carefully planned summit

WORLD

U.S. President Joe Biden said that he had not changed his view that Chinese President Xi Jinping was effectively a dictator, a comment likely to land with a thud in Beijing after the two leaders held straightforward summit talks. Biden held a solo news conference after four hours of talks with Xi on the outskirts of San Francisco. At the end of the news conference, he was asked whether he still held the view that Xi was a dictator, something he said in June. "Look, he is. He's a dictator in the sense that he's a guy who runs a country…

Nov

16

2023

By NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI

Israeli troops enter Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital in culmination of siege

WORLD

ISRAELI troops entered Gaza's biggest hospital and were searching its rooms and basement, witnesses said, culminating a days-long siege that caused global alarm over the fate of thousands of civilians trapped inside. Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City has become the main target of the ground operation by Israeli forces, who say Hamas fighters have the "beating heart" of their operations in a headquarters in tunnels beneath it, which Hamas denies. World attention has been focused on the fate of hundreds of patients trapped inside without power to operate basic medical equipment and thousands of displaced civilians who had sought shelter there. Gaza officials say…

Nov

16

2023

By CORINA PONS, HORACI GARCIA and BORJA SUAREZ

Migrant children treated like adults as record influx overwhelms Canary Islands

WORLD

ORPHANED during a coup in his homeland Guinea, teenager Moussa Camara took to sea in a wooden boat with 240 other migrants, enduring an 11-day voyage, half of it without food and fresh water, before reaching the Canary Islands. Twenty people died en route, their bodies dropped in the sea, the travellers said, more victims of one of the world's most perilous migrant routes. Yet when Camara made it on October 27 exhausted, famished and nursing sores from the sun, another problem beset him: police registered him as an adult and he was not allowed into a centre for minors…

Nov

16

2023

By SAURABH SHARMA

Indian rescuers hope bigger drill will reach 40 trapped in tunnel

WORLD

RESCUERS in north Indian mountains trying to reach 40 road workers trapped in a collapsed tunnel for more than three days will soon get help from a heavy drilling machine airlifted in to the site, officials said. The workers are safe and rescuers have been able to communicate with them and send them food, water and oxygen through a pipe since the early Sunday collapse, but huge boulders have stymied efforts to dig an escape route for them. "The new machine has reached the nearest helipad. It is being assembled, and will be sent to the site soon,” said the…

Nov

15

2023

By NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI and DAN WILLIAMS

Israel-Hamas war: Palestinians dig mass grave inside Israeli-encircled Gaza hospital

WORLD

PALESTINIANS trapped inside Gaza's biggest hospital were digging a mass grave to bury patients who died under Israeli encirclement and said no plan was in place to evacuate babies despite Israel announcing an offer to send portable incubators. Israeli forces have surrounded Gaza City's Al Shifa hospital which they say sits atop an underground headquarters of Hamas militants. Hamas, Gaza's ruling Islamist group, denies fighters are present and says 650 patients and 5,000-7,000 other civilians are trapped inside the hospital grounds, under constant fire from snipers and drones. It says 40 patients have died in recent days, including three premature babies…

Nov

15

2023

By SAURABH SHARMA

Rescuers drill to reach 40 workers in India tunnel collapse

WORLD

RESCUE workers battled to reach 40 Indian workers trapped inside a collapsed Himalayan highway tunnel for almost 60 hours, drilling through debris to fix a wide steel pipe which they hope can be used to pull the men out. The trapped men are safe and healthy, authorities said, and are being supplied food, water and oxygen through a pipe. Officials are also in regular contact with them. The 4.5-km (3-mile) tunnel, which is being built in Uttarakhand state on a national highway that is part of the Char Dham Hindu pilgrimage route, caved in around 5:30 a.m. on Sunday (2400…

Nov

15

2023

By The African Mirror

The lion sleeps it off after Saturday stroll through Italian town

WORLD

A lion that escaped from an Italian circus has been taking well-deserved naps to recover from a Saturday night out in the seaside town of Ladispoli that sparked panic before authorities managed to recapture him. The adult lion, named "Kimba", escaped from the "Rony Roller" circus on Saturday afternoon and was on the loose for around seven hours before being sedated with an anaesthetic dart. Footage and pictures, some taken by locals, went viral and showed the lion roaming the town streets, skirting houses and fences, and standing in front of a carabinieri police car. Local authorities are investigating how…