Category: English

ISTANBUL – A snowstorm has battered Istanbul since Thursday, disrupting daily life, causing delays in air, sea, and land transportation, and forcing schools to close for a second day.

The storm brought a significant drop in temperature and heavy snowfall, peaking on Friday.

Disruptions were reported at Istanbul’s two major airports, namely Istanbul Airport on the European side and Sabiha Gokcen Airport on the Asian side.

Snow-covered runways caused some flights to circle in the air, with some aircraft reporting fuel emergencies.

Sabiha Gokcen Airport authorities said 45 percent of Friday’s flights were canceled, along with 30 percent on Saturday and 10 percent on Sunday. Turkish Airlines also reported cancellations at both Sabiha Gokcen and Istanbul Airports.

Local media reported minor accidents on icy roads, while ferry services experienced cancellations and delays.

Istanbul Governor Davut Gul announced that all educational institutions in the city would remain closed on Friday. Motorcycle vehicles and couriers were also banned from traffic from Friday midnight until further notice.

The Istanbul Disaster Response Plan is in operation across all 39 districts, with efforts to salt roads and clear snow-covered areas ongoing, Gul said.

The Istanbul Governor’s Office said over 1,000 homeless people had been placed in shelters.

Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu urged citizens to avoid driving, use public transport, or refrain from going outside unless absolutely necessary.

Authorities forecast the snowstorm will last until Monday morning, with temperatures fluctuating below zero at night.

XINHUA

COLOMBO – Two people were killed in a wild elephant attack in Aralaganwila in Sri Lanka’s North Central Province on Thursday night, local media reported on Friday, citing police.

The victims were identified as a 72-year-old man and a 75-year-old woman from the same family.

Sri Lanka has been grappling with a severe human-elephant conflict for years. Between 2015 and 2024, 3,477 wild elephants and 1,190 people have died as a result of the crisis, Minister of Environment Dammika Patabendi told the parliament earlier this month.

The North Central Province has recorded the highest number of human-elephant conflict incidents in the country. Of the province’s 29 Divisional Secretariat Divisions, 27 have seen a sharp rise in such conflicts in recent years.

XINHUA

SYDNEY – Authorities in the Australian state of Queensland have reported a fifth death from melioidosis linked to heavy rainfall.

An elderly person from the city of Townsville, over 1,000 km northwest of Brisbane, has become the fifth person in the state’s tropical northern region to die of melioidosis in the current wet season, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) quoted Queensland Health as saying on Friday.

Melioidosis is a rare tropical disease associated with the wet season that is spread through contact with contaminated water, soil and air.

Townsville and its surrounding regions were hit by catastrophic damaging flooding earlier in February.

Queensland Health on Feb. 12 said that there had been two deaths from melioidosis in the state’s far north since the start of the wet season in November.

On Wednesday it confirmed two more deaths, both in the city of Cairns north of Townsville, and reported that there had been 41 cases of melioidosis since Jan. 1.

Steven Donohue, director of the Townsville Public Health Unit, said on Friday that more than 20 cases have been recorded in the local area in February.

He told the ABC that people cleaning up from the floods should wear boots, long pants and long sleeves and wear a mask when using hoses.

XINHUA

JERUSALEM – Israeli police on Thursday reported a series of explosions on buses in central Israel in what they said appeared to be a militant attack. No injuries were reported.

Police spokesman Asi Aharoni told Channel 13 TV that explosives were found on two other buses. He called on the public to be alert and report any suspicious objects to authorities.

The explosions took place just hours after Hamas released the bodies of four Israeli hostages held in Gaza — the first of eight hostages that Israel believes are dead and to be returned during the current phase of the ceasefire.

Police rushed forces to the scene in Bat Yam, a Tel Aviv suburb, as they searched for suspects. Police spokesman Haim Sargrof says drivers have scanned all buses and trains, and those scans are complete.

“We need to determine if a single suspect placed explosives on a number of buses, or if there were multiple suspects,” he said.

Tzvika Brot, mayor of Bat Yam, said it was a miracle that no one was hurt. He said the buses had finished their routes and were in a parking lot. He said one of the unexploded bombs was being defused in the nearby town of Holon.

Sargrof said the explosives matched explosives used in the West Bank, but he declined to elaborate.

Israel has repeatedly carried out army raids on suspected Palestinian militants in the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. As part of that crackdown, it has greatly restricted entry into Israel for Palestinians from the occupied territory.

Since the ceasefire in Gaza took effect on Jan. 19, Israel has been conducting a broad military offensive against Palestinian militants in the West Bank. In the past, militants have entered Israel and carried out shootings and bombings in Israeli cities.

AN-AP/Feb 20, 2025

BEIRUT – Israel said Friday it struck crossings on the Lebanon-Syria border used by Hezbollah to smuggle weapons, with a Syria war monitor reporting an unspecified number of people wounded in the attack.

The Israeli military said its air forces “struck crossing points in the area of the Lebanon-Syria border” used by the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group “in attempts to smuggle weapons into Lebanese territory.”

“These activities constitute a blatant violation of the ceasefire understandings between Israel and Lebanon,” the statement added.

A fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has been in place since November 27, after more than a year of hostilities including two months of all-out war. Both sides have accused the other of violating the deal.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said the overnight strikes put an “illegal crossing” near Lebanon’s frontier town of Wadi Khaled, which borders Syria’s Homs province, “out of service” and wounded a number of people.

The raids came “after a convoy of smugglers’ vehicles was observed headed from Syria toward Lebanon,” added the Britain-based Observatory, which has a network of sources inside Syria.

Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman reported “heavy material damage to buildings and vehicles.”

Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported “enemy aircraft flying at low altitude over the city of Hermel” and villages in the Bekaa Valley in the country’s northeast near the Syrian border.

Under the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire, Lebanon’s military was to deploy in south Lebanon alongside UN peacekeepers as the Israeli army withdrew over a 60-day period that was later extended to February 18.

Hezbollah was to pull back north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and dismantle remaining military infrastructure in the south.

Israel announced just before the latest deadline that it would temporarily keep troops in “five strategic points” near the border.

Earlier this month, the Israeli military said it carried out an air strike targeting a tunnel on the Syria-Lebanon border used by Hezbollah to smuggle weapons.

In January, Israel carried out air strikes in Lebanon targeting areas in the east and south according to Lebanese state media, with the Israeli military saying it hit Hezbollah targets including smuggling routes along the border with Syria.

Syria shares a 330-kilometer (205-mile) border with Lebanon, with no official demarcation.

Hezbollah lost a supply route when opposition forces in December ousted Bashar Assad in Syria, where Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes since war broke out in 2011.

Hezbollah holds sway in large parts of the Lebanese-Syrian border region, and had fought alongside Assad’s troops during the war.

AN-AFP

HRADEE KRALOVE, Czech Republic – A 16-year-old boy killed two women in a knife attack at a discount shop in the Czech Republic on Thursday, police said, adding the motive remained unclear.

Police arrested the teenager, a Czech national, minutes after the attack at an Action branch on the outskirts of Hradec Kralove, around 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Prague.

“Both of those attacked suffered injuries which were so serious that they could not be saved despite all efforts of the rescuers,” police said on X.

Police spokeswoman Iva Kormosova said the teenager attacked a shop assistant at the counter and another worker in a service area of the store.

The attacker’s motive was unclear but that there was nothing to indicate a terror attack, police said.
“The information we have for now seems to suggest he chose the victims randomly,” they added.

Rescuers received the first call about 0730 GMT, half an hour after the shop had opened.

“When we arrived, we found two people stabbed,” Anatolij Truhlar, head doctor of the local air rescue service, told the private CNN Prima News TV channel.

“Unfortunately, despite 40 minutes of resuscitation efforts, both persons died,” he added.
Police were deployed outside the Action discount store where a lone candle flickered, and a part of an adjacent car park was closed with police tape until Thursday afternoon.

“I think you’re not safe anywhere, given what’s going on around us,” passer-by Adela Ptackova told AFP.

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala expressed condolences to the families of the victims, calling the murders “an incomprehensible, horrendous act.”

Terror attacks are rare in the Czech Republic, an EU and NATO member of 10.9 million people, but in 2023 a student killed 14 people and wounded 25 in a shooting rampage at a Prague university.

The Czech Republic’s southern neighbor Austria is reeling from the murder of a teenager in a knife attack by a Syrian asylum seeker in the city of Villach at the weekend.

AN-AFP/Feb 20, 2025

BEIRUT – Seven civilians, including a woman and a child, were killed Thursday when leftover munitions exploded inside a house in northwest Syrian Arab Republic, a war monitor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported the deadly blast a day after another organization said two-thirds of Syrians risked being killed or wounded by unexploded ordnance.

“Seven civilians, including a woman and a child, were killed when leftover munitions stored inside a house” in Idlib province exploded, said the Observatory, adding the toll was provisional.

An AFP correspondent saw civil defense personnel working to remove rubble and pull victims from the destroyed house.

Mohammed Ibrahim, from the civil defense in Idlib, said they received a report “of an explosion of unknown provenance in Nayrab, and when teams headed to the site, they found unexploded ordnance.”

Syria’s conflict has killed more than half a million people and forced millions from their homes since erupting in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.

Non-governmental organization Humanity and Inclusion said Wednesday that of the around one million munitions that have landed or been planted across Syria since then, experts estimate that 100,000 to 300,000 had never detonated.

It’s “an absolute disaster,” said HI’s Syria program director Danila Zizi, noting “more than 15 million people (are) at risk” out of the country’s estimated population of some 23 million.

As hundreds of thousands of Syrians return to their homes after Islamist-led rebels toppled longtime ruler Bashar Assad in December, “urgent action is needed to mitigate the risk of accident,” HI said.

AN-AFP/Feb 20, 2025

ANTANANARIVO – The death toll from the heavy rains that have hit Madagascar since Feb. 14 rose to 11, according to the latest report from the National Office for Risk and Disaster Management (BNGRC) released on Thursday.

Five regions of the Indian Ocean island country have been severely affected, including the national capital of Antananarivo and its surrounding areas. Seven of the victims were in and around Antananarivo, while the other four were in the southeastern part of the country.

Heavy rains and subsequent floods have affected more than 16,000 people, or 4,260 households, mainly in the central highlands and southeast of the country. As a result, more than 9,000 people had to be relocated to temporary accommodation sites.

The BNGRC also expressed regret over the flooding of 3,000 houses, 13 of which were destroyed.

Classes have been suspended in the region around Antananarivo since Monday and will continue throughout the week.

Local authorities have urged residents to remain vigilant in case of further bad weather over the next few days.

XINHUA

BOGOTA – An explosion in downtown Bogota, Colombia’s capital, killed one person and injured seven others on Tuesday night, the city’s mayor, Carlos Fernando Galan, confirmed Wednesday.

“We are supporting @PoliciaBogota to find those responsible for activating, at about 10 pm (Tuesday), an explosive device in the San Bernardo neighborhood. Eight people were injured and were transferred to the Santa Clara Hospital, where one, unfortunately, died,” Galan posted on social media platform X.

The commander of the Metropolitan Police of Bogota, William Lara, said from the scene of the explosion that investigators were looking into the incident.

“Our Judicial Police and Anti-Explosives technicians are verifying whether it corresponds to an improvised device or an industrial explosive device,” he said, adding authorities had begun reviewing security cameras in the area.

Police are also gathering eyewitness accounts of the explosion to quickly identify those responsible, said the police chief.

XINHUA

JERUSALEM – The Israeli military said it killed three “wanted terrorists” in the occupied West Bank Wednesday, and a Palestinian official reported that Israeli forces were holding the bodies of three people.

Soldiers “eliminated three wanted terrorists in the area of Al Faraa, who sold weapons for terror purposes,” the military said in a statement.

“Two additional wanted individuals were apprehended.”

A Palestinian official confirmed that three people had been killed by Israeli forces.

“Three people were assassinated, and their bodies are being held” by the Israeli forces, Tubas governor Ahmad Al-Asaad told AFP.

Violence in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has escalated since the October 2023 outbreak of war in the Gaza Strip.

At least 897 Palestinians including militants have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since the Gaza war began, according to an AFP tally based on figures provided by the Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah.

At least 32 Israelis, including some soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or confrontations during Israeli operations in the West Bank over the same period, according to official Israeli figures.

AN-AFP