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Eight dead in second mass shooting in Serbia, police hunt killer

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(Last Updated On: May 5, 2023)

A gunman was on the loose on Friday after killing eight people and wounding 13 others near Belgrade, local media reported, the second deadly mass shooting around the Serbian capital in two days, Reuters reported.

Heavily armed police set up roadblocks near the town of Mladenovac, 42 km (26 miles) south of Belgrade, and were searching for a 21-year-old suspect.

The shooting comes less than 48 hours after a 13-year old boy shot dead nine and injured seven at a school in Belgrade before turning himself in.

Interior Ministry officials could not immediately be reached for comment, read the report.

According to local media, the suspect was involved in an altercation in a school yard late on Thursday and left but returned with an assault rifle and a handgun. He opened fire and continued to shoot at people at random through three villages from a moving car.

State broadcaster RTS reported an off-duty policeman and his sister were among those killed.

Around 600 Serbian police, including elite Special Antiterrorist Unit (SAJ) and Gendarmerie launched a manhunt, dubbed Operation Whirlwind, RTS reported.

Inside the village of Dubona near Mladenovac, a Reuters witness saw heavily armed police establishing a checkpoint and searching incoming traffic. Armoured police SUVs and black vans circled the area.

“This is sad, the young policeman is my daughter’s age, born in 1998,” said Danijela, a middle-aged woman in Dubona. “My daughter is taking sedatives, we could not sleep all night, they grew up together.”

The wounded had been transported to several local hospitals, Belgrade’s Pink TV reported.

A helicopter, drones and multiple police patrols were searching for the suspect among the rolling hills around Dubona and nearby villages, scouring abandoned houses and wooded areas, Reuters reported.

“This is terrible for our state, this is a huge defeat. In two days so many … killed,” said Ivan, a Dubona resident.

The Balkan nation begins three days of official mourning on Friday following its first mass school shooting on Wednesday, Reuters reported.

The suspected shooter took two of his father’s handguns to kill eight pupils and a security guard in a hallway and history class at their school in the capital Belgrade.

Hundreds of school children with candles and flowers gathered for a vigil on Thursday evening in streets around the school, while churches planned memorial prayers.

Dozens of high school teachers rallied in front of the Education Ministry in downtown Belgrade on Thursday, demanding improvements to school security and the education system, read the report.

Serbia has an entrenched gun culture, especially in rural areas, but also strict gun control laws. Automatic weapons are illegal and over the years authorities have offered several amnesties to those who surrender them.

After the school shooting in Belgrade, the Serbian government introduced a two-year ban on the issuing of new gun permits, a revision of existing permits and checks on how gun owners store their arms, Reuters reported.

Still, the country, and the rest of Western Balkans, are awash with military-grade weapons and ordnance that remained in private hands after the wars of the 1990s.

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North Korea fires ballistic missiles as Blinken visits Seoul

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(Last Updated On: March 18, 2024)

North Korea fired short-range ballistic missiles into the sea on Monday for the first time in two months, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Seoul for a conference hosted by President Yoon Suk Yeol on advancing democracy, Reuters reported.

South Korea’s military said several short-range missiles flew about 300 km (186 miles) after being fired between 7:44 a.m. and 8:22 a.m (2244 to 2322 GMT Monday) from Pyongyang, the North’s capital, landing off the east coast.

It condemned the launches as a “clear provocation” and said it was sharing information on them with the United States and Japan.

Japan’s defence ministry said three missiles were launched and travelled about 350 km, with a maximum altitude of 50 km, read the report.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida condemned the launches after his country’s coast guard also reported the firing of what it said appeared to be a ballistic missile and specified that it had already ended its flight.

Japan later said that it had detected what appeared to be a second ballistic missile launch by the North, and that both fell outside its exclusive economic zone area.

“North Korea’s series of actions threaten the peace and security of our region and the international community, and are absolutely unacceptable,” Kishida said, calling the launch a violation of U.N. resolutions.

North Korea’s military has been conducting exercises using conventional weapons in recent weeks, often personally overseen by the isolated state’s leader, Kim Jong Un.

The show of force by Pyongyang comes just after the militaries of South Korea and the United States finished 10 days of large-scale annual joint military drills last Thursday.

On Sunday, the South Korean military also mobilised marines, attack helicopters and amphibious assault vehicles in drills aimed at surging troop numbers to reinforce western islands near the sea border with North Korea. The North shelled the islands in 2010.

Blinken is among senior officials from around the world attending the Summit for Democracy conference, which opens on Monday. He will also meet his South Korean counterpart, foreign minister Cho Tae-yul.

The summit is an initiative of U.S. President Joe Biden aimed at discussing ways to stop democratic backsliding and erosion of rights and freedoms worldwide.

In its last ballistic launch on Jan. 14, North Korea fired what it said was an intermediate range hypersonic missile using solid fuel on to test new booster engines and a manoeuvrable warhead.

A month later, it launched multiple cruise missiles off its east coast, including what it said was a new anti-ship missile, Reuters reported.

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Iceland volcano erupts again, spewing fountains of lava

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(Last Updated On: March 17, 2024)

A volcano in Iceland erupted on Saturday for the fourth time since December, the country’s meteorological office said, spewing smoke and bright orange lava into the air in sharp contrast against the dark night sky.

In a video shot from a Coast Guard helicopter and shown on public broadcaster RUV, fountains of molten rock soared from a long fissure in the ground, and lava spread rapidly to each side.

The eruption began at 2023 GMT and the fissure was estimated to be about 2.9 kilometres long, roughly the same size as the last eruption in February, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said in a statement.

Authorities had warned for weeks that an eruption was imminent on the Reykjanes peninsula just south of Iceland’s capital Reykjavik.

The site of the eruption was between Hagafell and Stora-Skogfell, the same area as the previous outbreak on Feb. 8, the Met Office said.

“This was definitely expected,” said Rikke Pedersen, head of the Nordic Volcanological Centre.

“Of course the exact time of the eruption is impossible to predict. The first cues of this moving towards the surface actually only happened about 15 minutes in advance,” she said.

Reykjavik’s Keflavik Airport’s website showed it remained open both for departures and arrivals.

Lava appeared to be flowing rapidly south towards the nearby Grindavik fishing town, where a few of the nearly 4,000 residents had returned following earlier outbreaks, the Met Office said.

The town was again being evacuated, public broadcaster RUV reported. An outbreak in January burned to the ground several of its homes.

“We’re just like, this is business as usual,” Kristin Maria Birgisdottir, who was evacuated from Grindavik in November, told Reuters.

“My son…just called me and said, Mamma, did you know the eruption has started? And I was like, yeah, I did know. Oh, my grandma just told me. So it’s like we don’t even bother telling each other anymore,” she said.

Icelandic police said they had declared a state of emergency for the area.

The nearby Blue Lagoon luxury geothermal spa immediately shut its doors, as it did during previous eruptions.

Iceland, roughly the size of the U.S. state of Kentucky, boasts more than 30 active volcanoes, making the north European island a prime destination for volcano tourism – a niche segment that attracts thousands of thrill seekers.

In 2010, ash clouds from eruptions at the Eyafjallajokull volcano in the south of Iceland spread over large parts of Europe, grounding some 100,000 flights and forcing hundreds of Icelanders to evacuate their homes.

Volcanic outbreaks in the Reykjanes peninsula are so-called fissure eruptions, which do not usually cause large explosions or significant dispersal of ash into the stratosphere.

Gases from the eruption were travelling westwards out at sea, the meteorological office said.

Scientists fear the eruptions could continue for decades, and Icelandic authorities have started building dykes to divert burning lava flows away from homes and critical infrastructure.

The February eruption cut off district heating to more than 20,000 people as lava flows destroyed roads and pipelines.

Located between the Eurasian and the North American tectonic plates, among the largest on the planet, Iceland is a seismic and volcanic hot spot as the two move in opposite directions. – Reuters

 

 

 

 

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At least 34 migrants missing off Tunisia, two die after boat sinks

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(Last Updated On: March 16, 2024)

At least 34 migrants were missing and two died after their boat sank off Tunisia as they tried to cross the Mediterranean to Italy, the Tunisian national guard said on Friday.

The boat which sailed from Libya coast was carrying 70 people, and 34 people were rescued off the southern town of Zarzis.

This week, Tunisian coast guard also recovered five bodies of migrants.

With improving weather in the last weeks, the flow of African migrants, including Tunisians, in boats heading for Italy has increased.

A record 1,313 migrants were reported to have died or went missing off the Tunisian coast last year, a rights group said on last month, highlighting the unending migrant crisis in the North African country.

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