World
Volcanic eruption burns houses in Indonesia, killing at least 6 people
MAUMERE, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency said Monday that at least six people have died as a series of volcanic eruptions widens on the remote island of Flores.
The eruption at Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki just after midnight on Monday spewed thick brownish ash as high as 2,000 meters (6,500 feet) into the air and hot ashes hit a nearby village, burning down several houses including a convent of Catholic nuns, said Firman Yosef, an official at the Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki monitoring post.
The Disaster Management Agency lowered the known death toll from an earlier report of nine, saying it had received updated information from local authorities. It said that information was still being collected about the extent of casualties and damage, as local media reports said more people were buried in collapsed houses.
Authorities also raised the danger level and widened the danger zone for Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki on Monday, following a series of eruptions that began last week.
The country’s volcano monitoring agency increased the volcano’s alert status to the highest level and more than doubled the exclusion zone to a 7-kilometer (4.3-mile) radius after midnight on Monday as eruptions became more frequent.
The agency said at least 10,000 people have been affected by the eruption in Wulanggitang District, in the six nearby villages of Pululera, Nawokote, Hokeng Jaya, Klatanlo, Boru and Boru Kedang.
In Ile Bura District, 4 villages were affected, namely Dulipali Village, Nobo, Nurabelen and Riang Rita, while in Titehena District it affected four villages, namely Konga Village, Kobasoma, Bokang Wolomatang and Watowara.
He said volcanic material was thrown up to 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) from its crater, blanketeing nearby villages and towns with tons of volcanic debris and forcing residents to flee.
A nun in Hokeng village died and another was missing, said Agusta Palma, the head of the Saint Gabriel Foundation that oversees convents on the majority-Catholic island.
“Our nuns ran out in panic under a rain of volcanic ash in the darkness,” Palma said.
Photos and videos circulated on social media showed tons of volcanic debris covering houses up to their rooftops in villages like Hokeng, where hot volcanic material set fire to houses.
It’s Indonesia’s second volcanic eruption in as many weeks. West Sumatra province’s Mount Marapi, one of the country’s most active volcanos, erupted on Oct. 27, spewing thick columns of ash at least three times and blanketing nearby villages with debris, but no casualties were reported. ___ Associated Press writers Niniek Karmini and Edna Tarigan contributed to this report.
World
‘28 Years Later’ Trailer: Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes Fight Zombies in Danny Boyle’s Apocalyptic Threequel — but Is Cillian Murphy One of Them?
Lace up your running shoes and get ready to return to Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s world of fleet-footed zombies because “28 Years Later” has its first official trailer.
The third installment in the “28 Days Later” franchise sees Boyle and Garland return to their respective roles in the franchise as director and writer, having served as executive producers on Juan Carlos Fersnadillo’s 2007 sequel “28 Weeks Later.”
The film is led by franchise newcomers Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer and Ralph Fiennes, who are seen throughout the creepy trailer fighting off zombies. Though original movie star Cillian Murphy had been reported to be reprising his role as Jim in addition to being an executive producer, he appears absent from the trailer and is not listed as a cast member in the promotional material. However, the new trailer features a particularly jarring clip of a zombie that some on social media speculated bears a resemblance to the Oscar winner. (Columbia Pictures did not immediately respond to Variety‘s request for comment on the matter.)
Other new cast members include Erin Kellyman and Jack O’Connell. The film’s official synopsis reads: “It’s been almost three decades since the rage virus escaped a biological weapons laboratory, and now, still in a ruthlessly enforced quarantine, some have found ways to exist amidst the infected. One such group of survivors lives on a small island connected to the mainland by a single, heavily-defended causeway. When one of the group leaves the island on a mission into the dark heart of the mainland, he discovers secrets, wonders and horrors that have mutated not only the infected but other survivors as well.”
“28 Years Later” will serve as the first in a trilogy of sequel films spearheaded by Boyle and Garland. It shot back-to-back with “28 Years Later II: The Bone Temple,” the second film in the trilogy, directed by Nia DaCosta.
The film was shot by cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle using an iPhone 15 Pro Max. Andrew MacDonald and Peter Rice will serve as producers alongside Garland and Boyle. “28 Years Later” is produced by Columbia Pictures in association with BFI, DNA Films, and Decibel Films. The film will be released June 20, 2025.
Watch the trailer below.
World
Biden seems to take credit for Assad's downfall amid fears of Islamic State revival
JERUSALEM — The rapid-fire collapse of the Syrian dictatorship of Bashar Assad has engulfed the Biden administration in a new wave of criticism about its efforts to claim a win for the end of one of the most brutal regimes in the Middle East.
Questions abound about whether Biden’s foreign policy team had a significant blind spot in Syria, where roughly 900 U.S. troops and American military contractors operate in the northeastern part of the war-ravaged country.
Speaking from the White House on Sunday, President Biden seemed to claim a much-needed victory for his administration’s foreign policy, “Our approach has shifted the balance of power in the Middle East.”
“This is a direct result of the blows that Ukraine, Israel have delivered upon their own self-defense with unflagging support of the United States,” he said.
John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America’s Gemunder Center for Defense and Strategy and who served as Vice President Dick Cheney’s national security adviser, told Fox News Digital, “President Biden’s efforts to take credit for the fatal weakening of Iran and Hezbollah is, frankly speaking, unseemly.”
SYRIAN DICTATOR BASHAR ASSAD FLEES INTO EXILE AS ISLAMIST REBELS CONQUER COUNTRY
“The harsh reality is that if Israel had succumbed to the Biden administration’s pressures and followed its advice over the past 14 months of war, Iran and Hezbollah would have been far stronger and Israel far weaker than they are today,” said Hannah, who also served in the Clinton administration.
“There’s no doubt that President Biden deserves a lot of credit for his unflagging support of Israel’s ability to defend itself against the multifront war that Iran and its proxies launched on Oct. 7, 2023,” he continued. “But what he refused to do was provide that same unflagging support of Israel’s ability to actually win that war by inflicting a comprehensive defeat on its enemies, particularly Iran and Hezbollah, precisely the element that was required to make last week’s historic events in Syria possible.”
“The collapse of the Syrian regime is a direct result of the severe blows we inflicted on Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters at a press conference on Monday. “I would like to clarify: challenges are still expected in the campaign, and our hand is outstretched.”
He also expressed appreciation to President-elect Donald Trump for recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights in 2019.
“The Golan will forever be an inseparable part of Israel,” he said, per Israeli news agency TPS-IL.
FALL OF SYRIA’S BASHAR ASSAD IS STRATEGIC BLOW TO IRAN AND RUSSIA, EXPERTS SAY
Fox News Digital has reported that since Hamas terrorists from Gaza slaughtered nearly 1,200 people, including more than 40 Americans, on Oct. 7, 2023, in southern Israel, the Biden administration sought to curtail Israel’s efforts to root out Hamas, as well as Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, and not launch counterstrikes against Iran’s regime.
After Biden’s speech, a senior administration official seemed to echo the president’s bravado, “I think U.S. policy is a direct contributor to this for the reasons I laid out, and the president laid out, is significant, is important, has completely changed the equation in the Middle East, and you saw that play out here over the last week.”
Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iran expert and senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, offered a different take, saying, “Respectfully, it’s a bit odd to have an administration, which pulled punches against the Assad regime in Syria as well as its patron, the Islamic Republic of Iran, try to take credit for the fall of the Assad regime.”
“Less, not more, has defined Biden’s risk-averse approach to the region,” he continued. “Over the past year, the administration has watched Israel box in the Iran-backed threat network in the region, and in so doing break taboos that have long hindered Washington’s regional policy.”
Obama-Biden failures
Democrat politicians like former Secretary of State John Kerry and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi courted Assad before his use of chemical weapons on his population after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011. Former National Security Council spokesperson Gordon Johndroe said about Pelosi’s 2007 visit with Assad, “On the contrary, these visits have convinced the Assad regime that its actions in support of terrorists have no consequences.”
Deeply misjudging Middle East dictators and radical Islamist movements has plagued the Biden and Obama administrations, according to experts.
The Biden-Harris administration faced congressional criticism for the reportedly premature and botched withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 that resulted in the radical Islamist Taliban movement absorbing the country and U.S. weapons.
TRUMP URGES US TO STAY OUT OF SYRIAN CIVIL WAR, BLAMING OBAMA FOR FAILURE AS ISLAMISTS CLOSE IN ON CAPITAL
Islamic State threats
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wrote on X, “As to U.S. interests in Syria, there are over 50,000 ISIS prisoners primarily being held by the Kurdish forces who helped President Trump destroy the caliphate. These ISIS fighters planned and executed plots against the American homeland and our allies. A breakout and reestablishment of ISIS is a major threat to the U.S. and our friends. Obama and Biden got this wrong big time, requiring President Trump to clean up their mess.”
On Sunday it was announced that U.S. Central Command launched dozens of key strikes against ISIS in a move said to stop the terror group from taking advantage of the fluid situation in Syria.
The Syrian Kurds have faced slashing attacks from Turkey and pro-Turkey Syrian Sunni jihadi organizations, including the Islamic State, over the years.
Sinam Sherkany Mohamad, the representative of the Syrian Democratic Council mission in the United States, told Fox News Digital, “Defeating Assad was the goal of all Syrians, to build a pluralistic democratic system that guarantees the rights of all ethnic and religious components and diversity in Syria.”
“ISIS is still present in the Syrian desert and has sleeper cells in northern and eastern Syria in addition to the prisons of ISIS fighters and the Al-Holl camp, all of which threaten our people, while warning the current situation could whet ISIS’s appetite to become active again,” Mohamad said.
Incoming freshman Rep. Abraham Hamadeh, R-Ariz., told Fox News Digital, “We cannot ignore the impact of President Biden’s weak leadership, which has eroded deterrence and encouraged our allies to hedge their bets. President Trump understood that arming the Kurds and working with them to dismantle ISIS was a critical success. The reward for standing with America should never be betrayal or abandonment.”
Hamadeh, whose parents are Syrian immigrants, added, “We must ensure Syrian Kurdish civilians are not caught in the crossfire and that they are integral to any peace process.”
Max Abrahms, a leading expert on counterterrorism and a tenured professor of political science at Northeastern University, told Fox News Digital, “It is also expected that ISIS will manifest as a non-trivial issue in the new Syria. It is on this issue where the Kurds and America have the most strategic overlap, as both regard ISIS as a serious threat. The more ISIS presents as a problem, the stronger the logic of maintaining American forces to work with the Syrian Democratic Forces.”
The U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces has been a key player in stopping the spread of ISIS in Syria.
World
The real work on Mercosur deal starts now, says French liberal MEP
Last week, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen signed the EU-Mercosur deal, despite opposition from France.
With French opposition remaining to the EU-Mercosur deal struck last week by the EU, the real work on the deal starts now, French liberal MEP Marie-Pierre Vedrenne tells the Radio Schuman podcast today.
Last week, the EU finalised the contentious Mercosur agreement with some South Amercan countries, a deal that follows on-and-off negotiations that began in 1999.
However, France—one of the largest EU member states—along with several other countries with sizeable dairy and beef industries, opposes the agreement. They argue it could expose local farmers to unfair competition and heighten environmental risks.
To block the deal, France is attempting to form a coalition of like-minded member states. Under EU rules, it would need the support of at least three other countries representing 35% of the bloc’s population. Additionally, the agreement must gain approval from the European Parliament.
In the second segment of the podcast, we look at EU ministers discussions with the Commission on the economic plans for their countries. Are they performing well?
On the last part of the show, Radio Schuman reveals which airlines are using more sustainable form of fuel.
Radio Schuman is hosted and produced by Maïa de la Baume, with journalist and production assistant Eleonora Vasques, audio editing by David Brodheim and Georgios Leivaditis. Music by Alexandre Jas.
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