HARARE – At least 24 people were killed Thursday morning when a bus collided head-on with a haulage truck in Zimbabwe’s Matabeleland South Province, state-run newspaper The Herald reported.
The accident occurred at a tollgate near the southern border town of Beitbridge, with 17 people dying on the spot while seven others succumbed to their injuries after being taken to the hospital.
According to the report, 12 of the injured remain in critical condition.
Eyewitnesses told the newspaper that the bus was heading toward Beitbridge, near the South African border, while the haulage truck — carrying 34 metric tons of magnesium — was traveling in the opposite direction. The exact number of passengers on the bus remains unknown.
Police spokesperson Paul Nyathi confirmed the accident to Xinhua, stating that authorities would release further details soon.
TAIPEI – A gas explosion occurred at a department store in the city of Taichung in central Taiwan at around 11 a.m. on Thursday, leaving five dead and 13 injured.
The accident occurred on the floor of a food court, which is under construction.
Search and rescue operations are underway at the scene, with support from local fire authorities.
PARIS – More than 10 people were injured on Wednesday night in a grenade explosion in France’s southeastern city of Grenoble, the French daily Le Figaro reported.
The explosion occurred around 8:00 p.m. local time in a bar. Two of the injured were in critical condition, the report said, citing a police source.
Mayor of Grenoble Eric Piolle condemned the “criminal act of unprecedented violence” on the social media platform X.
After a preliminary investigation, police have ruled out a terrorist attack, according to the report.
GAZA – The Israeli army has killed 92 Palestinians and wounded 822 others in direct strikes on the Gaza Strip since its truce with Hamas began on Jan. 19, Gaza-based health authorities reported on Tuesday.
Health workers have also recovered 641 bodies, with about 197 of them unidentified, since the truce went into effect, Munir al-Barash, director general of the health authorities, said in a statement.
Since the beginning of the conflict between Israeli forces and Hamas in early October 2023, the Palestinian death toll from Israeli attacks on Gaza has risen to 48,219, with 111,665 others injured, the health authorities said in a separate statement on Tuesday.
MOSCOW – Russian forces have seized control of the Yasenove settlement in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday.
It said the center group of forces had “liberated” Yasenove, claiming that Ukraine lost about 505 soldiers, one tank, one armored vehicle, four artillery pieces and seven vehicles in the area.
“Overnight, the Russian armed forces launched a group strike with high-precision long-range land, air and sea-based weapons as well as unmanned aerial vehicles,” the defense ministry said.
The attack targeted gas and energy facilities supporting the Ukrainian military-industrial complex, along with sites used for the preparation and storage of strike drones.
Russian forces are continuing their advance in Yasenove, it added.
Since its special military operation, Russia has destroyed Ukrainian weapons including 653 aircraft, 42,979 drones and 592 anti-aircraft missile systems, the defense ministry said.
ROME – Around 130 people were arrested on Tuesday in a large-scale sting against the Sicilian mafia in Palermo, indicating that it has remained a significant criminal force despite setbacks in recent decades.
“Cosa Nostra”, the mafia syndicate based in and around Palermo, terrorised Italy in the 1980s and 1990s, but has since been overtaken as Europe’s most powerful mob by the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta.
The suspects apprehended on Tuesday were charged with various crimes, including drug trafficking, attempted murder, extortion, illegal online gambling and illegal possession of firearms, Carabinieri police said in a statement.
Additional arrest warrants were issued for 33 suspects who were already in prison for other crimes.
Investigations revealed that Palermo’s mafia families coordinate their activities across the city and its province, like they used to in the golden days of Cosa Nostra, especially as regards drug trafficking, police said.
They said inner city families had regained authority compared to the years in which they were dominated by a faction from Corleone – a town outside Palermo that was the birthplace of notorious bosses Toto Riina and Bernardo Provenzano.
Modern-day bosses use modern technology to conduct their business, using encrypted mobile phones that are smuggled into prisons to allow jailed bosses to continue exercising their command, investigators said.
Despite being weakened by law enforcement activities, Cosa Nostra continues to attract young people, the Carabinieri said, noting they documented one instance of a new recruit given “mafia lessons” by an older associate.
The would-be mentor gave the young man “specific instructions, inviting him to take as an example his conduct towards people to be subjected to extortion, and advising him on how to relate with mafia leaders,” the police statement said.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, writing on X, hailed Tuesday’s arrests as inflicting “a very hard blow to Cosa Nostra”, and giving a clear signal that “the fight against the mafia has not stopped and will not stop”.
BUCHAREST – Romanian children receive their first smartphone at an average age of eight, with many spending between one and three hours online daily, according to a study published Tuesday by Google Romania.
The research, conducted by market research firm Topline as part of the “EU Family Safety Survey 2024,” surveyed 570 Romanian parents between August and September 2024. The findings reveal that nearly half of parents give their children a smartphone between the ages of five and eight, while more than a third do so when their children are between the ages of nine and 12.
The primary reason parents cite for introducing smartphones at an early age is maintaining constant communication with their children. Additionally, a significant number admit that they do not want their children to feel socially excluded.
As digital exposure increases, so do concerns about online safety. Most children between five and 12 spend between one and three hours online daily, while teenagers typically exceed three hours.
Young children mainly use smartphones to access educational apps and video games, while social media is popular among children over the age of nine. However, parental control over online activity decreases as children grow older.
Emergency crews respond after a midsize business jet skidded off the runway while landing and collided with another jet that was parked at the municipal airport in Scottsdale, Arizona, U.S. February 10, 2025. REUTERS
At least one person was killed on Monday after a midsize business jet skidded off the runway while landing at the Scottsdale, Arizona, municipal airport and collided with another jet that was parked, authorities said.
Dave Folio, a spokesperson with the Scottsdale Fire Department, said at a press conference that at least four other people were injured in the crash.
One person remains trapped inside one of the planes and first responders were working to free them, he said, while three other people were taken to area hospitals.
Folio provided no other details and it was not immediately clear what caused the jet to skid off the runway.
The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that it was investigating the crash, which it said involved a Learjet 35A that skidded off the runway, which then collided with a Gulfstream 200 jet.
The incident comes at a time of heightened scrutiny of U.S. air safety.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators are probing three deadly crashes in recent weeks: the midair collision of a passenger jet and U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter in Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people, a medical jet crash in Philadelphia that killed seven people and a plane crash in Alaska that killed 10 people.
NUR SHAMS, Palestinian Territories – Dozens of Palestinian families fled on Monday from the Nur Shams refugee camp in the north of the occupied West Bank, as Israel pushed on with a sweeping military operation.
“We hear explosions and bombings as well as bulldozers. It’s a tragedy. They are doing here what they did in Gaza,” said Ahmed Ezza, a resident.
Ahmed Abu Zahra, another resident of the camp which is on the outskirts of Tulkarem, said he was forced to leave his home.
“The (Israeli) army came and we were forced to leave after they started destroying our homes.”
Three Palestinians, including two women and a young man, were killed on Sunday in Nur Shams, the health ministry in the territory said.
Israel said its military police had opened an investigation into the death of one of them, a woman who was eight months pregnant.
It said on Saturday it had launched an operation in Nur Shams, part of a much larger campaign that began in January in Tulkarem and Jenin, which it said had “targeted several terrorists.”
In the streets of Nur Shams camp, under a light rain, residents were fleeing.
An AFP photographer saw dozens of families hastily leaving the camp, while bulldozers carried out large-scale demolitions amid gunfire and explosions.
According to Murad Alyan, from the camp’s popular committee, “more than half of the 13,000 inhabitants have fled out of fear for their lives.”
Since January 21, the Israeli military has been conducting a major operation in the “triangle” of Jenin, Tubas and Tulkarem, where half a million Palestinians live.
Israel says it is targeting “terrorist infrastructure.”
Jenin in particular is a bastion of armed Palestinian militant groups.
“The objective of these operations is not security-related, but political,” said Abdallah Kamil, the governor of Tulkarem.
“They destroy everything,” he said of the Israeli military. “They are trying to change the demographics of the region.”
Israel insists that its operations are targeted at Palestinians suspected of preparing attacks against Israeli citizens.
The Palestinian foreign ministry accused Israel of applying “the same policy of destruction” in the West Bank as in Gaza.
Violence has exploded in the occupied West Bank since the war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
At least 887 Palestinians, including militants, have been killed by the Israeli military or settlers, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
At least 32 Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations, according to official Israeli figures.
GUATEMALA CITY, Feb 10 – A bus veered off a highway bridge into a polluted ravine in Guatemala City early on Monday, killing at least 51 people and trapping survivors, a spokesperson for the city’s fire department said.
The densely packed bus was traveling into the capital from the town of San Agustin Acasaguastlan on a busy route into the city from when it plunged approximately 20 meters from Puente Belice, a highway bridge that crosses over a road and creek.
The spokesman, Carlos Hernandez, said the bodies of 36 men and 15 women had been sent to a provincial morgue set up for the accident.
Images shared by the fire department on social media showed the bus partially submerged in wastewater surrounded by victims’ bodies.
Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo declared three days of national mourning and deployed the country’s army and disaster agency to assist response efforts.
WASHINGTON, Feb 10 – U.S. President Donald Trump said Palestinians would not have the right of return to the Gaza Strip under his proposal to redevelop the enclave, contradicting his own officials who had suggested Gazans would only be relocated temporarily.
In an excerpt of a Fox News interview released on Monday, Trump added that he thought he could make a deal with Jordan and Egypt to take the displaced Palestinians, saying the U.S. gives the two countries “billions and billions of dollars a year.”
Asked if Palestinians would have the right to return to Gaza, Trump told Fox News: “No, they wouldn’t because they’re going to have much better housing.”
“I’m talking about building a permanent place for them,” he said, adding it would take years for Gaza to be habitable again.
In a shock announcement on Feb. 4 after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, Trump proposed resettling Gaza’s 2.2 million Palestinians and the U.S. taking control of the seaside enclave, redeveloping it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
Residents of Gaza have broadly rejected any suggestion of moving from the strip, as has the Palestinian Authority and the militant group Hamas that administers Gaza.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Trump’s statement that Palestinians would not be able to return to Gaza was “irresponsible.”
“We affirm that such plans are capable of igniting the region,” he told Reuters on Monday.
Netanyahu, who praised the proposal, suggested Palestinians would be allowed to return.
“They can leave, they can then come back, they can relocate and come back. But you have to rebuild Gaza,” he said the day after Trump’s announcement.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who will depart later this week for his first visit to the Middle East in the job, said on Thursday that Palestinians would have to “live somewhere else in the interim,” during reconstruction, although he declined to explicitly rule out their permanent displacement.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the disparity between Rubio and Trump’s most recent remarks on the plan.
Trump’s comments come as a fragile ceasefire reached last month between Israel and Hamas is at risk of collapse after Hamas announced on Monday it would stop releasing Israeli hostages over alleged Israeli violations of the agreement.
Israel’s Arab neighbors, including Egypt and Jordan, have said any plan to transfer Palestinians from their land would destabilize the region.
Rubio met Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty in Washington on Monday. Egypt’s foreign ministry said Abdelatty told Rubio that Arab countries support Palestinians in rejecting Trump’s plan. Cairo fears Palestinians could be forced across Egypt’s border with Gaza.
Trump is set to host Jordan’s King Abdullah at the White House on Tuesday.
Trump said in the Fox News interview that between two and six communities could be built for the Palestinians “a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is.”
“I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land. No big money spent,” he told Fox.
GUATEMALA CITY – At least 31 people were killed and several others were trapped under the wreckage in a river after a bus carrying 75 people plunged into a ravine in Guatemala City on Monday, rescue workers said.
CAIRO – Libya authorities uncovered nearly 50 bodies this week from two mass graves in the country’s southeastern desert, officials said Sunday, in the latest tragedy involving people seeking to reach Europe through the chaos-stricken North African country.
The first mass grave with 19 bodies was found Friday in a farm in the southeastern city of Kufra, the security directorate said in a statement, adding that authorities took them for autopsy.
Authorities posted images on its Facebook page showing police officers and medics digging in the sand and recovering dead bodies that were wrapped in blankets.
The Al-Abreen charity, which helps migrants in eastern and southern Libya, said that some were apparently shot and killed before being buried in the mass grave.
A separate mass grave with at least 30 bodies was also found in Kufra after raiding a human trafficking center, according to Mohamed Al-Fadeil, head of the security chamber in Kufra.
Survivors said nearly 70 people were buried in the grave, he added. Authorities were still searching the area.
Migrants’ mass graves are not uncommon in Libya. Last year, authorities unearthed the bodies of at least 65 migrants in the Shuayrif region, 350 kilometers (220 miles) south of the capital, Tripoli.
Libya is the dominant transit point for migrants from Africa and the Middle East trying to make it to Europe. The country plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Muammar Qaddafi in 2011. Oil-rich Libya has been ruled for most of the past decade by rival governments in eastern and western Libya, each backed by an array of militias and foreign governments.
Human traffickers have benefited from more than a decade of instability, smuggling migrants across the country’s borders with six nations, including Chad, Niger, Sudan Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia.
Once at the coast, traffickers pack desperate migrants seeking a better life in Europe into ill-equipped rubber boats and other vessels for risky voyages on the perilous Central Mediterranean Sea route.
Rights groups and UN agencies have for years documented systematic abuse of migrants in Libya including forced labor, beatings, rapes and torture. The abuse often accompanies efforts to extort money from families before migrants are allowed to leave Libya on traffickers’ boats.
Those who have been intercepted and returned to Libya — including women and children — are held in government-run detention centers where they also suffer from abuse, including torture, rape and extortion, according to rights groups and UN experts.
JERUSALEM – Israeli forces expanded their military operation in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, launching a raid in the Nur Shams refugee camp, a military spokesperson said.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that large forces from the IDF, Shin Bet security agency and Border Police began operating overnight in Nur Shams. The camp, located in the Tulkarm Governorate in the northwestern West Bank, has been a focal point of recent raids.
The military said its forces shot several militants and arrested additional individuals.
The Palestinian Health Ministry reported that a pregnant woman was killed by Israeli gunfire. The Red Crescent said two other people were shot and badly wounded.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that the operation aimed to “crush terror infrastructures” in the West Bank.
The Israeli military launched the major campaign in Jenin on Jan. 21 and expanded it last week to the town of Tamun, southeast of Jenin.
JERUSALEM – Israeli forces have begun withdrawing from a key area in Gaza as part of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement that took effect last month, an Israeli government official said on Sunday.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official told Xinhua that the pullout from the area dubbed by Israel as the Netzarim Corridor — a strip of land that bisected Gaza from north to south — is expected to be completed by late Sunday.
The Israeli military had established posts in the corridor during its 15-month-long assault on Gaza. An Israeli security official, talking to Xinhua anonymously, said that the military was “preparing to implement the agreement according to the guidelines of the political echelon.”
Footage circulating on social media appeared to show troops setting fire to furniture and unidentified boxes at their bases, with a soldier heard shouting, “We will leave nothing for the Gazans.”
The 42-day ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect on Jan. 19. Under the agreement, Israel committed to withdrawing its forces from the area. With the truce now past its midpoint, negotiations mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States are set to determine whether the ceasefire will continue into its second phase, which would include the release of more hostages and Palestinian detainees.
MEXICO CITY – At least 20 people were killed early Saturday when a passenger bus collided with a truck on a highway in the southeastern Mexican state of Campeche, according to local media.
CHENGDU – As of 11 a.m. Sunday, a landslide in southwest China’s Sichuan Province had left one person dead, 28 missing and two injured, local authorities said.
The landslide occurred at 11:50 a.m. on Saturday in Jinping Village, which is located in Junlian County in the city of Yibin.
The province has mobilized 949 personnel from the armed police, firefighting, emergency response, transportation, medical, telecommunication, and other forces to carry out or assist the rescue efforts.
Over 200 rescue vehicles and equipment, including excavators, fire engines and ambulances, have been deployed for on-site rescue operations. The search and rescue efforts are being carried out in 10 grid zones.
A total of 360 people in 95 households have been evacuated. Temporary shelters have been set up, with 162 individuals currently resettled on a household basis.
Sweden’s police have declared that the shooting at the Risbergska School in Orebro, located about 200 kilometers west of Stockholm, has claimed the lives of 11 people.
In an earlier report, five people were announced to have been shot and wounded.
The tragic event occurred at 12:33 p.m. local time (11:44 GMT). The gunman, who had no known connections to gangs or terrorism, is believed to be among those killed.
The reasons behind this crime remain a mystery, and details about the injured individuals are still unclear, local police chief Roberto Eid Forest said.
Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson expressed deep sorrow, saying that this incident is the worst mass shooting in the country’s history.
The Risbergska School is a center where adults, many immigrants trying to enhance their education and job prospects, come to learn and rebuild their futures.
The tragedy highlights the broader challenges Sweden faces with violence, which has resulted in the highest rate of gun violence per capita in the European Union.
The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention announced that between 2010 and 2022, 10 people were killed in seven separate violent incidents in Sweden’s schools.
While many Swedes own guns for hunting, the rise of illegal firearms linked to gang activity poses a significant threat.
Previous incidents, like the 2015 murder of a teaching assistant and the 2017 truck attack in Stockholm, serve as reminders of the unending threats to public safety.
Ohio Police were searching for a shooter who killed one person and wounded five others at a warehouse building in New Albany on Tuesday, the city said.
The shooter has been identified and police were “working to bring the suspect into custody”, the City of New Albany said in an online statement. The warehouse had been cleared of all employees, it added.
The incident appears to be a “targeted type of attack,” New Albany Police Chief Greg Jones told NBC4 without providing details. He added that no altercation took place before the shooting and the motive had not been released.
A firearm was recovered at the scene, the report said, without providing details about the type of firearm.
Police responded to reports of an active shooter by locking down the warehouse of personal care brand KDC/One, the city said. Images released by local media showed dozens of police vehicles deployed to the site.
The five victims have been taken to hospital for treatment, New Albany’s Chief Communications & Marketing Officer Josh Poland said.
KDC/One provides solutions to many brands in the beauty, personal care, and home care categories.
WASHINGTON – U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the United States will take ownership of the Gaza Strip and redevelop it after Palestinians are relocated elsewhere.
Trump made the remarks in a joint press conference with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, without providing details about how to conduct a resettlement procedure.
“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” he said. “We’re going to develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs, and it’ll be something that the entire Middle East can be very proud of.”
The place could become a home to “the world’s people,” he added.
The president said that he plans to visit Israel and possibly make a trip to Gaza.
HOUSTON – A 15-year-old boy was arrested after demanding a plane with a handgun and an AR-style rifle at an airport in Texarkana, southern U.S. state of Arkansas, on Tuesday, authorities said.
The teen walked into a private facility at the Texarkana Regional Airport on Tuesday morning, placed a gun on the front counter at the terminal, demanded a plane and cocked his rifle, said Paul Mehrlich, the airport’s director.
The boy then forcefully pushed open a door leading out to the airfield, where he confronted with a pilot, said Mehrlich.
The pilot ordered the boy to the ground and disarmed him. Texarkana Police Department officers arrived soon and arrested the youth, said a Fox News report.
“The Texarkana Arkansas Police Department applauds the heroic act by the local pilot,” the agency said in a news release. “The fact that this incident was resolved quickly and peacefully, despite the extreme danger presented, is highly commendable.”
None is injured during the incident, according to the airport.
The youth was charged with aggravated assault, attempted aggravated robbery and terroristic threatening in the first degree, said the Fox News report.
The airport, the primary airport for the twin cities of Texarkana, Arkansas, and Texarkana, Texas, is run by Signature Aviation that functions as a terminal for jets and other private aircraft.
WASHINGTON – The remains of all 67 individuals who died in the helicopter and passenger plane midair collision in Washington, D.C. last week have been recovered by rescue teams, U.S. media reported Tuesday.
Sixty-six of the remains have been positively identified, the ABC News cited the Unified Command as saying.
The Unified Command said its crews are still working to clear wreckage, including large pieces of the plane, from the Potomac River, and large lifts will continue through Tuesday evening. Unloading is expected when “environmental and tidal conditions allow” on Wednesday.
It added that operations will then shift to recovering wreckage from the Black Hawk helicopter.
A passenger jet carrying 64 on board collided Wednesday night with an Army helicopter while landing at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, with both aircraft falling into the freezing Potomac River. Three U.S. Army soldiers were onboard the helicopter.
This is the deadliest air accident in Washington, D.C. since 1982.
An investigation into the accident is underway, led by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.
A police helicopter flies as a major police operation is underway at Risbergska School, following reports of a serious violent crime, in Orebro, Sweden, February 4, 2025. TT News Agency/Kicki Nilsson/via REUTERS
OREBRO, Sweden – Around 10 people were killed in a shooting at an adult education centre on Tuesday, Swedish police said, marking the country’s deadliest gun attack in what the prime minister called a “painful day.”
Police said the gunman was believed to be among those killed and a search for other possible victims was continuing at the school, located in the city of Orebro. The gunman’s motive was not immediately known.
“We know that 10 or so people have been killed here today. The reason that we can’t be more exact currently is that the extent of the incident is so large,” local police chief Roberto Eid Forest told a news conference.
Forest said police believed the gunman had acted alone and that terrorism was not currently suspected as a motive, though he cautioned that much remained unknown. He said the suspected gunman had not previously been known to police.
“We have a big crime scene, we have to complete the searches we are conducting in the school. There are a number of investigative steps we are taking: a profile of the perpetrator, witness interviews,” Forest said.
The shooting took place in Orebro, some 200 km (125 miles) west of Stockholm, at the Risbergska school for adults who did not complete their formal education or failed to get the grades to continue to higher education. It is located on a campus that also houses schools for children.
Ali Elmokad was outside the Orebro University Hospital, looking for his relative, not yet knowing if he was among the injured or the dead.
“We’ve been trying to get hold of him all day, we haven’t been successful,” he said, adding that he had a friend who also attended the school.
“What she saw was so terrible. She only saw people lying on the floor, injured and blood everywhere.”
Police said it was still going through the crime scene and had searched several addresses in Orebro after the attack.
Late on Tuesday, police vans and personnel were still outside an apartment building in central Orebro that had been raided earlier.
“We saw a lot of police with drawn weapons,” said Lingam Tuohmaki, 42, who lives in the same building. “We were at home and heard a commotion outside.”
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said it was the worst mass shooting in Swedish history.
“It is hard to take in the full extent of what has happened today — the darkness that now lowers itself across Sweden tonight,” he told a news conference.
King Carl XVI Gustav conveyed his condolences. “It is with deep sadness and dismay that my family and I received the news about the terrible atrocity in Orebro,” he said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen expressed her sympathy on X, saying: “In this dark hour, we stand with the people of Sweden.”
‘WE STARTED RUNNING’
Maria Pegado, 54, a teacher at the school, said someone threw open the door to her classroom just after lunch break and shouted to everyone to get out.
“I took all my 15 students out into the hallway and we started running,” she told Reuters by phone.
“Then I heard two shots but we made it out. We were close to the school entrance.
“I saw people dragging injured out, first one, then another. I realised it was very serious,” she said.
Many students in Sweden’s adult school system are immigrants seeking to improve basic education and gain degrees to help them find jobs in the Nordic country while also learning Swedish.
Sweden has been struggling with a wave of shootings and bombings caused by an endemic gang crime problem that has seen the country of 10 million people record by far the highest per capita rate of gun violence in the EU in recent years. However, fatal attacks at schools are rare.
Ten people were killed in seven incidents of deadly violence at schools between 2010 and 2022, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention.
Sweden has a high level of gun ownership by European standards, mainly linked to hunting, though it is much lower than in the United States, while the gang crime wave has highlighted the high incidence of illegal weapons.
In one of the highest-profile crimes of the past decade, a 21-year-old masked assailant driven by racist motives killed a teaching assistant and a boy and wounded two others in 2015.
In 2017, a man driving a truck mowed down shoppers on a busy street in central Stockholm before crashing into a department store. Five people died in that attack.
STOCKHOLM – Swedish police said on Tuesday five people were shot in an attack at a school in the city of Orebro some 200 km (125 miles) west of Stockholm, triggering a massive response by rescue services.
“Five persons are confirmed shot,” police said in a statement.
“This is currently seen as attempted murder, arson and aggravated weapons offence.” Ambulances, rescue services and police are onsite, a spokesperson for local rescue services said.
A police spokesperson declined to comment further when reached by Reuters.
People board a ferry to Piraeus, following an increase in seismic activity on the island of Santorini, Greece, February 4, 2025. REUTERS
SANTORINI – Hundreds of people packed a port in Santorini in the early morning hours of Tuesday to board a ferry and reach safety in Athens as a series of quakes kept shaking the famous Greek tourist island.
Hundreds of quakes have been registered every few minutes in the sea between the volcanic islands of Santorini and Amorgos in the Aegean Sea since Friday, prompting authorities to shut schools in Santorini and the small nearby islands of Ios, Amorgos and Anafi until Friday.
A tremor with a magnitude of 4.7 was recorded by the European Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC) at 0653GMT on the island most of whose popular white and blue villages cling to steep cliffs over the sea.
“Everything is closed. No one works now. The whole island has emptied,” said Dori, a 18-year-old local resident who declined to give his last name, before boarding the ferry to Athens.
“We will go to Athens until we see how things develop here.”
More people were expected to fly out on an additional flight on Tuesday.
With seismologists estimating that the intense seismic activity could take days or weeks to abate, people were advised to stay out of coastal areas due to the risk of landslides and avoid indoor gatherings.
Some hotels started emptying their pools as they were told that the water load made buildings more vulnerable.
Greece is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in Europe as it sits at the boundary of the African and Eurasian tectonic plates whose constant interaction prompts frequent quakes.
Santorini took its current shape following one of the largest volcanic eruptions in history, around 1600 BC. The last eruption in the area occurred in 1950.
SYDNEY – A female swimmer has died in a shark attack in the waters off a popular tourist spot on Australia’s east coast, authorities said.
Emergency crews were called to the Woorim Beach at Bribie Island, about 80 kms (50 miles) north of Brisbane around 5 p.m. (0600 GMT) on Monday following reports of a serious shark bite incident, Queensland state police said on Monday.
“The female was swimming when she was bitten by a shark … the female sustained life-threatening injuries and succumbed to those injuries,” a police spokesperson said in an email.
Police did not disclose the age of the victim though Australian media widely reported the victim was a 17-year-old girl.
Christopher Potter, a resident, said the beach is frequently used by swimming groups through the day.
“It’s known there are a lot of sharks around Bribie, but this close to shore, it’s still a shock,” he told ABC News.
DUSHANBE – At least five prisoners were killed and three employees were injured in a riot spurred by an attempted escape from a prison in the Tajikistan city of Vahdat, two sources in the country’s security agencies told Reuters on Tuesday.
Nine prisoners armed with homemade knives attacked guards on Tuesday, according to the justice ministry which said the prisoners had tried to kill the guards and escape from the penal colony 20 km (12 miles) east of Dushanbe.
“As a result of the attack, three employees were seriously injured,” the ministry said. They are in a stable condition, it said.
Among those injured was the head of the prison’s administration, who was taken to hospital in serious condition, a source told Reuters on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.
Unverified video on Telegram channels showed what they said were the dead prisoners in puddles of blood. At least one prisoner wore a hat with the official Islamic State flag.
Andrei Serenko, an analyst of the region, said that Islamic State supporters had started the escape attempt – and that they had briefly raised the flag of the Sunni Muslim militant group over the prison.
Reuters could not independently confirm the reports about Islamic State. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the riot.
A criminal investigation into the incident has been launched, the Prosecutor’s Office told Reuters.
In May 2019, 29 prisoners and three guards were killed at the penal colony when a riot broke out. Tajikistan authorities said at the time that the riot was instigated by members of extremist groups, and later the Islamic State claimed responsibility.
In 2018, 21 prisoners and two guards were killed in a prison in the northern city of Khujand in Tajikistan.
MOSCOW – Russia will deploy its Oreshnik missile systems in Belarus in accordance with the agreements reached between the leaders of the two countries, a senior Russian diplomat confirmed on Tuesday.
“In line with our allied commitments … Russia is ready to provide Minsk with the necessary support and take measures to protect our common defense space,” Alexey Polishchuk, head of the Second Department of the Commonwealth of Independent States at the Russian Foreign Ministry, said in an interview with TASS news agency.
He emphasized that the medium-range ballistic Oreshnik missiles will be stationed in Belarus as part of these agreements.
Polishchuk added that Belarus already hosts a joint Regional Forces Group, modern Russian defense systems, and non-strategic nuclear weapons, emphasizing that the country’s armed forces and security agencies are capable of handling both external and internal threats independently.
In late January, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced that Russia’s Oreshnik hypersonic missile system would arrive in Belarus “any day now,” adding that the system may be deployed closer to the Smolensk region.
WASHINGTON – U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to sign executive orders on Tuesday to withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council and stop funding for the UN Palestinian relief agency (UNRWA), local media reported, citing a White House official.
Also on Tuesday, Trump is scheduled to meet visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long criticized the UNRWA.
During Trump’s first term in June 2018, the United States withdrew from the United Nations Human Rights Council, saying that it has rendered membership to unworthy nations and harbored “disproportionate focus and unending hostility towards Israel.”
However, in February 2021, then U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that the Biden administration would reengage with the council as an observer.
Since 1950, UNRWA has been assisting Palestine refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
KHARTOUM – At least 67 people were killed on Sunday in an artillery shelling by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on El Fasher, the capital city of North Darfur State in western Sudan, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) announced on Monday.
“Among the victims were 30 women, 17 children, and 20 men,” the army’s 6th Infantry Division said in a statement, identifying them as all civilians.
Clashes took place between the SAF and the RSF in the eastern part of El Fasher on Sunday and Monday, during which the SAF destroyed several RSF combat vehicles.
The armed confrontations between the SAF and the RSF have recently escalated on three fronts, including the capital Khartoum, the Gezira State in central Sudan, and around El Fasher city in western Sudan.
According to eyewitnesses, the Sudanese Air Force launched airstrikes on Monday targeting the south Khartoum area controlled by the RSF.
The SAF has recently made significant progress in Khartoum State, advancing its operations in the Bahri city and capturing several areas. However, the RSF still maintains a key stronghold in the city’s East Nile area.
In Gezira state, the independent Sudan Tribune news portal reported that Abdallah Hussein, a key RSF commander in Gezira state, was killed on Monday along with a number of his forces in airstrikes on the outskirts of Al Kamlin city, north of Gezira state. The SAF is advancing to seize Al Kamlin, the RSF’s last stronghold in the state.
Sudan has been gripped by a devastating conflict between the two parties since mid-April 2023, which claimed at least 29,683 lives and displaced over 15 million people, either inside or outside Sudan, according to the latest estimates by international organizations.
