10 killed, 15 injured as van plows into crowded Toronto sidewalk; driver arrested

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Officials carry a body into a vehicle after a van mounted a sidewalk crashing into pedestrians in Toronto on April 23, 2018. (Aaron Vincent Elkaim/The Canadian Press via AP)
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A tarp lays on top of a body on Yonge St. at Finch Ave. after a van plowed into pedestrians on April 23, 2018 in Toronto, Canada. (Cole Burston/Getty Images/AFP)
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Police inspect a van suspected of being involved in a collision injuring at least eight people at Yonge St. and Finch Ave. on April 23, 2018 in Toronto, Canada. (Cole Burston/Getty Images/AFP)
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A police officer stands next to a victim of an incident where a van struck multiple people at a major intersection in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on April 23, 2018. (REUTERS/Carlo Allegri)
Updated 24 April 2018
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10 killed, 15 injured as van plows into crowded Toronto sidewalk; driver arrested

  • Authorities say Alek Minassian, 25, appeared to have acted deliberately; he was later arrested in a confrontation with police.
  • The incident occurred as Cabinet ministers from the G7 countries were gathered in Toronto to discuss a range of international issues in the run-up to the G7 meeting near Quebec City in June

TORONTO: A van jumped onto a crowded sidewalk in Toronto on Monday, killing 10 pedestrians and injuring 15 and in what witnesses and police said was a deliberate act.

Authorities said the driver, identified as Alek Minassian, fled but was later arrested in a confrontation with police.

Witnesses said the driver was moving fast and appeared to be acting deliberately, but police officials would not comment on the cause or any possible motive.

Speaking at a news conference Monday night, Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders raised the initial death toll of nine to 10, saying another victim had died at a hospital. He said 15 others were hospitalized.

"The incident definitely looked deliberate," he said.

Saunders said Minassian was a 25-year-old resident of the Toronto suburb of Richmond Hill. He said the suspect had not been known to police previously.

Asked if there was any evidence of a connection to international terrorism, the chief said only, “Based on what we have there’s nothing that has it to compromise the national security at this time.”

But a senior national government official said earlier that authorities had not turned over the investigation to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, a sign that investigators believed it unlikely terrorism was the motive. The official agreed to reveal that information only if not quoted by name.

Authorities released few details in the case, saying the investigation was still underway, with witnesses being interviewed and surveillance video being examined.

“I can assure the public all our available resources have been brought in to investigate this tragic situation,” Toronto Police Services Deputy Chief Peter Yuen said earlier.

The driver was heading south on busy Yonge Street around 1:30 p.m. and the streets were crowded with people enjoying an unseasonably warm day when the van jumped onto the sidewalk.

Ali Shaker, who was driving near the van at the time, told Canadian broadcast outlet CP24 that the driver appeared to be moving deliberately through the crowd at more than 30 mph.

“He just went on the sidewalk,” a distraught Shaker said. “He just started hitting everybody, man. He hit every single person on the sidewalk. Anybody in his way he would hit.”

Witness Peter Kang told CTV News that the driver did not seem to make any effort to stop.

“If it was an accident he would have stopped,” Kang said. “But the person just went through the sidewalk. He could have stopped.”

A witness, Phil Zullo, told Canadian Press that he saw police arresting a man who had been driving a Ryder rental truck and saw people “strewn all over the road” where the incident occurred.

“I must have seen about five, six people being resuscitated by bystanders and by ambulance drivers,” Zullo said. “It was awful. Brutal.”

The incident occurred as Cabinet ministers from the major industrial countries were gathered in Canada to discuss a range of international issues in the run-up to the G7 meeting near Quebec City in June.

The driver was heading south on busy Yonge Street around 1:30 p.m. and the streets were crowded with people enjoying an unseasonably warm day when the van jumped onto the sidewalk.

Video broadcast on several Canadian outlets showed police arresting the driver, dressed in dark clothes, after officers surrounded him and his rental Ryder van several blocks from where the incident occurred in the North York neighborhood of northern Toronto. He appeared to make some sort of gesture at the police with an object in his hand just before they ordered him to lie down on the ground and took him away.

Police shut down the Yonge and Finch intersection following the incident and Toronto’s transit agency said it had suspended service on the subway line running through the area.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed his sympathies for those involved. “Our hearts go out to everyone affected,” Trudeau said in Ottawa. “We are going to have more to learn and more to say in the coming hours.”

Buildings and workplaces in the area were locked down, and a nearby subway station was closed and service suspended. Bystander Essy Taeb told Toronto’s CP24 television the scene was chaotic.

“Everyone was running all over the place,” Taeb said. 
 


Alert level raised for Philippine volcano after ‘explosive eruption’: volcanology agency

Updated 3 sec ago
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Alert level raised for Philippine volcano after ‘explosive eruption’: volcanology agency

  • Mount Kanlaon on the central island of Negros erupted shortly before 7:00 p.m.
  • Kanlaon is one of 24 active volcanoes in the archipelago nation
MANILA: The alert level for a Philippine volcano was raised Monday after an “explosive eruption” sent a plume of ash, gas and steam five kilometers (three miles) into the sky, the volcanology agency said.
Mount Kanlaon on the central island of Negros erupted shortly before 7:00 p.m. (1100 GMT), prompting warnings for nearby residents to wear facemasks due the threat of volcanic gases and falling ash.
“When it erupted we heard a thunder-like sound,” Ethan Asentista-Khoo, 35, said from his home in Pula village near the volcano.
“There was like a fire on the mouth of the volcano, which lasted around one to two minutes. I didn’t see any lava or rocks coming out.”
The Philippines is located in the seismically active Pacific “Ring of Fire” that hosts more than half of the world’s volcanoes.
Kanlaon is one of 24 active volcanoes in the archipelago nation.
Eruptions can be deadly, with pyroclastic and lahar flows as well as ashfall posing hazards to communities surrounding the volcano.

Ex-Pakistan PM Imran Khan acquitted in state secrets case, but to stay in jail

Updated 41 min 31 sec ago
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Ex-Pakistan PM Imran Khan acquitted in state secrets case, but to stay in jail

  • Former leader was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a lower court on charges of making public a classified cable sent to Islamabad by Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington in 2022

ISLAMABAD: A high court in Pakistan acquitted jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday from a conviction on charges of leaking state secrets, his lawyer and his party said, but Khan will remain in prison for now due to a conviction in another case.
Khan, 71, was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a lower court on charges of making public a classified cable sent to Islamabad by Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington in 2022.
Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who was Khan’s foreign minister during his tenure from 2018-2022, was also acquitted of the charges.
“Thank God, the sentence is overturned,” a spokesman for legal affairs from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, Naeem Panjutha, said in a post on the X social media platform.
Despite the acquittal, Khan will remain in prison, having also been convicted in another case relating to his marriage to his third wife, Bushra Khan, contravening Islamic traditions.


UK says Rwanda asylum seekers’ deportation flights to begin on July 23

Updated 50 min 23 sec ago
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UK says Rwanda asylum seekers’ deportation flights to begin on July 23

  • Policy of sending asylum seekers who arrived in Britain to the East African nation is one of Rishi Sunak’s flagship policies

(Adds details in 2, 3rd paragraphs)
LONDON: The British government says it intends to begin deporting asylum seekers on July 23, court documents showed on Monday, although the controversial scheme is dependent on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative parties winning the upcoming election.
The policy of sending asylum seekers who arrived in Britain to the East African nation is one of Sunak’s flagship policies but legal and parliamentary obstacles have meant it has never got off the ground.
Sunak recently said the deportation flights would not leave before an election on July 4 but he has promised if he wins they would begin soon after, although he is trailing the opposition Labour Party by about 20 points in opinion polls and it has promised to scrap the plan.
In documents submitted to the London High Court as part of a charity’s challenged to the policy, government lawyers said the intention was “to effect removals with a flight to Rwanda on 23 July 2024 (and not before).”


Facing ‘systematic’ pressure to recognize Israel, Indonesia stands firm on Palestine support: FM 

Updated 03 June 2024
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Facing ‘systematic’ pressure to recognize Israel, Indonesia stands firm on Palestine support: FM 

  • Indonesia was among the first countries to recognize Palestinian statehood in 1988 
  • In April, Israeli media reports claimed Jakarta began OECD-brokered talks with Tel Aviv

JAKARTA: Indonesia will continue to support Palestine in the face of systematic pressure from Israel and its allies to normalize ties with Tel Aviv, Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi said on Monday. 

Jakarta has no diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv and has been one of the most vocal supporters of Palestine since the beginning of Israel’s onslaught on Gaza in October. The Indonesian government has repeatedly called for an end to the occupation of Palestinian territories and for a two-state solution based on pre-1967 borders. 

Speaking to university students at the Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta on Monday, Marsudi highlighted the “worsening situation” in the besieged enclave — where over 36,400 Palestinians have been killed — and said that Israel has been making “strategic and systematic efforts to finish off” Palestine. 

“There are systematic efforts by Israel and its allies to … lobby and pressure Muslim countries to start considering opening up and normalizing ties with Israel,” she said. 

In April, viral Israeli media reports claimed that Jakarta had plans to establish diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv as part of a deal to smooth Indonesia’s entry into the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. 

But the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs swiftly rejected those claims then, saying that the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country would remain consistent in defending Palestine. 

One of the staunchest supporters of Palestine, Indonesia was among the 78 countries to first recognize Palestine in 1988. It sees Palestinian statehood as mandated by the nation’s constitution, which calls for the abolition of colonialism. 

Indonesia will continue its support for Palestine on the international stage, Marsudi said, including by pushing for an immediate and lasting ceasefire and urging Tel Aviv to comply with an order by the International Court of Justice to stop its military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. 

Israel’s ground and air attacks have in the last eight months destroyed most of Gaza’s civilian and medical infrastructure, injuring over 82,000 people while thousands remain missing under the rubble. 

The Israeli military has also blocked water, food and aid supplies to the territory, bringing its more than 2 million inhabitants to the brink of famine.

“Indonesia has consistently upheld universal principles and values to continue supporting the nation of Palestine. Consistency in embracing these principles is not easy. It’s truly not easy to keep this principle amid today’s messy world filled with pressure and promises of transactions here and there,” Marsudi said. 

“But thank God that until this very moment, the Indonesian government has been able to remain steadfast and consistent in defending the nation of Palestine … We have a duty to defend justice and humanity because it is in line with the mandate of our 1945 constitution.” 


Indian Islamic center warns Muslims against felling trees

Updated 03 June 2024
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Indian Islamic center warns Muslims against felling trees

  • Much of northern India has been gripped by a deadly heatwave with temperatures above 45° Celsius

LUCKNOW: One of India’s most influential Islamic centers has warned Muslims not to chop down trees or burn fields after harvesting to help stem climate change and surging temperatures.

Much of northern India has been gripped by a deadly heatwave with temperatures above 45° Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit), killing scores of people by heatstroke.

“Every Muslim must ensure no green trees and crops are set on fire,” Khalid Rasheed Farangi Mahal, chair of the Islamic Centre of India, said.

Mahal, a top scholar in the northern city of Lucknow, issued the non-binding fatwa or ruling on Sunday, saying that the religious duty of Muslims to conserve greenery and water was “stated in the Qur’an”.

“Burning trees and crops is forbidden in Islam and is considered a grave sin,” read the fatwa, published in Urdu and Hindi.

He also urged Islamic clerics to encourage stewardship of the environment during their sermons – telling people to take care of the trees around them.

“Instead of merely planting a sapling symbolically, it is more meaningful to take care of existing plants and trees,” he said, urging Muslims to prevent pollution of waterways and the sea.

Last week, an Indian court urged the government to declare a national emergency over the country’s ongoing heatwave, saying that hundreds of people had died during weeks of extreme weather.

The High Court in the western state of Rajasthan, which has suffered some of the hottest weather, said authorities had failed to take appropriate steps to protect the public from the heat.

India is no stranger to searing summer temperatures but years of scientific research have found climate change is causing heatwaves to become longer, more frequent and more intense.

Researchers say human-induced climate change has driven the devastating heat impact in India and should be taken as a warning.