Day: April 19, 2025

Tributes to British couple killed in Naples cable car crash

Tributes have been paid to British couple Elaine and Graeme Winn who were among four people killed in a cable car crash near Naples.

The school Mrs Winn worked at in Market Harborough described the 58-year-old as “much-loved and highly respected”, and tributes were also left for the couple on social media.

The mountain cable car cabin plunged to the ground after one of the cables supporting it snapped on Thursday, local officials said.

The cable car operator said it had passed a safety inspection just two weeks ago and that a criminal investigation has been opened.

The two other victims include the driver of the cable car, named by authorities as 59-year-old Carmine Parlato, and an Israeli woman identified as Janan Suliman.

A fifth person in the cabin, Ms Suliman’s brother, was “extremely seriously injured” in the crash and airlifted to hospital, where he remains in a critical condition, officials said.

Authorities in Torre Annunziata have opened an investigation into the cause of the crash.

A spokesperson for Welland Park Academy said Mrs Winn worked at the Leicestershire secondary school as a business manager and that it was “deeply saddened” by her death.

“Elaine was a much-loved and highly respected member of our school community,” they said. “Her professionalism, warmth, and unwavering dedication to school life touched the lives of students, staff, and families alike.”

They added: “The care and kindness she showed to everyone in our community means her loss will be felt deeply by us all.”

The mayor of Castellammare di Stabia – where the cable car is located – said it was believed a traction cable had snapped.

“The emergency brake downstream worked but clearly not the one on the cabin that was about to reach the top of the hill,” Luigi Vicinanza told Italian media on Thursday.

He added that there had been regular safety checks on the cable car line which runs the two miles (3km) between the town to the top of Mount Faito.

Vicinanza’s spokesman told PA news agency that 10 people were rescued from a second cabin which was also on the line near the bottom of the valley at the time of the incident. They were winched to safety.

The investigation into the incident will examine the possibility that strong winds could have been among the causes of the incident.

The cable car service had been suspended on Tuesday and Wednesday due to adverse weather conditions and had only resumed full operations on Thursday morning.

British tourist Megan Pacey was near the site of the incident on Thursday with her husband and their two young children when they saw the suspended cable car.

Ms Pacey said: “We were within a minute or two of [the incident] happening.”

“We watched the first couple of people come down in a harness, and as we left, there was a sense of urgency that had kicked in.”

She said flowers and candles had been left as tribute on the railway station steps on Friday.

A day of mourning will be held in the town, which is between Pompeii and Sorrento, and all local events for the Easter holiday have been cancelled.

The president of the region, Vincenzo De Luca, said it was a “truly tragic and painful” day.

Shortly after the crash, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who was on a trip to Washington, expressed her “sincere condolences” to the families of the victims.

The Mount Faito cable car has been operating since 1952. A similar accident on the line in 1960 left four people dead.

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Man admits dangerous driving in police crash

A personal trainer who caused a pile-up of police cars as he fled from them while he was taking a woman home from a first date has admitted dangerous driving.

Seven officers were injured and five police cars damaged when the force vehicles crashed into each other on the A1 near the Newcastle and Gateshead border at about 02:30 BST on 9 April.

Mazyar Azarbonyad, from Stanley in County Durham, admitted a series of driving offences when he appeared at Newcastle Magistrates’ Court.

The 20-year-old also admitted driving again in the days after the crash despite being given an interim ban.

The court heard Azarbonyad sped away from officers who tried to stop him in Swalwell, Gateshead, after they had noticed a defective rear light on his BMW.

Jack Lovell, for Azarbonyad, said: “He tells me at that point it is immediate panic.”

He said his client had been aware of the fact he had no insurance and that the woman he was with had made reference to being in “possession of cannabis”.

Mr Lovell said Azarbonyad, who came to the UK from Iran aged 15 or 16 and had no previous convictions, was later seen approaching the A1 and was pursued by police.

The serious collision involving five police vehicles and another car happened near the Denton roundabout.

The court heard Azarbonyad had eventually slowed down after being surrounded by police vehicles.

Helicopter footage showed his vehicle was “essentially at a stop” when an unmarked police Volvo, which had earlier reached speeds of 135mph, hit them at about 80mph.

“From there, there is something of a domino effect – it flips over and then the other police vehicles are also involved,” Mr Lovell said.

“I am not in any way trying to excuse – he should not have been driving the vehicle, it is his driving that has led to the incident on the A1.

“He accepts that by way of his guilty plea.”

He added Azarbonyad, who is self-employed, had shown genuine remorse for his actions and had been “very foolish” to get back behind the wheel just two days after the original incident.

Magistrates were told he had continued to drive on four further occasions, despite being told not to as part of his bail conditions, as he also admitted driving without insurance and a licence after his arrest.

The court heard he had driven a red Hyundai i10 to work at a gym in Newcastle city centre.

Police spotted Azarbonyad on a garage forecourt and arrested him before he told them about other times he had driven since the crash.

Simon Worthy, prosecuting, said: “One would have thought as a matter of common sense… that you would have been a bit more sensible about your activities, having been so lucky to get out of an accident only two days before.

“But no, no, you continue to stick two fingers up.”

Azarbonyad, of Sylvia Terrace, was granted conditional bail and is due to be sentenced at Newcastle Crown Court on 20 May.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a temporary Easter ceasefire in Ukraine from 6 p.m. to midnight on April 19, 2025, urging Ukraine to follow suit. The truce comes amid reports of Russian gains in the Kursk region and U.S. President Trump signaling a turning point in peace talks. Tensions remain high despite the pause in hostilities.

#Putin #UkraineWar #EasterCeasefire #RussiaUkraine #Trump #PeaceTalks #Kursk #BreakingNews

U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance went to the Vatican on Saturday to meet senior Catholic Church officials who have been sharply critical of his administration’s policies, in the first such in-person talks of the second Trump presidency.

Mr. Vance, a Catholic who has clashed with Pope Francis over U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, met with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, and his chief deputy.

The two sides had “cordial talks” that included “an exchange of opinions on the international situation,” according to a Vatican statement after the meeting.

Mr. Vance and Mr. Parolin spoke “especially regarding countries affected by war, political tensions and difficult humanitarian situations, with particular attention to migrants, refugees, and prisoners,” the statement read.

Pope Francis, who is limiting his public appearances on doctors’ orders as he recovers from double pneumonia, did not take part in the meeting. Mr. Vance is visiting Italy over the Easter weekend.

The pope, Mr. Parolin and other Vatican officials have criticised several Trump administration policies, including Mr. Trump’s plans to deport millions of migrants from the U.S. and his widespread cuts to foreign aid and domestic welfare programmes.

“This visit takes place in a delicate moment,” said Massimo Faggioli, an Italian academic at Villanova University who has followed the papacy closely. “This relationship with the U.S. is a very high priority right now for the Vatican.”

Pope Francis has called the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown a “disgrace”. Mr. Vance, who became Catholic in 2019, has cited medieval-era Catholic teaching to justify the immigration crackdown.

The pope rebutted the theological concept Mr. Vance used to defend the crackdown in an unusual open letter to the U.S. Catholic bishops about the Trump administration in February, and called Mr. Trump’s plan a “major crisis” for the U.S.

“What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly,” the pope said then.

Church-state relations

Mr. Vance first visited the Vatican on Thursday (April 17, 2025) to attend a religious ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica with his family.

The Catholic Church’s worldwide charity arm has called the Trump administration’s funding cuts to U.S. foreign aid programmes “catastrophic” in terms of its impact on the developing world.

The U.S. Catholic bishops’ conference announced this month that, due to Trump administration cuts, it would end a half-century of partnerships with the federal Government to provide services to migrant and refugee populations.

Chieko Noguchi, a spokesperson for the U.S. bishops, told Reuters that Mr. Parolin, the Vatican cardinal, is “well-informed of the challenges faced by the Church and her institutions here” in the U.S.

“We pray that the meeting yields positive and engaging dialogue,” she said.

The Vatican statement said that, during the Mr. Vance and Mr. Parolin meeting, “hope was expressed for serene collaboration” between the U.S. church and Government.

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Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister expressed “deep concern and disappointment” to his Pakistani counterpart on Saturday (April 19, 2025) over the forced deportation of tens of thousands of Afghans since the start of April.

Pakistan has launched a strict campaign to evict by the end of the month more than 8,00,000 Afghans who have had their residence permits cancelled, including some who were born in Pakistan or lived there for decades.

Pakistan’s top diplomat, Ishaq Dar, flew to Kabul for a day-long visit on Saturday (April 19, 2025), where he held discussions with Afghan Taliban officials, including Prime Minister Hasan Akhund and Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.

“Mr. Muttaqi expressed his deep concern and disappointment over the situation and forced deportation of Afghan refugees in Pakistan,” the Afghan Foreign Ministry’s deputy spokesperson Zia Ahmad said on X. “He strongly urged Pakistani authorities to prevent the suppression of the rights of Afghans living there and those coming here,” she added.

Ms. Ahmad added that Dar reassured officials that Afghans “will not be mistreated”.

Afghans in Pakistan have reported weeks of arbitrary arrests, extortion and harassment by authorities as they ramp up their campaign to expel migrants.

Islamabad has said nearly 85,000 have already crossed into Afghanistan, with convoys of Afghan families heading to border crossings each day fearing raids, arrests or separation from family members.

On Friday (April 18, 2025), Pakistan’s deputy interior minister Tallal Chaudhry told a news conference that “there will not be any sort of leniency and extension in the deadline”.

Thousands of Afghans depart Pakistan under repatriation pressure

“When you arrive without any documents, it only deepens the uncertainty of whether you’re involved in narcotics trafficking, supporting terrorism, or committing other crimes,” he added.

Analysts, however, say it is a politically motivated strategy to put pressure on Afghanistan’s Taliban Government over escalating security concerns.

The relationship between the two neighbours has soured as attacks in Pakistan’s border regions have soared, following the return of the Taliban government in Kabul in 2021.

Last year was the deadliest in Pakistan for a decade, with Islamabad accusing Kabul of allowing militants to take refuge in Afghanistan, from where they plan attacks.

The Taliban government denies the charge.

Second phase of deportations

Mr. Chaudhry said on Friday (April 18, 2025) that nearly 85,000 Afghans have crossed into Afghanistan since the start of April, the majority of them undocumented.

More than half of them were children, according to the United Nations refugee agency, entering a country where girls and women are banned from education after secondary school and barred from many sectors of work.

Afghanistan’s refugees ministry spokesman told AFP on Saturday (April 19, 2025) the Taliban authorities had recorded some 71,000 Afghan returnees through the two main border points with Pakistan between April 1 and 18.

In the first phase of returns in 2023, hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghans were forced across the border in the space of a few weeks.

The rebounding of Pakistan’s Afghan strategy

In the second phase announced in March, the Pakistan Government cancelled the residence permits of more than 800,000 Afghans and warned thousands more awaiting relocation to other countries to leave by the end of April.

Millions of Afghans have poured into Pakistan over the past several decades to flee successive wars, but tensions with the Afghan community have risen as Pakistan’s economic and security concerns have deepened.

The move to expel Afghans is widely supported by Pakistanis.

“They are totally disrespectful towards our country. They have abused us, they have used us. One can’t live in a country if they don’t respect it,” said Ahmad Waleed, standing in his shop on Friday (April 18, 2025) in Rawalpindi, near the capital.

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As the world enters an age of biotechnology, there is emerging evidence that China is “distorting” biotechnology markets and is quickly ascending to “dominance” in this field, having made this a strategic priority for the last 20 years, according to the U.S. National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology.

Also read: Trump signals tit-for-tat China tariffs may be near end; TikTok deal on ice

In a report submitted to the U.S. Congress, the Commission warned that China is likely to weaponise the technology and may create genetically enhanced super-soldiers, powered by artificial intelligence, or AI.

“To remain competitive, the U.S. must take swift action in the next three years. Otherwise, we risk falling behind, a setback from which we may never recover,” said the report, which was released earlier this week, and is based on two years of research and consultations with private and public experts.

Also read: Beijing boosts AI startup Manus, as China looks for the next DeepSeek

It is certain that a biotechnology revolution is coming, the Commission reiterated. “There will be a ChatGPT moment for biotechnology, and if China gets there first, no matter how fast we run, we will never catch up,” it warned.

‘Steal, scale, strangle’

The world is entering the age of biotechnology, a time when biology is the basis of innovation, the report says in a sober analysis, stressing that every strategic sector — including defence, healthcare, agriculture, energy, and manufacturing — can be advanced by biotechnology, but also breached by it.

The Commission’s research indicates that China is likely to follow the same playbook with biotechnology as it has with other strategic technologies, the report said. “First, they steal. Then, they scale. Once they have cornered the market, they strangle,” it said, pointing to the Chinese restrictions on gallium and germanium in 2024 that had disrupted U.S. semiconductor production.

Noting that U.S. allies and partners offer unique capabilities, the report referred to India which it says is “prioritizing” cost-effective bio-manufacturing, particularly of vaccines. “We must do more to take advantage of our partners’ unparalleled strengths, which could include entering into reciprocal data-sharing agreements or pooling demand for biotechnology products,” it said.

AI-powered super-soldiers

Particularly focussing on biotech in the defence domain, the Commission said it has every reason to believe that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will “weaponize” biotechnology. Now, with its Military-Civil Fusion strategy, the CCP aims to use biotechnology-powered troops — terming this “intelligent warfare” — to make the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) a “world-class military” by 2049. “Drone warfare will seem quaint if we are faced with genetically enhanced PLA super-soldiers with fused human and AI,” the report warned.

China says it will increase support for AI, science and tech innovation

Giving an example of how China is distorting the biotechnology markets, the report delved into how the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) and MGI Tech have financed their growth in an “atypical manner” that indicates “undisclosed” state involvement and “subsidization,” undermining their foreign competitors in the genomic sequencing market. “China’s ability to manufacture active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) at disproportionately low prices led India to impose a unilateral anti-dumping duty on certain APIs from China in 2022 to protect its domestic manufacturing industry,” it observed.

Recommendations for the U.S.

The Commission’s main recommendation is that the U.S. government should dedicate a minimum of $15 billion over the next five years to unleash more private capital into the national biotechnology sector.

After an extensive study, including more than 1,800 stakeholder consultations, the Commission listed out a set of top-priority recommendations for the U.S. government. These include suggestions to: prioritise biotechnology at the national level; mobilise the private sector to get U.S. products to scale; maximise the benefits of biotechnology for defence; out-innovate strategic competitors; build the biotechnology workforce of the future; and mobilise the collective strengths of allies and partners.

Further cautioning that the window to act is closing, the Commission pitched a two-track strategy, to make America innovate faster, and slow China down. In this regard, it called for defending American biotechnology IP and data against Chinese state-sponsored corporate espionage, even if this means rejecting an attractive investment. “We must not treat Chinese state-run companies as ordinary competitors in our market, even if it means using more expensive alternatives. China does not have a right to American research—period,” it said.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is accelerating us toward the inflection point, the Commission said, noting that though the U.S.’s advantage was once thought “unassailable”, China has emerged as a powerhouse in AI-enabled biotechnology.

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Amid reports of a US-backed ground offensive in Yemen, the Houthis latest move is aimed at securing their strongholds. The Iran-backed group is reportedly preparing for the possible land offensive by its rival Yemeni army, even as US strikes continue to pound alleged Houthi areas. The possible ground offensive could be an escalation of the conflict between US & its allies with the Houthis. Watch the video for full details.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

#houthis #houthiattack #yemen #yemennews #yemenconflict

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The denial from the BJP was firm and unequivocal. The ruling party at the Centre underlined that it respects the judiciary, and that the comments made by its MPs against the Supreme Court have nothing to do with the BJP.

Maharaja Sayajirao University Faculty Recruitment 2025: The application process began on April 15 and will end on April 30. Interested candidates are required to submit their applications through the university’s recruitment portal.

The Israeli military announced that a soldier had been killed on Saturday in the fighting in Gaza, the first fatality since a ceasefire with Hamas collapsed in mid-March.

The United States and Iran on Saturday concluded a second round of high-stakes talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme, agreeing to meet again in a week’s time, the Iranian foreign ministry said.

Northern Coalfields Limited, HURL Recruitment 2025: NCL invites applications for technician posts; HURL opens vacancies for engineers and management roles.

Jammu airport saw chaotic scenes with hundreds of passengers complaining of inconvenience after bad weather led to flight cancellations in Srinagar and affected connecting flights.

The Manipur government has asked all district administrations in the state to examine the papers of arms licence holders and arms dealers, an official said on Saturday.

The answer sheets carried requests and currency notes: the request was that the examiner help them clear the exam. Say, the examiner found the plea too plain, some students had also slipped in money to make it lucrative for the assessor.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a social media post Saturday responded sceptically to an Easter truce proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of trying to “play with human lives”.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Saturday transferred an assistant municipal commissioner after the demolition of a Jain temple in Vile Parle area of the city sparked a controversy.