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Five passengers aboard a tourist bus were killed Friday when their driver got distracted and crashed on a New York state highway, police said.The wreck happened 25 miles (40 kilometers) east of Buffalo as the tourists headed back to New York City after visiting Niagara Falls.The passengers were of Indian, Chinese and Filipino origin, authorities said.”It’s believed the operator became distracted, lost control, over corrected and ended up… over there,” said New York state police commander major Andre Ray at the scene Friday evening, giving the toll for the first time.No one else was in a life-threatening condition, Ray said. Several passengers received medical treatment and were released.Fifty-four people were on the bus when it crashed and no children were killed, US media reported, contradicting an earlier police briefing.Six Chinese citizens were aboard the bus, China’s state broadcaster CCTV said quoting the Chinese consulate in New York. Five were treated for minor injuries and discharged, while the sixth was undergoing surgery.The bus had traveled to Niagara Falls, on the border with Canada, for the day and was heading home when the accident took place on a highway near Pembroke.- Mechanical error ‘ruled out’ -“Mechanical error was ruled out as well as impairment or intoxication,” said Ray, who added that no charges had been brought. Translators were sent to the scene to help communicate with the victims.Eight helicopters were involved in the rescue effort, Margaret Ferrentino, president of Mercy Flight, a nonprofit provider of air ambulance services, told AFP. “The driver is alive and well — we’re working with him. We believe we have a good idea of what happened, why the bus lost control. We just want to make sure that all the details are thoroughly vetted,” a police spokesman said earlier.State Governor Kathy Hochul said her team was coordinating with state police and local officials “who are working to rescue and provide assistance to everyone involved.”Blood and organ donor network Connect Life issued a call for blood donors to come forward in the wake of the crash.”I’m heartbroken for all those we’ve lost and all those injured and praying for their families. Thank you to our brave first responders on the scene,” said the senior US senator from New York, Chuck Schumer.Niagara Falls — towering waterfalls that span the US-Canada border — is a popular tourist destination.

Multiple tourists were killed and others injured Friday when a bus carrying more than 50 sightseers home from a visit to Niagara Falls crashed in New York state, officials said.Police said many of the passengers heading back to New York City were of Indian, Chinese and Filipino descent.State police spokesman James O’Callaghan told reporters the bus had traveled to Niagara Falls, on the border with Canada, for the day and was heading home when the accident took place east of Buffalo.”For unknown reasons, the vehicle lost control, went into the median, overcorrected and ended up in the ditch,” O’Callaghan said.”This bus was going full speed. It did not hit any other vehicle.”The police spokesman said people were still trapped in the wreckage, while others were ejected on impact. Images broadcast on local television showed the heavily damaged bus on its side.Translators were sent to the scene to help communicate with the victims.At least one child was among the dead, the spokesman said, without offering a specific death toll.”There are many serious injuries, and as was just announced by New York State Police, there are multiple fatalities,” Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said on X.At least 21 people were taken to Erie County Medical Center, a hospital official told AFP.- ‘Heartbroken’ -Eight helicopters were involved in the rescue effort, Margaret Ferrentino, president of Mercy Flight, a nonprofit provider of air ambulance services, told AFP. “The driver is alive and well — we’re working with him. We believe we have a good idea of what happened, why the bus lost control. We just want to make sure that all the details are thoroughly vetted,” O’Callaghan said.State Governor Kathy Hochul said her team was coordinating with state police and local officials “who are working to rescue and provide assistance to everyone involved.””I’m heartbroken for all those we’ve lost and all those injured and praying for their families. Thank you to our brave first responders on the scene,” said the senior US senator from New York, Chuck Schumer.Niagara Falls — towering waterfalls that span the US-Canada border — is a popular tourist destination.

Sri Lanka’s former president Ranil Wickremesinghe was remanded in custody Friday as he became the most senior opposition figure to be hauled up in an anti-corruption crackdown by the new leftist government.Anti-graft units have ramped up their investigations since President Anura Kumara Dissanayake came to power in September on a promise to fight endemic corruption in the impoverished South Asian nation.Wickremesinghe, 76, who lost the last election to Dissanayake, was taken into custody after being questioned about a September 2023 visit to London to attend a ceremony for his wife at a British university, a police detective told AFP.”The suspect (Wickremesinghe) will be held in custody till Tuesday, but considering his medical condition he could be admitted to the prison hospital or another hospital,” Magistrate Nilupuli Lankapura said ordering his remand.Wickremesinghe, whose lawyers said was suffering from heart disease and diabetes, was charged under the Public Property Act and two counts of the penal code — “dishonest misappropriation of property” and “criminal breach of trust.”The offences carry a maximum punishment of 20 years in jail and a fine not exceeding three times the value of misappropriated funds.Wickremesinghe had stopped in London in 2023 on his way back from Havana, where he attended a G77 summit, and the UN General Assembly in New York.The brief UK visit was to participate in the conferring of an honorary professorship on his wife Maithree by the University of Wolverhampton.His office had previously denied that he abused his position to visit Britain. Three of his then senior aides were questioned this month by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).Wickremesinghe had maintained that his wife’s travel expenses were met by her and that no state funds were used.However, the CID alleged that Wickremesinghe used 16.6 million rupees ($55,000) of government money for his travel on a private visit with a delegation of 10 people, including bodyguards.-Bail out leader-Wickremesinghe became president in July 2022 for the remainder of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s term after Rajapaksa stepped down following months of street protests over alleged corruption and mismanagement.Wickremesinghe secured a $2.9 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in early 2023 and was credited with stabilising the economy after the country’s worst-ever financial meltdown in 2022.He doubled taxes and removed energy subsidies as part of tough austerity measures to raise state revenue.He lost his re-election bid in September but remained a key opposition figure despite his coalition holding only two seats in the 225-member parliament.Members of Wickremesinghe’s United National Party and another former president, Maithripala Sirisena, were seen at the Colombo Fort magistrate’s court when the decision was read out.Two former presidents — Sirisena and Chandrika Kumaratunga — have been fined by the Supreme Court for their actions or omissions while in office, although no former president had been arrested before.Since the new government came to power, two former senior ministers have been jailed for up to 25 years for corruption.Several members of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s family have also been charged with misusing state funds and are being prosecuted. Many of them are currently on bail pending court hearings.Dissanayake’s government earlier this month impeached the police chief after accusing him of running a criminal network that supported politicians. The prisons chief was also jailed for corruption.

Sri Lankan police arrested former president Ranil Wickremesinghe on Friday, making him the most senior opposition figure to be detained under an anti-corruption crackdown by the new leftist government.Sri Lanka’s anti-graft units have led the crackdown since President Anura Kumara Dissanayake came to power in September on a promise to fight corruption.Wickremesinghe, 76, who lost the last election to Dissanayake, was taken into custody after being questioned about a September 2023 visit to London to attend a ceremony for his wife at a British university, a police detective told AFP.”We are producing him before the Colombo Fort magistrate,” the officer said, adding that they were pressing charges for using state resources for personal purposes.Wickremesinghe had stopped in London in 2023 on his way back from Havana, where he attended a G77 summit.His office had previously denied that he abused his position to visit London.Three of his then senior aides were questioned this month by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).He and his wife, Maithree, attended a University of Wolverhampton ceremony where she was conferred an honorary professorship.Wickremesinghe had maintained that his wife’s travel expenses were met by her and that no state funds were used.However, the CID alleged that Wickremesinghe used government money for his travel on a private visit and that his bodyguards were also paid by the state.Wickremesinghe became president in July 2022 for the remainder of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s term after Rajapaksa stepped down following months of street protests over alleged corruption and mismanagement.Wickremesinghe secured a $2.9 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in early 2023 and was credited with stabilising the economy after the country’s worst-ever financial meltdown in 2022.He doubled taxes and removed energy subsidies as part of tough austerity measures to raise state revenue.He lost his re-election bid in September but remained a key opposition figure despite his coalition holding only two seats in the 225-member parliament.Members of Wickremesinghe’s United National Party were seen arriving at the Colombo Fort magistrate’s court, where he was due to be taken later on Friday.Key opposition politicians, including two former senior ministers, have been jailed for up to 25 years for corruption since the new leftist government took office.Several members of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s family have also been charged with misusing state funds and are being prosecuted. Many of them are currently on bail pending court hearings.Dissanayake’s government earlier this month impeached the police chief after accusing him of running a criminal network that supported politicians. The prisons chief was also jailed for corruption.

India’s Supreme Court on Friday scaled back its order to catch and remove tens of thousands of stray dogs from the capital, after feasibility questions about the sheer scale of the exercise.The court earlier this month handed city authorities a deadline of eight weeks to round up all dogs, ordering that they be held in shelters and not released.Indian media had suggested there were as many as a million stray dogs in Delhi, although only nationwide figures are available, with 15 million stray dogs registered in the government’s 2019 livestock census.On Friday, the court issued a fresh order, saying that stray dogs should be “released after they are vaccinated and sterilised” unless they are suspected to have rabies or “display aggressive behaviour”.As the court ruling was issued, pro-dog activists celebrated.”Everyone was praying”, said Sonali Kalra, 59, a businesswoman. “People are looking after street dogs like their own children, but it’s not practical that they all can be taken into private homes — so the focus is sterilisation.”In 2024, there were more than 25,000 reported cases of dog bites in Delhi, a sprawling megacity of 30 million people, according to government figures, but zero recorded human deaths from rabies.The city’s media, however, regularly report on attacks by stray dogs, particularly on children and the elderly, a crisis exacerbated by a lack of sterilisation programmes and legal restrictions on canine culling.The initial order was supported by those angered at the surge of dogs on the streets.- ‘All the dogs’ -Countrywide, there were 3.7 million cases of dog bites, and 54 recorded human deaths from rabies last year.India, with 1.4 billion people the world’s most populous country, accounts for one of the highest number of deaths from rabies worldwide.Dog bites and scratches cause 99 percent of human rabies cases and can be prevented through dog vaccination and bite prevention, according to the World Health Organization.In middle class neighbourhoods, many of Delhi’s strays are beloved by their residents despite lacking formal owners, with some dogs clothed in special canine jackets to keep warm during the winter.College student Aanvi Singh, 20, who also took part in a rally supporting the dogs, said the activists had “won”.”I am going to celebrate on the way with all the dogs that I meet,” she said.

Decades after Pakistani troops killed his friends in Bangladesh’s independence war, veteran freedom fighter Syed Abu Naser Bukhtear Ahmed eyes warming ties between Dhaka and Islamabad with cautious pragmatism.Bangladesh is hosting the foreign minister and trade envoy this week, its most senior Pakistani visitors in years, in a bid to reset relations scarred by the bloody 1971 conflict and shaped by shifting regional power balances.”The brutality was unbounded,” said Ahmed, 79, a banker, describing the war in which East Pakistan broke away to form Bangladesh.Hundreds of thousands were killed -– Bangladeshi estimates say millions -– and Pakistan’s military was accused of widespread atrocities.”I would have loved to see the responsible people tried — the ones who killed six of my friends,” Ahmed told AFP.”I don’t mind normalising relations with those who opposed the war, but were not directly involved in the atrocities committed.”Contact between the two Muslim-majority nations was long limited to little more than cultural ties: a shared love of cricket, music and Pakistan’s prized cotton used to make the flowing trousers and shirt known as shalwar kameez.Bangladesh instead leaned heavily on India, which almost encircles the country of 170 million people.- ‘Flirting’ -However, a mass uprising in Dhaka last year that toppled longtime India ally Sheikh Hasina has strained ties with New Delhi and opened the door for dialogue with Islamabad.Pakistan’s Commerce Minister Jam Kamal Khan arrived in Dhaka on Thursday and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar is expected on Saturday.Analysts say India, which fought a four-day conflict with Pakistan in May, will be watching closely.”Bangladesh had been one of India’s closest partners in its neighbourhood, and now it is flirting with India’s chief adversary,” said Michael Kugelman, a US-based analyst.The last time a Pakistani foreign minister visited Dhaka was in 2012, according to Bangladesh newspapers.Pakistan and Bangladesh began sea trade last year, expanding government-to-government commerce in February.”It is the emergence of a new strategic equation — one that reduces Indian influence and instead strengthens a cooperative axis between Pakistan and Bangladesh,” Azeem Khalid, a New York-based international relations expert, told AFP.”If sustained, this evolution has the potential to reshape South Asia’s geopolitical and economic order.”Bangladesh’s interim government led by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus is furious that Hasina fled to India and has defied a summons to answer charges amounting to crimes against humanity.”Under Yunus, there have been a number of high-level meetings, trade relations have expanded, the two countries have agreed to relax visa rules and there has even been some limited military cooperation,” said analyst Thomas Kean from the International Crisis Group.- ‘Wound remains open’ -Still, reconciliation faces obstacles.Calls for Pakistan to apologise for the 1971 killings remain popular in Bangladesh, but foreign policy expert Qamar Cheema believes it is unlikely Islamabad will oblige.”Pakistan’s engagement with Bangladesh is only possible if Bangladesh does not bring historical animosity in re-establishing ties”, said Cheema, from Islamabad’s Sanober Institute.”Bangladesh always demanded an apology, which (Pakistan) never provided — and even today, doesn’t have any such intentions.”Dhaka’s foreign affairs adviser Mohammad Touhid Hossain, asked if Bangladesh would raise the issue of a public apology, said that “all issues will be on the table”.Bangladesh courts have sentenced several people for “genocide” during the 1971 war, accusing them of aiding Pakistani forces in the ethnic cleansing of Bengalis.”As long as the wound remains open, the relationship cannot be sustainable,” said anthropologist Sayeed Ferdous from Dhaka’s Jahangirnagar University.Others strike a more balanced tone.”From a victim’s perspective, I can’t accept a warming of bilateral relations before Pakistan meets certain conditions,” said Bangladeshi academic Meghna Guhathakurta, whose father was killed by Pakistani troops.She said Islamabad “should make all information related to the war public”.However, the retired international relations professor from Dhaka University also accepted that it was “natural to have trade relations with Pakistan”, and acknowledged the “geopolitical dimensions”.With elections in February, when Yunus’s administration will hand over power, relations could shift once again.”If the next government is prepared to patch up ties with India — and Delhi is willing to reciprocate — then the surge in ties with Islamabad could become a casualty,” Kugelman said.burs-pjm/pbt/sco

President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday abruptly stopped issuing US visas for truck drivers after a fatal crash drew national attention, its latest sweeping step against foreign visitors.”Effective immediately we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on X.”The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on US roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers,” he wrote.Rubio’s action came after a truck driver was charged with killing three people on a highway in Florida while making an illegal U-turn.Harjinder Singh, who is from India, allegedly entered the United States illegally from Mexico and failed an English examination after the crash, according to federal officials.The case has gathered wide media attention and has been highlighted by officials in Florida, controlled by Trump’s Republican Party, with the lieutenant governor flying to California to extradite Singh personally alongside immigration agents on Thursday.The crash has taken on a political dimension in part as Singh received his commercial license in California and also lived in the West Coast state, which is run by the rival Democratic Party and opposes Trump’s crackdown on immigration.”This crash was a preventable tragedy directly caused by reckless decisions and compounded by despicable failures,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said.California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office responded that the federal government under Trump had issued a work permit to Singh, who sought asylum, and that California had cooperated in extraditing him.Even before the crash, Republican lawmakers have been taking aim at foreign truckers, pointing to a rising number of accidents without providing evidence of a direct link to immigrants.In June, Duffy issued a directive that truck drivers must speak English.Truck drivers have long been required to pass tests that include basic English proficiency but in 2016 under former president Barack Obama, authorities were told not to take truckers off the road solely on account of language deficiencies.- Changing face of truckers -The number of foreign-born truck drivers in the United States more than doubled between 2000 and 2021 to 720,000, according to federal statistics.Foreign-born drivers now make up 18 percent of the industry — in line with the US labor market as a whole, but a departure for a profession long identified with white, working-class men.More than half of the foreign-born drivers come from Latin America with sizable numbers in recent years from India and Eastern European nations, especially Ukraine, according to industry groups.The influx of foreign drivers has come in response to demand. A study earlier this year by the financial company altLine said the United States faced a shortage of 24,000 truck drivers, costing the freight industry $95.5 million per week as goods go undelivered.- Widening visa curbs -Trump has long made opposition to immigration a signature issue, rising to political prominence in 2016 with vows to build a wall on the Mexican border. Rubio has taken a starring role in Trump’s efforts by cracking down on visas. The State Department said this week that it has rescinded more than 6,000 student visas since Trump took office — four times more than during the same period last year — and an official said all 55 million foreigners with US visas are liable to “continuous vetting.”Rubio has ordered scrutiny of applicants’ social media accounts and proudly removed students who campaigned against Israel’s offensive in Gaza, using a law that allows him to rescind visas for people deemed to counter US foreign policy interests. The State Department over the weekend also paused visitor visas meant for severely wounded children from Gaza to receive treatment.The decision came after Laura Loomer — a far-right activist close to Trump who has described the September 11, 2001 terror attack as an inside job — said she spoke to Rubio and warned of “Islamic invaders” from Gaza.

Sri Lanka’s sacked police chief Deshabandu Tennakoon was remanded in custody on Thursday, accused of leading an assault on peaceful protesters three years ago that triggered nationwide unrest.Tennakoon, 54, was arrested on Wednesday and brought before Colombo Fort magistrate Nilupuli Lankapura.”Deshabandu Tennakoon aided and abetted an assault on anti-government protesters on May 9, 2022,” a police investigator told the court.The crackdown outside then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s office sparked retaliatory violence in which scores of homes of ruling party politicians were torched.The unrest escalated, forcing Rajapaksa to resign two months later after public fury over corruption and mismanagement that caused crippling shortages of food, fuel and medicine.Parliament impeached Tennakoon this month for criminal conduct in a separate case, one of more than 40 he faces for abuse of power.Tennakoon was appointed in November 2023 despite the Supreme Court having found he had tortured a suspect by rubbing menthol balm on his genitals.Weeks later, he was accused of authorising a botched raid in the coastal town of Weligama that led to a gun battle between rival police units.

In a climate-controlled room in India’s capital, restorers carefully piece together rare historical documents and artefacts to rescue irreplaceable fragments that provide a unique window into New Delhi’s past.Experts at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) painstakingly revive crumbling maps and photographs that help track the development of the sprawling megacity now home to more than 30 million people.The work helps forge a more nuanced understanding of a multi-faith metropolis that has undergone successive waves of settlement and change over several millennia.”We are preserving memory,” said Achal Pandya, who leads the IGNCA conservation lab. “And a country which doesn’t have a memory is nothing.”Among the most prized artefacts being restored are the Wilson survey maps, a trove of around 250 documents produced between 1910 and 1912 by a British colonial officer.They focused on Old Delhi, the former walled capital founded in the 17th century as the Mughal capital Shahjahanabad.Alongside the maps are meticulous registers of who lived where.”You are not just taking a map, but you are also giving information about the people there,” said Sanjeev Kumar Singh, part of the heritage restoration team from New Delhi’s city council.Years of neglect have left the fragile documents even more vulnerable — a situation worsened by the city’s punishing climate, which shifts from searing summer heat to the humid monsoon to winter chills that can trap some of the world’s worst air pollution.Without the preservation that began in 2022, they would have crumbled away, according to the restorers.”The importance of this is as much as a dying person needing oxygen,” Singh told AFP.

India said Wednesday it had successfully test-fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile which, when operational, should be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to any part of China.The Agni-5 missile was successfully launched in India’s eastern Odisha state, with authorities saying it “validated all operational and technical parameters.”India and China, the world’s two most populous nations, are intense rivals competing for influence across South Asia and relations plummeted in 2020 after a deadly border clash.India is also part of the Quad security alliance with the United States, Australia and Japan, which is seen as a counter to China.India’s bitter rival Pakistan has nuclear weapons as well and the two countries came to close to war in May after militants killed 26 people in Indian-administered Kashmir, an attack New Delhi blamed on Islamabad. But Pakistan denied any involvement.Caught in global trade and geopolitical turbulence triggered by US President Donald Trump’s tariff war, Delhi and Beijing have moved to mend ties.Last October, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping for the first time in five years at a summit in Russia. Modi is expected to make his first visit to China since 2018 later this month to attend the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) — a regional security bloc.Ties between New Delhi and Washington, meanwhile, have been strained by Trump’s ultimatum that India end its purchases of Russian oil, a key source of revenue for Moscow as it wages its military offensive in Ukraine.The United States says it will double new import tariffs on India from 25 percent to 50 percent by August 27 if New Delhi does not switch crude suppliers.The Agni-5 is one of a number of indigenously produced short- and medium-range Indian ballistic missiles aimed at boosting its defence posture against Pakistan, as well as China.