NIEUW-BEIJERLAND, Netherlands: Dutch police on Sunday said six people were killed and seven others hurt after a truck ran off the top of a dike and plowed into a neighborhood barbecue. Police were questioning the Spanish-registered driver of the lorry following the accident on Saturday evening in Nieuw-Beijerland, a village 30 kilometers (18 miles) south of Rotterdam. The victims were three women aged 28, 32 and 75, and three men aged 41, 50 and 62, all from the local area, police said. One of the injured was in a critical condition in hospital. Dutch King Willem-Alexander said he was “shocked” and Prime Minister Mark Rutte offered condolences over the “terrible” accident. Police had first confirmed at least two dead after the vehicle drove into the crowded community barbecue, which Dutch news reports said was being hosted by an ice-skating club. “We now have six people killed and seven injured, one seriously after yesterday’s accident,” police spokeswoman Mirjam Boers told AFP. “We are still investigating what exactly happened,” she said. Witnesses said the truck stopped for a moment at a T-junction on the narrow Zuidzijdsedijk dike, before taking off and plowing into the revellers, according to local broadcaster Rijnmond. Photographs from the scene taken immediately after the accident identified the truck as belonging to the El Mosca company, based in Spain. They showed scattered chairs lying on the ground and bunting hanging from trees.
Local mayor Charlie Aptroot said the accident had devastated the tight-knit community. “Six residents have literally been ripped from their lives. One of the victims was heavily pregnant,” he said, adding that children were among the injured. Three of the dead — a mother, son and daughter-in-law who was eight months pregnant — came from the same family, Rijnmond reported, quoting a local church announcement. Residents were laying flowers at the location of the accident on Sunday, an AFP journalist at the site said. A police car stood guard at the scene. “When we got here it was really terrible. There were a lot of police, ambulances, fire trucks, they were all here,” local resident Bob van den Burg, 20, who went to the scene after the accident on Saturday, told AFP. “Everybody is affected and mourns with the people here. Nothing ever happens here, there are almost no thefts or something terrible, and suddenly something like this happens.”
Police spokeswoman Boers confirmed the 46-year-old driver from Spain had been arrested “and was not under the influence of alcohol” at the time of the accident. “He was arrested for causing a fatal accident and serious bodily injury. His role in the incident is under investigation,” police said in a statement. Investigators had taken blood samples to see if he was on any medication and were also checking whether he was using his phone at the time of the accident, Dutch prosecutors said. King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima said they were “shocked” by the tragedy. “We are shocked and moved by the terrible accident in Nieuw-Beijerland last night in which so many people were killed. An unimaginable sadness within this close-knit community,” they said in an official message. Premier Rutte also sent condolences. “Terrible news... my thoughts are with the victims and relatives of this terrible drama. I wish them a lot of strength,” Rutte said on Twitter. People from the surrounding region traveled to the village to offer their support. “We live in another town close by and we all heard the sirens,” said Jolanda Koster, 61. “Of course you mourn with these people. Now we are here to lay some flowers to show we are thinking of the relatives and all the other people that have been affected.”
LONDON: Voting finished Friday in the Conservative party leadership election, with Liz Truss widely expected to be named the winner next week and succeed Boris Johnson as the UK’s next prime minister. Online and postal polls of Tory members closed at 5:00 p.m., after a two-month contest that saw the two final contenders tour the country taking part in hustings and televised debates. The result of the run-off between Foreign Secretary Truss and former finance minister Rishi Sunak will be announced at 12:30 p.m. on Monday, before the outgoing Johnson formally tenders his resignation to Queen Elizabeth II the next day. Conservative Party chairman Andrew Stephenson thanked both candidates for taking part in the often “gruelling schedule in good spirits.” As the ballot closed, he continued: “I know our party is ready to unite around a new leader and tackle the challenges we face as a country ahead.” Voting by the estimated 200,000 Conservative party members began in early August, a month after Johnson announced his resignation following a slew of scandals and resignations from his government. Truss, 47, has consistently enjoyed overwhelming support over Sunak in polling of the members. She has campaigned to slash taxes and prioritize economic growth above all else, just as Britain faces decades-high inflation and is tipped to enter recession later this year. “I have a bold plan that will grow our economy and deliver higher wages, more security for families and world-class public services,” Truss said in a statement, as the curtain came down on the often bitter race with her 42-year-old rival Sunak. “If I am elected prime minister, I will never let anyone talk us down and I will do everything in my power to make sure our great nation succeeds.” Sunak has assailed Truss’s plans as “reckless,” warning they risk heightening inflation and eroding the country’s standing in the eyes of international lenders and markets. He has argued his experience guiding the country’s finances through the pandemic leave him best placed to lead the UK during its current economic woes. “We face huge challenges ahead, but also huge opportunities,” Sunak said Friday. “I know what it takes to get through challenging times. I did it as chancellor and I will do it again as prime minister.” Tory MPs turned on their Brexit hero Johnson after months of mishandling controversies, and favored Sunak over Truss as the more electable leader to take them until the next general election due by January 2025. But the party’s rank-and-file have rallied to Truss’s right-wing platform, even if she is a former Liberal Democrat who opposed leaving the European Union in Britain’s 2016 referendum. “She’s a better politician,” John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, told AFP after Truss stuck to a simple script over the long, hot summer of campaigning. “Sunak has demonstrated some of the qualities you might hope to see in a good minister. But Miss Truss has demonstrated the qualities that you need in a politician,” Curtice added. However, whoever wins, recent polls of the wider electorate show the Conservatives face a growing challenge to retain their 12-year grip on power. The Labour party has profited from attacking Johnson’s “zombie government” as the Conservatives have taken their time electing a new leader, gripped by infighting despite the wider crisis. The main opposition party now boasts a double-digit lead over the Tories in opinion polls, as the economic landscape turns the bleakest it has been since Margaret Thatcher won power in 1979. Millions say that with energy bills set to spike by 80 percent from October — and further again from January — they face a painful choice between eating and heating this winter. Truss has vowed tax cuts but critics note those would do nothing to benefit the poorest. She had previously decried direct handouts, but this week vowed to “deliver immediate support to ensure people are not facing unaffordable fuel bills” this winter.
BERLIN: G7 industrialized powers vowed Friday to “urgently” move toward implementing a price cap on Russian oil imports in a bid to cut a major source of funding for Moscow’s war in Ukraine. The G7 said it was working toward a “broad coalition” of support for the measure but officials in France urged caution, saying a “final” decision could only be taken once all 27 members of the European Union had given their assent. Households on the continent have borne the brunt of rising energy prices, with governments under pressure to alleviate the pain of the resulting high inflation. “Russia is benefitting economically from the uncertainty on energy markets caused by the war and is making big profits from the export of oil and we want to counter that decisively,” German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said in a press conference after the move was announced. The aim of the price cap on oil exports was to “stop an important source of financing for the war of aggression and contain the rise in global energy prices,” he added. Ahead of Friday’s decision, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov sounded a clear warning. The adoption of a price cap “will lead to a significant destabilization of the oil markets,” he said. Moscow would “simply not supply oil and petroleum products to companies or states that impose restrictions,” Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak had warned on Thursday, according to Russian news agencies. “Interference in the market mechanisms of such an important industry ... will only destabilize the oil industry, the oil market. And for this, European and American consumers will be the first to pay,” he said. At a summit in June, the G7 leaders agreed to work toward implementing the ceiling on crude sales. In their statement, finance ministers from the G7 said they would “urgently work on the finalization and implementation” of the long-considered measure, without specifying the cap level. The price cap was “one of the most powerful tools we have to fight inflation and protect workers and businesses in the United States,” US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said in a statement Friday. However, the French finance ministry said technical work on the price cap was still “in progress.” “It is clear that no final decision can be taken until we have consulted and obtained unanimous support from all 27 member states of the European Union,” it said. “We support all measures that reduce the income that Russia derives from the sale of oil,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire added. EU Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni said the bloc aims to find a deal by December 5 for crude oil and February 5 for petroleum products. The G7 also voiced ambition to extend the measure beyond the bloc, saying it was seeking to form a “broad coalition” of support for the oil price cap to “maximize” the effectiveness of the measure. The ministers urged “all countries that still seek to import Russian oil and petroleum products to commit to doing so only at prices at or below the price cap.” The push to get as many countries as possible to go along with the cap is expected to be a key topic for discussion by leaders at the G20 summit in Bali on November 15 and 16. The initial cap would be set “at a level based on a range of technical inputs” the G7 ministers said, adding that its effectiveness would be “closely monitored.” Analysts warned, however, that the cap may yet fuel another rise in prices. The cap would introduce new risks for the oil market by “potentially disrupting Russian energy supplies,” Capital Economics analyst Liam Perch said in June. “This could push global energy prices up further.” “The cap may also be effective at reducing the Russian government’s tax revenues,” he said, speculating that a cap just below $80 (80 euros) per barrel could “push Russia’s budget into a deficit.”
LONDON: A British counterterrorism legal expert has warned that the UK’s anti-slavery laws could pose a threat to national security.
Jonathan Hall QC, the UK’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said that what the law considered to be a victim of trafficking or slavery was now so broad that it could lead to terror suspects, especially those radicalized as minors, escaping justice, as they could argue they were victims.
He feared authorities in the UK could prioritize the idea of treating suspects as victims over the threat they posed to the UK, on the grounds that they made decisions because they were underage or were coerced.
Hall told The Times: “The definition and the way in which the law is applied is over-broad. It is at odds with the fact that children are not generally seen as victims when they commit other crimes, just because someone suggests they should do so.”
His comments come in the wake of claims made in a new book that former Daesh member Shamima Begum, who left the UK aged 15 for Syria in 2015, was smuggled into the country by a people trafficker who also worked for Canadian intelligence.
“The Secret History of the Five Eyes,” written by former Sunday Times reporter Richard Kerbaj, alleged that Ottawa asked London to help cover up the trafficker’s role in Begum, along with two other girls from London, joining the group.
Begum was subsequently stripped of her UK citizenship by the Home Office and is currently detained in a Kurdish prison camp for Daesh members in northern Syria, where, she claims, she is a victim of human trafficking and online grooming.
Supporters of Begum suggest she is a victim, while the book’s allegations imply parts of the UK government were aware of the role of Canadian intelligence in smuggling her to Syria, and Britain’s own role in covering it up, when she was stripped of her citizenship. An appeal is due to be heard in November.
A spokesman for Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, said: “Whilst the full facts are not clear, what is clear is that Shamima Begum was a child when she traveled to Syria, and she may well have been trafficked there.
“If these reports are true, then the Home Office should answer for why this was not taken into account when the revocation of Shamima’s citizenship was decided.”
In January, a 16-year-old suspected of involvement in far-right terror activity in the UK was freed after her barristers successfully argued, using the Modern Slavery Act, that she was a victim of trafficking, setting a possible precedent for future underage extremist cases.
Hall noted that the case would have “wider ramifications.” He said: “Our UK law goes beyond international obligations by allowing people the defense on the basis they are a victim of slavery or trafficking.”
Begum’s case, Hall added, should take into account the manner in which she ended up in Syria, but needed to rely more on the risk she posed to UK security than the question of whether or not she had been a victim, which he called a “distraction.”
The UK Home Office told The Times that it did not comment on matters of state intelligence.
HERAT, Afghanistan: The extremist militant group Daesh claimed responsibility for the attack on a crowded mosque in western Afghanistan on Friday, which killed at least 18 people, including a prominent cleric, Al Arabiya reported.
Taliban officials and a local medic said that at least 21 people were hurt.
The blast went off in the Guzargah Mosque in the western city of Herat during Friday noon prayers, the highlight of the Muslim religious week when places of worship are particularly crowded.
The explosion killed Mujib-ul Rahman Ansari, a prominent cleric who was known across Afghanistan for his criticism of the country’s Western-backed governments over the past two decades. Ansari was seen as close to the Taliban, who seized control over the country a year ago as foreign forces withdrew.
His death was confirmed by the chief Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid.
Ambulances transported 18 bodies and 21 wounded people from the blast to hospitals in Herat, said Mohammad Daud Mohammadi, an official at the Herat ambulance center,
Previous mosque attacks have also been claimed by the Daesh extremist group, which has carried out a series of attacks against religious and ethnic minorities in Afghanistan, as well as Taliban targets.
The Herat mosque draws followers of Sunni Islam, the dominant stream in Afghanistan that is also followed by the Taliban.
In the year since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, Daesh attacked several mosques in suicide attacks during Friday prayers, with a focus on targeting Shiite Muslims. Daesh followers are also Sunnis and consider Shiites to be infidels.
NEW YORK: US law enforcement on Thursday raided two New York properties belonging to Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin and the target of sanctions, NBC News reported. Federal agents and local police officers were spotted carrying boxes after they left an apartment in Manhattan’s lavish Park Avenue and a house in the Hamptons, an upscale vacation destination near New York City, according to the report. Both properties are linked to Vekselberg, NBC said, citing US Treasury documents. Authorities are also searching a property on Miami’s Fisher Island believed to be linked to Vekselberg, NBC reported. Vekselberg is the head of the Renova Group, a Moscow-based conglomerate, and one of several wealthy Russians who have been targeted by sanctions following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The sanctions have frozen Vekselberg’s US assets and banned American companies from doing business with him and his companies. He is also being investigated by the US Justice Department for committing bank fraud, but no charges have been filed, NBC reported. In April, Vekselberg’s $99 million superyacht was seized by Spanish authorities at the request of the US government. The 78-meter-long yacht named Tango was impounded at the Mediterranean port of Palma de Mallorca by Spanish police, Spain’s Guardia Civil police force said in a statement issued at the time.