South Korean prosecutors carried out search and seizure operations at local crypto-currency exchanges and related offices, looking for evidence of illegal practice involved in the collapse of cryptocurrency Luna in May, a spokesperson said on Thursday.
“Atotal of 15 places, including cryptocurrency exchanges and related offices, were searched on Wednesday (July 20) for proof of allegations,” a spokesperson told Reuters, without elaborating.
Investors have made fraud accusations against Korean developers Do Kwon and Daniel Shin, co-founders of blockchain platform Terraform Labs, which is affiliated with the failed crypto-currency.
Luna’s value fell to practically zero in May with the collapse of stablecoin TerraUSD, which had been pegged to the U.S. dollar and was exchangeable with Luna.
Several employees of South Korea-based Terraform Labs were put on a no-fly list last month.
Reena Varma, a 90-year-old Indian woman, waved to the media and recalled her playful childhood on Wednesday, as she stood on the balcony of her birthplace in Pakistan during a long-awaited visit.
It was the first time in 75 years that Varma had seen her home and her childhood neighbourhood.
“I am feeling very happy about coming to my home after such a lot time. A very old dream of mine has come true,” said the petite, ever-smiling woman, sporting snow-white hair.
Varma has a vivid memory of the day she and her family left the two-storey home tucked away in the narrow, dark alleys of garrison city of Rawalpindi, where residents showered her with rose petals on her arrival.
She was just 14 years old at the time she left.
After spending some hours inside the house where she had lived with her parents and five siblings before the partition, Varma said she was happy to see it had not changed much.
However, her parents and siblings who have all since died never got a chance to return to the ancestral home.
Varma’s family fled to Western Indian state of Pune shortly before the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, which is known as the world’s largest migration.
After decades of attempting to get a visa, she crossed into Pakistan last week by road in the eastern city of Lahore at a border crossing that divides the arch-rival, nuclear-armed neighbouring nations.
Varma urged both countries to ease visa requirements to enable people from both countries to cross over and meet frequently.
“At least the new generation should be given a message of love so that they can try and improve things. You know, the new generation can change the government (policies). We are neighbour countries; our cultures and so many other things are the same. So, we should live in love and harmony,” she said.
The 75 years of rivalry should end now, she said as she sang an Indian song about wanting to return again and again.
The 1947 partition forced millions of families to migrate and has changed their lives ever since, after then ruling Britain ordered carving out two countries on the basis of majority Hindu and majority Muslim population areas.
The mass migration was marred by violence and bloodshed, as around 15 million Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs swapped countries in a political upheaval that cost more than a million lives.
Pakistan and India have fought three wars since 1947, and relations have remained tense, making it almost impossible for the people of both nations to meet and interact.
August 14 will mark 75 years since the partition split the two countries, dividing the province of Punjab roughly down the middle.
Sri Lankan MPs have elected prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as the country’s new president. He defeated Dullus Alahapperuma, with 134 votes to 82 in the parliamentary vote.
Awin for acting president and incumbent prime minister Wickremesinghe, one of the main two contenders but opposed by many ordinary Sri Lankans, could lead to more demonstrations by people furious with the ruling elite after months of severe shortages of fuel, food and medicine.
Ruling party lawmaker Alahapperuma, is more acceptable to the protesters and the opposition but does not have any top-level governance experience in a country with barely any dollars for imports and desperately in need of an IMF bailout.
The third candidate, Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, is leader of the leftist Janatha Vimukti Peramuna party, which commands only three seats in the 225-member parliament.
Two of ousted former prime minister Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s brothers, including former prime minister and president Mahinda Rajapaksa, as well as a nephew were in attendance as members of parliament gathered for the vote.
Although Wickremesinghe’s party holds only one seat in parliament, sections of Sri Lanka’s ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), including the president’s brother Basil Rajapaksa.
An SLPP official said that party members felt Wickremesinghe – who is also the country’s finance minister – has a good handle on the economic challenges facing Sri Lanka.
Wickremesinghe was involved in talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout package and a new budget.
But the 73-year-old politician remains deeply unpopular among many protesters, hundreds of whom clashed with security forces and occupied his office this week.
About a hundred people protested outside the Presidential Secretariat, the office of the President of Sri Lanka as lawmakers voted in parliament to choose the next president.
Many of the hundreds of thousands on the streets who forced the ouster of previous president Gotabaya Rajapaksa last week had wanted Wickremesinghe gone too, labeling him an ally of the Rajapaksa family.
Protesters occupied the presidential secretariat earlier this month along with the official president’s residence, forcing the then incumbent Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country.
Protesters recently stormed Wickremesinghe’s private house and office demanding his ouster.
Houses were engulfed in flames around Mount Penteli in northern Athens on Wednesday as firefighters spent the night trying to contain the blaze.
At least 485 firefighters, including a team from Romania, battled to contain a fire as night fell on Tuesday that ripped across Mount Penteli and came close to homes in the greater Athens region, some 27 kilometres north of the centre.
Four suburbs and a hospital were evacuated after orders were sent by text message and police assisted in the distancing of residents.
Special ground units, the military, and volunteers had joined the fight as 24 aircraft operating in the region ceased water drops after darkness. Firefighters worked amidst fierce winds that continued to propel the flames near homes. Orange flames formed long lines along the hillsides and the glow and smoke from the fire was seen in downtown Athens.
There were no initial reports of injuries or anyone trapped in the blaze, the Greek Fire Service said. It was not clear if any homes had been damaged.
Police closed off roads and redirected traffic, and prepared to patrol through the night and remain on standby if any other evacuations were necessary.
“All the forces in the field will remain active and will be further re-inforced with the aim of containing the fire, while air assets will be ready to begin operations at the first light of day,” said Fire Service spokesman Ioannis Artopios. Hospitals and ambulances had been put on alert, said Artopios.
Thousands of acres of land were scorched and houses burned in fires that lasted for weeks in 2021, after a prolonged heatwave. The fires prompted the government to revamp its civil protection ministry and come up with a pre-emptive readiness program for the summer, which includes bringing in firefighters from other EU nations to assist on the ground, such as the Romanian team. A German team is also stationed in central Greece.
Aerial views taken from an airplane on Tuesday showed the large trail of smoke from a fire burning in a northern suburb of Athens that filled the sky for kilometres.
Authorities ordered the evacuation of neighbourhoods in the area, some 27 kilometres north and northeast from the city centre, as flames reached dangerously close to homes and firefighting aircraft battled to keep the blaze from houses.
Residents in the area were sent phone alerts to pre-emptively evacuate their homes while fire brigade vehicles driving through the area ordered people to evacuate through loudspeakers.
Authorities had issued a fire precaution warning for Tuesday after strong winds were forecast for the country.
Last year, wildfires ravaged about 300,000 acres (121,000 hectares) of forest and bushland in different parts of Greece as the country experienced its worst heatwave in 30 years.
London’s firefighting authority declared a major incident in the British capital on Tuesday in response to the surge in fires amid a record-breaking heatwave in Britain and Europe.
The London Fire Brigade said it had deployed dozens of fire tenders to several blazes in and around the city, including 30 to a grass fire in east London. Television footage showed one blaze engulfing several homes in the village of Wennington to the east of the capital.
Britain recorded its highest ever temperature, breaking 40C (104F) for the first time, as a heatwave gripping Europe intensified, scorching fields and damaging airport runways and train tracks.
London Fire Brigade Assistant Commissioner Jonathan Smith said the past 48 hours had taken its toll on the service with multiple fires breaking out across the capital.
Smith said what was once regarded a once in a generation incident is now becoming far more regular.
London mayor Sadiq Khan voiced concern over the long delays it took fire brigades to respond to some calls, with its typical response time of six minutes being pushed to more than 20 minutes for the first fire trucks to arrive at a scene due to high demand.
“It’s simply not possible for the London Fire Brigade to respond to all these fires if they continue at this pace,” added Khan.
To the east of the capital, a large fire engulfed houses in the village of Wennington, some 18 miles (30km) east of the city centre with flames tearing across about 40 hectares (100 acres) of neighbouring tinder-dry fields.
“It was just completely surreal just how fast it went and how hot it was,” local man John Bishop told the BBC, adding that some pets were still unaccounted for but he believed all his neighbours were well.
A huge cloud of smoke was seen rising over a major road outside London after Britain recorded its highest ever temperature.
Eyewitness video showed thick plumes of smoke rising over the A2 in Dartford, Kent. Earlier footage showed a fire burning on a nearby field.
Elsewhere large grassland areas around the city caught alight, billowing smoke over major roads and nearby areas.
The heatwave gripping Europe intensified on Tuesday, scorching fields, damaging runways and forcing train tracks to buckle under the pressure.
Portugal has reported more than 1,000 deaths due to the heat wave, with the health chief warning on Tuesday that the country must gear up to cope with the effects of climate change as temperatures continued to rise.
“Portugal…is among one of the areas of the globe that could be (more) affected by extreme heat,” Graça Freitas, head of health authority DGS, told Reuters. “We have to be more and more prepared for periods of high temperatures.”
Temperatures across drought-hit Portugal surpassed 40 degrees Celsius (104F) last week and although they have dropped in the last few days Freitas said they remained above normal levels for the time of year.
DGS previously reported 238 excess deaths due to the heat wave from July 7 to 13 but Freitas said the number of fatalities has now increased to 1,063 up to July 18.
High temperatures, the drought and poor forest management have been blamed for several wildfires sweeping across drought-hit Portugal. Firefighters are also combating blazes in other southern European nations, including in neighbouring Spain.
Carlos Antunes, researcher at Lisbon University’s faculty of sciences, said the data showed those most likely to die due to heat waves were elderly people.
He said the number of deaths in the future will depend, among other things, on the preventive measures people adopt to protect themselves, how care homes take care of residents and the adaptation of infrastructures.
“With climate change, it is expected that this increase in mortality will intensify and therefore we have to take measures at the public health level to minimise the impact,” Antunes said in an interview.
A community group in rural Zimbabwe is making reusable sanitary towels so that girls don’t have to miss school when they have their period.
The Chiedza Community Welfare Trust, in Zimbabwe’s Mutasa District, started sewing cloth sanitary pads when founder Gladys Mukaratirwa realized that local girls were missing school every month because they couldn’t afford disposable hygiene products.
“If you calculate two to five days per month it’s about 45 days per year of school time which is wasted, so we realized that there was a need for them to have a sustainable source of sanitary pads,” Mukaratirwa said.
The pads are carefully designed and produced using cloth and flannel fabric to keep them lightweight and easy to wash and dry.
“It’s used, washed and dried in the sun. The sun is strong enough to sanitize this pad. Any harmful microorganisms can be destroyed by the sun and the pad is used again,” Mukaratirwa explained.
As a former teacher, the 60-year-old has dedicated her life to empowering and teaching young women in her village skills that can ensure that they earn an income to feed their families.
The group, run by female volunteers, sells at a low price to locals and to charities across Zimbabwe for distribution to schoolgirls and vulnerable young women.
“This pad is very cheap, and you can use for a year and six months so for just $4 for a pack of five it means for a year you don’t have to worry about buying pads,” a university student and customer, Lee Chisuko said.
Much of Europe is baking in a heatwave that scientists say is consistent with climate change and has pushed temperatures into the mid-40s Celsius (over 110 Fahrenheit) in some regions, with wildfires raging across tinder-dry countryside in Portugal, Spain and France.
France braced for what could become one of the hottest days ever recorded with temperatures reaching and even exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (104°F) in coastal regions cherished by tourists, as wildfires intensified in the west and south.
Britain was also braced for temperatures to hit 40C for the first time this week, with ministers urging the public to stay at home as the heatwave caused train services to be cancelled, one London airport to shut its runway and some schools to close.
Temperatures in some parts of southern Europe began to ease over the weekend but thousands of firefighters across the region still battled to contain hundreds of wildfires and authorities said the risk of further blazes remained extremely high.
Spain was facing the eighth and last day of a more than week-long heat wave on Monday, which caused more than 510 heat-related deaths, according to estimates from the Carlos III Health Institute.
Belgium and Germany were among the countries expecting the heatwave to hit them in the coming days.
The EU said it was monitoring closely wildfires raging in southern member states on Monday, sending a firefighting plane to Slovenia over the weekend adding to recent deployments to France and Portugal.
Parisians sought shade, cold drinks and ice cream on Monday as a heatwave struck the French capital.
“We are drinking a lot because it’s super hot and we try to stay in the shade because with the sun, it’s hard,” said Nohe Khaldi, a student from Eastern France.
Some tourists decided to visit a museum in the afternoon, to avoid the hottest hours of the day.
“We’ve come to the museum partly because I wanted to come, and partly because it takes us out of the sun,” said Fiona Lilgert from England.
As a part of a heatwave programme, some city halls open cool rooms to allow elderly and frail people to cool down.
Renee Clair lives on the top floor of a building and she said the temperature in her apartment was too hot for her to remain inside.
“I came because I was starting to faint,” she said.
Shops in the town centre of Redon, in western France, remained almost empty on Monday as customers sought to flee from a freak heatwave that pushed temperatures up to almost 40 degrees Celsius in much of the country.
On Monday, the usually lively promenade in Redon was almost empty, and food store owner Anne-Laury Siong said she barely had a customer enter her shop’s doors.
“We stay open because we have to, but it’s true that we want to close because there’s really no one, not a cat on the street,” Siong said.
Weather forecasters have warned that the current scalding episode, which started last week, could be one of the most intense in France’s history and could last until late July.
“We’re really acutely aware of the fact that these sorts of conditions are going to become more and more of a common event,” said British tourist Aaron Smallshaw.
Dozens of fires have erupted across Spain, scorching acres of land and forcing authorities to evacuate people from their homes.
Firefighters struggled on Monday to control a wildfire in Catalonia which had blackened more than 1,600 hectares (4,000 acres) of land.
The fire at El Pont de Vilomara, about 56 kilometres from Barcelona, flared up again on Monday afternoon in Bages after it had been stabilised earlier by firefighters, who damped down charred areas to prevent further outbreaks.
Catalan emergency services said more than 350 firefighters were working to contain the blaze with 100 planes and fire tenders joining the fight.
Catalan regional leader Pere Aragones asked the population to be extremely cautious in the coming days and warned the fire alert will remain at high risk.
Elsewhere in Spain, dozens of fires scorched thousands of acres of land, forcing authorities to evacuate people from their homes.
The heatwave, which began on July 10, has pushed temperatures into the 40s (Celsius) (104 Fahrenheit) increasing the risk of wildfires.
A raging wildfire with a huge plume of dense smoke dominated the horizon in Castilla y Leon, in Spain’s Zamora region on Monday.
With fires burning thousands of hectares in Galicia, Castille and Leon, Catalonia, Extremadura and Andalusia, Spain mourned the death of one firefighter in the northwestern province of Zamora on Sunday evening. Almost the entire country faces an extreme fire risk.
More than 70,000 hectares (173,000 acres) have burnt in Spain so far this year, the worst year of the last decade, according to official data. Last month, a huge wildfire in Sierra de la Culebra, Castille and Leon, ravaged about 30,000 hectares of land.
Spain also reported a second death caused by a wildfire. A 69-year-old was found dead on Monday in Ferreruela, in a burned-out area, emergency authorities said. Local media reported the victim was a farmer.
Britain’s London Luton airport said on Monday it had reopened to departing flights after a runway defect caused by hot weather, but arrivals remained suspended until further notice.
“The runway re-opened to departing flights at 17.40 (BST). Arrivals remain suspended until further notice,” the airport said on Twitter.
Temperatures rose above 37C in parts of England and were forecast to hit new record highs above 38.7C on either Monday or Tuesday. Much of Europe has also been baking in a heatwave.
The airport, located around 35 miles north of central London, is used by airlines including EasyJet, Wizz Air, Ryanair and TUI.
Some 14 flights due to land at Luton were diverted to other airports including Gatwick and Stansted on Monday afternoon, according to FlightRadar24 data.
There were more than 60 arrivals and departures operated by EasyJet, TUI, Ryanair and Wizz delayed at the airport, according to a Reuters tally of the Luton arrivals and departures board online at 1600 GMT.
That total included 14 Wizz flights heading to European holiday destinations including Tenerife and Dubrovnik, and 16 EasyJet arrivals.
Britain’s Royal Air Force said on Monday aircraft were using alternative airfields to its Brize Norton air base due to extreme temperatures, after Sky News reported that the hot weather had melted the runway at the Oxfordshire base.
The verdict has not entered into force and can be appealed within a time frame.
Acourt in Moscow ruled on Monday to fine Google LLC 21.077 billion rubles (about 369 million U.S. dollars) for repeated failure to delete content prohibited in Russia.
The administrative fine amounts to one tenth of the revenue of Google and its affiliated companies registered with the tax authorities in Russia.
The verdict has not entered into force and can be appealed within a time frame.
Google-owned YouTube “purposefully contributes to the distribution of unreliable information about the progress of the (Russian) special military operation in Ukraine; materials promoting extremist views and the ideology of terrorist organizations” among other things, Russia’s telecom watchdog Roskomnadzor said in a statement last month.
In December, a Moscow court fined Google for the first time 7.2 billion rubles (some 126 million U.S. dollars) for its failure to remove banned information.
In addition, the U.S. tech giant was fined 15 million rubles (about 260,000 U.S. dollars) last month for repeated refusal to localize the personal data of Russian users.
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