Hundreds missing, 34 found dead in Brazil dam burst
Reuters, Brumadinho
Brazilian rescue workers halted searches for the night on Saturday for hundreds of people missing and feared dead under a sea of mud after a tailings dam burst at an iron ore mine owned by Vale SA, killing at least 34 people.
The dam ruptured on Friday, releasing a torrent of mining waste that slammed into Vale’s facilities and cut through a nearby community, leaving a roughly 150-meter-wide (500-foot-wide) wake of destruction stretching for miles (km).
Ireland not planning for a hard border
Reuters, London
Ireland’s European Affairs Minister said Britain had an obligation to the Good Friday peace treaty regardless of Brexit, and an integral part of that was protecting the “invisible border” between Ireland and Northern Ireland.
“As far as we are concerned we are not planning for a border, we have never been planning for a border, because it’s not something we can countenance,” Helen McEntee told Sky News on Sunday.
Desolation,
dismay await Libya displaced
AFP, Al-Gawalesh
“Our town has been looted, homes wrecked and olive trees torched,” Moftah Mohammed said in dismay on returning home to Al-Gawalesh in western Libya after years wandering from place to place.
Al-Gawalesh, perched on the slopes of Jebel Nefussa, 120 kilometres (75 miles) west of Tripoli, paid the price for its support of former dictator Moamer Kadhafi during a 2011 NATO-backed revolt in which he was captured and killed.
Russia marks 75th anniv of end of Leningrad siege
AFP, Saint Petersburg:
Russian President Vladimir Putin will on Sunday preside over ceremonies marking the 75th anniversary of the end of the World War II siege of Leningrad that claimed over 800,000 lives.
Saint Petersburg-formerly known as Leningrad-will plunge into the atmosphere of a wartime city under siege, with authorities broadcasting air-raid warnings, radio announcements and the ticking of a metronome.
The centrepiece of the commemorations will be a military parade in the city’s Palace Square featuring more than 2,500 servicemen in modern and period uniforms, tanks and multiple-launch rocket systems.
