Avalanches in Alps kill at least 10
Rome: A series of avalanches in the Alps over the weekend killed at least 10 people, emergency services and media reported. The heaviest toll was in Italy’s northwestern Aosta Valley, with five people killed and one missing from three different avalanches. A search was launched above the resort of Courmayeur in the Aosta
Valley for two French and two British nationals who failed to return to their hotel.
Nine killed in Somali market car bombing
Mogadishu: At least nine people were killed and several wounded when a car loaded with explosives blew up near a mall in a busy market in the Somali capital on Monday, police said.
Lanka keeps Buddhist monk behind bars
Colombo: Sri Lanka’s President resisted calls from the island’s Buddhist hierarchy to release a jailed firebrand monk Monday, even as 518 other convicts were released to mark the island nation’s Independence Day. Galagodaatte Gnanasara has long been accused of instigating hate crimes against minority Muslims in Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka. Since December he has been serving concurrent jail sentences over disruptive behaviour in court and intimidating a woman litigant.
Sri Lanka’s Buddhist hierarchy had pressed President Maithripala Sirisena to grant an independence day reprieve but this was rejected.