Global News Roundup: Plane Crash in Colombia, Landslide in Sicily, and More
A series of significant events unfolded across the globe this week, ranging from a deadly plane crash in Colombia to a devastating landslide in Sicily and international legal and political developments.
In Colombia, a small passenger plane crashed in the northern part of the country, killing all 15 people on board, including a congressman, Sky News reported Thursday. According to Colombia's transportation ministry, rescue crews located the crash site in the mountainous rural area of Norte de Santander near the Venezuelan border and "regrettably confirmed that there were no survivors." Among the victims were Diogenes Quintero, 36, a member of the House of Representatives for Catatumbo, and Carlos Salcedo, who was running for Congress, according to Sky News.
Meanwhile, in southern Sicily, a landslide triggered by heavy rain caused the edge of the town of Niscemi to collapse, forcing the evacuation of more than 1,500 people, Sky News reported Wednesday. Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni visited Niscemi, where dozens of houses were left teetering on the edge of a cliff after the ground beneath collapsed, rendering them "uninhabitable," according to Sky News.
In other news, China executed 11 members of a Myanmar-based mafia family for killing 14 people and running a crime syndicate worth more than $1 billion, authorities said, according to Sky News on Thursday. The Ming family members, including Ming Guoping, Ming Zhenzhen, Zhou Weichang, Wu Hongming and Luao Jianzhang, were sentenced to death in September for a host of crimes, including illegal detention and fraud. The Wenzhou city Intermediate People's Court announced the execution in a statement, Sky News reported.
On the international front, lawyers for a group of French nationals accused of being part of ISIL (ISIS) and transferred by the United States from Syria to prisons in Iraq allege the inmates have been subjected to torture and inhumane treatment there, Al Jazeera reported Wednesday. Lawyers Marie Dose and Matthieu Bagard visited the accused men in Baghdad during a recent visit and said their clients had been subjected to ill-treatment in detention in Iraq, according to French media reports cited by Al Jazeera.
In Eastern Europe, Ukraine announced it had received the bodies of 1,000 soldiers from Russia in the latest exchange of those killed in the war, Al Jazeera reported Thursday. Russia and Ukraine confirmed the exchange, describing it as part of ongoing agreements reached earlier in the war to allow families to bury those killed on the battlefield, according to Al Jazeera. The conflict, now nearly four years old, continues to exact a heavy toll on both sides.
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