Fifteen migrants died after a speedboat carrying them collided with a Greek coast guard vessel off the coast of Chios Island on Tuesday, according to Greek authorities. The collision occurred in the Chios Strait, near the village of Vrontados, during a pursuit, the coast guard said.
Twenty-four people were rescued, some with serious injuries, and others are reportedly still missing. Greek TV reported that survivors indicated they were mostly Afghans. The coast guard confirmed the speedboat had capsized.
In other news, John Steenhuisen, leader of South Africa's second largest party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), announced he would not seek re-election as leader in April. Steenhuisen, who has led the pro-business DA since 2019 and currently serves as agriculture minister in President Cyril Ramaphosa's government, was widely expected to run again. His decision may threaten the stability of the coalition government formed between the DA and its arch-rival, the African National Congress (ANC), after the ANC lost its parliamentary majority in 2024.
Meanwhile, in China, rights groups and activists raised concerns about the detention of two investigative journalists, Liu Hu and Wu Yingjiao, after they reportedly exposed corruption by a senior official in Sichuan province. According to rights groups, the journalists were taken by police on Sunday after publishing their investigation. Chengdu police said on Monday that two men, identified by their surnames Liu and Wu, were detained. Critics have long flagged concerns about media repression in China, where authorities have arrested and prosecuted journalists, accusing them of causing trouble. Liu Hu, a prominent investigative reporter, was previously arrested in 2013 on suspicion of defamation.
In France, the offices of Elon Musk's X were raided by the Paris prosecutor's cyber-crime unit as part of an investigation into suspected offenses, including unlawful data extraction and complicity in the possession of child pornography. The prosecutor's office also stated that both Musk and former X chief executive Linda Yaccarino had been summoned to appear at hearings in April. Musk responded to the raid on X, calling it a "political attack." The company issued a statement regarding the raid. Separately, the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) announced a probe into Musk's AI tool, Grok, over its "potential to produce harmful sexualised image and video content."
In other developments related to vehicle safety, China has banned hidden car door handles on electric vehicles (EVs), becoming the first country to prohibit the use of these designs, popularized by Tesla. The new regulations, set to take effect on January 1, 2027, require cars to have a mechanical release both on the inside and outside of their doors, according to state media. This decision follows scrutiny from safety watchdogs worldwide after several deadly incidents involving EVs, including two fatal crashes in China involving Xiaomi EVs where power failures were suspected to have prevented doors from being opened.
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