JAKARTA: Indonesia launched on Monday a mobile app dedicated to Indonesian Hajj pilgrims as officials seek to streamline communication for better coordination during the pilgrimage season.
The world’s biggest Muslim-majority nation will be sending its biggest Hajj contingent — comprising 241,000 pilgrims — to Saudi Arabia this year for the spiritual journey that is one of the five pillars of Islam.
After the country’s first Hajj flight of the season commenced on May 12, the Ministry of Religious Affairs has now launched a mobile app named Kawal Haji where pilgrims can file reports and post inquiries among one another and to Indonesian officers about their journey.
“Kawal Haji is meant to become a communication channel between Hajj pilgrims, officers, their families, members of the public, and other stakeholders. Pilgrims can report, help each other, share information, and convey their appreciation,” said Wibowo Prasetyo, the ministry’s special staff for media and public communication, during the launching event in Jakarta.
“Through Kawal Haji, pilgrims now have a trusted channel to report and complain. Information on the organization of Hajj pilgrimage will not run wild on social media either. The trust of the pilgrims and other stakeholders will only increase.”
The app comes with two main features, Prasetyo said, allowing pilgrims to report any issue related to their food, accommodation, transportation, or whereabouts, and also featuring a finder function to track the location of those who are lost.
“This will be very useful to track cases of pilgrims going missing or getting lost. It requires the pilgrims to activate their location feature so it can track last known location,” said Hasan Affandi, an official with the Religious Affairs Ministry.
“Pilgrims can also express appreciation for the works of the officers or the help of other pilgrims.”
Indonesia is sending over 4,400 Hajj officers to cater to its pilgrims this year.
Meanwhile, nearly 89,000 Indonesian pilgrims have arrived in Saudi Arabia so far, with Hajj flights from Indonesia scheduled until June 10.
KANO: Fourteen people were killed on Saturday when a bus collided with a petrol tanker in central Nigerian Niger state, a road safety official told AFP Sunday.
The passenger bus rammed into the on-coming petrol tanker as the driver tried to overtake another bus outside Kusobogi village, 80 km from the state capital Minna, Kumar Tsukwan, head of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) in Niger state, said.
“Fourteen people died in the head-on collision while six others were injured and taken to hospital for medical attention,” Tsukwan said.
He blamed “speeding and wrongful overtaking” by the bus driver for the accident.
The bus was heading to the northern city of Kaduna from the Nigerian economic capital Lagos, Tsukwan said.
Road accidents are common on Nigeria’s poorly maintained roads due largely to speeding and disregard to traffic rules.
Last week 23 people died when a truck laden with goods and passengers overturned in northern city of Kano.
Last year Nigeria recorded 9,570 road accidents which resulted in 5,421 deaths, according FRSC data.
Russia launched ‘record’ 267 drones on Ukraine overnight: Ukrainian army
Russia launched 267 drones on Ukraine overnight, a “record” since the February 2022 invasion, the Ukrainian air force said Sunday
Updated 12 min 44 sec ago
AFP
KYIV: Russia launched 267 drones on Ukraine overnight, a “record” since the February 2022 invasion, the Ukrainian air force said Sunday.
Air force spokesman Yuriy Ignat called the 267 drones spotted in Ukrainian skies between Saturday and Sunday “a record for a single attack” since the invasion began nearly three years ago.
Among them, 138 were intercepted by air defense while 119 were “lost” without causing damage, he said in a post on Facebook.
He did not say what happened to the remaining 10 but a separate armed forces statement on Telegram said several regions, Kyiv included, had been “hit.”
A Russian missile attack late Saturday left one man dead and five more wounded in the central town of Kryvyi Rig, regional authorities said Sunday.
To try to prevent daily Russian strikes, Ukraine has throughout the conflict sought to disrupt Russian logistics far from the front, notably by directly attacking military bases and industrial sites inside Russia itself.
Twenty Ukrainian drones launched against Russia were “destroyed” overnight, the Russian Defense Ministry said meanwhile in a Sunday report.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, with the Kremlin claiming its aim is to protect itself against the threat of NATO expansion.
Germans start voting, polls suggest shift to right
Frontrunner Friedrich Merz vows tough rightward shift if elected, to win back voters from the far-right anti-immigration Alternative for Germany
The AfD has basked in the glowing support lavished on it by Trump’s entourage, with billionaire Elon Musk touting it as the only party to “save Germany"
Updated 23 February 2025
Reuters
BERLIN: Germans were voting in a national election on Sunday that is expected to see Friedrich Merz’s conservatives regain power and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) score its best ever result as Europe’s ailing economic powerhouse lurches rightwards.
Merz’s CDU/CSU bloc has consistently led polls but is unlikely to win a majority given Germany’s fragmented political landscape, forcing it to sound out coalition partners.
Those negotiations are expected to be tricky after a campaign which exposed sharp divisions over migration and how to deal with the AfD in a country where far-right politics carries a particularly strong stigma due to its Nazi past.
That could leave unpopular Chancellor Olaf Scholz in a caretaker role for months, delaying urgently needed policies to revive Europe’s largest economy after two consecutive years of contraction and as companies struggle against global rivals.
It would also create a leadership vacuum in the heart of Europe even as it deals with a host of challenges, including US President Donald Trump’s threats of a trade war and attempts to fast-track a ceasefire deal for Ukraine without European involvement.
Germany, which has an export-oriented economy and long relied on the US for its security, is particularly vulnerable.
Germans are more pessimistic about their living standards now than at any time since the financial crisis in 2008. The percentage who say their situation is improving dropped sharply from 42 percent in 2023 to 27 percent in 2024, according to pollster Gallup.
Attitudes toward migration have also hardened, a profound shift in German public sentiment since its “Refugees Welcome” culture during Europe’s migrant crisis in 2015.
People walk past a campaign poster of Friedrich Merz, Christian Democratic Union party candidate for chancellor, in Potsdam, Germany, on Feb. 22, 2025. (Reuters)
Musk weighs in
Sunday’s election follows the collapse last November of Scholz’s coalition of his center-left Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and pro-market Free Democrats (FDP) in a row over budget spending.
The SPD is headed for its worst result since World War Two.
The election campaign has been dominated by fierce exchanges over the perception that irregular immigration is out of control, fueled by a series of attacks in which the suspected perpetrators were of migrant origin.
It has also been overshadowed by the unusually forceful show of solidarity by members of the Trump administration – including Vice President JD Vance and tech billionaire Elon Musk – for the anti-migrant AfD, and broadsides against European leaders.
The 12-year-old AfD is on track to come in second place for the first time in a national election.
“I’m completely disappointed in politics, so maybe an alternative would be better,” said retired Berlin bookkeeper Ludmila Ballhorn, 76, who plans to vote AfD, adding she was struggling to live on her pension of 800 euros. “Rents and all other costs have soared.”
The AfD, however, is unlikely to govern for now as all mainstream parties have ruled out working with it, though some analysts believe it could pave the way for an AfD win in 2029.
Still, its strength, along with a small but significant vote share for the far-left and the decline of Germany’s big-tent parties, is increasingly complicating the formation of coalitions and governance.
Coalition options
EU allies are cautiously hopeful the elections might deliver a more coherent government able to help drive forward policy at home and in the bloc.
Some also hope Merz will reform the “debt brake,” a constitutional mechanism to limit government borrowing that critics say has strangled new investment.
The most likely outcome of this election, say analysts, is a tie-up of Merz’s conservative bloc of Christian Democrats (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) with the SPD, which is polling in third place in another uneasy “grand coalition.”
Polls, however, suggest another three-way coalition may be necessary if several small parties make the 5 percent threshold to enter parliament, complicating talks.
“A lot of my friends are likely going to vote for the conservatives because this government didn’t work so well and Merz’s international standing is quite good,” said Mike Zeller, 26, a civil servant.
“I just hope enough parties agree to a government so they can leave the AfD out.”
Rescuers search for eight trapped in India tunnel collapse
Irrigation tunnel collapsed in India’s Telangana state during construction on Saturday
Coordinated search and rescue effort underway, says India’s Irrigation Minister Reddy
Updated 23 February 2025
AFP
MUMBAI: Search teams in southern India were working Sunday to rescue eight workers believed to be trapped in an irrigation tunnel that collapsed during construction, officials said.
The accident occurred Saturday in the state of Telangana after a sudden inflow of water and soil caused a part of the tunnel to cave in.
Workers positioned near a boring machine managed to escape but another eight engineers and laborers near the entrance were believed to be stuck inside, the state’s ruling Congress party said in a statement on X.
“This is an unfortunate incident, but we are committed to bringing them out safely,” state irrigation minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy told reporters, adding that a coordinated search and rescue effort was underway.
India’s national disaster response force joined rescue efforts on Saturday night, with reports saying the tunnel’s ventilation system remained functional, which ensured the supply of oxygen to the trapped workers.
Media reports said that water needed to be pumped out and debris cleared before rescue teams could help locate and evacuate the trapped workers.
Accidents on large infrastructure construction sites are common in India.
In 2023, 41 Indian workers were rescued after a marathon 17-day engineering rescue operation helped pull them out of a partly collapsed Himalayan road tunnel in the northern state of Uttarakhand.
Afghan women’s radio station Radio Begum to resume broadcasts after Taliban lifts suspension
Radio Begum launched on International Women’s Day in March 2021
The station’s content is produced entirely by Afghan women
Updated 23 February 2025
AP
An Afghan women’s radio station will resume broadcasts after the Taliban suspended its operations, citing “unauthorized provision” of content to an overseas TV channel and improperly using its license.
Radio Begum launched on International Women’s Day in March 2021, five months before the Taliban seized power amid the chaotic withdrawal of US and NATO troops.
The station’s content is produced entirely by Afghan women. Its sister satellite channel, Begum TV, operates from France and broadcasts programs that cover the Afghan school curriculum from seventh to 12th grade. The Taliban have banned education for women and girls in the country beyond grade six.
In a statement issued Saturday night, the Taliban’s Information and Culture Ministry said Radio Begum had “repeatedly requested” to restart operations and that the suspension was lifted after the station made commitments to authorities.
The station pledged to conduct broadcasts “in accordance with the principles of journalism and the regulations of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and to avoid any violations in the future,” it added.
The ministry did not elaborate what those principles and regulations were. Radio Begum was not immediately available for comment.
Since their takeover, the Taliban have excluded women from education, many kinds of work, and public spaces. Journalists, especially women, have lost their jobs as the Taliban tighten their grip on the media.
In the 2024 press freedom index from Reporters without Borders, Afghanistan ranks 178 out of 180 countries. The year before that it ranked 152.
The Information Ministry did not initially identify the TV channel it alleged Radio Begum had been working with. But the Saturday statement mentioned collaboration with “foreign sanctioned media outlets.”
