Foreign News
Prague shooting: Gunman dead after killing more than 15 at Charles University
More than 15 people have been killed and 24 injured in a shooting at a university in Prague, officials say.
Police said the gunman had also been “eliminated” following the shooting at Charles University – the deadliest attack in modern Czech history.
Prime Minister Petr Fiala said he had cancelled upcoming engagements in light of the “tragic events” on Thursday. University staff were told to stay put, barricade themselves in rooms and turn off the lights.
Footage has emerged on social video showing terrified crowds fleeing the area popular with tourists.
Police received first reports of shooting at the university’s Faculty of Arts on Jan Palach Square in the centre of the capital after 15:00 local time (14:00 GMT).
At a briefing later on Thursday, the police and city authorities said the gunman was a student at the faculty. They said he was a 24-year-old from a village 21km (13 miles) outside Prague. The suspect’s father had been found dead earlier on Thursday. The gunman’s motives were not immediately known.
Preliminary information suggested that no police officers were injured in the attack, the authorities said.
Sergey Medvedev, a professor at the university, told the BBC he was in the auditorium when the shootings began. “I was giving a lecture at the moment and at first didn’t quite realise what happened because there were some sounds. The students, I think, heard it better because I was so much concentrated on my talking, on my lecture,” he said.
“Then, we understood that something big is happening. There was nothing online yet, nothing in the Czech press and the news networks. Then at some point, the special operation groups went storming in, they searched the room briefly and then went out… they told us to stay inside. “One hour later, another police squad broke in and then put us on the floor, briefly searched us then evacuated from the building,” the professor added.
Verified images from the scene appeared to show people clinging on to the outside wall of the university building, several storeys up.
Targ Patience, a British-Australian who was staying in a flat near the scene, told the BBC that he heard “a lot of gunshots”. “I looked out of my balcony and saw the police arrive. A few officers were having a hard time stopping people walking towards the scene,” he sad.
“We heard four loud gunshots,” Joe Hyland, 18, from Truro, Cornwall, told the BBC. “Everyone was sprinting and running for cover. “I have a bad knee, am on a crutch. So I hobbled as quickly as possible,” added Hyland, who was on his first holiday with friends. “We got to the metro and went down there because we thought it would be safest.”
Students said they had barricaded themselves in classrooms. “Currently stuck inside my classroom in Prague,” Jakob Weizman, a student at Charles University, wrote on X (formerly Twitter) as it unfolded.
“Locked the door before the shooter tried to open it.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X that she was “shocked by the senseless violence”. She added: “We stand and mourn with you.”
An email to staff at the philosophy faculty of Charles University, seen by Reuters, warned staff of the shooting. It read: “Stay put, don’t go anywhere, if you’re in the offices, lock them and place furniture in front of the door, turn off the lights.”
Authorities said the whole of the square and several streets around the university were closed.
Charles University is located in Prague’s Old Town, about 500m from the historic Charles Bridge, a tourist magnet.
(BBC)
US authorities have found debris from a medical transport aircraft that went missing with six people on board.
The Federal Aviation Administration told the BBC it had lost contact with the Gulfstream G-100 plane just after 01:00 local time (05:00 GMT) on Saturday, while it was travelling from Bermuda to Boston, Massachusetts.
The search for survivors continues off the coast of Nantucket, a Massachusetts island, the US Coast Guard said.
Authorities have notified the next of kin of those on the flight, four Canadian nationals and two Bermudian nationals.
“Search crews located a debris field confirmed to be from the aircraft off the coast of Nantucket,” the US Coast Guard said in an update on Saturday night. It added that ships, helicopters and planes were involved in searches that would through continue the night.
The plane departed from Bermuda’s L.F. Wade International Airport at 23:40 local time, according to flight data from FlightAware, and was due to land at Boston’s Logan International at 01:30 EDT (05:30 GMT).
According to the tail number released by the Coast Guard, the plane belonged to Latitude Air Ambulances, a company that provides international medical flights for patients returning home.
Among those on board were two pilots and two medical staff, both Canadian, Clarence Togeretz, director of flight operations at Latitude, told CBC News.
The crew flew to Bermuda to collect a patient and their relative, who are not Canadian, Togeretz said.
FlightAware’s tracker shows the aircraft significantly dropped in altitude before its communications went dark, plummeting from around 7,300m (24,000ft) to 3,300m (11,000ft).
Radio transmissions shows trouble with communications between the air traffic controller and the pilot, the Boston Globe reported based on transmissions provided by LiveATC.net.
“You’re coming in blind? Is that what you said?,” the air traffic controller asked. “Are you declaring an emergency, or no?”
The pilot’s response was inaudible.
“You’re coming in a little weak so I didn’t hear what your response was, if you were declaring an emergency or not,” the air traffic controller said, according to the Globe.
The air traffic controller later confirmed the pilot had declared an emergency.
An area fire dispatcher asked emergency crews just after 01:00 EDT to prepare to meet a plane with an “electrical issue”.
The dispatcher later said “the aircraft has lost radio and radar”.
The Coast Guard said it would provide an update on Sunday morning local time.
[BBC]
A car has crashed into a crowd of rugby league supporters in the eastern Australian city of Newcastle, injuring 10 people, including three children.
New South Wales police said on Saturday that two of the injured – a five-year-old girl and a 67-year-old man – were in a critical condition and the other eight were in stable condition in hospital.
Police said they had arrested the 18-year-old man driving the vehicle and were investigating what happened. They said the crash was not believed to be related to “terrorism”.
The crowd had gathered to farewell the local rugby league side, the Newcastle Knights, ahead of their grand final against the Sydney Roosters on Sunday.
Newcastle Lord Mayor Gavin Morris said the driver, a rugby league fan, had lost control of his vehicle and had been taken into custody.
“He was revving the car, he was excited, he was a supporter, he was there for the joy of the moment,” Morris told the national broadcaster ABC.
“Somehow he lost control of the car … and he’s gone into the crowd,” he added.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said: “My thoughts are with everyone injured or involved in the horrible incident this morning in Newcastle.”
“Rugby league brings people together, and this should have been a weekend of excitement and pride for Newcastle fans,” he wrote in a social media post.
[Aljazeera]
Polls have opened in Latvia for an election taking place against the backdrop of perceived security threats from Russia and a nationwide cost-of-living squeeze.
Saturday’s vote is the first electoral test for Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs after coming to power in May this year when his predecessor resigned due to a backlash from stray drone incursions from Ukraine.
Kulbergs, whose right-wing United List party is currently polling at about 20 percent, is expected to hold onto his position, but the decline of two allies in his current coalition means he is set for a complicated negotiation over the makeup of any future government.
Polls opened at 05:00 GMT and will close at 17:00 GMT. The results are not expected to change Latvia’s pro-European and pro-Ukrainian course.
About 1.5 million people are eligible to vote in the country’s 11th parliamentary election since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Latvian politics are highly fragmented, with parties rarely seeing above 20 percent vote share and coalitions being the norm.
This year, 14 electoral lists are contesting the election, but polls indicate only seven are likely to enter parliament, with the rest expected to fail to meet the minimum 5 percent vote threshold.
Rising living costs, low wages, strains on the healthcare system and long-term population decline have all featured prominently in campaign debates.
Most parties in Latvia are pro-Ukraine; however, the populist Sovereign Power party – which says it wants Ukraine to win but argues money spent supporting Kyiv would be better spent at home – looks likely to become the country’s second-biggest party, with more than 9 percent of the vote. Most other parties have ruled out forming a coalition with Sovereign Power.
Latvia First, a pro-Ukraine and populist nationalist party currently polling at about 9 percent, could be a potential coalition partner for PM Kulbergs.
The Progressives, a pro-European social democratic party, are polling at 6 percent.
Ethnic Russians make up roughly one in four Latvian citizens, but their vote, which has traditionally been cast along identity-based lines, looks set to be made according to economic and social issues.
Latvia is the poorest of the Baltic states, and it has sharply increased its defence spending since Russia invaded Ukraine, now allocating nearly 5 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) to defence.
[Aljazeera]
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