INDEPENDENT 2024-12-15 12:09:37


Allu Arjun granted bail over woman’s death at cinema stampede

Indian actor Allu Arjun was arrested on Friday and later released on bail in connection with a stampede during a special screening of his film Pushpa 2: The Rule in the southern city of Hyderabad earlier this month.

The stampede at Sandhya Theatre on 4 December left a woman named M Revathi dead and her child injured.

Revathi, 39, was attending the screening with her husband M Bhaskar, their son, and their seven-year-old daughter.

Arjun, 41, arrived at the theatre at around 9.30pm local time, entering through the main entrance and spending 15-20 minutes outside, NDTV reported.

As news of his presence spread, hundreds of fans gathered to catch a glimpse, causing the gates to collapse. Attempts by his security team to push the crowd back reportedly only exacerbated the situation.

Police filed a case against Arjun, his security team, and the theatre management, citing a lack of crowd control measures and charging them with culpable homicide not amounting to murder and voluntarily causing hurt, Akshansh Yadav, deputy police commissioner, told The Indian Express.

The Telugu language film actor approached the Telangana High Court on 11 December requesting the case be quashed. He was arrested before his plea could be heard on Friday afternoon.

In the wake of Revathi’s death, the film’s producer, Mythri Movie Makers, expressed condolences and pledged support for her family.

“We are extremely heartbroken by the tragic incident during last night’s screening,” it said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and the young child undergoing medical treatment.

“We are committed to standing by them and extending all possible support during this difficult time. With deep sorrow.”

Arjun expressed grief over Revathi’s death and promised Rs 2,500,000 (£23,300) to the victim’s family. He also promised to cover the medical expenses of the injured son.

“A very unfortunate incident took place at Sandhya cinema. We are extremely sorry for that,” he said at a success party for the film on 7 December.

“When I heard about it on 5 December, I was in shock. It took me hours to process it and respond to the incident. I couldn’t process it psychologically. It took me around 10 hours. We all blanked out when we heard the news. Sukumar [the director of Pushpa 2] got extremely emotional.”

Arjun reportedly complied with his arrest on Friday morning but told police he felt uncomfortable about them entering his bedroom without notice. The actor reportedly could not change or finish breakfast before being taken into police custody.

His father, producer Allu Aravind, accompanied him to the local police station.

After giving his statement, Arjun was driven to Osmania Hospital for a check-up and was scheduled to be presented in court later.

Arjun is a recipient of several awards, including the prestigious National Film Award. He has starred in nearly 30 films, according to the Internet Movie Database, including Arya (2004), Desamuduru (2007), Arya 2 (2009), Pushpa: The Rise (2021) and its sequel, Pushpa 2: The Rule (2024).

Thai police detain suspects after bomb in border province kills 3

Thai police on Saturday said two suspects were in custody as authorities investigated a bombing in the north that killed at least three people and injured dozens of others.

An explosive device was thrown into a crowd during an outdoor performance at an annual festival in Umphang town in Tak province, which borders Myanmar, on Friday just before midnight, according to the Association of the Umphang Rescue Groups.

Local police said at least 48 people were injured and that police have not yet pressed charges against the suspects as the investigation is ongoing.

Thanathip Sawangsang, a spokesperson for the Defense Ministry, told The Associated Press that local police said there was a fight between rival groups of men before the explosion and that there was no wider security threat. He said the forensic evidence showed that the explosive device was a homemade bomb.

Tak province has a heavy military presence in its border areas, including in Umphang.

Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra expressed her condolences to the victims and their families, and ordered security personnel and relevant agencies in the area to investigate and help those who have been affected, said government spokesperson Jirayu Houngsap.

Australia deploys rugby diplomacy to tempt neighbour away from China

Australia is banking on sports diplomacy to lure Papua New Guinea away from China’s sphere of influence.

It has signed an agreement to invest A$600m (£301m) over 10 years to establish a new rugby league club, based in Port Moresby, and promote a grassroots rugby league across the Pacific.

The deal will see the new team, which is yet to be named, join Australia’s National Rugby League in 2028, becoming either its 18th or 19th franchise.

There’s a catch: the deal includes a separate pact requiring Papua New Guinea to prioritise Australia as its major security partner and avoid security ties with nations outside the “Pacific family” – an implicit referrence to China.

The agreement was signed by the prime ministers of the two countries in Syndey on Thursday who described it as the “world’s first sports diplomacy deal”.

The deal underscores rugby league’s role in fostering unity within Papua New Guinea and strengthening ties with Australia, and marks a strategic breakthrough for Australia in its competition with China for influence in the Pacific.

Beijing has sought agreements with Papua New Guinea and other South Pacific island nations to enhance cooperation in many strategic areas, especially policing. Australia and its partners, chiefly the US, worry that such deals could potentially give China greater influence in a strategically significant region.

Australia is Papua New Guinea’s largest aid donor, contributing A$637m (£320m) this year alone to support the developing nation of 12 million people.

Following January’s riots in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea revealed that China had proposed a policing deal. However, prime minister James Marape said that PNG would maintain its security partnerships with Australia and the US.

Rugby is the most popular sport in Papua New Guinea, a country beset with widespread poverty, escalating tribal conflicts, rising violent crime rates, and ongoing civil unrest.

Mr Marape said the security agreement with Australia aligned well with ensuring the safety of players and officials, who would be stationed in the capital of Port Moresby in state-of-the-art secure compounds.

“Australia is a security partner of choice in the first instance,” he said. “That doesn’t stop us from relating with any nation, especially our Asian neighbours. We relate with China, for instance, a great trading partner, a great bilateral partner, but on security, closer to home we have this synergy and our shared territory needs to be protected, defended, policed.”

Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese said: “Partnering on rugby league is a genuine and powerful way of building lasting ties between our peoples and ensuring long-term development, social and economic outcomes for Papua New Guinea and the Pacific.

“Our partnership will create new opportunities for girls’ and women’s rugby league across Papua New Guinea and the Pacific, recognising the power of sports programmes in championing inclusion and improving gender equality.”

According to the minister for international development and the Pacific, Pat Conroy, a clause in the agreement gives Australia the right to withdraw funding if its trust is violated and requires the National Rugby League to remove Papua New Guinea from the competition.

While details of the trust agreement are confidential, Papua New Guinea foreign minister Justin Tkatchenko has publicly ruled out any security pact with China.

International relations expert Stuart Murray described Australia’s use of sport in diplomacy as unprecedented. He told the BBC that the scale of this deal could open up numerous avenues for cooperation in areas like business, trade, policing, education, and climate change.

“Basically, through this one channel, we will open up 20 or 30 other channels – for business, trade, policing, educational exchange, gender work, climate change,” he said. “I think it is fantastic.”

Beijing did not officially respond to the agreement, but an op-ed in the state-owned The Global Times commented on it. “How sincere is Australia when developing relations with countries of the South Pacific islands, a region Canberra always views as its own backyard and considers to be under its sphere of influence? The answer is that Australia’s offers are never without conditions. In its views, it is all about what is in its tool box to control those island countries,” it said.

“On one hand, it is about rugby, on the other, it is about China’s perceived influence. If Australia has truly linked these two unrelated matters, that would be laughable.”

Qin Sheng, research fellow at the Center for Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told The Global Times that Australia was using Papua New Guinea’s strong emotional ties to rugby to its advantage.

He argued, however, that Australia was actually introducing geopolitical competition into its financial aid to Papua New Guinea.

Peter V’landys, chair of the Australian Rugby League Commission, said he didn’t think Papua New Guinea would ever risk losing its rugby league team by striking a security agreement with China. “Rugby league is such a religion in Papua New Guinea that they will never take the risk of losing a rugby league team to do a deal with another country,” Mr V’landys said.

Mihai Sora, director of the Pacific Islands Programme at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, told Reuters that the deal was a “marriage between soft power and hard power”.

“It’s vital for Australia to secure its immediate strategic environment, and while unusual that this would connect with an issue like support for a sporting franchise, this is the context,” he said.

Additional reporting by agencies

China breaks silence on apparent military drills around Taiwan

China on Friday broke its silence on days of heightened military activity around the island of Taiwan, saying it was up to Beijing to decide whether to hold drills.

An alarmed Taiwan this week established a “response centre” to monitor the Chinese drills close to the self-governed island after Beijing deployed its largest naval fleet in nearly three decades to the waters around the island.

Taiwan on Friday said nine Chinese coastguard vessels had sailed away, apparently marking an end to drills that simulated a blockadem with one string of ships off the island and a second one farther out at sea.

When questioned about the drills, China’s defence ministry spokesperson responded with a quote from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, an ancient Chinese text on military strategy.

Wu Qian quoted: “Just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions.”

He added: “Whether or not to hold exercises and when to hold them is a matter for us to decide on our own according to our own needs and the situation of the struggle.”

China deployed around 90 navy and coast guard ships around the island at a time when Taiwan’s president Lai Ching-te went on a diplomatic tour that included stops in the US.

Taiwan’s foreign ministry on Wednesday demanded Bejing “immediately stop military intimidation and all irrational activities” that endangered regional stability.

Beijing maintains that Taiwan is a breakaway province and routinely conducts exercises around the island. China has not ruled out the use of force to bring the island under its control.

Beijing has over the past four years carried out a variety of simulated attacks on the island, from missile bombardment to sea and air blockades.

China’s silence on its military activity this week was in stark contrast with previous drills around Taiwan, which are usually reported by state media with dramatic graphics and images and seen as a public show of force directed at the island’s government.

The Chinese spokesperson did not explicitly refer to this weeks’ activity as drills, but said: “Safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity, the fundamental interests of the Chinese nation, and the common interests of compatriots across the Taiwan Strait are the (military’s) sacred duties.

“No matter whether it holds exercises, the People’s Liberation Army will not be absent or soft-hearted when it comes to striking down (Taiwanese) ‘independence’ and pushing for unification,” he said.

Taiwan’s defence ministry on Friday said it had only spotted 12 Chinese military aircraft operating nearby in the past 24 hours, down from 34 reported the previous day.

China jails former Everton star and national team coach Li Tie

A Chinese court has sentenced former Everton midfielder Li Tie to 20 years in prison for giving and receiving bribes as Beijing intensifies its crackdown on corruption.

Li, one of his country’s most prominent footballers to play in the English Premier League and former national team coach, was placed under investigation in 2022 for “serious violations of the law“.

Authorities at the time refused to provide further information.

Li was found guilty of taking 110m yuan (£11.9m) in bribes between 2015 and 2021, state media CCTV reported on Friday. A photo published by state media showed Li in the dock wearing a black hooded sweater and flanked by police officers.

The court in Xianning was told Li accepted over 50m yuan (£5.4m) in bribes from 2019 to 2011 when he was coach of China’s national team.

In exchange for the bribes, Li allegedly chose certain players for the national team and helped clubs win competitions and sign players.

Li, 47, appeared in a court in Hubei province in March and pleaded guilty to his involvement in bribery and match-fixing.

“I’m very sorry. I should have kept my head to the ground and followed the right path,” Li said in a documentary aired by CCTV in January. “There were certain things that at the time were common practices in football.”

The former China captain said he had arranged nearly £330,954 in bribes to secure the position of head coach and took part in match-fixing during his tenure as a club coach.

Chinese authorities have been accused in the past of coercing “confession videos” out of prisoners to intimidate others, a move condemned by rights activists.

The Chinese government under Xi Jinping has launched a major crackdown to weed out corruption in Chinese football that has seen over a dozen officials of the Chinese Football Association investigated or charged.

Li is one of the biggest names in Chinese football and was part of the only men’s team from the country to make it to the World Cup. China played at the 2002 tournament in Japan and South Korea under Serbian coach Bora Milutinovic.

China has struggled since in international competitions and is currently ranked 90th by Fifa. It failed to qualify for the last World Cup in Qatar.

Former Chinese Football Association boss Chen Xuyuan was sentenced to life in prison in March for taking bribes of over 81m yuan (£8.7m).

In September, the association banned for life 38 players and five club officials after a two-year investigation into match-fixing and gambling. The investigation found that 120 matches had been fixed with 41 football clubs involved.

China’s president, a self-proclaimed football fan, has said he dreams of China one day hosting and winning the World Cup.

Tourist killed by wild elephant in Thailand park

A visitor was killed by a wild elephant at a national park in Thailand on Tuesday.

The 49-year-old Thai woman, identified only as Jeeranan from Chachoengsao, was reportedly walking along a trail to the Phen Phop Mai waterfall inside the Phu Kradueng National Park in the Loei province when she was attacked by the elephant.

Fellow visitors notified park rangers of the attack at around 9.45am local time.

When the rangers arrived to investigate, they found the woman’s lifeless body.

Attapol Charoenchansa, head of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, said this was the first time anybody had been attacked by elephants walking on that trail, according to The Bangkok Post.

The trail, known for its red maple leaves, is popular with visitors.

In the wake of the attack, park officials temporarily closed the trail and others frequently used by wild animals to ensure visitor safety.

Mr Attapol said an investigation into the death was underway.

The Phu Kradueng National Park has a cooler climate than much of Thailand due to its high elevation which makes it a popular tourist destination from late October to December. The park opened for seasonal tourism on 1 October and was scheduled to allow visitors until 31 May next year.

Nation Thailand reported that the attack took place in an area frequently visited by wild elephants in search of food. Multiple warning signs are posted around the area, advising visitors to stay away.

Park chief Adisorn Hemthanon said a patrol team was sent to track the wild elephant following the incident and they found its footprints near the trail behind the staff accommodation, leading towards a forest area closed to tourists.

The Independent has reached out to the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation for further comment.

Trump calls North Korean troops in Russia a ‘complicating factor’

Incoming US president Donald Trump has addressed the presence of North Korean troops on Russia’s frontline with Ukraine, but stopped short of denouncing Pyongyang.

Instead, he pointed to his friendship with Kim Jong Un – even though the North Korean government recently rebuked him publicly for flaunting their supposedly close relationship during the US presidential campaign.

Mr Trump said North Korean soldiers getting involved in the Ukraine war was a “very complicating factor”.

“When North Korea gets involved, that is another element that is a very complicating factor,” he said on Thursday while speaking about the geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East and eastern Europe.

He made the comments during an interview with Time after the American magazine picked him as its “Person of the Year” for the second time.

The US, South Korea and Ukraine have accused North Korea of sending more than 10,000 troops to aid Russia’s war effort. The Pentagon says the troops have largely been deployed to Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a ground offensive of its own earlier this year.

Ukraine and its allies have also accused North Korea of shipping artillery systems, missiles and other conventional weapons to replenish Russia’s inventory.

Russia and North Korea have neither confirmed nor denied these claims, though Moscow and Pyongyong have spoken of their deepening military cooperation and Mr Kim has vowed to “invariably support Russia in its war” while calling out Nato’s “reckless” eastward advance.

Russia and North Korea signed a mutual defence treaty in June which requires each to provide immediate military assistance if the other is attacked.

In his interview, Mr Trump said that he and Mr Kim “get along very well” and the Republican said he was probably the only Western leader to have such a relationship with Pyongyang.

“I know Kim Jong Un, I get along very well with Kim Jong Un. I am probably the only one he’s ever really dealt with. When you think about it, I am the only one he’s ever dealt with.”

Mr Trump was called out during his previous term as president for heaping praise on autocrats, including Mr Putin. He also cultivated a friendship with Viktor Orbán, the right-wing leader of Hungary accused of overseeing a democratic backslide in the country.

Mr Trump is the only American leader to have held three summits with Mr Kim, in 2018 and 2019, for denuclearisation talks. The diplomatic effort collapsed over disagreements about the timing of lifting US economic sanctions and Pyongyang’s own measures to wind down its nuclear programme.

“He wrote me beautiful letters and they’re great letters,” Mr Trump said of Mr Kim in 2018. “We fell in love.”

The chances of Mr Trump quickly resuming diplomacy and dialogue with Pyongyang when he enters the White House are slim, experts said, as ties between the two countries have only deteriorated further under Joe Biden.

Pyongyang’s ties with Russia and the weakening sanctions enforcement against Pyongyang would present further challenges in the diplomatic push to resolve the nuclear standoff with Mr Kim, they said.

Child among 6 dead after fire breaks out at private hospital in India

Six people have died, including a six-year-old girl, after a fire broke out at a private hospital in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

The incident took place at about 9pm local time on Thursday night at the City Hospital on Trichy Road in Dindigul.

Most of the victims, including a couple and a mother and son, died from asphyxiation due to smoke inhalation, The Indian Express reported.

The victims were found unconscious in a lift and taken to another hospital nearby where they were declared dead.

Some people also suffered burn injuries, police told local media.

Emergency services personnel found the victims after saving around 30 patients who were admitted to the district’s government hospital.

“A fire broke out at a private hospital about two hours ago. The patients here have been rescued and admitted to nearby government and private hospitals,” MN Poongodi, a senior local administration official in Dindigul, told news agency ANI.

The firefighters reportedly worked over two hours to put out the fire, suspected to have been caused by an electrical short circuit, The Hindustan Times reported.

Nearly 50 ambulances were deployed to assist with the evacuation.

Photos and videos showed smoke and flames billowing from the hospital, with fire trucks and emergency services workers trying to control the blaze.

The victims were identified as Suruli, 50, and his wife Subbulakshmi, 45, from Theni; Mariammal, 50, and her son, Mani Murugan, 28, from Dindigul; Rajasekar, 35; and a six-year-old girl also from Dindigul.

The bodies were sent to the Dindigul Medical College Hospital for postmortem.

Tamil Nadu’s chief minister, MK Stalin, conveyed his condolences to the families of the victims and announced monetary relief to each of them as well as financial assistance to the injured.

The Independent has reached out to the local administration in Dindigul for comment.