World

FILE PHOTO: India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi . REUTERS/ALTAF HUSSAIN/FILE PHOTO India will launch one of the world’s most ambitious coronavirus vaccination drives next Saturday, aiming to reach 300 million people by July, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced. The vaccine is to be free for the country’s population of 1.3 billion, and Modi said the January 16 start would be “a landmark step” in fighting the pandemic. India is the world’s second worst-hit country — behind the United States — with more than 10 million cases, though the death rate is one of the world’s lowest. The first phase will…

An Indonesian budget airline jet is feared to have crashed into the sea after the Boeing 737 lost contact with air traffic control on Saturday, with flight tracking data showing the plane plunged into a steep dive several minutes after take-off. It was unclear how many passengers and crew were aboard Sriwijaya Air’s Boeing 737-500, which has a capacity of about 130, when it left Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta international airport. But 62 passengers and crew were listed on an unconfirmed manifest, including seven children and three infants, local media reported. The usual flight time is about 90 minutes over the Java…

Three people were killed after an avalanche swept through a ski resort outside the Arctic city of Norilsk overnight, Russian investigators said Saturday. The Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said it was notified at 00:30 local time (1730 GMT) that an avalanche had buried four buildings under snow at the Otdelnaya Gora ski complex in the town of Talnakh, 25 kilometres (16 miles) north of Norilsk. Rescuers had recovered the bodies of a 38-year-old woman, her 18-month-old child and 45-year-old husband. A 14-year-old was found alive and “taken to the hospital with serious injuries”. The Investigative Committee added that…

Elon MuskWhether the topic is transforming the automobile or conquering the next frontier of space, Elon Musk has shown a knack for captivating an audience beyond investors and science geeks. The brash Tesla CEO, now the world’s wealthiest person following the electric automaker’s meteoric rise, was the quintessential Silicon Valley disruptor — except he no longer lives in California. The norm-shattering entrepreneur, who has more than 41 million followers on Twitter and a fortune now estimated at more than $180 billion, announced last month he had relocated to Texas and could not resist one last dig at the West Coast…