ISLAMABAD – The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) shot down two Indian fighter jets in response to the overnight airstrikes carried out by India at five locations in Pakistan, state broadcaster PTV News reported early Wednesday, citing security sources.
“Pakistani forces are giving a befitting reply to Indian aggression,” a military statement said, adding that all PAF aircraft involved in the operation had returned safely.
Eyewitnesses in Rawalpindi, a major city in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province, reported seeing a missile in the air, which was believed to have been launched from within Pakistani territory.
ISLAMABAD – At least three civilians, including a child, were killed and 14 others injured early Wednesday after India fired missiles at five different locations in Pakistan, including Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, said the military.
A city view of Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administrated Kashmir, May 7, 2025. REUTERS
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan/NEW DELHI, May 7 – India said it attacked nine sites in Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir on Wednesday where strikes against it had been planned, and Pakistan reported at least three people died and 12 were injured, according to an initial assessment.
The offensive occurred amid heightened tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours in the aftermath of an attack on Hindu tourists in Indian Kashmir last month.
Pakistan said India launched missiles at three places, but an Indian government statement did not detail the nature of the strikes.
“A little while ago, the Indian armed forces launched ‘OPERATION SINDOOR’, hitting terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed,” the Indian statement said.
“Our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature. No Pakistani military facilities have been targeted.
India has demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution,” it said.
A Pakistani military spokesman told broadcaster Geo that Pakistan’s response was under way, without giving details. The spokesman said five places were hit including two mosques and reported three deaths and 12 people injured.
After the explosions, power was blacked out in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, witnesses said.
Witnesses and one police officer at two sites on the frontier in Indian Kashmir said they heard loud explosions and intense artillery shelling as well as jets in the air.
India blamed Pakistan for the violence last month in which 26 men were killed and vowed to respond. Pakistan denied that it had anything to do with the killings and said that it had intelligence that India was planning to attack.
After India’s strikes, the Indian army said in a post on X on Wednesday: “Justice is served.”
Iran’s meteorological authorities said the conditions were caused by ‘the movement of a large mass of dust from Iraq toward western Iran.’ (AFP)
TEHRAN – Iranian authorities ordered schools and offices closed in seven western provinces Tuesday as a dust storm swept in from neighboring Iraq, with around 13 million people told to stay indoors.
Khuzestan, Kermanshah, Ilam and Kurdistan provinces were all affected, and state television cited local officials as blaming the closures on high levels of accumulated dust.
Government and private offices also shut in several provinces including Kermanshah and Ilam, as well as Khuzestan in the southwest.
Zanjan in the northeast and Bushehr in the south were also hit.
Bushehr, nearly 1,100 km south of Tehran, was given an Air Quality Index of 108 on Tuesday, rated “poor for sensitive groups.”
That figure is more than four times higher than the concentration of air microparticles deemed acceptable by the World Health Organization.
Iran’s meteorological authorities said the conditions were caused by “the movement of a large mass of dust from Iraq toward western Iran.”
State television reported low visibility in some areas and urged people to remain inside and wear face masks if they had to go out.
Last month, a similar dust storm in Iraq grounded flights and sent thousands of people to hospital with breathing problems.
On Monday, Iran’s IRNA state news agency said more than 240 people in Khuzestan province had been treated for respiratory issues because of the dust.
A spokesperson for the emergency services also told Tasnim news agency on Tuesday that nine people had died as a result of storms in Iran over the past seven days, ending on Monday.
“Four of the deaths were caused by strong winds and falling objects, and five were caused by lightning strikes,” it added.
MEXICO CITY, May 6 – The U.S. Embassy in Honduras warned U.S. citizens to avoid several locations in the capital due to information it received of threatened mass shootings on Tuesday and on May 16.
In a short statement, the embassy said the three target locations mentioned in the threat were a school, a civic center and an unnamed mall in Tegucigalpa.
A ship fires missiles at an undisclosed location, after U.S. President Donald Trump launched military strikes against Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis on Saturday over the group’s attacks against Red Sea shipping, in this screengrab obtained from a handout video released on March 15, 2025. REUTERS/File Photo
WASHINGTON, May 6 – President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday the U.S. will stop bombing the Houthis in Yemen, saying that the Iran-aligned group had agreed to stop interrupting important shipping lanes in the Middle East.
In an Oval Office meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump announced the Houthis have said they no longer want to fight.
“They said please don’t bomb us any more and we’re not going to attack your ships,” Trump said. “And I will accept their word, and we are going to stop the bombing of the Houthis effective immediately.”
There was no immediate response from the Houthis.
The Houthis have been firing at Israel and at shipping in the Red Sea since Israel began its military offensive against Hamas in Gaza after the Palestinian militant group’s deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Trump said Washington will take the Houthis’ word that they would not be blowing up ships any longer.
The U.S. military has said it has struck more than 1,000 targets since its current operation in Yemen, known as Operation Rough Rider, started on March 15. The strikes, the U.S. military said, have killed “hundreds of Houthi fighters and numerous Houthi leaders.”
Tensions have been high since the Gaza war began, but have risen further since a Houthi missile landed near Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport on Sunday, prompting Israeli airstrikes on Yemen’s Hodeidah port on Monday.
The Israeli military carried out an airstrike on Yemen’s main airport in Sanaa on Tuesday, its second attack in two days on Iran-aligned Houthi rebels after a surge in tensions between the group and Israel.
Under former President Joe Biden’s administration, the U.S. and Britain retaliated with air strikes against Houthi targets in an effort to keep open the crucial Red Sea trading route – the path for about 15% of global shipping traffic.
After Trump became U.S. president in January, he decided to significantly intensify air strikes against the Houthis. The campaign came after the Houthis said they would resume attacks on Israeli ships passing through the Red Sea and Arabian Sea, the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the Gulf of Aden.
On April 28, a suspected U.S. airstrike hits a migrant center in Yemen, and Houthi TV says 68 people were killed in one of the deadliest attacks in six weeks of intensified U.S. strikes.
A woman crosses a Border Security Force (BSF) checkpoint at the Attari-Wagah crossing on the India-Pakistan border near Amritsar, following Tuesday’s attack on tourists near south Kashmir’s scenic Pahalgam, India, April 25, 2025. REUTERS/File Photo
ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI, May 6 – India Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday that water that previously was being sent outside the country would now be retained for internal use, days after New Delhi suspended a water-sharing pact with Pakistan.
“Earlier, water belonging to India was also going outside. Now India’s water will flow in its share … and be utilised for India itself,” Modi said while speaking at an event in New Delhi.
He did not elaborate.
Last month, India suspended a 1960 water-sharing pact that ensured supply to 80% of Pakistani farms following an attack in Indian Kashmir that targeted Hindu tourists, killing 26 people. India accused Pakistan of involvement, saying two of the three suspected attackers were Pakistani nationals.
Islamabad has denied the accusation, but says it is fully prepared to defend itself in case of attack, prompting world powers to call for a calming of tension.
The nuclear-armed neighbours have disagreed over use of the water from rivers that flow downstream from India into the Indus River basin in Pakistan.
The Indus Waters Treaty, mediated by the World Bank and signed by India and Pakistan in September 1960, split the Indus and its tributaries between the two countries and regulated water sharing.
New Delhi said last month it would immediately suspend the treaty “until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism.”
Pakistan’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Islamabad has threatened international legal action over the suspension. “Any attempt to stop or divert the flow of water belonging to Pakistan … will be considered as an act of war,” it said.
Reuters has reported that India has advanced the start date of four under-construction hydropower projects in the Kashmir region by months as well as begun work to boost reservoir holding capacity at two projects.
CIVIL DEFENCE DRILLS
On Tuesday, Pakistan’s military said members of the Baloch Liberation Army, which it described as an “Indian proxy”, targeted its vehicle with an improvised explosive device in the restive southwestern province of Balochistan.
The BLA is the strongest of a number of insurgent groups operating in the area bordering Afghanistan and Iran.
India’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the statement. Other measures taken by the two countries include suspending trade, closing their airspace and reducing embassy staff.
On Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres emphasised the need to avoid a military confrontation that could “easily spin out of control”.
Pakistan has held two missile tests in three days and India has unveiled plans for civil defence drills to be conducted in several states on Wednesday, from sounding air raid sirens to evacuation plans.
Pakistan is currently a non-permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. India is not, but New Delhi has been in talks with council members ahead of Monday’s meeting.
An Indian source familiar with the discussion said many members expressed concern that Pakistan’s missile tests and nuclear rhetoric were “escalatory” factors.
On Tuesday, Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, along with the deputy prime minister, foreign and defence ministers, and the military chiefs, visited the headquarters of its top ISI spy agency.
Muslim-majority Kashmir is claimed in full by both Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistan, although each controls only a part of the Himalayan region. They have fought two wars over Kashmir, and New Delhi accuses Pakistan of backing an uprising in Indian Kashmir that started in 1989 but has now waned.
Pakistan says it only offers diplomatic and moral support to a Kashmiri demand for self-determination.
People inspect the wreckage of a passenger bus after it sped out of control on a downhill road and overturned in Padang Panjang, West Sumatra province, Indonesia, Tuesday, May 6, 2025. AP
PADANG, Indonesia – A bus carrying 34 passengers sped out of control on a downhill road and overturned in Indonesia’s West Sumatra province on Tuesday, killing at least 12 people and leaving others injured, police said.
The inter-province bus was on its way to Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, from Medan in North Sumatra province when its brakes apparently malfunctioned near a bus terminal in West Sumatra’s Padang city, said Reza Chairul Akbar Sidiq, the director of West Sumatra traffic police.
He said police were still investigating the cause of the accident, but survivors told authorities that the driver lost control of the vehicle in an area with a number of steep hills in Padang after the brakes malfunctioned.
The 12 bodies, including those of two children, were mostly pinned under the overturned bus, Sidiq said. All the victims, including 23 injured people, were taken to two nearby hospitals, he said.
Thirteen of the injured were treated for serious injuries, Sidiq said. The driver was among those in critical condition.
Local television footage showed the mangled bus on its side, surrounded by rescuers from the National Search and Rescue Agency, police and passersby as ambulances evacuated the injured victims and the dead.
Road accidents are common in Indonesia because of poor safety standards and infrastructure.
Last year, a bus carrying 61 students and teachers returning from an outing to a high school in Depok, just outside Jakarta, slammed into cars and motorbikes after its brakes failed, killing 11 students and injuring dozens of others. In 2023, a tourist bus with an apparently drowsy driver slammed into a billboard on a highway in East Java, killing at least 14 people and injuring 19 others.
BERLIN – German conservative leader Friedrich Merz was elected chancellor by parliament on Tuesday in a second round of voting after his new alliance with the centre-left Social Democrats was dealt a surprise defeat in the first attempt.
AHMEDABAD, May 6 – At least 14 people died and 16 others were injured in the past two days as heavy pre-monsoon showers lashed India’s western state of Gujarat, state officials said on Tuesday.
Television visuals showed fallen trees and damaged crops as heavy lightning and thunderstorms impacted several districts.
The unseasonal rain across most of the state was driven by a cyclonic circulation in the neighbouring parts of Pakistan and India’s Rajasthan state, according to India’s Meteorological Department.
The weather forecaster has forecast more rain, thunderstorms, lightning, and gusty winds across Gujarat until Thursday.
Local officials told Reuters that 14 people were killed and 16 injured so far.
“We are awaiting reports on crop damage,” said Anju Sharma, secretary of the state’s agriculture department. Gujarat is a major producer of cotton, cumin and rice.
“District administrations will assess the losses and send us their reports today.”
Last month, unseasonable heavy rain across eastern and central India and parts of Nepal killed more than 100 people.
ISLAMABAD – At least five paramilitary personnel were killed and six others injured in a roadside bomb attack targeting a security convoy in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province on Tuesday, security sources said.
The incident happened at about 11:45 a.m. local time (0645 GMT) in the Kachhi district, when an improvised explosive device struck a Frontier Corps convoy, the sources told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
“The convoy, comprising six vehicles, was on a routine movement when the explosion took place, resulting in the deaths and injuries,” officials confirmed.
SANAA – At least four people were killed and 39 others injured in Israeli airstrikes on Yemen’s Hodeidah province on Monday, health authorities run by the Houthi militant group said Tuesday in a statement.
On Monday, Houthi-controlled Al-Masirah TV reported 48 Israeli airstrikes targeting the Red Sea province, which hit the port city of Hodeidah, its airport, a cement factory, and military sites northeast of the city. Local residents told Xinhua that the strikes caused significant damage to infrastructure.
The Tuesday statement by the Houthis, which was obtained by Xinhua, said that three people were killed and 35 others injured in the airstrike on the cement factory, and another one was killed and four others were injured in the airstrike on the port.
The Israeli military has confirmed the airstrikes, saying they were launched “in response to repeated assaults” by the Houthis against Israel.
BUCHAREST – Romania’s Interior Minister Catalin Predoiu was named interim prime minister following the resignation of Marcel Ciolacu, the Presidential Administration announced on Tuesday.
Tourists stand at a view point at Pir Chinasi, a tourist attraction in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, May 4, 2025. REUTERS
SRINAGAR,/PIR CHINASI, Pakistan – Hotels and houseboats in Indian Kashmir are offering discounts of up to 70% after travellers fled following a deadly attack.
On the Pakistani side, a tourist hotspot just on the border was sealed off as war cries between the foes grow louder.
Residents in the divided Himalayan region known for its snow-covered peaks, fast-running streams and majestic Mughal-era gardens rely heavily on tourism, but their livelihood has become one of the first victims of the latest hostilities between Pakistan and India.
The nuclear-armed neighbours have fought two wars over the disputed region, which they both claim in full while ruling in part, and skirmishes between troops stationed along the de facto border have made Kashmir the frontline of their discord.
But a sharp decline in militancy and a ceasefire that largely held for four years sparked a tourism boom, sending more than 3 million travellers to the Indian side of Kashmir last year while nearly 1.5 million vacationed on the Pakistan side.
The influx had been touted as a major success story for the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose revocation of Kashmir’s autonomous status in 2019 led to massive unrest.
Hotels, houseboats and taxis were nearly fully booked at the start of the peak summer season this year too, before the attack last month on tourists killed 26 men in a meadow.
India has blamed Pakistan for the attack and announced a series of diplomatic and economic steps against the neighbour.
Pakistan has denied any role, unveiled tit-for-tat measures, and warned of an imminent military strike by India.
Yaseen Tuman, who runs a more than 100-year-old travel agency and operates multiple houseboats in Srinagar, the main city of Indian Kashmir, said that nearly all his customers had cancelled bookings and his houseboats were empty.
“Our houseboats were packed and now we have no guests,” Tuman told Reuters, sitting on a wooden sofa in one of the houseboats on Nigeen Lake.
Indian travel booking websites show houseboats and hotels offering heavy discounts, but Tuman said he won’t cut rates because he did not expect tourists to come in big numbers anyway.
“We will have to prepare for a long lull.”
‘GOING TO HURT BADLY’
On the other side in Pir Chinasi, located at an altitude of 9,500 feet, roadside restaurants, hotels and guesthouses were sparsely occupied after authorities advised caution, fearing an Indian strike, though it is not so close to the de facto border.
Neelum Valley, which lies on the border and is one of the most favoured tourist destinations in Pakistan, is out of bounds for now, authorities say.
All the nearly 370 hotels and guesthouses in the valley are now empty, said Abrar Ahmad Butt, spokesperson for the hotels and guesthouses association of the region. Tourists typically throng the place starting in May as temperatures soar in rest of the country.
“It’s going to hurt badly this season,” he said.
Tourism employs around 16,000 people in the region.
For Syed Yasir Ali, who works at a foreign mission in Islamabad, not being able to go to Neelum Valley may have been a dampener but he felt no fear in visiting Pir Chinasi with his wife and three sons.
“This side is safe”, he said, suggesting that others were wrongly fearful of visiting.
“I am on the ground, it is safe.”
But the fear is having real economic consequences for a tuck shop run by Musaddiq Hussain.
“Business is completely down,” he said.
“We should have peace in the country, so that we could prosper.
“We want both countries to have peace.”
In Srinagar, taxi driver Tanveer rues the lost opportunity.
“The streets were packed, there was no place to drive in the city before the horrific killing,” he said, giving only one name.
“I wait for a passenger all day. Before the attack, I had no time to take on more work.”
SANAA – Israeli warplanes conducted dozens of airstrikes on Yemen’s Hodeidah province Monday, killing at least two people and wounding 42 others, according to health authorities run by the Houthi militant group.
The strikes caused significant damage to infrastructure, including a port, airport, and factories, escalating regional tensions a day after the militant group claimed a missile attack near Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, which resulted in eight injuries.
Houthi-controlled Al-Masirah TV reported 48 airstrikes targeted the Red Sea province, striking the port city of Hodeidah, its airport, a cement factory, and military sites northeast of the city. Health officials linked to the Houthis said the casualties included workers at the factory and residents in the adjacent Bajil district.
Local residents told Xinhua that the strikes severely damaged infrastructure at the port, including cargo-handling facilities, and several private factories were also hit. Plumes of smoke were seen rising over the city, and residents described the attack as paralyzing daily life.
In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed the operation, saying approximately 20 warplanes struck Houthi targets along Yemen’s western coast using 50 precision-guided munitions. The targets, the IDF said, included what it called the “infrastructure of the Houthi terror regime.” The mission was conducted about 1,700 km from Israel.
The Houthi group claimed the attacks on Hodeidah were carried out jointly by the United States and Israel. The IDF statement made no mention of U.S. involvement.
The IDF said the strikes were “in response to repeated assaults by the Houthi regime against the State of Israel,” referencing recent missile and drone attacks.
The strikes on Hodeidah directly impacted the port, which serves as a critical lifeline for goods, medicine, and fuel to millions of people living in Houthi-controlled areas. These attacks threaten to further disrupt the already fragile humanitarian situation in Yemen.
Separately, Al-Masirah and local sources reported at least 20 U.S. airstrikes on Monday targeting Houthi-controlled sites in the capital Sanaa, as well as in the northern provinces of Marib and Al-Jawf. There was no immediate comment from U.S. Central Command.
KAMPALA – Many people are feared dead after a passenger bus lost control and burst into flames on Monday evening in the central Ugandan district of Buikwe.
Michael Kananura, spokesperson for the Directorate of Traffic and Road Safety, said in a statement issued here that dozens of people lost their lives after a bus collided with a commercial motorcycle — commonly known as boda boda — lost control, and caught fire at Makindu trading center.
According to police, the bus was traveling from Kampala, the capital, to the eastern district of Soroti, along the highway linking Kisoga with Nyega, when the fatal accident occurred at around 5 p.m. local time.
“It [bus] overturned and caught fire, resulting in the loss of lives,” said Kananura. “We will continue to provide updates as more information becomes available.”
He said passengers with multiple injuries have been rushed to Kawolo Hospital, St. Francis Lwanga Hospital in Buikwe District, and other nearby health facilities to receive medical attention.
“Police and emergency services are on the scene, working to extinguish the fire and retrieve the bodies of those who perished in the crash,” Kananura said.
Eyewitnesses posted pictures and videos of the scene, while local media reported that more than 40 people could have been killed after the flames engulfed the bus.
The bus was reportedly carrying more than 70 passengers at the time of the accident.
SAN DIEGO – A small boat believed to be carrying migrants capsized early Monday off San Diego’s coast and left three people dead and four injured, while U.S. Coast Guard crews were searching for nine others, officials said.
U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Chris Sappey said it was unclear where the boat was coming from before it flipped shortly after sunrise about 35 miles (56 kilometers) north of the Mexico border. He described the vessel as a panga, single or twin-engine open fishing boats commonly used by smugglers.
“They were not tourists,” Sappey said. “They are believed to be migrants.”
Migrants are increasingly turning to the risky alternative offered by smugglers to travel by sea to avoid heavily guarded land borders, including off California’s coast. Pangas leave the Mexican coast in the dead of night, sometimes charting hundreds of miles north.
Officials had no other details about those on board, including the three who died. It was also unclear if anyone made it to shore on their own and left the area. Agencies that responded to the capsizing included Border Patrol, Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Coast Guard, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Encinitas Fire Department.
The four injured people were taken to hospitals. The Coast Guard deployed a helicopter and boat to search for the missing.
Hikers and others at Torrey Pines State Beach reported seeing a boat capsize near the shore at about 6:30 a.m., said Lt. Nick Backouris of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.
ADEN/CAIRO – The Israeli military said it carried out airstrikes against Yemen’s Hodeidah Port on Monday, a day after the Iran-aligned Houthis fired a missile that struck near Israel’s main airport.
The military said in a statement that it attacked what it called Houthi “terrorist” targets in Hodeidah and its vicinity.
“The attack was carried out in response to repeated attacks carried out by the Houthi terrorist regime against the State of Israel in which surface-to-surface missiles and unmanned aircraft were launched at the territory of the state and its citizens,” it said.
More than 10 strikes targeted Hodeidah Port and the Al Salakhanah and Al Hawak neighbourhoods in Hodeidah City, five residents told Reuters. Four strikes also targeted a cement factory east of Hodeidah. The port is the second-largest in the Red Sea after Aden and is the entry point for about 80% of Yemen’s food imports.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to retaliate for Sunday’s missile attack, which was the first known to have escaped interception by Israel’s air defences in a series of attacks since March.
The Houthis, who control Yemen, have been firing at Israel and shipping in the Red Sea since the beginning of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, in what they say is solidarity with the Palestinians.
A U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity said that U.S. forces were not actively involved in Monday’s strikes, but there is general coordination between the two allies.
Meanwhile, an oil company operated by the Houthis announced it has begun operating an emergency system with regards to supplying cars with fuel, owing to difficulties in unloading cargo at the oil port of Ras Isa.
The company, in a statement, attributed the decision to U.S. strikes on the country, including the port.
U.S. President Donald Trump in March ordered large-scale strikes against the Houthis saying it was meant to reduce their capabilities and deter them from targeting commercial shipping in the Red Sea. The strikes have killed hundreds of people in Yemen.
BUCHAREST – Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu resigned on Monday, a day after a far-right opposition leader won the first round of the presidential election re-run and his own candidate crashed out of the race.
Ciolacu said his centre-left Social Democrats would withdraw from the pro-Western coalition – effectively ending it – while cabinet ministers will stay on in an interim capacity until a new majority emerges after the presidential run-off.
Hard-right eurosceptic George Simion decisively swept the ballot on Sunday, with some 41% of votes, and will face Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan, an independent centrist, in a May 18 run-off. Coalition candidate Crin Antonescu came third.
Although Ciolacu’s leftist Social Democrats (PSD) won the most seats in a December 1 parliamentary election, Simion’s AUR and two other far-right groupings, one with overt pro-Russian sympathies, won more than a third of the seats to become a clear political force.
The Social Democrats had formed a coalition government with the centrist Liberals and ethnic Hungarian UDMR to help keep the European Union and NATO state on a pro-Western course. A governing majority that cordons off the far right in the legislature cannot be formed without it.
“This coalition is no longer legitimate,” Ciolacu told reporters after a party meeting.
“The next president was going to replace me anyway, that’s what I’ve read.”
Romania’s president has a semi-executive role that includes commanding the armed forces and chairing the security council that decides on military aid. The president can also veto important EU votes and appoints the prime minister, chief judges, prosecutors and secret service heads.
Romania already has an interim president until the May 18 run-off. An interim government cannot issue decrees or introduce policies. The country has the EU’s largest budget deficit and risks a ratings downgrade to below investment level unless it enforces a decisive fiscal correction.
A Simion victory could isolate Romania, erode private investment and destabilise NATO’s eastern flank, where Bucharest plays a key role in providing logistical support to Ukraine as it fights a three-year-old Russian invasion, political observers say.
It would also expand a cohort of eurosceptic leaders in the European Union that already includes the Hungarian and Slovak prime ministers at a time when Europe is struggling to formulate its response to U.S. President Donald Trump.
“The problem now isn’t that Romania is in a hard place, but that the European Union is should George Simion win,” said Cristian Pirvulescu, a professor at the Bucharest National School of Political Science and Public Administration.
“The anti-European group within the EU will become more substantial, which could even lead to a change of course for (Italy’s PM) Giorgia Meloni. The group can become important and it could influence the May 18 Polish presidential election.”
NEW DELHI – Amid escalating tension, the troops of India and Pakistan exchanged heavy fire and targeted each other’s positions Monday on the Line of Control (LoC), an Indian army official said.
“During the intervening night of May 4 and 5, Pakistan army posts resorted to unprovoked small arms fire across the LoC in areas opposite Kupwara, Baramulla, Poonch, Rajouri, Mendhar, Naushera, Sunderbani and Akhnoor,” an Indian army official was quoted in local media. “Indian army responded promptly and proportionately.”
Monday marked the 11th straight day of ceasefire violations on the volatile LoC, according to the Indian side.
Tensions between India and Pakistan have escalated following a deadly attack on tourists in Pahalgam in the Indian-controlled Kashmir on April 22.
On Monday, New Delhi temporarily cut off the flow of water from Chenab river to Pakistan, Indian media reports said.
On the same day, Pakistan conducted a successful training launch of its surface-to-surface FATAH Series missile with a range of 120 km, the military said in a statement.
