ATHENS: The bodies of two women and 39 other migrants were found by the Greek coast guard on the tiny island of Farmakonisi in the Aegean Sea on Monday.

The authorities said that an investigation was underway to determine what had occurred. The circumstances of the deaths were unclear, they said.

Greek authorities were informed that the migrants had earlier in the day reached the island, just 6 miles (9.7 km) off the Turkish coast, coast guard officials said, adding they were still searching for other survivors of a potential shipwreck.

Those rescued were transferred to the island of Leros nearby.

Greece, in the southeast corner of the European Union, has long been a favoured gateway to Europe for migrants and refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

The coast guard has rescued over 250,000 people since 2015, when Greece was at the frontline of Europe’s migration crisis and nearly one million people landed on its islands, including Farmakonisi, from Turkey. Thousands have died at sea, according to the U.N refugee agency.

This month, at least seven migrants drowned, including one boy, one girl and two women, when their boat sank off the island of Lesbos.

KOLKATA: Protests triggered by new controversial law on Muslim land turned violent as police vehicles were torched in Kolkata, capital of India’s West Bengal State, on Monday.

Authorities said violence claimed at least three lives over the weekend.

The unrest began in the Murshidabad district, where Muslim protesters set fire to shopping malls, attacked a Hindu home and stabbed two people on Saturday, police said, forcing authorities to suspend internet services in the area.

On Monday, protesters in the Bhangar area of Kolkata clashed with police after officers stopped a protest rally. A major highway was blocked by protesters during the disturbances.

The protesters were angry about a new law passed by the Indian parliament this month, which makes sweeping changes in the management of vast tracts of land set aside solely for Muslim use, potentially stoking tensions between the government and minority Muslims.

Muslim groups and political parties say the law, like many of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies, aims to alienate and discriminate against Muslims. Modi and officials in his party deny the allegations, and have said the law is a “pro-Muslim reform”.

Modi’s party has accused the Trinamool Congress, its bitter rival which rules West Bengal, of appeasing Muslims in order to win votes. The Trinamool Congress denies this and says Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is polarising people on religious lines.

(Reporting Subrata Nag Choudhary, writing by by Shilpa Jamkhandikar, editing by Giles Elgood)

HANOI: China and Vietnam signed dozens of cooperation agreements on Monday, strengthening ties between the communist-run countries after Chinese leader Xi Jinping warned that protectionism “leads nowhere” and that a trade war would have “no winners”.

Xi is in Vietnam for the first leg of a Southeast Asia tour, as Beijing tries to present itself as a stable alternative to an erratic US President Donald Trump, who announced — and then mostly reversed — sweeping tariffs this month.

The Chinese president was welcomed to Hanoi on Monday with a 21-cannon salute, a guard of honour and rows of flag-waving children at the presidential palace, before holding talks with Vietnam’s top leaders including General Secretary To Lam.

The two neighbours signed 45 cooperation agreements, including on supply chains, AI, joint maritime patrols and railway development.

Xi’s visit comes almost two weeks after the United States — manufacturing powerhouse Vietnam’s biggest export market in the first three months of the year — slapped a 46% levy on Vietnamese goods as part of a global trade blitz.

Although the reciprocal tariffs on Vietnam and most other countries have been paused, China still faces enormous levies and is seeking to tighten regional trade ties and offset their impact during Xi’s first overseas trip of the year.

Xi will depart Vietnam on Tuesday, travelling onwards to Malaysia and Cambodia on a tour that “bears major importance” for the broader region, Beijing has said.

Speaking during a meeting with Lam, Xi said Vietnam and China were “standing at the turning point of history… and should move forward with joint hands”.

Xi earlier urged the two countries to “resolutely safeguard the multilateral trading system, stable global industrial and supply chains, and open and cooperative international environment”.

He also reiterated Beijing’s line that a “trade war and tariff war will produce no winner, and protectionism will lead nowhere” in an article published on Monday in Vietnam’s major state-run Nhan Dan newspaper.

Vietnam’s Lam said in an article posted on the government’s news portal on Monday that his country “is always ready to join hands with China to make cooperation between the two countries more substantive, profound, balanced and sustainable”.

‘Bamboo diplomacy’

Vietnam was Southeast Asia’s biggest buyer of Chinese goods in 2024, with a bill of $161.9 billion, followed by Malaysia with Chinese imports worth $101.5 billion.

Firming up ties with Southeast Asian neighbours could also help offset the impact from a closed United States, the largest single recipient of Chinese goods last year.

Xi is visiting Vietnam for the first time since December 2023.

China and Vietnam, both ruled by communist parties, already share a “comprehensive strategic partnership”, Hanoi’s highest diplomatic status.

Vietnam has long pursued a “bamboo diplomacy” approach — striving to stay on good terms with both China and the United States.

The two countries have close economic ties, but Hanoi shares US concerns about Beijing’s increasing assertiveness in the contested South China Sea.

China claims almost all of the South China Sea as its own but this is disputed by the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Brunei.

The Chinese leader insisted in his article on Monday that Beijing and Hanoi could resolve those disputes through dialogue.

“We should properly manage differences and safeguard peace and stability in our region,” Xi wrote.

“With vision, we are fully capable of properly settling maritime issues through consultation and negotiation,” he said.

Vietnam’s Lam said in his article that “joint efforts to control and satisfactorily resolve disagreements… is an important stabilising factor in the current complex and unpredictable international and regional situation”.

After Vietnam, Xi will visit Malaysia from Tuesday to Thursday.

Malaysian Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil said Xi’s visit was “part of the government’s efforts […] to see better trade relations with various countries including China”.

Xi will then travel to Cambodia, one of China’s staunchest allies in Southeast Asia and where Beijing has extended its influence in recent years.

NEW DELHI: Mehul Choksi, the fugitive jeweller wanted in connection with one of India’s largest bank frauds, has been arrested in Belgium, a source at the Enforcement Directorate told Reuters.

Choksi, who has been on the run for several years, was taken into custody nearly seven years after the scandal first surfaced. The Indian government had already submitted an extradition request prior to his arrest, though the source noted that Choksi is expected to contest the move on medical grounds.

The case dates back to 2018, when Punjab National Bank (PNB), India’s second-largest state-owned lender by assets, revealed that it had uncovered fraudulent transactions amounting to $1.8 billion at a single branch in Mumbai.

The bank had filed a criminal complaint with India’s federal investigative agency against several entities, including billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi and Choksi, his uncle and the managing director of Gitanjali Gems, saying they had defrauded PNB.

Indian federal police filed fraud charges against Choksi, Nirav Modi and others in connection with suspected involvement in fraudulent transactions that led to huge losses for PNB.

The two diamond tycoons have denied any wrongdoing.

Choksi said in a letter in 2018 that the “investigating agencies were acting with pre-determined minds and interfering with the course of justice.”

Reuters was unable to immediately contact his lawyer on Monday.

Nirav Modi fled India in 2018 before details of his alleged role in the case became public. He was arrested in Britain in 2019 and remains in custody there, although he has lost one extradition appeal.

Last week, a Pakistani-born Canadian businessman accused of helping orchestrate the 2008 attacks in Mumbai landed in New Delhi after the US extradited him in the first such transfer in a terrorism case.

SEOUL: South Korea’s former president Yoon Suk Yeol on Monday denied he had committed insurrection, as the impeached leader appeared in court on the first day of his criminal trial over his martial law declaration.

Yoon was formally stripped of office earlier this month, after being impeached and suspended by lawmakers over his December 3 attempt to subvert civilian rule, which saw armed soldiers deployed to parliament.

He became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in January in connection to the criminal case against him, although he was later released on procedural grounds.

Yoon attended the trial at Seoul Central District Court on Monday morning and was asked by the justices to state his name, date of birth and other personal information, according to pool reports.

Yoon is accused of insurrection over his abortive martial law declaration, but his legal team denied all the charges, with the former president then taking to the stand to defend himself.

“To frame an event that lasted only a few hours, was non-violent, and immediately accepted the dissolution request from the National Assembly as insurrection… strikes me as legally unfounded,” Yoon told the court.

Yoon, himself a former prosecutor, asked the court to display the prosecution’s presentation on a courtroom monitor, and proceeded to rebut their opening statement point by point, according to pool reports.

The prosecution argued that Yoon “planned to incite an uprising with the intent to subvert the constitutional order”.

They gave evidence including Yoon’s planning of the martial law in advance and his deployment of the military to the parliament, with orders to break windows and cut the power.

Long trial ahead

The court will hear witness testimonies from two military officers called by prosecutors, including one officer who claims he was instructed by top commanders “to drag out the lawmakers gathered in the National Assembly to lift the martial law”.

Lawmakers defied armed soldiers and climbed over fences in order to gather in parliament and vote down Yoon’s martial law declaration, forcing him to backtrack in a matter of hours.

Experts say his criminal trial is likely to be a lengthy one.

“The first verdict is likely to be delivered around August, but the case involves around 70,000 pages of evidence and numerous witnesses. So if deemed necessary by the court, the trial may be extended,” lawyer Min Kyoung-sic told AFP.

Former president Park Geun-hye, for example, was impeached in December 2016 — but it wasn’t until January 2021 that the Supreme Court finalised her sentence for influence peddling and corruption.

If found guilty, Yoon would become the third South Korean president to be found guilty of insurrection — after two military leaders in connection to a 1979 coup.

“Legal experts say that the precedent coup could be applied in the current case, as it also involved the coercive deployment of military forces,” said Min.

For charges of insurrection, Yoon could be sentenced to life in prison or the maximum penalty: the death sentence.

But is it highly unlikely that sentence would be carried out. South Korea has had an unofficial moratorium on executions since 1997.

WASHINGTON: After an attack at the official residence of Democratic heavyweight and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, US police said Sunday they had arrested a man for alleged arson and “terrorism”.

Widely viewed as a potential 2028 presidential contender, Shapiro was inside with his family when the fire broke out in a different part of the Georgian-style mansion in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, state police said.

“While the fire was successfully extinguished, it caused a significant amount of damage to a portion of the residence,” the force said in a statement. No casualties were reported.

Shapiro said that he and his sleeping family were woken up by a police trooper who “banged on our door” at around 2:00am local time (0600GMT) and that they were evacuated from the building.

“Thank God no one was injured and the fire was extinguished,” he said.

Speaking to reporters outside the residence, a broken window blackened by the fire visible behind him, Shapiro made a forceful appeal for an end to political violence.

“This kind of violence is becoming far too common in our society, and I don’t give a damn if it’s coming from one particular side or the other… it is not OK, and it has to stop,” he said.

Shapiro, who is Jewish, held a ceremony with family and friends earlier in the night to mark the first night of the Passover holiday.

While noting the arsonist’s motive was not yet known, Shapiro said he would not be intimidated in observing his faith.

Police said they arrested a man suspected of having carried out the attack, naming him as Cody Balmer, 38.

“Cody Balmer is in custody. We are preparing a criminal complaint to charge him,” said district attorney Fran Chardo, adding that the charges would include “attempted murder, terrorism, aggravated arson and aggravated assault against an enumerated person.”

The term “enumerated person” is usually used for law enforcement officers or other public officials.

Authorities said Balmer accessed the property by coming over a fence, and that he had “homemade incendiary devices” on his person.

He spent several minutes on the property evading police before he broke in and set the fire, top state police officials Christopher Paris and George Bivens said.

Top Republican officials reacted to the attack Sunday afternoon, with US Attorney General Pam Bondi saying she was “deeply relieved that Governor Shapiro and his family are safe.”

Vice President JD Vance called the attack “really disgusting violence” and said he hopes “whoever did it is brought swiftly to justice.”

President Donald Trump, when asked about the attack Sunday night while returning to Washington aboard Air Force One, said he had just heard about it.

The 51-year-old Shapiro was in the race to be Democrat Kamala Harris’s running mate in her ultimately unsuccessful US presidential bid — a position that instead went to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

Shapiro, an assertive political centrist, was elected governor of Pennsylvania in 2022 when he faced off against a far-right candidate backed by Trump.