Java storm, lava halt search for missing
LUMAJANG, Indonesia -- Heavy rains and torrents of hot lava and mud sliding down an erupting volcano on Indonesia's Java island have put search and rescue operations for more than a dozen people missing on hold, officials said Wednesday.
Mount Semeru erupted on Saturday, killing at least 39 people with searing ash and gas that blanketed several villages around it. Twelve others remain missing.
"It is raining every day. The situation on the slopes of Semeru requires high vigilance, there are signs of volcanic activity," said Irwan Subekti, commander of the Mount Semeru Disaster Emergency Response Command.
Hot lava from the top of the 12,060-foot mountain is still flowing. Heavy rains that are believed to have triggered the eruption mixed with volcanic mud and flooded the villages covered by the ashfall. Roads were closed and houses buried in layers of mud up to 3 feet high.
The conditions were not suitable for heavy equipment, officials said. There had been no survivors found under the debris since Saturday, and Tholeb Vatelehan, spokesperson for the Surabaya Search and Rescue Agency, said that the death toll is expected to rise as more bodies are recovered.
Israeli stabbed amid settlement tensions
JERUSALEM -- An Israeli woman was stabbed and lightly wounded in a tense neighborhood in east Jerusalem on Wednesday. The suspect, a Palestinian girl, fled the scene and was later arrested inside a nearby school, police said.
The 26-year-old Israeli woman was taken to the nearby Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital, where she was treated and released hours later. Head surgeon Haggi Mazeh said she had been brought in with the knife still in her back, but the cut was not deep.
The stabbing took place in Sheikh Jarrah, where several Palestinian extended families are at risk of being evicted by Jewish settlers amid a decades-long legal battle. Protests and clashes with police there last spring helped ignite a violent 11-day Gaza conflict.
Sirens could be heard echoing across the neighborhood as traffic was backed up by the morning commute.
Later Wednesday, several dozen right-wing Israeli activists staged a demonstration in Sheik Jarrah, waving Israeli flags and calling out "death to terrorists." Police pushed some Palestinian counterprotesters back, but there were no reports of serious violence.
Czechs OK troops to help at Polish border
PRAGUE -- The Czech government approved a plan Wednesday to deploy 150 service members in Poland to help guard the border with Belarus.
Defense Minister Lubomir Metnar said they will have a mandate to stay in Poland for 180 days.
Both houses of Czech Parliament still have to approve the deployment. That is expected to happen by the end of next week. The Czechs would join the similar numbers of troops deployed in Poland by Britain and Estonia.
Poland's government and the European Union have accused authorities in Belarus of directing thousands of migrants and refugees from the Middle East to its border and using them as pawns, tricking them into trying to enter Poland, Lithuania and Latvia to destabilize the entire 27-nation EU.
"The European Union cannot tolerate that," Czech Foreign Minister Jakub Kulhanek said, adding that more sanctions against Belarus can't be ruled out.
Last week, the EU imposed further sanctions against Belarus, aiming at those accused of participating in a "hybrid attack" on the bloc using migrants. The United States, Britain and Canada slapped simultaneous sanctions Dec. 2 on officials, organizations and companies in Belarus.
Nigerian bus attack kills 23 travelers
LAGOS, Nigeria -- At least 23 travelers have been killed in northwest Nigeria in an attack by the same armed groups blamed for killing thousands this year in Africa's most populous country.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said he is "very distressed" over the attack that occurred Monday though details of the incident emerged only on Wednesday. It is the latest in a cycle of violence targeting rural communities and travelers along highways in the northwest and central parts of the West African nation.
Sokoto state governor Aminu Tambuwal said that the gunmen opened fire on a bus conveying the travelers along a route notorious for such attacks in the Isa area of the state. Twenty-three of the travelers died of burns while six others were injured, he said.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack but blame quickly fell on assailants who have killed at least 2,500 people in the northwest and central states in the first half of 2021, according to data from the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations.
Buhari -- who was elected in 2015 after promising to crush Islamist extremists in the northeast -- has seen the armed violence in other parts of northern Nigeria grow rapidly under his watch. He faces mounting pressure to act. On Wednesday, he said the latest attack "shows that the evil this administration is confronting is one that requires the support and involvement of all Nigerians."
Rescuers use an all-terrain vehicle to search Wednesday for victims of the eruption of Mount Semeru (background) in Lumajang, East Java, Indonesia. The search has been put on hold because of heavy rain and flows of lava and mud sliding down the volcano. At least 39 people have died, and no survivors have been found since Saturday, authorities said.Trisnadi