Ecuador: 75 inmates dead in prison riots Family members of inmates react outside a prison where inmates were killed during a riot that the government described as a concerted action by criminal organizations in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on Thursday. At least 75 inmates died and several were injured in the riot blamed on gang rivalry at three jails in Ecuador’s overcrowded prison system, authorities said.Xinhua Okonjo-Iweala says ‘ready to go’ as WTO boss The World Trade Organization’s (WTO) first female and first African director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala began work on Monday, ending a six-month leadership void at the global trade watchdog. After a long campaign that was derailed in the late stages by a Trump administration veto, the 66-year-old Nigerian was finally confirmed as boss last month, pledging to “forget business as usual” at the body, which is struggling to strike new deals and whose arbitration functions are paralyzed. “It feels great. I am coming into one of the most important institutions in the world and we have a lot of work to do. I feel ready to go,” Okonjo-Iweala told a reporter on arrival at the WTO’s lakeside Geneva headquarters. Israeli-owned ship arrives in Dubai after blast An Israeli-owned ship hit by an explosion in the Gulf of Oman strategic waterway arrived on Monday at a port in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, where it is due to be assessed in dry dock. The MV Helios Ray, a vehicle-carrier ship, was hit overnight between Thursday and Friday by a blast above the water line that a U.S. defense official said ripped holes in both sides of its hull. Israel’s defense minister said on Saturday that an initial assessment had found that Iran was responsible for the explosion. There was no immediate comment from Iranian officials. Abducted boys, girls freed in Nigeria Gunmen in Nigeria on Saturday released 27 teenage boys who had been kidnapped from their school in the northcentral state of Niger, while security forces later also rescued hundreds of schoolgirls abducted in a nearby state. Schools have become targets for mass kidnappings for ransom in northern Nigeria by armed groups. On February 17, 27 students, three staff and 12 members of their families were abducted by an armed gang that stormed the Government Science secondary school in the Kagara district of Niger state, overwhelming the school’s security detail. One boy was killed during the raid. Hungary 1st in EU to use China’s vaccine Clinics across Hungary began using China’s Sinopharm vaccine last week, making it the first European Union country to provide the shot. The vaccine is being offered to Hungarians over the age of 60 as part of the second phase of the country’s vaccination campaign. Doctors’ offices across the country have received between 50 and 55 doses each. The first of four deliveries of the Sinopharm vaccine arrived in the capital Budapest last week, containing 550,000 vials of the vaccine. 400 inmates flee in ‘largest’ Haiti breakout More than 400 people escaped and 25 died on Friday in what is being termed as Haiti’s “largest and deadliest” prison breakout in more than a decade. The prison director and a powerful gang leader were among those who were killed. As per a few people, the jailbreak was to free gang leader Arnel Joseph, who used to rule Village de Dieu. Joseph was arrested in the year 2019 on charges including rape, kidnapping and murder. According to local reports, he was riding a motorcycle through the Artibonite area in the town of L’Estere, just a day after his escape. (SD-Agencies) | 