Shallow Indonesian quake damages houses, injures residents

An Australian couple has moved house, literally, after realising it was placed on the wrong plot of land.

Melanie and David Moor said they set up their home to "relax" at a five-acre block two hours' drive west of Melbourne.

They put up the pre-fabricated house in March 2024, including installing the plumbing and electricity, for a new life in rural Victoria.

Five months later, they got the bad news.

"We got the call from the council to say that we had to stop works because it was on the wrong block -- and we actually owned the block next door," Melanie Moor told AFP on Thursday.

"It's just been a nightmare."

The couple said the plot's boundaries were unclear and they had relied on the local council and the real estate agent for the right advice. 

A spokesperson for the Corangamite Shire Council declined to comment.

AFP was unable to reach the real estate agent.

The couple moved their house about 100 metres (330 feet) by truck to the right plot on April 2.

They are now living in a caravan while the home is secured to the correct site.

They also need to connect the house's power, water and septic amenities -- at a heavy financial cost.

Melanie Moor has an autoimmune disease, and her husband has liver disease, the couple said.

"The idea was that I could actually relax a little bit and work from home," David Moor said.

Under an agreement with the owners of the plot where the house was originally put, the couple said they have until May 2 to restore that land to its original state.

But they are thankful their home is now in the right place.

"It was a relief seeing the truck take the house across the property," Melanie Moor said.

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Russia is expected to label the Nobel Prize-winning human rights group Memorial "extremist" on Thursday, a designation that will make it easier to prosecute the group's supporters and those who work with it.

Russia had already liquidated the group's operations in 2021, forcing it to work largely in exile.

Here's what we know about the history of Russia's most prominent rights group and its work over the past 35 years:

- What does Memorial do? -

Memorial was founded in the late 1980s to document victims of Soviet-era political repression, during which millions of people perished in the Gulag penal system.

Its first chairman was the Nobel Prize-winning Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov and the group established the largest publicly available database on Gulag victims.

A symbol of hope during Russia's chaotic transition to democracy in the early 1990s, it has since documented the country's slide into authoritarianism under Vladimir Putin.

It has compiled a list of hundreds of political prisoners in modern Russia, among them critics of Putin and opponents of the Ukraine war.

Memorial has also documented rights violations linked to Russia's brutal wars in Chechnya and Syria, the plight of Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russia, as well as kept a list of prisoners persecuted for their religion -- among them more than 200 Jehovah's Witnesses.

It counts more than 1,000 political prisoners held in Russian jails as of 2026 -- up from 46 in 2015, as Moscow has intensified its crackdown on dissent amid the Ukraine war.

- Banned in Russia -

As Russia's most prominent human rights group, it has repeatedly found itself in the government's crosshairs.

It was put on the government's register of "foreign agents" in 2015.

The label, akin to being an enemy of the state, requires individuals or groups to disclose sources of funding and mark all publications -- including social media posts -- with a tag.

Then in 2021, Russia's Supreme Court liquidated Memorial for failing to properly identify itself as a "foreign agent" and for justifying "terrorist and extremist" activities.

Memorial described claims it broke the law or supported "terrorist and extremist" groups as "absurd".

Formally designating the group "extremist" would harden the legal punishments that could be laid out to any Russian to cooperate with the organisation's network in exile or donate money to it.

- Nobel Peace Prize -

The group received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 -- months after Russia launched its offensive on Ukraine -- for its work, alongside jailed Belarusian activist Ales Bialiatski and Ukraine's Centre for Civil Liberties.

Hours later a court in Moscow ordered Memorial's headquarters to be seized and took the premises into state ownership.

The Nobel Committee said the group, along with its co-winners, had "made an outstanding effort to document war crimes, human right abuses and the abuse of power".

- Staff persecuted -

Memorial's crusading work at home has come at a huge personal cost to those involved.

Natalya Estemirova, one of the group's main employees in Chechnya, was found dead in 2009 with gunshot wounds hours after she was seen being bundled into a car outside her home.

Another Memorial employee, Yury Dmitriyev, who spent decades locating mass graves in the northwestern region of Karelia, was jailed in 2020 on a controversial child sex charge.

Supporters say the 70-year-old historian was targeted for his work.

The group's co-chair Oleg Orlov was jailed in 2024 for protesting the war in Ukraine. He was released in a prisoner exchange with the United States several months later.

- Work in exile -

The group, whose bank accounts have been frozen, has since outsourced its work to satellite offices across Europe and the world.

Russia declared the international arm of Memorial an "undesirable organisation" in February -- outlawing Russians from working with or donating to the group. 

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A week after astronaut Jeremy Hansen blasted off on the historic Artemis II mission to the Moon, his wife Catherine recalled the anxiety and thrill of witnessing the journey from afar.

The Canadian obstetrician-gynecologist told AFP that she has closely followed the mission carrying her husband among a crew of four, hanging onto every update during family phone calls and from NASA mission control.

"It's incredible to me to know that they were up close," said Catherine, wearing rocket-shaped earrings during a video call.

Lifting off from Florida, Hansen became the first non-American to journey toward the Moon as the crew reached a record-breaking distance of 250,000 miles (400,000 kilometers) from Earth.

Catherine and her children followed the lunar flyby from NASA mission control in Houston on Monday, and later heard Hansen share his observations in a family call.

"Jeremy was describing... the fact that it looks so three-dimensional, like this globe outside the window," recalled his wife.

"He certainly will continue to describe to us and everyone else what it felt like to be that close to that celestial body."

- 'Emotional' -

Catherine said, before liftoff, her husband gave her a pair of powerful binoculars to follow the space voyage.

"Our family would lie down and look at various places on the Moon that he would identify based on his mapping and his study guides," she said.

Some of those sites were later observed up close by the Artemis II crew.

As the astronauts flew on the far side of the Moon, they lost connection with Earth for some 40 minutes during an expected communications blackout.

That was the moment Catherine got especially anxious. "I wanted to be there for that, because as someone who has never flown in space, I wanted to make sure they actually reacquired signal."

As onlookers held their breath, she was surprised by the "energy in mission control."

"There was no stress or anxiety. Everyone just trusted that this is what's going to happen: they're going to lose signal and come back again," she said.

"It has been a very emotional week."

Catherine and their three children also recorded videos that Jeremy was able to watch near the Moon.

"When you're out in deep space by the Moon, and you are listening to a video they recorded for you before you launch. That's something," the Canadian astronaut told a press conference.

- 'Get him home safely' -

"There's been a lot of happiness and excitement, a lot of joy" but also "some anxiety and some wanting to get him home safely," Catherine said.

She is now preparing for the moment when the crew splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, expected for Friday.

The Artemis II, the first mission to carry humans around the Moon in more than 50 years, was considered a risky first spaceflight for Jeremy.

Described by NASA as a "test mission," the flight aimed to verify the reliability of the rocket and Orion capsule, which had not carried humans before.

At the moment of liftoff, Catherine was with her children and the other astronauts' families near the launch pad in Florida.

"It was absolutely incredible. And I think everyone is sort of at a loss for words," she recalled.

"I don't think anyone was quite prepared."

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A shallow 4.9-magitude earthquake struck eastern Indonesia overnight, damaging dozens of homes and injuring multiple people, an official said Thursday. 

The jolt struck at a depth of 10.4 kilometres (6.46 miles), some 104 kilometres east of Maumere, East Nusa Tenggara, shortly before midnight on Wednesday, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. 

Two villages on the small island of Adonara felt the biggest impact, with more than 100 houses damaged and at least 20 people injured, according to local official Ismail Daton Ban. 

Indonesia and neighbouring countries experience frequent earthquakes due to their location in the Pacific "Ring of Fire" -- an arc of intense seismic activity stretching from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

A 9.1-magnitude quake struck the westernmost Aceh province in 2004, causing a tsunami and killing more than 170,000 people in Indonesia.

Shallow quakes tend to be more damaging, with seismic waves travelling a shorter distance through the ground and reaching the surface with more energy.

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Nepal's ex-prime minister KP Sharma Oli and former interior minister Ramesh Lekhak have been released from custody after questioning for their alleged role in a deadly 2025 crackdown on protesters, police said Thursday.

Oli and Lekhak were arrested on March 28, a day after Prime Minister Balendra Shah took office following the country's first elections since the September uprising brought down Oli's government.

"Both former prime minister KP Sharma Oli and the former home minister have been released today on the condition that they will present themselves to the police when required," Kathmandu Police spokesperson Pawan Kumar Bhattarai told AFP.

Neither man has been formally charged, and both deny responsibility for the violence.

"Both of them have been handed over to their relatives," Bhattarai added.

The arrests came after an inquiry commission recommended prosecuting Oli -- a four-time prime minister -- and other officials for failing to stop security forces from opening fire on demonstrators.

The commission's report said statements given by the two men suggesting they did not know about the violence were part of a bid to shift responsibility and amounted to "criminal negligence".

Oli, 74, was taken to hospital since soon after his arrest for what police described as a procedural check-up, adding that he suffers from heart and kidney problems.

After their arrests, their wives filed habeas corpus petitions at the Supreme Court, challenging the legality of their detentions.

On Monday, Supreme Court spokesperson Arjun Prasad Koirala said that the petitions were dismissed but that the court had ordered authorities to complete the investigation without granting any additional extensions of detention.

Oli's CPN-UML party has described the arrests as "a vengeful act" and called for protests.

The youth-led uprising in September began in Kathmandu and was triggered by a brief social media ban.

It spread countrywide the following day, fueled by longstanding frustration over corruption and economic hardship.

Protesters set fire to the parliament building and offices and eventually toppled the government. 

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They took thousands of photographs and documented copious observations on their voyage around the Moon, but as they sped closer to home the Artemis astronauts said Wednesday they have barely started processing the extraordinary experience they shared.

"Human minds should not go through what these just went through," said NASA's Artemis II mission commander Reid Wiseman during a press conference from space.

"It is a true gift. And we have a lot that we just need to think about and journal and write, and then we'll get the full feeling of what we just went through."

The four astronauts -- Americans Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch as well as Canadian Jeremy Hansen -- set a record for distance from Earth during their lunar flyby.

The astronauts were speaking to news media less than two days before they are scheduled to splash down in the Pacific Ocean at the end of their 10-day mission around the Moon.

"I haven't even begun to process what we've been through," Glover said. "We've still got two more days, and riding a fireball through the atmosphere is profound as well."

"I'm going to be thinking about and talking about all of these things for the rest of my life."

Wiseman said the solar eclipse was particularly poignant: "I'm actually in chills right now just thinking about it, my palms are sweating."

- 'Fragile planet' -

Asked what they would miss about celestial life, Koch said "camaraderie."

"I will miss being this close with this many people and having a common purpose, a common mission, getting to work on it hard every day across hundreds of thousands of miles with a team on the ground," she said. 

"This sense of teamwork is something that you don't usually get, like, as an adult," Koch added. "I mean we are close like brothers and sisters. That is a privilege we will never have again."

But she said even though they've been sharing a small space -- and a malfunctioning toilet -- for more than a week now, "I don't think there's anything I would say... that I'm just ready to be over."

"This whole thing is a package. We can't explore deeper unless we are doing a few things that are inconvenient, unless we're making a few sacrifices, unless we're taking a few risks," she said.

"Those things are all worth it."

Koch said the team has "loved living in Orion," their spacecraft, even though it was tight quarters.

"It is bigger in microgravity," she said, but "we are bumping into each other 100 percent of the time."

Hansen said he witnessed things "I just had never even imagined" while flying around the Moon's far side.

But he said his perspective on life remains rooted: "We live on a fragile planet in the vacuum and the void of space."

"Our purpose on the planet as humans is to find joy... and lifting each other up by creating solutions together instead of destroying," Hansen told journalists from his vantage point cruising far above home.

"When you see it from out here, it doesn't change it. It just absolutely reaffirms that."

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Facing daily barrages of Russian drones and missiles, Ukraine has invited private companies to get their own air-defence systems in a bid to ease the burden on its military.

In an interview with AFP, a senior Ukrainian military official detailed the plan -- involving state authorisation and integration into the air force coordination system -- that has already attracted over a dozen companies.

The goal is to give businesses "the possibility, at their own expense and with their own employees, to protect themselves against aerial threats," Yuriy Myronenko, 48, inspector general at the Ukrainian defence ministry and the main architect of the project, told AFP.

Since it invaded in 2022, Russia has regularly launched hundreds of long-range Shahed drones, originally Iranian-designed but now mass-produced in Russia, at Ukraine.

Cheap but lethal, the drones target residential areas and critical infrastructure, sometimes hundreds of kilometres from the front line.

The largest attack since the start of the invasion came at the end of March, when Russia fired nearly 1,000 drones in 24 hours, along with missiles.

Ukraine's air-defence system -- which includes thousands of mobile anti-drone teams -- is fairly effective but cannot cover the entire country.

That is why the defence ministry has opted to partly outsource the task to private actors, including energy companies, frequently targeted by Russian strikes, logistics firms and security groups to protect their sites.

For now, the Ukrainian authorities have released few details of the plan.

But Myronenko told AFP that 16 firms have received the necessary authorisation and "some companies are already shooting down Shaheds".

- Interceptors -

"I think we are the first in the world to create such a system," Myronenko said, referring to the plan he said was already yielding results. 

"The first shoot-downs were two weeks ago," added the lieutenant-colonel who used to command a drone unit.

In the northeastern Kharkiv region, near the front line, one company -- unnamed for security reasons -- used heavy machine guns mounted on remote-controlled turrets to intercept several Russian drones.

After the defence ministry published a statement on the matter, "dozens" of other groups contacted the authorities to enquire about the scheme, Myronenko said.

"We don't expect private air defence to solve all our problems," he conceded. "We are forced to take this step because every opportunity to shoot down one, two, three, four, five Shaheds helps."

Companies wanting to take part must undergo a special authorisation process, including to rule out any Russian ties, before they can purchase weapons and train their staff.

They must also integrate into the air force's real-time coordination system, a key element of the sophisticated network that manages thousands of air-defence teams.

The special software allows commanders to see "who is shooting down what, with which systems, which teams," and to locate incoming targets, said Myronenko.  

For him, the future of private air defence lies in drone interceptors -- small unmanned aircraft designed to destroy incoming drones mid-air.

Under the pressure of relentless attacks, Ukraine has already developed around 50 different interceptor models, an industry that barely existed a year ago.

- No limits -

Intense competition is pushing manufacturers to improve effectiveness while slashing costs, sometimes to less than $1,000 per unit, making them "affordable", Myronenko said.

In the longer term, private companies could even be allowed to acquire weapons capable of downing cruise missiles that Russia frequently uses against Ukraine, such as man-portable air-defence systems (MANPADS), he added.

"We don't limit what protective means they can buy," he said, adding: "because we understand that the war will change in three months, six months."

The main goal set by defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov -- appointed in January -- for this year is to "detect 100 percent of all air targets", both drones and missiles, and "shoot down 95 percent of them," up from around 80 percent currently.

Myronenko called the target "absolutely realistic," citing the surge in interceptor production, with tens of thousands now being delivered to the army each month.

"We must clearly demonstrate (to Russia) that terrorising our population and civilian infrastructure will not work."

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The Oklahoma City Thunder secured the Western Conference top seed and best record in the NBA with a 128-110 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday.

Center Chet Holmgren poured in 30 points and pulled down 14 rebounds, and NBA Most Valuable Player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander added 20 points and 11 assists for the reigning champion Thunder, who notched a seventh straight victory to improve to 64-16 with two games left in the regular season.

Oklahoma City snagged the West's top seed for the third year running, and with the best overall record they'll have home court advantage throughout the playoffs.

"It's extremely important," said Holmgren, who added five assists, two steals and four blocked shots. "Just knowing that in the event of a game seven it's always going to be at home. We saw that in the playoffs last year twice, so it's extremely important.

"It's great to see that the hard work has paid off in one way, and now we've got more to do," Holmgren added.

OKC's win means the surging San Antonio Spurs are locked into the second seed in the West.

San Antonio cruised past the Portland Trail Blazers 112-101 despite the absence of superstar Victor Wembanyama -- who sat out with a bruised rib -- and Stephon Castle.

De'Aaron Fox scored 25 points to lead a balanced Spurs attack. Keldon Johnson scored 20 points off the bench and rookie reserve Carter Bryant contributed 17.

The Denver Nuggets tightened their grip on third place in the West, beating the Memphis Grizzlies 136-119 behind a triple-double of 14 points, 16 rebounds and 10 assists from Nikola Jokic.

Three-time MVP Jokic posted his 34th triple-double of the season, the 198th of his career, to help Denver win their 10th straight -- their first double-digit win streak of his tenure.

Jamal Murray scored 26 points to lead eight Nuggets players to score in double figures as Denver edged further ahead of the injury-hit Los Angeles Lakers for the third seed.

Eastern Conference top seeds Detroit welcomed star guard Cade Cunningham back to action with a 137-111 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks.

Cunningham, who had missed 11 games with a collapsed lung, scored 13 points and handed out 10 assists in just under 26 minutes on court.

Jalen Duren scored 21 points to lead the Pistons, who had seven players score in double figures.

The Pistons have locked up the top seed and home court advantage throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs, but coach J.B. Bickerstaff said the return of Cunningham and teammate Isaiah Stewart, sidelined since March 13 with a calf strain, was a welcome opportunity to build their fitness before the playoffs start on April 18.

"There is no way to replicate NBA basketball," Bickerstaff said.

- Cavs hold off Hawks -

In Cleveland, Donovan Mitchell scored 31 points, Evan Mobley added 22 points and 19 rebounds and James Harden chipped in 21 points as the Cavaliers held off the Atlanta Hawks 122-116, denying the Hawks' bid to clinch a playoff berth.

The Cavs, who notched a fourth straight win, are assured of a top-four seed in the East and are chasing the New York Knicks for third.

The Hawks are fifth in the East, but they are just half a game ahead of sixth-placed Toronto and could still slip into the play-in tournament that will see the seventh- through 10th-placed teams battle for the last two playoff spots.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker scored 25 points and Jonathan Kuminga added 24 off the bench for Atlanta, who cut an 18-point fourth quarter deficit to two but could get no closer.

The Orlando Magic kept their hopes of escaping the play-in alive with a fourth straight win, beating the Minnesota Timberwolves 132-120.

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At a remote monastery in North Macedonia's rugged west, Father Porfirij starts his day by feeding his large black Karaman sheepdogs, a breed that has guarded highland flocks for centuries.

In February, the Karaman -- a hardy mountain shepherd -- won provisional recognition as an indigenous breed from the International Canine Federation (FCI).

The decision caps years of work by breeders, scientists and Porfirij himself to define and preserve one of the region's oldest breeds.

"They are very nice dogs, very peaceful," the Orthodox priest told AFP, as he dished out the morning meal to the thick-coated hounds at their home in the centuries-old monastery.

Rooted in nomadic herding traditions, the Karaman is one of several breeds Balkan shepherds used to guard mountain-dwelling flocks against bears and wolves, a practice that dates back to Ottoman times.

- 'Created by the mountain' -

For locals, the sheepdogs' symbolism is deeply important.

The more famous Yugoslavian Shepherd, also known as the Sharplanina or Sharr, even features on the country's currency.

But as rural populations decline across the region, the pastoral life that sustained the Karaman is fading, leaving just 2,000 of them registered in the country, according to Ilija Karov, who heads a kennel club devoted to the breed.

Official recognition as a distinct breed was important because it "opened the borders" for the animal to become a pet abroad and bolster breeding efforts, Karov said.

It is also the first breed with its origins exclusively recognised in North Macedonia, with the Sharr shared with Serbia.

Porfirij was drawn to the campaign for the animal almost a decade ago, while living at the St Jovan Bigorski Monastery.

Using the monastic kennel as his base, the priest travelled through the mountains, collecting dogs with specific traits.

Although the Karaman is visually similar to the Sharr, scientists have found clear genetic and anatomical differences, which Karov says include its curled tail, lighter eyes and spoon-shaped paws.

It was important to define the breed only by characteristics "created by the mountain", he said.

"In Karaman, there is literally zero human intervention in relation to how it should look."

- 'Brighter future' -

The canines' powerful build and origins as mountain sheepdogs can be intimidating -- the Sharr has been banned in Denmark since 2010.

But Porfirij said any fears of the Karaman are unfounded and hopes there will be growing interest in the breed thanks to its loyalty and friendliness.

"Especially towards kids," he said, as two local children hugged a thick-furred dog behind him.

As young people leave and mountain communities age, Karov said the breed's future would rely more on urban pet owners than its pastoral past.

"The breed has a brighter future, even if that is more in the cities than in the mountains."

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A wolf that escaped from a zoo in South Korea remained at large Thursday, authorities said, prompting a local school to close over safety concerns as the search continued.

The male wolf -- born in 2024 and weighing about 30 kilogrammes — escaped from a zoo at a theme park in Daejeon, about 150 kilometres (93 miles) south of Seoul, on Wednesday, triggering a wide search in surrounding areas.

It remained at large Thursday, authorities said, with a nearby school closing for safety.

"Daejeon Sanseong Elementary School is closed today following the escape of a wolf from a zoo yesterday," a spokesperson for the Daejeon Metropolitan Office of Education told AFP.

More than 300 people -- including firefighters, police officers and military troops -- are taking part in the search operation, an official from the Daejeon Fire Headquarters said. 

"We deployed drone cameras early in the morning but had to pull them back due to the ongoing rain," he told AFP.

The wolf dug into the ground and damaged the zoo's installed fence before escaping, according to the fire official. 

Images released by local media showed it wandering in the middle of a road.

In 2023, a male zebra became a global sensation after escaping from a zoo in Seoul and was seen roaming through the streets. 

The zebra — named Sero — was eventually cornered in a narrow alley, safely tranquilised and returned to his enclosure without any injuries.

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