Briefly
CHAD
Boko Haram kills 92 soldiers in raid
Boko Haram extremists have killed 92 Chadian soldiers in an eight-hour attack on an island army base, in their deadliest assault yet on the country's armed forces. Chadian President Idriss Deby said he traveled to the scene of the attack on Tuesday to pay tribute to the dead soldiers, saying it was the first time so many troops had been lost. The attack on Monday morning in Boma, Lac Province, is part of an expanding extremist campaign in the vast, marshy Lake Chad area, where the borders of Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria converge.
RUSSIA
Tsunami threat after quake off Kurils
Residents in the northern part of Russia's Kuril Islands remain under threat from a tsunami after a magnitude-7.5 earthquake struck off the coast, but emergency services reported small waves and no casualties or damage. Meteorological authorities in Japan issued no tsunami alerts, while US authorities canceled a warning for Hawaii after the earthquake hit near the Kurils, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk. Residents will remain in a safe zone on higher ground, the emergency services said, while the tsunami threat remains. They added that any decision to cancel the alarm would be made by specialists after the low tide starts.
GERMANY
European spacecraft put in hibernation
The European Space Agency said on Tuesday that it is putting eight of its spacecraft into hibernation as it scales down operations during the global coronavirus outbreak. The agency said it is further reducing the already limited number of staff working on site at its mission control in Darmstadt, Germany. As a result, the instruments and data collection on some space probes are being temporarily stopped.
Agencies - Xinhua