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Police in Somalia has classified a particular kind of ant as a drug, after finding out that people were steaming the insects and inhaling their vapour to get high.

Odorous house ants, whose scientific name is tapinoma sessile, are known to contain formic acid.

There are accounts of birds appearing “drunk” after eating large quantities of these ants, and a security officer has told TV station Somali Cable that humans are deliberately using it to similar effect.

Read Also: Somalia Gets $105m Support From U.S. Amid Worst Drought

“They cut off the ants’ bottoms, then they put them in the …

No fewer than sixteen people have been confirmed dead in Indian-administered Kashmir, with rescuers searching for dozens more missing, after flash floods swept away hundreds of tents near a popular Hindu pilgrimage site, officials disclosed on Sunday.

Around 10,000 people were camped near the remote Amarnath temple, nestled in a Himalayan mountain cave when a sudden cloudburst triggered a deluge.

Frequent whirring helicopter sorties were evacuating the dead and an unknown number of panicked and injured pilgrims from the Baltal base camp to the north of the shrine.

“We found 16 bodies so far and at least 40 are missing,” …

Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled his official residence on Saturday shortly before protesters, angered by an unprecedented economic crisis, overran the compound and stormed his nearby office.

Thousands of people had surrounded the leader’s home to demand his resignation, blaming government mismanagement for a downturn that has subjected the island nation’s 22 million people to months of bitter hardship.

As the crowd surged at the gates of the presidential palace, troops guarding the compound fired in the air to hold them back until Rajapaksa was safely removed.

“The president was escorted to safety,” a top defence source told AFP …

The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin has warned of possible ‘catastrophic consequences’ of Western sanctions on the global energy market stressing that the moves by the West will only sink them further. 

‘Sanctions restrictions on Russia will bring far bigger losses for the countries that impose the’ Putin told a televised government meeting in an argument he is fond of using.

‘Continuing to use the politics of sanctions can lead to even more serious, without exaggeration — catastrophic — consequences on the world energy market.’

Read Also: ‘Sinking’ Sri Lanka Appeals To Putin For Fuel, Tourists

Africa Daily News, New …