AFGHANISTAN
More than 50 dead in floods
Flooding in a remote part of the north has claimed more than 50 lives and forced thousands to flee their homes, a provincial official said yesterday. Lieutenant Fazel Rahman, the police chief in the Guzirga i-Nur district of Baghlan Province, said 54 bodies have been recovered, including the remains of women and children, but many others are still missing. He said the death toll could climb to 100 and called for emergency assistance from the federal government. “So far no one has come to help us. People are trying to find their missing family members,” Rahman said, adding that the district’s police force was overstretched by the scale of the disaster. Jawed Basharat, the spokesman for the Baghlan provincial police, said they were aware of the flooding, but that it would take eight to nine hours for them to reach the remote and mountainous area.
PAKISTAN
Teen shot, thrown in canal
Police say an 18-year-old woman has “miraculously survived” after being shot and thrown into a canal by her father for marrying against the family’s wishes. Local police officer Ali Akbar said yesterday the girl’s father attacked her in Hafizabad, a city 200km southeast of the capital, Islamabad. The assault on Wednesday came days after a 25-year-old woman was beaten and stoned to death by her family for marrying against their wishes. Akbar says Saba Maqsood, married a man last week, but her father Ahmed brought her back to his home, promising she would not be harmed. The next day Ahmed took her to a deserted area and tried to kill her, he said.
PAKISTAN
Bombs kill two soldiers
Two soldiers were killed yesterday in separate bomb blasts in a restive tribal region near the Afghan border, the military said. The explosions took place in Bajaur, one of the seven tribal regions, where troops have been battling Taliban and Islamist militants. “Two soldiers embraced shahadat [martyrdom] in Bajur yesterday in two different improvised explosive device blasts planted by terrorists along road side in Bara Kamangara area and near a Pakistani post on Pak-Afghan border respectively,” the military said in a statement. Nobody has so far claimed responsibility for the attacks, but roadside bombs are often used by the Pakistani Taliban, who launched their insurgency in 2007.
JAPAN
Fans vote for AKB48 leader
Thousands of fans of girl group AKB48 gathered yesterday for the results of a ballot on which member will lead the band for the next year amid tight security after two members were attacked by a man wielding a saw. Organizers were to announce results of the popularity vote late yesterday at a football stadium in Tokyo in which 300 members ran for the top spot in one of the world’s highest grossing acts. Fans finished voting on Friday for the girl they want to lead the collective for the next year, using ballot slips only available with the purchase of their latest single. The annual vote was overshadowed by last month’s attack on two teenage members at one of the band’s regular meet-the-fans events in Iwate. Rina Kawaei, 19, and Anna Iriyama, 18, both suffered broken bones in their right hands and received cuts on their arms and heads after a 24-year-old man attacked them with the 50cm saw. Kawaei and Iriyama are running for the top spot, but may not show up at the venue as they are still under treatment, news reports said.
CROATIA
War crimes convict home
Hundreds of well-wishers welcomed home on Friday a Bosnian Croat wartime leader granted an early release after serving most of a 25-year jail term for war crimes. Dario Kordic was found guilty by the UN tribunal in The Hague in 2001 for war crimes against Muslims during Bosnia’s 1992 to 1995 conflict. A crowd gathered to welcome the 54-year-old at Zagreb Airport, carrying Croatian flags and a giant banner that read “Welcome Home Dario.” Some chanted pro-Nazi slogans after Kordic briefly addressed them. Top Croatian wartime officials were among the crowd along with a Croatian Catholic bishop. Kordic was vice-president of the self-declared Bosnian Croat state within Bosnia during the country’s 1992 to 1995 war. He was granted an early release after serving two-thirds of his sentence.
SOUTH AFRICA
Undertaker charged
An undertaker who ordered staff to saw off the legs of a corpse because it was too tall to fit into a coffin has appeared in court charged with mutilation. Ronel Mostert, who ran a funeral parlor in the southern city of Grahamstown, appeared in the Grahamstown Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday after one of her employees blew the lid on a three-year-old secret. Mostert allegedly ordered staff “to get an angle grinder and cut off the legs” because the 33-year-old “man was too tall to fit into the coffin,” according to court documents. The employee, Siphamandla Dyasi, said the incident had been haunting him and so he decided to come clean. The remains of the man have been exhumed as part of the police investigation. They showed burn marks where the legs had been sawn off.
UNITED STATES
Man convicted of smuggling
A man who previously lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has been convicted of selling military fighter jet parts to the Venezuelan Air Force. The jury rendered its verdict against Ronald Dobek after a three-day trial, and the sentence is to be determined at a hearing set for Sept. 10. Dobek, 39, was convicted on charges of conspiring to violate US export laws and exporting F-16 jet parts to Venezuela in violation of US law. He faces up to 25 years in jail.
UNITED STATES
Suspect dead in shootout
A man armed with guns and explosives was killed and a police officer wounded in a shootout on Friday at a courthouse in Georgia, authorities said. The latest incident came just one day after a gunman killed one person and injured three others at a university in Washington state and two weeks after an apparently mentally disturbed young man opened fire at a California university and killed six people. Officials identified the suspect as Dennis Marx, a gun seller who had been due in the court on Friday on charges of marijuana and gun possession. The shooting occurred at 9:57am in front of the courthouse, said the local sheriff’s office in Forsyth county, north of Atlanta, adding that the building was then evacuated. Marx “came for the purpose of occupying the courthouse,” armed with explosives and a large stash of ammunition, county sheriff Duane Piper told reporters. Witnesses said the attacker came in a vehicle to the courthouse gate and engaged in a prolonged shootout with police. The sheriff said Marx also used smoke bombs. One deputy was wounded in the leg and taken to a nearby hospital, where he was expected to recover, the sheriff told a local news channel, also confirming the suspect had died.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing