INDIA
Army kills Kashmir militants
Troops yesterday killed six separatist militants in a gunfight in the disputed region of Kashmir, the army said, taking the death toll in the region for the year to the highest in nearly a decade. This year, 400 people have been killed in the country’s only Muslim-majority state, more than half of whom were guerrillas fighting Indian rule. It is the highest toll since 2008, when 505 people died. Security forces have stepped up an offensive against militants operating inside the Kashmir Valley, as well as those trying to intrude from across the border with Pakistan, officials have said. The militants have hit back, targeting members of the Kashmir police and their families in the past few months. An operation was launched in Sekipora village, about 50km south of Srinagar, after intelligence reports about the presence of a group of militants, army spokesman Rajesh Kalia said. “Six militants were killed during a fierce gunfight, and arms and ammunition along with their bodies have been recovered,” Kalia said. Among the dead was a member of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba who police have said was part of the group that gunned down a top newspaper editor, Syed Shujaat Bukhari, outside his office in June.
NEW ZEALAND
Man sets record pace in run
Powered by hash browns and chocolate milkshakes, a 64-year-old man has run the length of the country in a record time of 18 days and eight hours. Perry Newburn, a former drug addict, is not your typical endurance athlete. His nutrition plan included plenty of stops at McDonald’s restaurants. He kept his pace in his head rather than using a fancy GPS watch and his support crew for half the distance consisted of his friend Graeme driving ahead in Newburn’s Toyota Corolla wagon. However, Newburn ran and ran and ran, averaging close to three full marathons each day along the 2,100km journey, which he finished on Wednesday. About 50 people ran alongside him at various points and he raised several thousand dollars for an autism charity.
PAKISTAN
Kids die playing with shell
Police yesterday said that three children have been killed in the northwestern Swat Valley while handling an abandoned mortar shell they thought was a toy. Two children were also wounded in Wednesday’s incident in the village of Matta, police official Bakhat Khan said. The mortar round might have been lying there since 2009, when the army evicted the Pakistani Taliban from the area, he said, adding that security officials have launched a search to clear the region of other unexploded ordnance. The Swat Valley is the home of Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, who was shot and wounded in 2012 by militants for promoting girls’ education.
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
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
RSS