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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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