Two schools in northern province targeted, says education official, who suggested the attacker was motivated by a personal grudge
Nearly 80 girls were poisoned and hospitalised in two separate attacks at their primary schools in northern Afghanistan, a local education official said on Sunday.
He said the person who orchestrated the poisoning had a personal grudge but did not elaborate. The attacks took place in Sar-e-Pul province over Saturday and Sunday.
Continue reading...Train was diverted on to wrong tracks, says railways minister as efforts to clear wreckage continue
India’s railways minister has said the country’s deadliest train crash in more than two decades was caused by an error in electronic signals that sent a train on to the wrong tracks.
Ashwini Vaishnaw said the full investigation into Friday’s crash in the eastern state of Odisha, which killed at least 275 people and injured more than 1,000, was still under way but “the root cause has been identified”.
Continue reading...Since the coup in 2021 the carnage has been unceasing, meanwhile Russia and China continue to send weapons
The problem is not that governments around the world are unaware of what is happening in Myanmar. It’s that they are not doing nearly enough to stop it.
Since the military seized power in a coup in early 2021, it has terrorised the country, killed, tortured and imprisoned thousands of citizens, broken countless laws, and made a mockery of the UN.
Continue reading...Though the number of railway accidents has come down in the past few years, derailment remains the main cause
There is no railway system quite like the Indian railways. Trains remain an essential lifeline in India, the world’s most populous country of 1.4 billion people, carrying about 13 million passengers a day for work, family and leisure on trains that weave across 40,000 miles of track, more than enough to wrap around the Earth.
Friday night’s collision involving two passenger trains and a freight train in the eastern state of Odisha was one of the worst accidents since 1999, when a collision between two trains in West Bengal killed 285 people. More recently, 160 people died in 2016 when the Indore-Patna Express derailed and as recently as February, two goods trains collided in Uttar Pradesh.
Continue reading...Relatives tell of agony of searching for survivors among what one called ‘heaps of bodies’ as rescue activities draw to a close
The carriages from three trains sat piled high in an entangled wreck. Some lay sideways, while others had been thrown so high into the air on impact that they had fallen back to earth twisted and upside down.
A line of dozens of bodies covered in white sheets were laid out next to the wreckage waiting for vehicles – ambulances, local cars, even tractors – to take them away to local hospitals. Passengers’ possessions lay scattered around them, shoes and toys and thrown-open suitcases.
Continue reading...Allies desert former prime minister amid disappearances and torture as powerful military reasserts control
In recent days, Imran Khan has cut an increasingly isolated figure. Since Pakistan’s former prime minister was released from jail, after a brief but explosive attempt to arrest him last month, his return has been marked by a mass exodus of the top leadership of his party, on a scale that has surprised even his critics.
Late on Thursday night, Pervez Khattak, the former chief minister and defence minister, became the latest high-profile resignation from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. He followed in the path of Khan’s former finance minister, his former human rights minister, his former information minister and his former shipping minister, who all stepped down from senior posts or left PTI altogether in recent weeks. Dozens of other federal and state ministers have followed suit.
Continue reading...Rescue operation under way with death toll expected to rise in India’s worst rail disaster in more than 20 years
At least 288 people have been killed and 803 injured after two passenger trains collided in the eastern Indian state of Odisha – the country’s deadliest rail disaster in more than 20 years.
The Coromandel Express, which runs from Kolkata in West Bengal to Chennai in Tamil Nadu, was going about 80mph (130km/h) when it collided with a stationary freight train at about 7pm on Friday, causing it to derail.
Continue reading...Gelje Sherpa was guiding Chinese client to summit when he saw Malaysian climber clinging to rope
A Malaysian climber narrowly survived after a Nepali sherpa guide hauled him down from below the summit of Mount Everest in a very rare high-altitude rescue, a government official has said.
Gelje Sherpa, 30, was guiding a Chinese client to the 8,849-metre (29,032ft) Everest summit on 18 May when he saw the Malaysian climber clinging to a rope and shivering from extreme cold in the area known as the death zone, where temperatures can dip to -30C or lower.
Continue reading...Seven chairman Kerry Stokes, who parachuted the former soldier into a network job in 2015, says ‘the judgment does not accord with the man I know’
For Seven’s chairman, Kerry Stokes, the verdict in the Ben Roberts-Smith defamation trial was all bad news.
The cost of the trial is estimated to be between $25m and $35m and, with the billionaire media proprietor bankrolling the former soldier and Seven employee, Stokes’s legal tab will be significant if he does pick up the bill.
Continue reading...Rajesh Vishwas dropped phone into Paraklot reservoir in Chhattisgarh state while taking a selfie
An Indian official who drained a reservoir to retrieve a mobile he dropped while taking a selfie has been fined 53,092 rupees (£520) by the government.
Rajesh Vishwas, a food inspector, had dropped his new phone worth about £1,000 into the Paralkot reservoir in Chhattisgarh state while taking a selfie during a picnic and swim with friends.
Continue reading...Body of teenager lay untouched until police informant passed by, raising fresh concerns about women’s safety
The killing of a 16-year-old girl in Delhi who was stabbed and bludgeoned to death in an alley as pedestrians walked on has sparked outrage over the safety of women in India.
CCTV footage of the incident shows the teenager was accosted in public by a man, alleged by police to be 20-year-old Sahil Khan, who stabbed her more than 30 times and hit her with a concrete slab.
Continue reading...Many in need of permanent protection remain stuck in ‘prison-like’ camps on Greek islands, leading refugee charity says
Just 271 Afghans were resettled in the EU in 2022, 0.1% of the 270,000 identified as in need of permanent protection, it has emerged.
Leading charity the International Rescue Committee accused EU leaders of “staggering neglect” of Afghan refugees with many remaining trapped in “prison-like” conditions on Greek islands.
Continue reading...Nepal’s head of tourism says variable weather on the mountain has led to one of the deadliest years on record
Experts say this is likely to be one of the deadliest years on record on Mount Everest, with variable weather caused by climate change being blamed as one of the main reasons for the deaths of up to 17 people.
A total of 12 people have now been confirmed dead during Everest expeditions this season and another five are missing, presumed dead, as no contact has been made for at least five days in all cases, according to the Himalayan Database, which tracks mountain fatalities.
Continue reading...Special rapporteur Olivier De Shutter calls for action on neglected crisis after finding ‘absolutely terrible’ conditions on visit to Cox’s Bazar camps in Bangladesh
Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are at risk of becoming “the new Palestinians”, according to a UN head, who said they are trapped in a protracted and increasingly neglected crisis.
Olivier De Schutter, UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said the almost 1 million people living in overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar should be given the right to work in their host country of Bangladesh, and that forcing them to rely on dwindling international support was not sustainable.
Continue reading...More than 2m litres of water pumped from dam on orders of food inspector who said device held sensitive government data
A government official in central India has been suspended after he ordered a reservoir to be drained to retrieve his dropped phone.
Millions of litres of water were pumped over three days from the Kherkatta dam in the state of Chhattisgarh after Rajesh Vishwas, a food inspector, said his Samsung mobile held sensitive government data.
Continue reading...Workers at World Cup 2022 venues fired as tournament ended and allegedly jailed or deported after trying to claim unpaid wages
Three World Cup security guards who were detained while trying to resolve a dispute over unpaid wages are still being held in Qatar four months after their arrest.
Shakir Ullah and Zafar Iqbal from Pakistan, and an Indian national, have allegedly been sentenced to six months in prison and fined 10,000 riyals (£2,220) each.
Continue reading...Body of Melbourne lawyer Jake Herd found at high altitude in poor weather near Big Almaty Lake
An Australian tourist who was missing for three days in mountains in Kazakhstan has been found dead, authorities in the central Asian country said on Tuesday.
Police said they had found the body of Melbourne lawyer Jake Michael Herd, born in 1995, near Big Almaty Lake in the Tian Shan mountains at an altitude of about 2,500m.
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Continue reading...Top tea firms investigate as plantation workers say they have to pick 18kg a day but still skip meals and make their children work
Some of the world’s leading tea manufacturers, including Tetley and Lipton, are examining working conditions on the plantations of its Sri Lankan suppliers, following a Guardian investigation.
Two global trade-certification schemes, Fairtrade and the Rainforest Alliance, are also conducting inquiries after it was revealed that some workers on 10 certified estates could not afford to eat and were living in squalid conditions.
Continue reading...Three of the 20 big cats brought from Africa have died as critics of the plan say their new habitat is unsuitable
A programme to reintroduce cheetahs in India after 75 years has been called into question after three of the animals died in recent weeks and concerns were raised that their new habitat was unsuitable.
Since October, 20 cheetahs – which became extinct in the country in 1952 – have been brought over from South Africa and Namibia as part of a much-lauded government programme to house them in Kuno national park, Madhya Pradesh state.
Continue reading...Indian presidency of group becomes mired in controversy as tourism session hosted in disputed territory
India’s presidency of the G20 group of leading nations has become mired in controversy after China and Saudi Arabia boycotted a meeting staged in Kashmir, the first such gathering since India unilaterally brought Kashmir under direct control in August 2019.
The meeting, a tourism working group attended by about 60 delegates from most G20 countries taking place from Monday to Wednesday, required a large show of security at Srinagar international airport.
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