NEW YORK: US-Canada border crossings near Niagara Falls were closed Wednesday as terrorism investigators responded to a vehicle explosion at Rainbow Bridge, local and state authorities said. Two people were killed in the blast, according to US media citing authorities. Their identities were not yet clear. The cause of the incident was not immediately clear but New York Governor Kathy Hochul said state police and the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force were monitoring all points of entry into the state. US media cited law enforcement sources as saying there were two people in the car, which had passed through one border checkpoint where it was selected for a secondary check. The car then sped up, crashed into a barrier and exploded, the sources said, stressing it was unclear if the blast was the result of a device. “I am traveling to Buffalo to meet with law enforcement and emergency responders and will update New Yorkers when more information becomes available,” Hochul posted on social media. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau´s office said he had been briefed and was in contact with US law enforcement. Multiple Canadian agencies were supporting the investigation, it added. Witnesses reported hearing a deafening explosion and seeing a large cloud of smoke near the inspections station. Ivan Vitalii, a visitor from Ukraine, told the Niagara Gazette he and a friend were at a nearby convenience store on the US side when they saw a car exit a parking lot and travel toward the bridge. “We heard something smash,” he said. “We saw fire and big, black smoke.” Ron Rienas, of the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority, told ABC News all four bridges connecting the two countries over the Niagara River have been closed. Dramatic images posted to social media, which AFP has not verified, purported to show thick plumes of black smoke rising from a large conflagration at the crossing. Source: https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/1131507-two-killed-in-car-explosion-at-niagara-border-prompting-terrorism-task-force-response

Israel intensified its attacks across the Gaza Strip late Wednesday shortly before a humanitarian pause in fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters was set to take effect. The Israeli army struck several areas across the Gaza Strip, particularly in the northern parts, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. It said a number of people were killed in a series of Israeli airstrikes on residential homes in the Nuseirat refugee camp. The agency cited local sources as saying that Israeli artillery bombed the vicinity of Khalifa School in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, which is home to more than 8,000 displaced people, leaving many injured. In Gaza City, Israeli warplanes struck the Sheikh Ridwan and Shejaiya neighborhoods. Artillery shelling was also reported in Al-Fukhari east of Khan Younis in the southern the Gaza Strip and another airstrike on a home in Rafah which left at least three people injured, WAFA said. The latest attacks come as a humanitarian pause is expected to come into effect as a result of Qatari, Egyptian and US mediation between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. Source: https://www.nation.com.pk/23-Nov-2023/israel-intensifies-attacks-across-gaza-ahead-of-humanitarian-pause

TURBAT: A policeman and four labourers were killed when unidentified assailants attacked a police station in the Nasirabad area of Balochistan’s Turbat in what appeared to be a terrorist incident. According to police, the labourers belonged to Punjab and were identified as Mohammad Uzair, Baqar Ali, Shehbaz Ahmed and Shehzad Ahmed. It added that Shehbaz and Shehzad were brothers. The law enforcement agency also shared that one labourer was also injured in the incident, adding that the bodies of the deceased were shifted to Teaching Hospital Turbat. Caretaker Information Minister Jan Achakzai confirmed that the firing was a terrorist incident, and condemned the attack on unarmed labourers. Meanwhile, interim Chief Minister Ali Mardan Khan Domki has summoned a report from the provincial Ministry of Home and Tribal Affairs. He also vowed to hold the perpetrators of the attack accountable. This is the second time that such an incident has occurred in Turbat this month where labourers from Punjab were among the deceased. Earlier this month, at least 6 labourers were killed in their sleep and two were wounded after gunmen targeted them in an overnight attack in Turbat city. According to the police, unidentified gunmen targeted the labourers who were sleeping in an under-construction house. The deceased — which included four family members of which two are brothers — were identified as Rizwan, Shehbaz, Waseem, Shafiq Ahmed, Mohammad Naeem, and Sikander. Source:https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/1124554-four-labourers-killed-in-attack-on-turbat-police-station

An earthquake jolted Gilgit, Chilas and surrounding areas on Thursday. A quake with less intensity was reported in parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). No loss of life or property has been reported so far. Source: https://www.nation.com.pk/05-Oct-2023/earthquake-jolts-gilgit-chilas-and-surroundings

VENICE-Flags flew at half-mast over Venice Wednesday after 21 people including a toddler were killed when a bus careered off an overpass and caught fire. “The bus flipped upside down. The impact was terrible because it fell from over 10 metres (32 feet)” landing next to railway tracks below, said Mauro Luongo, Venice’s fire brigade commander. Source:https://www.nation.com.pk/05-Oct-2023/venice-mourns-after-21-killed-in-bus-accident

TEHRAN-Activists have accused Iran’s morality police of beating a girl for not wearing a hijab and posted a photo purportedly showing her in a coma. Armita Geravand, 16, collapsed after boarding a Tehran metro train at Shohada station on Sunday. Officials said she fainted and released CCTV footage in which she is seen being pulled unconscious from the train. Human rights group Hengaw alleged that she was subjected to “a severe physical assault” by morality police officers. It said Armita was being treated at Tehran’s Fajr hospital under tight security, and that the phones of all members of her family had been confiscated. On Monday, authorities briefly detained a female journalist for the Sharq newspaper who went to the hospital to report on the case. Hengaw, which focuses on Iran’s Kurdish ethnic minority, said on Tuesday afternoon that Armita lived in Tehran but was originally from the predominantly Kurdish western province of Kermanshah. “She was physically attacked by authorities at Shohada station for what they perceived as non-compliance with the compulsory ‘hijab’,” it added. “As a result, she sustained severe injuries and was transported to the hospital.” Two prominent rights activists also told Reuters news agency that there was a confrontation with agents enforcing the strict dress code. Source:https://www.nation.com.pk/05-Oct-2023/iran-hijab-police-accused-of-beating-girl-into-coma

Inayatullah, the driver of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) leader, Hafiz Hamdullah, succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday. The deceased who was being treated at a private hospital in Karachi, had suffered serious injuries during a motorcycle bomb blast last month near the Pringabad area of Mastung, Quetta. After the blast, Inayatullah had been shifted to the Civil Hospital Quetta, however, sensing his condition the caretaker chief minister of Balochistan got him shifted to the Agha Khan Hospital in Karachi. The JUI-F leader Hafiz Hamdullah and scores of other people had also sustained wounds in the blast. Mr Hamdullah had also been transferred to the Agha Khan Hospital. Source: https://www.nation.com.pk/04-Oct-2023/driver-of-hafiz-hamdullah-passes-away-days-after-explosion

BANGKOK-Three people were killed and four wounded in a shooting at a major Bangkok shopping mall on Tuesday, with the attacker arrested by police. Hundreds of people fled the upmarket Siam Paragon mall in the heart of the Thai capital as shots rang out around 4:30 pm (0930 GMT), witnesses told AFP. The police arrested a 14-year-old boy after a shooting at a luxury shopping mall in the capital Bangkok on Tuesday. Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin told reporters the attacker had been apprehended and the situation brought under control. “Police are clearing the scene. The situation is easing,” Srettha told reporters. Yuthana Srettanan, director of the Erawan Emergency Center, said three people were killed and four wounded in the incident, in a message sent to reporters. “At around 4.30 pm, I heard loud gun noises, continuously, about 10 times,” Thanpawasit Singthongkham, 31, who works at a Japanese restaurant in the mall, told AFP. “Then the department store announced that there was a shooting. Source: https://www.nation.com.pk/04-Oct-2023/three-dead-in-bangkok-mall-shooting-attacker-arrested

Pakistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations (UN) Munir Akram on Tuesday described India’s occupation of Jammu and Kashmir as the “worst manifestation of modern-day colonialism”. Speaking during the UN General Assembly’s Special Political and Decolonisation (Fourth) Committee meeting, Akram called on the world body to push for a peaceful settlement of the lingering Kashmir dispute in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions and as per the aspirations of people of Kashmir. Noting that since 1946, 80 former colonies have gained independence, he said that there are still people who are denied the right to self-determination, “most prominently the people of occupied Jammu and Kashmir and Palestine.” The right of self-determination of the Kashmiri people, the envoy said, was explicitly recognized in UNSC resolution 47 and several subsequent resolutions, which prescribed that the final disposition of the State of Jammu and Kashmir should be decided by its people through a free and fair plebiscite held under UN auspices. These resolutions were accepted by both India and Pakistan, he said, adding that under Article 25 of the UN Charter, both parties are obliged to implement these resolutions, APP reported. In his remarks, Akram also said that durable peace in the Middle East can only be achieved through the two-state solution and the establishment of a viable, independent and contiguous State of Palestine, with the pre-1967 borders and Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital. On Kashmir, he said that for 75 years, through force and fraud, India has avoided the implementation of UN resolutions, and since 1989, it’s “brutal” campaign of repression killed 100,000 Kashmiris. Since 5 August 2019, he said, India has taken “unilateral and illegal steps” to annex occupied Kashmir in what its leaders have termed as a “final solution”. “Resolution 122 (1957) of the Security Council provides that unilateral measures ‘to determine the future shape and affiliation of the entire state or any part thereof, would not constitute a disposition of the state’”, Ambassador Akram said, adding that consequently, all unilateral actions taken by India on and after 5 August 2019 are not only illegal, but, ipso facto, null and void.” “Kashmir today is the most densely occupied place in the world, with more than 900,000 Indian occupation troops deployed there who have perpetrated a vicious campaign of extrajudicial killings in fake encounters and so-called ‘cordon and search’ operations; abduction and enforced disappearances of 13,000 young Kashmiri boys; collective punishments, destroying and burning entire villages and urban neighbourhoods,” he said. “In a classic settler-colonial project, India is seeking to convert occupied Kashmir from a Muslim-majority state to a Hindu-majority territory,” the envoy said, pointing out that over 3.4 million fake domicile certificates have been issued to Hindus from across India. “The land and properties of Kashmiris are also being confiscated for military and official use,” he told the committee. India’s brutal campaign, he said, is turbo-charged by the ideology of ‘Hindutva’, which asserts the religious and ethnic supremacy of Hindus and hate against Muslims. “This has led the organisation — Genocide Watch — to warn of the possibility of genocide in occupied Jammu and Kashmir and, indeed, against Muslims within India itself. Underscoring that the resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute is essential to achieve durable peace in South Asia, Akram said the onus is on India to create conditions for a dialogue towards its settlement. To that end, he said, India must stop its human rights violations in occupied Jammu and Kashmir; halt and reverse the process of demographic change there; and rescind the illegal and unilateral measures imposed on and after 5 August 2019. “The United Nations and all its member states are bound by the Charter to promote a peaceful settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions and the wishes of the Kashmiri people,” he added. Source:https://www.geo.tv/latest/512839-at-unga-body-pakistan-terms-indias-occupation-of-iiojk-worst-manifestation-of-colonialism

Islamabad, PakistanCNN —  Police in eastern Pakistan have smashed an illegal organ harvesting ring, arresting eight people for surgically removing kidneys from hundreds of patients for wealthy people needing a transplant, authorities said Monday. The alleged gang leader, identified as “Dr Fawad,” is accused of conducting 328 operations on people to remove their kidney and selling them to clients for up to 10 million Pakistani rupees ($34,000) each, said Mohsin Naqvi, the chief minister of Pakistan’s Punjab province. Fawad was allegedly assisted in the operations by an unnamed car mechanic who administered the anesthesia, Naqvi said. The chief minister said the gang lured patients from hospitals and performed the operations privately in the region of Taxila, the city of Lahore and in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. “They were able to do this in Kashmir because there is no law regarding kidney transplant, so it was easier for them to carry out the operations there,” Naqvi said. Three deaths have so far been confirmed, according to the chief minister, but authorities were still confirming the data. “There must be more operations that must have been carried out, the number is the only ones we’ve confirmed,” he added. Fawad had previously been arrested five times but was released on each occasion and was able to resume his operations, Naqvi said. Some of the patients whose organs were harvested did not know their kidney was removed, he added. Police spent almost two months investigating the case after a man came forward saying he was convinced by one of the alleged gang members to get medical treatment done privately. US government announces plan to overhaul organ transplant system Later, when he went to another doctor for further treatment, he was told he didn’t have a kidney, according to the chief minister. Naqvi said he is working with the Inspector General of Police of Punjab to strengthen the country’s cyber laws so adverts for such illegal kidney transplants are banned online. “Our entire focus is to track other gangs who are operating like this,” he said. Pakistan made the commercial trade of human organs illegal in 2007 and a strengthened law in 2010 made the harvesting and trafficking of organs punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a 1 million rupee ($3,400) fine. Before the legislation, the country was a center for the organ trade for foreigners and wealthy Pakistanis in search of a transplant, and the buying and selling of kidneys was a regular practice, with some impoverished Pakistanis selling their kidneys in order to survive. But the practice has continued and local media have reported that illegal kidney transplants have made a comeback in recent years. Source:https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/03/asia/pakistan-kidney-trafficking-ring-intl-hnk/index.html