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VÓLOS-Storms have killed at least 14 people in Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria, with a Greek region hit by more rain in 24 hours than it normally sees in a year, officials said Wednesday. A period of extreme heat has given way to heavy storms, turning streets in northwestern Turkey into rivers and hitting Greece with unprecedented downpours as it recovers from weeks of wildfires. “Everything saved from the fire we had in July has been destroyed by this bad weather,” said Christos Kleftakis, 49, in Nea Anchialos, near the central Greek city of Volos. “This is unprecedented — these severe weather events, the strength of the rain, the wind. I’ve never seen anything like that before,” he added. As the world warms, the atmosphere contains more water vapour which increases the risk of heavy precipitation in some parts of the world, notably in Asia, Western Europe and Latin America. Combined with other factors such as urbanisation and land-use planning, these more intense rainfall events contribute to flooding. Greece’s central Magnesia region got rainfall of 600-800 millimetres (24-31 inches) over a 24-hour period including Tuesday, a government meteorologist told reporters in Athens. Dimitris Ziakopoulos called it an “unprecedented phenomenon” for the country’s meteorological data, which dates back to 1955. The storm, dubbed “Daniel” by Greek weather experts, has been battering the country since Monday, mainly affecting the Magnesia region and its capital city Volos, 300 kilometres (185 miles) north of Athens. An 87-year-old woman missing since Tuesday was found dead on Wednesday in the village of Paltsi in Magnesia, fire department spokesman Yannis Artopios told public broadcaster Ert Source:https://www.nation.com.pk/07-Sep-2023/storms-kill-14-in-mediterranean-east-europe

ISLAMABAD: A militant having blood on his hands of more than 40 members of the Hazara community, including the Mach attack he masterminded killing a dozen coal miners of the same ethnicity, has finally been apprehended by a civilian agency, the Intelligence Bureau, when he entered Pakistan from Afghanistan. Son of a baildar, a low-rank government employee, Abdul Bari, had been on the watchlist of all security agencies since January 2021 when he together with affiliates slaughtered 11 coal miners of the Hazara community in a ruthless attack, which was claimed by Daesh. The incident led to the Hazara community protesting for consecutive six days with dead bodies at the Western Bypass in Quetta, asserting that they would not bury them unless the-then prime minister Imran Khan visited them. The burial took place only after the PM visited them. The massacre had taken place near Mach, which is close to the border with Afghanistan, when armed militants kidnapped the miners from their residence and took them to nearby mountains. A horrific video from the scene showed victims’ bodies scattered across the floor of a small hut with their hands bound together. All agencies had since looked out for the terrorist responsible. The IB has been keeping an eye on him right in Afghanistan waiting for him to return to Pakistan. As he planned to visit his family in Mastung unaware that his movements were being tracked, Abdul Bari was taken into custody on his way to Quetta from Spin Boldak (Afghanistan). He carried out his activities from the lawless bordering region of Afghanistan. Abdul Bari’s exploits into terrorism and sectarian-based violence began in his early years when he remained a student of various seminaries in Karachi and Rahim Yar Khan. He has been associated with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Afghanistan for more than 10 years. During his studies in Karachi, some of the Baloch students from Turbat, affiliated with Taliban, were involved in brainwashing the students to join them. Some of the students, including Abdul Bari, were persuaded to move to Afghanistan where they were offered 40 days training. In 2015, Abdul Bari again went to Afghanistan and participated in many of the Taliban operations against the US and NATO forces. Meanwhile, he also remained associated with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and carried out sectarian attacks in Pakistan. Later, he joined Daesh. In 2020, when Abdul Bari graduated from a madrassa in Rahim Yar Khan, he was informed by one Qari Ubaid Ullah in Afghanistan about the plan of a Daesh associate regarding the attack on Hazaras in Mach. Abdul Bari agreed to the plan and execution of attack. Subsequently, Bari, along with Qari Ubaid Ullah and two Afghans, met five Daesh associates to devise a plan to attack the coal miners of Hazara ethnicity in Mach. Besides the Mach attack, Abdul Bari was also an architect of a number of terrorist attacks spanning over more than a decade. In October 2011, he along with his associates intercepted a bus which carried about 30 passengers, including about 25 Hazaras. They entered the bus and opened fire at the passengers, killing 14 of them. They allowed the non-Hazaras to leave before shooting the others to death. Abdul Bari also orchestrated Abdullah Shah Ghazi Mazar attack in October 2010, killing 10 and leaving dozens of people injured. They also surveilled the target Imambargah in Saddar, Karachi. However, seeing the better security there, they cancelled the plan of attack and decided to target the Abdullah Shah Ghazi Mazar, where they conducted twin suicide blasts. Later, in April 2013, he along with three associates, ambushed a shoe-making store on the main intersection located on Prince and Masjid Road, Quetta, and killed six Hazaras besides injuring three others. After joining Daesh in 2016, Abdul Bari would collect chanda/charity from drug traffickers and other well-off people, using the name of Taliban in Helmand (Afghanistan) and Chagai (Balochistan). He would hand over the money to his Daesh associates, which would later on be used in Daesh activities both in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In December 2017, Daesh had attacked a Methodist Church in Quetta, killing nine and injuring 56 others. The finances for the attack inter alia had also come from Abdul Bari’s chanda collection. Source:https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/1107220-militant-wanted-in-attacks-on-hazara-community-arrested

At least 21 people were reported to have died in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil after a cyclone brought torrential rains and powerful winds, according to the officials, who issued further warnings about floods. Governor Eduardo Leite told a news conference that it was the deadliest ever in the history of the state, in a string of weather disasters to hit the country. He said: “We were deeply saddened to get the news that as the water recedes… 15 more bodies were found in the town of Mucum, bringing the death toll to 21.” Close to 6,000 people were forced from their homes by the storms, which started Monday, dumping hail and more than 300 millimetres (nearly 12 inches) of rain on the state in less than 24 hours and triggering floods and landslides, according to officials. In Mucum, a small town of 5,000 people, hundreds had to be rescued from their rooftops as the Taquari River flooded more than 85% of the city, according to local news site GZH. “There are still people missing. The death toll might climb higher,” Mayor Mateus Trojan told Radio Gaucha, adding that “the town of Mucum as we knew it no longer exists.” Aerial view of the area affected by an extratropical cyclone in Muçum, Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil, taken on September 5, 2023. — AFP President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva sent a message of solidarity with those affected, saying the federal government is “ready to help.” Over 50,000 affected The victims included a man killed by an electrical shock in the town of Passo Fundo and a couple whose car was swept away by a river as they tried to cross a bridge in the town of Ibiraiaras. The storms hit 67 municipalities in all, affecting more than 52,000 people, authorities said. The neighbouring state of Santa Catarina also recorded one death, according to news site G1. Hundreds of firefighters as well as military police and civil defense personnel were dispatched as part of rescue operations, with helicopters sent to reach areas cut off by flooding. “There are many isolated families, many people still at risk,” said Communications Minister Paulo Pimenta, who is planning to travel to the region with a government delegation Wednesday. With more rain forecast from Thursday, authorities warn more flooding is possible. It is the latest in a string of deadly weather events to hit Brazil, which experts say are likely being made worse by climate change. Unchecked urbanisation and irregular housing built on hillsides are also making such disasters deadlier, officials say. An estimated 9.5 million of Brazil’s 203 million people live in areas at high risk of flooding or landslides. In June, another cyclone left 13 dead in Rio Grande do Sul and forced thousands of people from their homes. In February, 65 people died in landslides caused by record flooding in the southeastern resort town of Sao Sebastiao, on the coast of Sao Paulo state. Source:https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/1107282-21-dead-as-powerful-cyclone-ransacks-villages-town-in-southern-brazil

PARIS-The French education minister has said that nearly 300 pupils arrived at school on Tuesday wearing the abaya, the long Muslim robe which was banned in schools last week. Most of the girls agreed to change into other clothes. According to official figures, 298 girls, mainly aged 15 or more turned up at school in the banned garment. Under instructions laid down by the ministry, there followed in each case a period of dialogue with school staff. Most girls then agreed to dress differently and were able to start classes. However, 67 girls refused to comply and were sent home. A further period of dialogue with their families will now ensue. If that fails, they will be excluded. Set against the 12 million school boys and girls who started term on Monday, the government believes the figures show that its ban has been broadly accepted. However, a legal challenge by a group representing some Muslims goes before the courts later today. At the end of August, the education minister announced that pupils would be banned from wearing the loose-fitting full-length robes worn by some Muslim women in France’s state-run schools at the start of the new school year on 4 September. France has a strict ban on religious signs in state schools and government buildings, arguing that they violate secular laws. Wearing a headscarf has been banned since 2004 in state-run schools. The move comes after months of debate over the wearing of abayas in French schools. The garment is being increasingly worn in schools, leading to a political divide over them, with right-wing parties pushing for a ban while those on the left have voiced concerns for the rights of Muslim women and girls. In 2010, France banned the wearing of full-face veils in public, provoking anger in France’s five million-strong Muslim community. France has enforced a strict ban on religious signs at schools since the 19th Century, including Christian symbols such as large crosses, in an effort to curb any Catholic influence on public education. Reflecting its changing population, it has updated the law over the years to include the Muslim headscarf and Jewish kippa, but abayas have not been banned outright until now. Source:https://www.nation.com.pk/06-Sep-2023/french-state-schools-turn-away-dozens-of-girls-wearing-muslim-abaya-dress

With the water flow returning to normal in Sutlej, educational institutions reopened in the areas of eastern Punjab affected by the recent flooding in the river. According to the education department, the 63 schools have been opened again which were closed last month on August 20 after Sutlej submerged a vast area along its path. Forty-eight of these are in Pakpattan tehsil and the remaining 15 in Arifwala tehsil. Both of these tehsils are part of the Pakpattan district. On the other hand, the irrigation department says inflow at Sulemanki Headworks is 30,988 cusecs with an outflow of 16,866 cusecs. Source:https://www.nation.com.pk/05-Sep-2023/schools-reopened-in-areas-affected-by-sutlej-floods

BLACK ROCK CITY-Tens of thousands of festivalgoers were stranded Sunday in deep mud in the Nevada desert after rain turned the annual Burning Man gathering into a quagmire, with police investigating one death. Video footage showed costume-wearing “burners” struggling across the wet gray-brown site, some using trash bags as makeshift boots, while many vehicles were stuck in the sludge. All events at the counterculture festival, which drew some 70,000 people, were canceled after rain tore down structures for dance parties, art installations and other entertainment. Police said they were probing one death, without giving further details. Road gates in and out of the Black Rock City venue were closed, but some desperate attendees trudged on foot for hours to reach the nearest road and hitch a lift out. “It was an incredibly harrowing six-mile (10 kilometer) hike at midnight through heavy and slippery mud, but I got safely out,” lawyer Neal Katyal said on social media. “It is very slippery and the mud is like cement and sticks to your boots. “No one should try this unless in good shape and part of a group. These are dangerous conditions to hike and will likely get worse.” Festival crowds were asked to shelter in place and conserve food and water after the heavy rains started Friday night, with more downpours forecast on Sunday. “You can’t really walk or drive,” a young woman named Christine Lee, a circus performer, said on TikTok. Internet service was either not available or patchy, she said. “My boots are five inches, and the mud became five inches so I was kind of on stilts,” Lee said, adding people were being told they may be stuck until Tuesday. “We have enough tuna for a week so we’re OK.” A video posted on social media showed comedian Chris Rock hitching a ride in the back of a pickup truck after managing to leave. Source: https://www.nation.com.pk/05-Sep-2023/thousands-still-stuck-in-mud-at-burning-man-festival-one-dead

French public schools have sent dozens of girls home for refusing to remove their abayas – long, loose-fitting robes worn by some Muslim women and girls – on the first day of the school year, according to Education Minister Gabriel Attal. Defying a ban on the garment seen as a religious symbol, nearly 300 girls showed up on Monday morning wearing abayas, Attal told the BFM broadcaster on Tuesday. end of list Most agreed to change out of the robe, but 67 refused and were sent home, he said. The government announced last month it was banning the abaya in schools, saying it broke the rules on secularism in education that have already seen headscarves banned on the grounds they constitute a display of religious affiliation. The move gladdened the political right but the hard left argued it represented an affront to civil liberties. Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler, reporting from Paris before the ban came into force said Attal deemed the garment a religious symbol which violates French secularism. “Since 2004, in France, religious signs and symbols have been banned in schools, including headscarves, kippas and crosses,” she said. “Gabriel Attal, the education minister, says that no one should walk into a classroom wearing something which could suggest what their religion is.” Attal said on Tuesday the girls refused entry on Monday were given a letter addressed to their families saying that “secularism is not a constraint, it is a liberty”. If they showed up at school again wearing the gown there would be a “new dialogue”, the minister said. ‘Worst consequences’ On Monday evening, President Emmanuel Macron defended the controversial measure, saying there was a “minority” in France who “hijack a religion and challenge the republic and secularism”. He said it leads to the “worst consequences” such as the murder three years ago of teacher Samuel Paty for showing Prophet Muhammad caricatures during a civics education class. “We cannot act as if the terrorist attack, the murder of Samuel Paty, had not happened,” he said in an interview with the YouTube channel, HugoDecrypte. An association representing Muslims has filed a motion with the State Council, France’s highest court for complaints against state authorities, for an injunction against the ban on the abaya and the qamis, its equivalent dress for men. The Action for the Rights of Muslims (ADM) motion is to be examined later on Tuesday. Source:https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/5/schools-in-france-send-dozens-of-muslim-girls-home-for-wearing-abaya

Mainly hot and humid weather is expected in plain areas of the country during the next twelve hours. However, rain with thunderstorm is expected at isolated places in upper Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pothohar region, Islamabad, Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. Temperature of some major cities recorded this morning: Islamabad twenty-five degree centigrade, Lahore and Karachi twenty-eight, Peshawar twenty-six, Quetta twenty-one, Gilgit fifteen, Murree sixteen and Muzaffarabad twenty-two degree centigrade. According to weather forecast for Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, partly cloudy chances of rain and wind with thundershower weather is expected in Srinagar, Jammu, Pulwama, Anantnag, Shopian and Baramula while partly cloudy in Leh. Temperature recorded this morning: Srinagar, Anantnag and Baramula seventeen degree centigrade, Jammu twenty-five, Leh ten, Pulwama and Shopian sixteen degree centigrade. Source: https://www.nation.com.pk/04-Sep-2023/hot-humid-weather-expected-in-plain-areas-of-country-pmd

TAIPEI – At least 44 people were injured and tens of thousands of homes were left without power as Typhoon Hai­kui made its way across Taiwan, authorities said. The storm made landfall along the southeastern coastal township of Donghe at about 3:40 p.m. local time, Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau said. The storm crossed the island and then left land at at 8 p.m. At least 7,113 people across 11 cities and counties were evacuated, according to Taiwan’s Interior Min­istry. State electricity provider Taipower said 48,506 households were without power as of 10 p.m. local time. Before making landfall, the storm was packing winds of up to 155 kilometers per hour (96 miles per hour), the weather bureau said. The capital Taipei was hit by heavy rains. Haikui is the first typhoon in four years to directly hit Taiwan. The weather bureau said the heavy rainfall brought by the storm could trigger flash flooding and landslides. The mountain­ous Hualien county could see total precipitation of more than 500 millimeters, it added. The typhoon was previously expected to make landfall near the southeastern city of Taitung around 5 p.m. local time on Sunday. Seven counties and cities in southern and eastern Taiwan suspended school and work for Sun­day, according to the respective local governments. Source:https://www.nation.com.pk/04-Sep-2023/44-injured-thousands-left-without-power-as-typhoon-haikui-hits-taiwan

MALMO, SWEDEN   –   Swedish police on Sunday ar­rested two people and de­tained around 10 people af­ter a violent riot broke out at a protest involving the burn­ing of Holy Quran, police said. The protest was organised by Iraqi refugee Salwan Momi­ka, whose protests — which have included public desecra­tions of the holy book — have sparked outrage across the Middle East. Sunday’s protest was held in a square in the southern city of Malmo, which has a large immigrant popu­lation, and according to pub­lic broadcaster SVT around 200 people had showed up to watch. “Some onlookers have shown upset feelings after the organiser burned writings,” police said in a statement. “The mood was at times heated,” the statement said, adding that a “violent riot” occurred at 1:45 pm (1145 GMT). According to police, the event had end­ed after the organiser left but a group of people remained at the scene. About 10 people were detained for disturbing the public order and another two were arrested, suspected of violent rioting. Local media reported that some onlookers threw rocks at Momika, and video from the scene showed some trying to break through the cordon before being stopped by police. In another video, a man could be seen try­ing to stop the police car that transported Momika from the location by getting in front of it. Through a series of demon­strations, Momika has sparked anger directed at Sweden and diplomatic tensions between Sweden and several Middle Eastern countries. Source:https://www.nation.com.pk/04-Sep-2023/swedish-police-arrest-two-as-riot-breaks-out-at-protest-involving-holy-quran-s-desecration