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At least 151 people have been killed in flash floods in northern Afghanistan triggered by torrential rains, the Taliban’s Ministry of Interior Affairs has said. On Saturday, ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani put the number of injured at 135 people, the Reuters news agency reported. Heavy rains on Friday led to flooding in several areas of the country, with fears of the death toll rising. Zabihullah Mujahid, the chief spokesman for the Taliban government, said in a social media post on Saturday that “hundreds … have succumbed to these calamitous floods, while a substantial number have sustained injuries”. Apart from Baghlan in the north, the provinces of Badakhshan in the northeast, central Ghor and western Herat were also heavily affected, he wrote on X, adding that “the extensive devastation” had resulted in “significant financial losses”. The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) told the AFP news agency on Saturday that more than 200 people were killed and thousands of homes were destroyed or damaged in the worst-hit province of Baghlan alone. The air force had started evacuating people and moved more than 100 injured people to military hospitals, the Taliban Ministry of Defense said on Saturday, without mentioning from which provinces. “By announcing the state of emergency in [affected] areas, the Ministry of National Defense has started distributing food, medicine and first aid to the impacted people,” it said in a statement. Hedayatullah Hamdard, the head of Baghlan’s natural disaster management department, earlier told AFP that the toll “will probably increase”, adding that light rain had continued into the night in multiple districts of the province. Residents were unprepared for the sudden rush of water set off by the heavy downpour in recent days, he added. Emergency personnel were “searching for any possible victims under the mud and rubble, with the help of security forces from the national army and police”, Hamdard said.Play Video Since mid-April, floods have killed about 100 people in 10 of Afghanistan’s provinces, with no region entirely spared, according to the authorities. Farmlands have been submerged in a country where 80 percent of the more than 40 million people depend on agriculture to survive. Mohammad Akram Akbari, the provincial director of natural disaster management in Badakhshan, said the mountainous province had seen “heavy financial losses in several areas … due to floods”. He said casualties were feared in Tishkan district, where floodwaters had blocked a road and cut off access to an area where about 20,000 people lived. Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/11/more-than-150-killed-in-afghanistan-flash-floods-government-says

A Pakistani researcher, who had gone to Portugal for a cancer research project, was killed in a robbery incident after he resisted to it, Geo News reported on Friday.  The young victim, identified as Anthony Shoukat, hailed from Lahore. His family members said that the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital had sent Anthony for a research project to Porto.  They said that the deceased had done his masters from Sweden and PhD from Germany. The family requested the government to help them bring the Anthony’s body soon and bring the culprits to justice. Recently in March, a Pakistani-German, Fahimuddin, was murdered in the Ulm city during a knife attack on his family. He had left Karachi’s Azizabad neighbourhood and permanently settled in Germany. The victim’s close friend Ahmed Saeed had said the assailant first attacked Fahimuddin’s wife and daughters, then fatally attacked Fahim. Saeed said the assailant was alive and undergoing treatment at a hospital. “Fahimuddin’s neighbours and friends are also saddened by his death. Fahim spent many memorable moments with us. The condition of Fahimuddin’s wife and daughters is critical, while two of their daughters managed to save themselves by hiding.” Source: https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/1187474-pakistani-national-gone-for-cancer-research-project-killed-in-portugal

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/11/israels-war-on-gaza-live-battles-rage-in-rafah-as-tanks-troops-advance

Russia carried out a “massive” missile attack on Ukrainian energy infrastructure overnight into Wednesday, according to local authorities, in the biggest aerial onslaught by Russian forces for weeks. Russia used 76 air attack weapons in the assault, including 55 missiles and 21 drones launched from Russia and Russian controlled areas, according to Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk. At least 59 weapons were destroyed overnight, he added. The attacks targeted power generation and transmission facilities in Ukraine’s Poltava, Kirovohrad, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Vinnytsia regions, the country’s Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko posted on Telegram. “The enemy wants to deprive us of the ability to generate and transmit electricity in sufficient quantities. Saving electricity is a contribution of each of us to the victory,” Halushchenko said. At least three people were injured, including a woman and a man with multiple limb injuries and shrapnel wounds taken to the hospital in the Kyiv region, and an 8-year-old child in the Kirovohrad region, local authorities said. Rescuers assess the ruins of a building, damaged by a Russian missile attack in Kyiv region, Ukraine on May 8, 2024. Handout/Ukrainian Emergency Service/AP Moscow has stepped up efforts to paralyze Ukraine’s energy system in the past month, as Kyiv’s troops struggle to hold positions on key frontlines particularly in the east. The five-month wait before US Congress approved $61 billion in military aid to Kyiv may have caused lasting damage that will be felt on the frontlines for months to come. Russian forces have used the “artillery drought” hampering Ukraine’s defenses since December to push forward on the eastern front near Avdiivka, making the largest advance since the early months of the war, and ahead of an anticipated Russian offensive in late May. The latest Russian attack hit three thermal power plants run by Ukraine’s biggest power company, DTEK. It was the fifth time its infrastructure was targeted in a month and a half. Ukraine’s state-owned grid operator, Ukrenergo, also reported “damage to generation facilities.” Two critical energy infrastructure facilities in the Lviv region were attacked, one in the Chervonohrad district and another in the Stryi district, regional military official, Maksym Kozytskyi, said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that “all necessary services are already working to mitigate the consequences of Russian terror.” “The entire world must understand who is who. The world must not give a chance to new Nazism,” he added in a post on X. Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/08/europe/russian-attack-ukraine-energy-infrastructure-intl/index.html

Seven barber shop staffers were killed Thursday by unidentified gunmen in Balochistan’s port city while they were sleeping in their residential quarters. The unidentified gunmen, according to Gwadar Police Station Station House Officer (SHO) Mohsin Ali, opened fire at the workers who lived near the Gwadar Fish Harbour in the Surbandar area. At least seven of the workers were killed, while one of them got injured in the attack. As per the police official, all these men worked in the area’s barber shop and hailed from district Khanewal in Punjab. The SHO told Geo News that the dead bodies and the injured individual have all been shifted to the Gwadar Hospital. At least five among the seven labourers murdered in Gwadar belonged to Mian Channu, the Tehsil’s assistant commissioner told Geo News. Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti condemned the killing of the barber shop workers in Gwadar extending his sympathies towards the families of the victims. CM Bugti also sought a report on the matter, maintaining that “all kinds of force will be used to arrest the terrorists and their facilitators”. Balochistan Home Minister Mir Zia Ullah Langau has ordered an investigation into the killing of the seven deceased, terming it “open terrorism”. The minister said the killing of workers is a cowardly move, terrorists will be dealt with strictly. Meanwhile, provincial government’s spokesperson said that the families of the workers are being contacted. ‘Cowardly act’ In the wake of the brutal killing, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif issued a strong condemnation, terming the terrorism incident a cowardly act of the enemies of the country. “We are determined to eradicate the scourge of terrorism,” he said. PM Shehbaz shared his grief for the victims’ families. Bilawal condemns workers’ killing Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has condemned the killing of the workers. “Brutal killing of innocent workers is open terrorism,” the politician said, adding that people of the entire country, including Balochistan, are extremely angry over this brutality. “The monsters involved in the crime should be brought to justice,” the PPP chief maintained. This incident comes at least three weeks after unidentified assailants gunned down 11 people in separate terror incidents in the Nushki district of Balochistan. At least 11 people were gunned down by unknown assailants in two separate terror incidents in Nushki district of Balochistan. Nine of the deceased, who belonged to Punjab, were travelling in a bus on the National Highway from Quetta to Taftan when they were stopped by the militants, pulled out of the bus and abducted. The police launched a search operation for the abductees, however, their bodies were found under the bridge near a hill. All of them had been shot dead. The murdered men belonged to the Mandi Bahauddin, Wazirabad and Gujranwala areas of Punjab. According to Nushki Superintendent of Police (SP) Allah Bukhsh, the deceased men were labourers. The police said that six people belonged to Mandi Bahauddin and were from the same village Chak Fateh Shah. Their family members said that the men had left for Iraq three days before Eid. Meanwhile, two more were dead and three others sustained injuries in another incident in the city the same day. Similarly, on March 20, security forces acted swiftly and foiled a fierce attack after a group of gunmen stormed the Gwadar Port Authority (GPA) colony. Eyewitnesses said that they heard multiple explosions after firing in the complex which houses passport office, Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) office, and other government offices. Source: https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/1187030-gunmen-in-gwadar-kill-7-barber-shop-workers-from-punjab

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/10/israels-war-on-gaza-live-aid-operation-completely-crippled-amid-attacks

A major terrorist bid was foiled by police and intelligence agencies as they arrested two ‘agents’ of the Indian spy agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), in a joint operation in Karachi, Korangi Superintendent of Police (SSP) Hasan Sardar said on Monday. The official said that two hand grenades, a 9mm pistol and ammunition had been seized from the “terrorists” arrested during the targetted operation.  Sardar further said that the nabbed terrorist had been involved in the recce of a target pointed out by foreign elements. He said that the terrorists used to send the images and information gathered during the recce abroad and received millions of rupees from foreign bank accounts for that. Indian infiltration inside Pakistani territory for intelligence and terrorist purposes is not something known as a number of incidents of extra-territorial activities by RAW and arrest of its agents have been reported in the past. Earlier this year, Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Syrus Qazi exposed the “sophisticated and sinister” Indian campaign of extra-territorial and extra-judicial killings. Pakistan has “credible evidence” for Indian agents’ link to the killings of two of its citizens on Pakistani soil, Qazi had revealed in January. These claims were provided further credence by British daily newspaper, The Guardian, through a report that revealed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Indian government “ordered killings” on Pakistan’s soil. Quoting intelligence operatives, the report stated that New Delhi has adopted a policy of targeting those it considers hostile to India on foreign soil. Already strained by historical baggage and border disputes, Islamabad and New Delhi’s ties hit new lows after 2016’s Kulbushan Yadav spy arrest and the 2019 revocation of Indian Illegal Occupied Jammu and Kashmir’s (IIOJK) special status. The Kashmir move, a blatant violation of international laws, froze diplomacy and choked trade between the two adjoining countries. Pakistan has, for more than four years, conditioned restoring ties with its nuclear neighbour to the restoration of IIOJK’s special status. India’s notorious spy agency RAW, which is directly controlled by the office of PM Modi, allegedly began to carry out assassinations abroad following the 2019 Pulwama attack. Source: https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/1186042-terrorist-bid-foiled-as-two-raw-agents-arrested-in-karachi

At least five people have died and about 50 others remain trapped following the collapse of a building in South Africa. Rescue teams said on Tuesday that they had contacted survivors buried under the rubble after they worked overnight at the site in the coastal city of George, in South Africa’s Western Cape province. The five-storey building, which was under construction, collapsed on Monday afternoon. No cause has yet been given. Twenty-six of the 75 construction workers on site at the time of the collapse had been pulled from the rubble by Tuesday morning. Five were declared dead; the remainder were transported to hospital. Of the 49 still unaccounted for, rescuers said they contacted 11 people. “Four of them are trapped in a basement,” Colin Deiner, chief director for disaster management, told a news conference, adding that there is a possibility that more could be alive. The priority is to get all those still trapped out, Deiner said, adding it could take much of the day. Rescuers will then begin the process of lifting the different floors. “It’s a very tough operation,” he said. “So many people trapped in a building like that is like searching for a needle in a haystack. You literally have to break through the concrete and cut through the reinforcing.” It is unclear yet why the building, located near the city centre, suddenly collapsed. The police have opened a case and authorities are investigating. Security camera footage from nearby showed the concrete structure and metal scaffolding come crashing down at 2.09pm local time (12:09 GMT) on Monday. President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday sent condolences to the families of those affected and called on investigators to work quickly to rescue survivors. “Investigations into the cause of the incident must aim to bring closure to the community and prevent a repeat of this disaster,” the statement read. At least 11 of those injured were in “red” conditions, authorities said, indicating that “emergency” care was needed for critical injuries under South Africa’s triage procedures. Three people were classified as needing “yellow” or “urgent” care, while 12 others were in less critical “green” and “blue” conditions. Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/7/five-dead-in-south-africa-building-collapse

An angry mob of transgender persons on Sunday vandalised Saddar Police Station in Kharian tehsil of Gujrat district after the personnel allegedly subjected some of the community’s members to torture during their illegal confinement. According to details, a few transgender persons were on their way home after attending a function late at night when police personnel intercepted them and tried to conduct a body search of them. The scuffle took place between the transgender persons and the cops on the road when they resisted the body search. Meanwhile, the paramilitary forces shifted them to the police station and reportedly subjected the transgender persons to torture. After being informed, dozens of transgender persons led by their “guru” besieged the police station, threw stones and vandalised the premises. In the footage of the incident, also available with the Geo News, the fierce transgender persons can be seen throwing the furniture of the police station on the road. The video shows the transgender persons were forcefully taking a police official out of the police station. Later, the transgender community held a sit-in and blocked the GT Road in Kharian to record their protest. According to the local police, an inquiry has been launched in this regard and disciplinary action will be taken against the cops if found involved in the torture of transgender persons. Source: https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/1185698-video-irked-by-torture-transgender-mob-storms-gujrat-police-station