Asia
India landslide death toll reaches 47
The death toll in the massive landslide in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur has risen to 47, with the recovery of five more bodies in the past 24 hours, officials said on Tuesday.
The landslide, triggered by torrential rains,
occurred late on Wednesday night at an under-construction Metro railway site close to a Territorial Army camp in the state's Noney district.
Also read: India landslide death toll rises to 42
"Five more bodies have been recovered by rescuers from the site in the past 24 hours. Of the deceased, 27 are Army jawans and 20 civilians, mostly construction workers," a police officer told the local media.
The Territorial Army is a volunteer reserve force of the Indian Army.
"Some 15 people, mostly civilians, are still missing. The rescue operation at the site by the Indian Army and the National Disaster Relief Force is still on though intermittent rains are affecting the same," he added.
Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh each for the family of the deceased, after visiting the disaster site last week.
Also read: 24 killed in landslide in India's Manipur
Landslides and floods are common in the north and northeastern Indian states during the monsoon months of June to September. The natural disasters are triggered by heavy monsoon rains crucial for India's farming.
16 dead in India bus accident
As many as 16 people, including school children, were killed when a commuter bus veered off the road and rolled down a gorge in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh on Monday.
The accident occurred near Sainj Valley in the northern Indian hilly state's Kullu district this morning.
Deputy commissioner of Kullu Ashutosh Garg told the local media that the private bus was carrying 45 passengers when it fell into the gorge near Jangla village around 9.30am.
"So far, 16 bodies have been recovered by rescuers. Rescue operation is still on," a police officer told the local media.
Read: India sends team to help with deadly Afghanistan earthquake
Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to social media to offer his condolences to the bereaved families. He also announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh each for the families of the deceased.
"The bus accident in Kullu, Himachal Pradesh is heart-rending. In this tragic hour my thoughts are with the bereaved families. I hope those injured recover at the earliest," the Prime Minister's Office said in a tweet.
"A probe has been ordered into the accident," the police officer said.
Read: India landslide death toll rises to 42
Road accidents are common in India, with one taking place every four minutes. These accidents are blamed on poor roads, rash driving and scant regard for traffic laws.
The Indian government's implementation of stricter traffic laws in recent years has failed to rein in accidents, which claim over 100,000 lives every year.
Attacker killed by security forces while targeting mini bus in Afghanistan
Unknown armed men targeted a mini-bus of the army corps in Herat city, the capital of western Afghanistan's Herat province, on Monday.
One attacker was killed by security forces on the spot, the provincial head of information and culture Naemul Haq Haqani said.
Read: India landslide death toll rises to 42
"No civilian has been hurt in the attack and only the attacker was killed by security forces," Haqani said on social media.
Confirming the incident, the provincial police spokesman Mahmoud Shah Rasouli said the attack took place in Police District 4 of Herat city.
India landslide death toll rises to 42
The death toll in the massive landslide in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur has risen to 42, with the recovery of some 18 bodies in the past two days, officials said on Monday.
The landslide, triggered by torrential rains, occurred late on Wednesday night at a Territorial Army camp near an under-construction Metro railway site in the state's Noney district.
Read:24 killed in landslide in India's Manipur
"So far, 42 bodies have been recovered by rescuers from the site. Of the deceased, 27 are Army jawans and 15 civilians, including locals and construction workers," a defense spokesperson told the media.
The Territorial Army is a volunteer reserve force of the Indian Army.
"Some 20 people, mostly civilians, are still missing," the spokesperson said, adding that the rescue operation at the site by the Indian Army and the National Disaster Relief Force "is still on".
Read:Landslide Safety, Preparedness Tips: Dos and Don'ts
Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh each for the family of the deceased, after visiting the disaster site last week.
Landslides and floods are common in the north and northeastern Indian states during the monsoon months of June to September. The natural disasters are triggered by heavy monsoon rains crucial for India's farming.
With no fuel and no cash, Sri Lanka keeps schools closed
Cash-strapped Sri Lanka on Sunday extended school closures for one week because there isn't enough fuel for teachers and parents to get children to classrooms, and the energy minister appealed to the country's expatriates to send money home through banks to finance new oil purchases.
A huge foreign debt has left the Indian Ocean island with none of the suppliers willing to sell fuel on credit. The available stocks, sufficient for only several days, will be provided for essential services, including health and port workers, public transport and food distribution, officials said.
”Finding money is a challenge. It’s a huge challenge,” Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera told reporters.
Read: Gas lines and scuffles: Sri Lanka faces humanitarian crisis
He said the government has ordered new fuel stocks and the first ship with 40,000 metric tons of diesel is expected to arrive on Friday while the first ship carrying gasoline would come on July 22.
Several other fuel shipments are in the pipeline. But he said authorities are struggling to find $587 million to pay for the fuel. Wijesekera said that Sri Lanka owed about $800 million to seven fuel suppliers.
Last month, schools were closed nationwide for a day due to fuel shortages and had remained closed for the last two weeks in urban areas. Schools will remain shut until Friday.
Authorities also announced countrywide power cuts of up to three hours a day from Monday because they can’t supply enough fuel to power generating stations. Sweeping power cuts have been a blight on Sri Lanka's economy for months, along with severe shortages of essentials including cooking gas, medicine and food imports.
Wijesekera said the main problem is the lack of dollars and appealed to some 2 million Sri Lankans working abroad to send their foreign exchange earnings home through banks instead of informal channels.
He said workers’ remittances, which usually stood at $600 million per month, had declined to $318 million in June.
According to the Central Bank, the remittances — the nation’s main foreign exchange earner — dropped from $2.8 billion in the first six months of 2021 to $1.3 billion in the same period this year for a decline of 53%.
Read: Senior US officials visit Sri Lanka to help resolve crisis
The drop came after the government last year ordered the mandatory conversion of foreign currency. It said that black-market premiums have led people to hoard foreign currency.
Sri Lanka's has been getting most of its fuel needs from neighboring India, which provided it with a credit line. The government said it was also negotiating with suppliers in Russia and Malaysia.
Sri Lanka has suspended repayment of about $7 billion in foreign loans due this year out of $25 billion to be repaid by 2026. The country’s total foreign debt is $51 billion.
The economic meltdown has triggered a political crisis with widespread anti-government protests erupting across the country. Protesters have blocked main roads to demand gas and fuel, and television stations showed people in some areas fighting over limited stocks.
In the capital, Colombo, protesters have been occupying the entrance to the president’s office for more than two months to demand President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's resignation. They accuse him and his powerful family that included several siblings holding top government positions of plunging the country into the crisis through corruption and misrule.
Bus falls into deep ravine in southwest Pakistan, killing 19
A passenger bus slid off a mountain road and fell into a deep ravine in heavy rain in southwest Pakistan on Sunday, killing 19 people and injuring 12 others, a government official said.
Mahtab Shah, assistant administrator for the district of Shirani in Baluchistan province, said about 35 passengers were traveling in the bus. He said rescue workers were searching for survivors in the wreckage of the destroyed vehicle and surroundings.
Read: Pakistan reports 55 new COVID-19 cases
Shah said apparently the bus slid on the wet road amid heavy rain and the driver lost control of the vehicle, which fell about 200 feet (61 meters) into the ravine.
Deadly road accidents are common in Pakistan due to poor road infrastructure and disregard for traffic laws, as well as poorly maintained vehicles. Last month, 22 people were killed in a similar accident when a bus fell into a ravine in Qila Saifullah district.
Read: Soldier killed in terror attack in NW Pakistan
Hope and despair: Kathy Gannon on 35 years in Afghanistan
The Afghan policeman opened fire on us with his AK-47, emptying 26 bullets into the back of the car. Seven slammed into me, and at least as many into my colleague, Associated Press photographer Anja Niedringhaus. She died at my side.
I could barely whisper, “Please help us.”
Our driver raced us to a small local hospital in Khost, siren on. I tried to stay calm. At the hospital, Dr. Abdul Majid Mangal said he would have to operate and tried to reassure me. His words are forever etched in my heart: “Please know your life is as important to me as it is to you.”
Much later, as I recovered in New York during a process that would turn out to eventually require 18 operations, an Afghan friend called from Kabul to apologize for the shooting on behalf of all Afghans.
I said the shooter didn’t represent a nation, a people. For me, it was Dr. Mangal who represented Afghanistan and Afghans.
I have reported on Afghanistan for The AP for the past 35 years, during an extraordinary series of events and regime changes. Through it all, the kindness and resilience of ordinary Afghans has shone through – which is also what has made it so painful to watch the slow erosion of their hope.
I have always been amazed at how Afghans stubbornly hung on to hope against all odds. But by 2018, a Gallup poll showed that the fraction of people in Afghanistan with hope in the future was the lowest ever recorded anywhere.
I arrived in Afghanistan in 1986, in the middle of the cold war. It seems a lifetime ago. It is.
Then, the enemy attacking Afghanistan was the communist former Soviet Union, dubbed godless by United States President Ronald Reagan. The defenders were the U.S.-backed religious mujahedeen, defined as those who engage in holy war, championed by Reagan as freedom fighters.
At that time, the god versus communism message was strong. The University of Nebraska even crafted an anti-communist curriculum to teach English to the millions of Afghan refugees living in camps in neighboring Pakistan. The university made the alphabet simple: J was for Jihad or holy war against the communists; K was for the Kalashnikov guns used in jihad, and I was for Infidel, which described the communists themselves.
There was even a math program. The questions went something like: If there were 10 communists and you killed 5, how many would you have left?
When I covered the mujahedeen, I spent a lot of time and effort on being stronger, walking longer, climbing harder and faster. At one point, I ran out of a dirty mud hut with them and hid under a nearby cluster of trees. Just minutes later, Russian helicopter gunships flew low, strafed the trees and all but destroyed the hut.
The Russians withdrew in 1989 without a win. In 1992, the mujahedeen took power. But it wasn’t long before the mujahedeen turned their guns on each other.
Thrice the AP lost its equipment to thieving warlords, only to be returned after negotiations with the top warlord. One day I counted as many as 200 incoming and outgoing rockets inside of minutes.
The bloodletting of the mujahedeen-cum government ministers-cum warlords killed upward of 50,000 people. I saw a 5-year-old girl killed by a rocket as she stepped out of her house.
Despite the chaos of the time, Afghans still had hope.
In the waning days of the warring mujahedeen’s rule, I attended a wedding in Kabul where both the wedding party and guests were coiffed and downright glamorous. When asked how she managed to look so good with so little amidst the relentless rocketing, one young woman replied brightly, “We’re not dead yet!”
The wedding was delayed twice because of rockets.
By mid-1996, the Taliban were on Kabul’s doorstep, with their promise of burqas for women and beards for men. As international sanctions crippled Afghanistan, one-eyed Taliban Mullah Mohammad Omar got closer to Al-Qaida, until eventually the terrorist group became the Taliban’s only source of income.
Then came the seismic shock of 9/11.
Many Afghans mourned the American deaths so far away. Few even knew who Osama bin Laden was. But the country was now squarely a target in the eyes of the United States. Amir Shah, AP’s longtime correspondent, summed up what most Afghans were thinking at the time: “America will set Afghanistan on fire.”
And it did.
I was the only western journalist to see the last weeks of Taliban rule. The U.S.-led coalition assault began on Oct. 7, 2001. The powerful B-52 bombers of the U.S. pounded the hills and even landed in the city.
On Nov. 12 that year, a 2,000-pound bomb landed on a house near the AP office. It threw me across the room and blew out window and door frames. Glass shattered and sprayed everywhere.
By sunrise the next day, the Taliban were gone from Kabul.
Afghanistan’s next set of rulers marched into the city: The mujahedeen were back.
The U.S. and U.N returned them to power even though some among them had brought bin Laden from Sudan to Afghanistan in 1996, promising him a safe haven. The hope of Afghans went through the roof, because they believed the powerful U.S. would help them keep the mujahedeen in check.
Yet worrying signs began to emerge. The revenge killings began, and the U.S.-led coalition sometimes participated without knowing the details. The mujahedeen would falsely identify enemies – even those who had worked with the U.S. before – as belonging to al-Qaida or to the Taliban.
In the meantime, corruption seemed to reach epic proportions, with suitcases of money, often from the CIA, handed off to Washington’s Afghan allies. Yet schools were built, roads were reconstructed and a new generation of Afghans, at least in the cities, grew up with freedoms their parents had not known and in many cases looked on with suspicion.
Then came the shooting that would change my life.
It was two years before I was able to return to work and to Afghanistan.
By that point, the disappointment and disenchantment with America’s longest war had already set in. Despite the U.S. spending over $148 billion on development alone over 20 years, the percentage of Afghans barely surviving at the poverty level was increasing yearly.
In 2020, the U.S. and the Taliban signed a deal for troops to withdraw within 18 months.
It was the sudden and secret departure of President Ashraf Ghani that finally brought the Taliban back into the city on Aug. 15. The Taliban’s rapid march toward Kabul fed a rush toward the airport. For many in the Afghan capital, the only hope left lay only in getting out.
Now the future in Afghanistan is even more uncertain. Scores of people line up outside the banks to try to get their money out. Hospitals are short of medicine. Afghans are left to face the fact that the entire world came to their country in 2001 and spent billions, and still couldn’t bring them prosperity or even the beginnings of prosperity.
I leave Afghanistan with mixed feelings, sad to see how its hope has been destroyed but still deeply moved by its 38 million people.
Most certainly, though, I will be back.
India reports 16,103 new COVID-19 cases
India reported 16,103 new COVID-19 cases during the past 24 hours, taking the total tally to 43,502,429, data released by the country's federal health ministry showed on Sunday.
A total of 376,720 COVID-19 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours.
Besides, 31 deaths due to the pandemic since Saturday morning took the total death toll to 525,199.
The number of active cases in the country rose to 111,711, a rise of 2,143 during the past 24 hours.
Earlier this week, the number of active cases in the country had crossed the 100,000-mark on Thursday after nearly four months.
Meanwhile, the daily positivity rate in the country stood at 4.27 percent, while the weekly positivity rate had been 3.81 percent, revealed the federal health ministry.
So far, 42,865,519 people have been successfully cured and discharged from hospitals, of whom 13,929 were discharged during the past 24 hours.
North Korea slams US-South Korea-Japan military cooperation
North Korea on Sunday slammed the United States, South Korea and Japan for pushing to boost their trilateral military cooperation targeting the North, warning that the move is prompting urgent calls for the country to reinforce its military capability.
North Korea has long cited what it calls hostility by the United States and its allies as a reason to pursue a nuclear program. Sunday's statement comes as North Korea’s neighbors say the country is ready for its first nuclear test in five years as part of its provocative run of weapons tests this year.
“The prevailing situation more urgently calls for building up the country’s defense to actively cope with the rapid aggravation of the security environment of the Korean Peninsula and the rest of the world,” the North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement, without elaborating how it would boost its military capacity.
The statement took issue with a trilateral meeting among the U.S., South Korean and Japanese leaders on the sidelines of a NATO summit last week, during which they underscored the need to strengthen their cooperation to deal with North Korean nuclear threats.
“The chief executives of the U.S., Japan and South Korea put their heads together for confrontation with (North Korea) and discussed the dangerous joint military countermeasures against it including the launch of tripartite joint military exercises,” the statement said.
North Korea views U.S.-led military exercises in the region, particularly ones with rival South Korea, as an invasion rehearsal, though Washington and Seoul have repeatedly said they have no intentions of attacking the North.
During the recent trilateral meeting, U.S. President Joe Biden said he was “deeply concerned” about North Korea’s continued ballistic missile tests and apparent plans to conduct a nuclear test. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said the importance of trilateral cooperation has grown in the face of North Korea’s advanced nuclear program, while Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said joint anti-missile drills would be important to deter North Korean threats.
Earlier in June, the defense chiefs of the U.S., South Korea and Japan agreed to resume their combined missile warning and tracking exercises as part of their efforts to deal with North Korea’s escalating weapons tests.
The North Korean statement accused the United States of exaggerating rumors about North Korean threats “to provide an excuse for attaining military supremacy over the Asia-Pacific region including the Korean Peninsula.”
U.S. officials have said Washington has no hostile intent toward Pyongyang and urged it to return to disarmament talks without any preconditions. North Korea has rejected the U.S. overture, saying it would focus on buttressing its nuclear deterrent unless the United States drops its hostile policies toward the North, an apparent reference to U.S.-led economic sanctions and its regular military training with South Korea.
North Korea claimed the recent NATO summit proves an alleged U.S. plan to contain Russia and China by achieving the “militarization of Europe” and forming a NATO-like alliance in Asia. It said “the reckless military moves of the U.S. and its vassal forces” could lead to dangerous consequences like a nuclear war simultaneously taking place in both Europe and Asia-Pacific.
Pyongyang has often released similar warlike rhetoric and warned of the danger of nuclear war in times of heightened animosities with Washington and Seoul.
30 students injured in Bengal bus accident
As many as 30 students were injured after their school bus veered off the road and fell into a roadside ditch in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal's on Saturday, police said.
The accident occurred at Lakkhipur in the English Bazar area of the state's Malda district around 2.30pm.
"The bus was ferrying 70 students from government-owned Kendriya Vidyalaya to their homes when the driver lost control of the vehicle, leading to the accident," Malda police chief Pradeep Yadav told the media.
Read: 2 killed in separate city accidents
"Some 15 students have been admitted to the state-owned Malda Medical College and Hospital, and the condition of two of them are said to be serious," he said.
A probe has been ordered into the accident, the police chief said.
Road accidents are common in India, with one taking place every four minutes. These accidents are blamed on poor roads, rash driving and scant regard for traffic laws.
The Indian government's implementation of stricter traffic laws in recent years has failed to rein in accidents, which claim over 100,000 lives every year.