Sabtu, 09 Oktober 2021
Xi Jinping insists China will achieve 'reunification' with Taiwan - Guardian News
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2021-10-09 10:09:15Z
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ISIS suicide bomber kills 50 at Afghan mosque during Friday prayers - Metro.co.uk
A suicide blast ripped through a packed Shiite Muslim mosque in northern Afghanistan yesterday, killing 50 people and injuring dozens.
The so-called Islamic State group has already claimed responsibility for the explosion, according to a statement released by the group’s news agency, Amaq.
It added that a suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest among Shia worshipers inside a mosque during Friday Prayers in the city of Kunduz.
The attack was the latest in a series of IS bombings and shootings that have targeted Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers, as well as religious institutions and members of the country’s minority Shiites.
The explosion tore through the mosque during noon prayers, the highlight of the Muslim religious week.
It blew out windows, charred the ceiling and scattered debris and twisted metal across the floor.
Area resident Hussaindad Rezayee said he rushed to the mosque when he heard the explosion, just as prayers started.
He said: ‘I came to look for my relatives, the mosque was full.’
The worshippers were Hazaras, who have long suffered from double discrimination as an ethnic minority and as followers of Shiite Islam in a majority Sunni country.
IS has been behind a rise in attacks, including against the Taliban, since the departure of US and Nato forces from Afghanistan at the end of August.
IS and the Taliban – who seized control of the country with the exit of the foreign troops in August – are strategic rivals, and IS militants have even targeted their positions.
In the past, the Taliban managed to contain the IS threat in tandem with US and Afghan air strikes.
Without these, it remains unclear whether the Taliban can suppress what appears to be a growing IS footprint.
The militants, once confined to the east, have penetrated the capital of Kabul and other provinces with new attacks.
Senior Taliban officials and US representatives are set to hold talks this weekend about containing the extremist group and easing the evacuation of foreign citizens and Afghans from the country.
This is the first such meeting since US forces withdrew from the country in late August, ending a 20-year military presence there and leading to the Taliban regaining power in the nation.
In Kunduz, police officials were still picking up the pieces on Friday at the Gozar-e-Sayed Abad Mosque.
Citing preliminary reports, the deputy Taliban police chief of Kunduz province, Dost Mohammad Obaida, said more than 100 people had been killed or wounded, and that he believed the dead outnumbered the wounded.
An official at the Kunduz provincial hospital said at least 46 people had been killed and 51 wounded.
He said the figures were preliminary because casualties were being transferred to private hospitals as well, however, this is already the highest death toll in an attack since foreign troops left Afghanistan.
The United Nations mission in the country condemned the attack as ‘part of a disturbing pattern of violence’ targeting religious institutions.
Mr Obaida pledged to protect minorities in the province and added: ‘I assure our Shiite brothers that the Taliban are prepared to ensure their safety.’
A prominent Shiite cleric, Sayed Hussain Alimi Balkhi, condemned the attack and called on the Taliban to provide security for the Shiites of Afghanistan.
He said: ‘We expect the security forces of the government to provide security for the mosques since they collected the weapons that were provided for the security of the worship places.’
The new tone struck by the Taliban, at least in Kunduz, is in sharp contrast to the well-documented history of Taliban fighters committing a litany of atrocities against minorities, including Hazaras.
The Taliban, now feeling the weight of governing, employed similar tactics to those of IS during their 20-year insurgency, including suicide bombings and shooting ambushes, and they have not halted attacks on Hazaras.
Earlier this week, a report by Amnesty International found the Taliban unlawfully killed 13 Hazaras, including a 17-year-old girl, in Daykundi province, after members of the security forces of the former government surrendered.
In Kunduz province, Hazaras make up about 6% of the population of nearly a million people.
The province also has a large ethnic Uzbek population that has been targeted for recruitment.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
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2021-10-09 10:48:00Z
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Lebanon: Total power outage as electricity grid shuts down after running out of fuel - reports - Sky News
Lebanon's electricity grid has shut down entirely after the country's two main power stations ran out of fuel, according to reports.
The al Zahrani and the Deir Ammar power stations stopped working after supplies of diesel were apparently exhausted, and energy production dropped to below 200 megawatts.
The outage will continue for a few days, at least, Reuters news agency has said, quoting an official source.
"The Lebanese power network completely stopped working at noon today, and it is unlikely that it will work until next Monday, or for several days," the official said.
The thermoelectric plant stopped at Zahrani power station just one day after the Deir Ammar plant stopped on Friday due to a fuel shortage.
The state electric company will try to use the army's fuel oil reserve to operate the power plants temporarily but this will not happen anytime soon, the official said.
It comes as Lebanon struggles with a fuel shortage that has forced many businesses to close and left people relying on the black market.
People have queued for miles to fill up their vehicles, with the chaos sometimes resulting in violence.
At the end of September, a man died after swallowing petrol he was siphoning out of his vehicle's tank, the country's national news agency reported.
The UN estimates that 78% of the country's population is living in poverty, with soaring unemployment and a currency that has plummeted in value.
In August, at least 20 people were killed and 79 others injured after a fuel tank exploded at a warehouse in northern Lebanon where fuel had been illegally stored.
It is part of a wider crisis, compounded by corruption and bad governance, which affects almost every part of life in Lebanon and has seen the Lebanese currency sink by 90% since 2019.
The country remains in political turmoil following the appointment of a temporary government following last August's catastrophic Beirut explosion that killed more than 150 people and injured 6,000 while destroying large parts of the city.
It happened after 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate - used as a fertiliser and in explosives - caught fire after being stored unsafely at a port warehouse.
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2021-10-09 12:08:44Z
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Texas abortion: US appeals court reinstates near total ban - BBC News
A US appeals court has temporarily reinstated Texas's near total ban on abortions.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to a request from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that an injunction imposed against the law be lifted.
On Wednesday, a lower court had temporarily blocked the bill for the "offensive deprivation" of the constitutional right to an abortion.
The restrictive law bans all abortions at about six weeks of pregnancy.
It gives any individual the right to sue anyone involved with providing or facilitating an abortion after foetal cardiac activity is detected, and makes no exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest.
On Wednesday District Judge Robert Pitman granted a request by the Biden administration to prevent enforcement of the law while its legality was being challenged. He held that women had been "unlawfully prevented from exercising control over their lives in ways that are protected by the Constitution".
However, Texas officials immediately appealed against the ruling, which the New Orleans-based, conservative-leaning Fifth Circuit court has agreed to set aside. It ordered the justice department to respond to its ruling by Tuesday.
In a statement following the latest ruling, Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, called on the Supreme Court to "step in and stop this madness".
"Patients are being thrown back into a state of chaos and fear, and this cruel law is falling hardest on those who already face discriminatory obstacles in health care, especially Black, Indigenous, and other people of colour, undocumented immigrants, young people, those struggling to make ends meet, and those in rural areas," she said.
"The courts have an obligation to block laws that violate fundamental rights."
Meanwhile, Attorney General Ken Paxton said the court's decision was "great news" and added that he would "continue to fight to keep Texas free from federal overreach".
The dispute over the law could ultimately end up before the US Supreme Court, which in September declined to hear an emergency case filed in a last-minute bid to prevent the ban passing into law.
Several clinics in Texas had resumed providing abortions to patients who were beyond the six-week limit following Wednesday's order.
They may now face some legal risk, as the law includes a provision that says clinics and doctors may still be liable for abortions carried out while an emergency injunction is in place, legal experts say.
However, it is unclear whether such a provision can be enforced, with Judge Pittman saying in his ruling that it is "of questionable legality".
Some women have reportedly been travelling to other states where the procedure is legal.
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2021-10-09 06:38:07Z
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Jumat, 08 Oktober 2021
Dozens dead in bomb attack on mosque in Afghanistan - BBC News - BBC News
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2021-10-08 21:17:44Z
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Afghanistan: At least 46 killed in suicide bombing at Kunduz mosque - Sky News
At least 46 people have been killed and more than 140 wounded after a suicide bomber attacked a mosque in Afghanistan's northeastern Kunduz province, a state-run news agency has reported.
Photos from the scene show bodies and bloodstains surrounded by rubble inside the mosque.
Rescuers could be seen carrying bodies wrapped in blankets from the building.
The bomb went off during the weekly Friday prayer service at the Gozar-e-Sayed Abad Mosque while the venue was packed with worshippers.
Islamic State said it carried out the attack in a message on encrypted messaging app Telegram.
The Bakhtar News Agency, which is run by the ministry of information, reported that 46 people were killed in the blast and 143 wounded.
"This afternoon, an explosion took place in a mosque of our Shiite compatriots...as a result of which a number of our compatriots were martyred and wounded," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Twitter.
He said Taliban special forces had arrived at the scene and were investigating.
The deputy police chief for Kunduz province, Dost Mohammad Obaida, said the "majority of them (the victims) have been killed".
He said the attack was likely carried out by a suicide bomber who had mingled among worshippers inside the mosque.
Hussaindad Rezayee, a local resident, rushed to the mosque as soon as he heard the explosion.
"I was busy at home doing construction work, and when the prayers started, the explosion happened," he told the Associated Press. "I came to look for my relatives, the mosque was full."
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2021-10-08 15:51:32Z
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South China Sea: US submarine collides with unknown object - BBC News
A US nuclear submarine hit an "unknown object" while submerged in waters in the Asia-Pacific region, injuring a number of sailors, US officials say.
It was not clear what caused the incident on Saturday, they said. The submarine remained "fully operational".
Unnamed officials told US media the collision happened in international waters in the South China Sea, and that 11 sailors had been injured.
The incident happened amid rising tensions in the region.
The US Navy said the extent of the damage was still being assessed and that the submarine's nuclear propulsion plant and spaces had not been affected.
The statement did not give details about where the incident took place or the number of people hurt, saying only that the injuries were not "life threatening".
But two officials quoted by the Associated Press said two of the 11 sailors that were hurt had injuries that were classified as "moderate". All of them were treated on board the submarine.
Those officials said the incident took place while the submarine was conducting routine operations and that the Navy did not make the news public before Thursday in order to maintain operational security.
According to AP, the officials said the object the USS Connecticut collided with was not another submarine. One of the officials quoted by the agency said it could have been a sunken vessel or container, or other uncharted object.
Alexander Neill, a Singapore-based defence and security expert, told the BBC the number of injuries caused by the collision suggested the submarine probably "hit something big" and was "going really fast".
The incident, he said, was "uncommon but not unheard of" and had exposed how busy the area was with military activities.
"The South China Sea has been increasingly saturated with naval vessels from a number of different countries. While there's been a lot of show of force by surface vessels you don't see the level of activity under the surface," Mr Neill said.
In comments reported by Chinese state-run daily Global Times, a spokesman for the ministry of foreign affairs said China was "seriously concerned" about the incident, calling on the US to provide further details, including the purpose of the mission.
The submarine was later reported to be heading towards the US territory of Guam.
USNI News, a site specialised in the US Navy, said the last known incident where a submerged US submarine struck another underwater object was in 2005, when the USS San Francisco hit an underwater mountain at full speed near Guam. One sailor died in the incident.
Why is the South China Sea so contentious?
The USS Connecticut was operating in one of the most contested regions in the world. China claims most of the South China Sea, but surrounding countries and the US disagree.
The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam have all been disputing China's claim to almost all of the Sea for decades but tension steadily increased in recent years.
The US has backed many of these countries in this territorial dispute.
The incident comes just weeks after the US, UK and Australia agreed a historic security pact in the Asia-Pacific, in what's seen as an effort to counter China.
Meanwhile, the US National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, told the BBC he was "deeply concerned" about actions that undermine peace across the Taiwan Strait, which separates Taiwan and China.
He was speaking after China sent a record number of military jets into Taiwan's air defence zone for the fourth day running.
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2021-10-08 10:01:45Z
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