Flood Water Kills 26 Wedding Guests In Pakistan

 

 PESHWAR, Pakistan - At least 26 people, mostly children, were killed Saturday when a vehicle carrying wedding guests was washed off a mountainous road by floods and flung into a gorge, officials said. 

The dead included 18 children and six women. 

"Rescue operation has been completed, dead bodies of 26 people had been retrieved," Rahimullah Mehsud, a local government official of Khyber tribal district, where the incident took place, told AFP. 

• Mehsud earlier said rescue workers and residents were facing difficulties as the "area is remote and mountainous". 
• The accident happened when a pick-up truck carrying the groom's party of 29 was hit by floods in a remote village in Khyber, one of Pakistan's seven tribal districts bordering Afghanistan. 
• Three people who survived were taken to hospital. Hekmat Khan, another government official, confirmed the new death toll and told AFP that the child victims were aged up to nine years. 

The heavy monsoon rains began earlier this month, drenching the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and central Punjab provinces, which have been badly affected by flooding in recent years that some scientists have linked to climate change. 

Source:The Nation, AFP

Zimbabwe Will Only Pay Civil Servants When Government Gets Money?

While members of Mugabe’s delegation were using taxpayers’ money to enjoy themselves in New York, back home the civil servants monthly salaries will be paid when the government has money, not on a fixed date. 

Public Service Minister Prisca Mupfumira’s revelation is the latest sign of a worsening economic crisis in the southern African state. 

The minister’s announcement has renewed anxiety among the country’s civil servants. 

• Two weeks ago, a Zimbabwean pastor Evan Mawarire triggered protests across the capital by starting a #ThisFlag social media campaign. 

Civil servants boycotted work to show their displeasure with the government’s inability to pay them. 

The protests were the latest to rock long-serving President Robert Mugabe’s administration. 

The government has in recent months even struggled to pay soldiers and policemen.

Source: Agency

Indian Millionaires Now Worth $1.5 Trillion And Rising?

A new study found that Indian High Net Worth numbers increased by 55% from 152,000 in 2007 to 236,000 High Net Worth Individuals in 2015. Their combined wealth rose by 67%, from $0.9 trillion in 2007 to $1.5 trillion in 2015.

New World Wealth, a regular source of data and insight for these columns, has just come up with new research conducted over eight years. 

It started in 2007, just before the global financial crisis, and finished in 2015, when most countries were experiencing negative or negligible growth. 

“Millionaires” or “HNWIs,” High Net Worth Individuals” refer to individuals with net assets of a million or more dollars. 

The study found that growth was positively impacted by local construction, financial services, IT, business process outsourcing and the healthcare sectors. Solid economic growth and increased levels of entrepreneurship helped. 

The research found the negative impacts on growth were a 41% depreciation of the local currency against the dollar from approximately $39.4 at the end of 2007 to $66.2 at the end of 2015. 

Also there was a 25% dollar drop in the local stock market index between 2007 and 2015. 

There was also a migration of around 25,000 HNWIs out of India between 2007 and 2015.

Source: Forbes

100 nude women pose in Cleveland, reflecting on Trump

 

CLEVELAND,Ohio, U.S.A. -  American photographer Spencer Tunick merged nudity and politics in a dramatic way Sunday in his latest work, posing 100 unclothed women for a shoot in sight of the Republican National Convention. 

Tunick’s large-scale arty installation, “Everything She Says Means Everything,” featured women of all shapes, colors and sizes, holding up mirrors toward the arena where Republicans this week are set to formally name billionaire Donald Trump as their presidential nominee. 

The artist is well known for his sometimes startling images of nude people.

The women stripped down to their bare and often tattooed skin early Sunday and were seen snapping selfies with each other. 

Tunick’s website said that the mirrors reflected “the knowledge and wisdom of progressive women and the concept of ‘Mother Nature’… onto the convention center, cityscape and horizon of Cleveland.

• ” But the artist has signaled that this shoot, near the arena where Trump is to be named the Republican nominee on Thursday, was political. 
•  “There shouldn’t be a rhetoric of hate in a presidential election,” Tunick, 49, told AFP last month, speaking of the billionaire tycoon’s virulent diatribes against Mexicans, Arabs and women journalists, among others. 
• “I can’t just vote. I have to do something,” he said. 
• “I think every artist in the United States should make an artwork before the election and get it out there.
• ” Size-wise, the artwork was a far cry from Tunick’s most recent effort, in Colombia in June.

For his largest installation in six years, he convinced more than 6,000 women to bare all in Bogota’s main square as the war-torn country neared a peace deal with the leftist rebels of FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. 

Source:AFP

Malaysia Offers To Help France Fight Radicalization?

ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia – Malaysia, which has chalked up wide experience combating terrorism since 1948, has offered to France and other countries the standard operating procedure on terrorist deradicalisation and rehabilitation. 

Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi (pic) said the SOP, in four languages including French, would be offered to France, which came under another terror attack on Thursday.

“Compared to organised crime, crime ideology should be seen as more than just violence. This is ideology … there is radicalisation as well, and Malaysia has the SOP to share with countries that are victims of terrorism,” he told Malaysian journalists here.

• Dr Ahmad Zahid, who is leading the Malaysian delegation to the 11th Asia-Europe Meeting Summit that opened here Friday, said Malaysia was ready to offer training for trainers to countries faced with the problem of radicalization. 
• News reports said at least 80 people were killed in the southern French city of Nice Thursday after a truck ploughed through a crowd of people celebrating Bastille Day. 
• In November last year, more than 100 people were killed in a terror attack in Paris. Dr Ahmad Zahid, who is also the Home Minister, said Malaysia expressed sadness over the incidents and was concerned that the acts would tarnish Islam if they were committed by terrorists in the name of the religion. 
• Elaborating on the SOP offer, he said he had instructed the Prisons Department, Royal Malaysia Police, Federal Territory Islamic Affairs Department and several psychologists and “ulama” (religious scholars) to help the nations in need. 
• “As this seems to be a long-term problem, it will tarnish the image of Islam if it is not resolved quickly. Islam does not condone killing, terrorism … but its image will be tarnished because a rotten apple spoils the barrel,” he said. 

Malaysia, which has overcome communist terrorist and militant threats, had also offered to the United States the SOP for rehabilitation of militants detained at Guantanamo Bay, he said. 

“The United States has accepted our offer and will send over officers to Malaysia. This shows Malaysia’s commitment to share, though we may be a small country,” said Dr Ahmad Zahid. 

 Source: Bernama

Malaysian Police Confirm Nightclub Blast Was First Successful IS Attack In Country?

KUALA LUMPUR - Police has confirmed that the Movida night club bombing last week was the first ever successful IS attack on Malaysian soil.

Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said the attack, which left eight people injured, was carried out by locals who were directly instructed by Isis member Muhamad Wanndy Mohamad Jedi from Syria. 

"The two of those arrested had received instructions from Muhammad Wanndy, who had commanded them to carry out attacks in Malaysia, on our government leaders, top police officials and judges. 

These three groups are considered as threatening to IS activities," Khalid said at a news conference. 

• Police are hunting for two more people believed to have been directly involved in the nightclub attack, Khalid added.
• "Since the attack on June 28 to July 1, we have arrested 15 people including the two men who threw the hand grenade," he said. 
• It was confirmed that two of the 15 were also policemen. Khalid said those detained during the crackdown had all received instructions to carry out attacks on top officials "and also entertainment centres, which they consider un-Islamic". 
• Police had on June 28 ruled out terrorism as a motive for the pre-dawn attack, which took place as customers were watching a live screening of the Euro football tournament. 

Investigators initially said that a business rivalry, or a targeted attack on someone in the bar, were the more likely motives, but were forced to reassess their position a day later after an IS claim of responsibility was posted on Facebook.