Flooding in Afghanistan this month has killed more than 180 people as torrential rains wrought widespread devastation in central and eastern provinces.
As per international media reports, 182 people had been killed and 250 injured. More than 3,100 houses were destroyed and thousands of livestock were killed, exacerbating the country’s economic and humanitarian crisis.
Afghanistan has been reeling from natural disasters this year, including drought and an earthquake that killed more than 1,000 people in June.
The nation has been largely cut off from the international financial system since the Taliban took more than a year ago.
Global humanitarian agencies have provided assistance for months, but have warned they need more access and funding to avoid a humanitarian disaster with thousands left homeless and no access to shelter or clean drinking water.
In Khoshi district in central Logar province, aid workers described widespread destruction from the powerful floods in recent days, with fields of crops reduced to mud and bodies of dead animals lying in piles.
About 20,000 people in the district were affected by flooding and 20 people, including at least six children, were killed with two more missing, the UN children’s agency said.
Last year, casualties topped 100 while dozens were reported missing in the remote Kamdesh district, about 200 kilometres northeast of the capital, Kabul.
In 2020, at least 100 people were killed in northern and eastern Afghanistan as the deluge ravaged large parts of Charikar city, the capital of Parwan province.
Four people were killed and more than a dozen others injured Thursday by early-morning Russian bombardments on the northeast Ukrainian region of Kharkiv, the governor said.
The attacks come hours ahead of a meeting between the Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan and UN chief Antonio Guterres on the other side of the country and after Russian attacks on Kharkiv a day early left at least seven dead.
Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv has been subjected to persistent Russian shelling since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in late February.
The head of the Kharkiv region Oleh Synehubov said Moscow's forces had launched eight missiles from Russian territory at around 04:30 a.m. local time (01:30 GMT) striking western and northern districts of the city.
In the southern Slobidskyi district, "one of the missiles hit a four-story dormitory. The building is partially destroyed. Preliminarily, two people died, 18 got injured, including two children. The detailed information is being clarified," Synegubov said in a statement on social media.
AFP journalists on the scene saw the smoldering remains of several burned-out buildings and twisted wreckage of destroyed vehicles nearby.
Separately, he said, Russian missile attacks on the town of Krasnograd around 100 kilometers (62 miles) southwest of Kharkiv had destroyed several residential buildings in strikes that left two civilians dead and two injured, including a 12-year-old.
Russian forces initially tried to capture Kharkiv early in their assault on Ukraine but were pushed back and have been shelling mostly northern residential districts of the city since.
Moscow claims Ukraine is storing military equipment near civilian infrastructure, a claim Ukraine denies.
The Turkish leader and Guterres brokered a grain export deal between Moscow and Kyiv, allowing grain to be exported from Ukraine's blockaded Black Sea ports.
Fast News
Israeli troops have killed a Palestinian youth in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Nablus and wounded dozens of others.
Palestinian medics identified the man who was killed early on Thursday as Waseem Khalifa, 18, from Balata, the largest refugee camp in the West Bank.
At least 30 Palestinians were wounded, four of whom were shot with live ammunition and three of whom were in critical condition, the Palestine Red Crescent said.
Witnesses said clashes erupted when Israeli forces arrived to protect Jewish worshippers visiting Joseph's Tomb, a site that has been a flashpoint.
The Israeli military told the Reuters news agency it was checking on the incident.
Killings in Gaza
The fresh killing of a Palestinian comes after Israeli jets pounded the besieged Gaza enclave that saw Palestinian fighters responding with hundreds of rockets that wounded 70 Israelis.
At least 49 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, including civilians and children, and hundreds more were wounded during 56 hours of fighting.
Israeli forces have carried out near-daily raids in the occupied West Bank in recent months.
Source: Reuters
Fast News
Flooding caused by torrential rains in Sudan have killed at least 52 people and damaged or destroyed thousands of homes.
"A total of 52 people have been killed and 25 others wounded due to torrential rains and floods since the beginning of the fall season," state media reported, quoting Abdel Jalil Abdelreheem, spokesperson for Sudan's National Council for Civil Defense.
Abdelreheem said 5,345 houses had been destroyed and 2,862 damaged across Sudan. Other public facilities, shops, and agricultural lands were also damaged.
North and South Kordofan states, River Nile state, and South Darfur were among the most affected across Sudan, he noted.
Nearly 40,000 affected
Heavy rains usually fall in Sudan between May and October, and the country faces severe flooding every year, wrecking properties, infrastructure, and crops.
In a Monday report, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that around 38,000 people across Sudan had been affected by rains and floods since the start of the rainy season.
About 314,500 people were affected across Sudan during the rainy season of 2021, according to OCHA.
Source: AFP
Ukraine on Wednesday accused Russia of carrying out rocket strikes that killed 14 civilians in areas near a nuclear power plant, as the G7 warned that Russian control of the facility "endangers the region."
Overnight strikes in the Dnipropetrovsk region in central Ukraine killed 13 people and injured 11, with five reported to be in a serious condition, regional governor Valentin Reznichenko wrote on Telegram.
"It was a terrible night," he said, urging residents to shelter when they hear air raid sirens.
"I am asking and begging you... Don't let the Russians kill you," he wrote.
A woman died after Russian missiles slammed into a village in the Zaporizhzhia region on Wednesday morning, local governor Oleksandr Starukh wrote on Telegram.
Most of the casualties were in the town of Marganets, just across the Dnipro River from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's biggest.
Regional council head Mykola Lukashuk said the strikes had hit a local power line, leaving thousands of people without electricity.
Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of recent shelling around the plant, which has six reactors.
Ukraine says Russia has stationed hundreds of troops and stored ammunition at the facility since taking it over on March 4, shortly after starting its invasion.
The tensions have revived memories of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Soviet Ukraine, which killed hundreds of people and spread radioactive contamination over much of Europe.
The Group of Seven industrialized nations condemned Russia's occupation and called on Moscow to immediately hand back full control of the plant.
Ukrainian staff operating the plant must be able to work "without threats or pressure" and Russia's control of the plant "endangers the region," the G7 foreign ministers said in a statement.
The strikes came a day after major blasts at the Saki airfield, a key military base on the Russian-annexed Crimea peninsula.
Moscow insisted that the explosions were caused by detonating ammunition rather than Ukrainian fire and Ukraine has not claimed responsibility.
Fighting also ground on in eastern Ukraine, where Russian troops are gradually advancing.
Strikes on the city of Bakhmut killed at least six people and injured three others, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Telegram, adding that 12 residential buildings were damaged.
The city of Soledar was under constant shelling, AFP reporters saw, as Russian troops attempted to drive out Ukrainian forces and seize a foothold towards Bakhmut.
The echoes of cluster bombs and artillery bounced off apartment buildings with their windows shattered, while roads were cratered and shops boarded up or destroyed.
The city was shrouded with black and white smoke arising from artillery and air strikes.
Some of those who remain now live underground in cellars ill-suited as bomb shelters.
"Most have left. It's very scary. There is a lot of shooting," said 62-year-old Svitlana Klymenko.
"I just want to leave to grow old in a normal way, die a normal death, not be killed by a missile."
The war has severely hampered grain supply from Ukraine, leading to an international food crisis as it is one of the world's biggest producers.
Some ships have been able to leave Ukrainian ports in recent days after a deal with Russia brokered by the United Nations and Turkey.
The first exports of wheat should start next week under the agreement, top UN official Frederick Kenney said on Wednesday.
The first grain shipment to leave on the Sierra Leone-flagged vessel Razoni departed the Ukrainian port of Odesa on Aug. 1 and had been expected to dock in the Lebanese port of Tripoli at the weekend.
But the Ukrainian embassy said a new buyer for the shipment was being sought after the original Lebanese buyer cancelled the order.
Marine traffic sites showed the Razoni docked in Turkey's Mediterranean port of Mersin, following reports a new buyer had been found for its cargo.
Spain on Wednesday launched a pilot project to import Ukrainian grain by train to avoid blocked maritime routes, with a freight train leaving Madrid for the Polish town of Chelm late on Tuesday.
Western countries have meanwhile imposed increasingly stringent sanctions on Moscow, raising fears that Russia may cut off gas supplies.
EU countries have started putting into place different measures to save energy, with air conditioning curbs coming into force in Spain on Wednesday and Vienna dimming street lighting.
A total EU ban on imports of Russian coal was due to come into force overnight.
The United States has charged a member of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard Corps with plotting to murder John Bolton, a national security adviser to former President Donald Trump.
The Justice Department alleged on Wednesday that Shahram Poursafi, also known as Mehdi Rezayi, 45, of Tehran, was likely motivated to kill Bolton in retaliation for the death of Qasem Soleimani, a commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps killed in a US drone strike in January 2020.
Iran's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Iran does not have an extradition treaty with the United States and Poursafi remains at large. The FBI on Wednesday released a most-wanted poster.
According to the criminal complaint, Poursafi asked a US resident identified only as "Individual A" to take photographs of Bolton, under the guise that the photos were needed for a forthcoming book.
The US resident then introduced Poursafi to a covert government informant who could take the photographs for a price.
Investigators said the following month Poursafi contacted the informant on an encrypted messaging application and offered the person $250,000 to hire someone to "eliminate" Bolton - an amount that would later be negotiated up to $300,000.
When the informant asked Poursafi to be more specific in his request, he said he wanted "the guy" purged and he provided Bolton's first and last name, according to a sworn statement in support of the complaint.
He later directed the informant to open a cryptocurrency account to facilitate the payment.
In subsequent communications, he allegedly told the informant it did not matter how the killing was carried out, but that his "group" would require a video as proof that the deed was done.
READ MORE: Iran pledges revenge on US for Soleimani's death
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m23pywBTNQY[/embed]
Impact on nuclear deal talks?
In a statement on Twitter on Wednesday, Bolton thanked the Justice Department for taking action.
"While much cannot be said publicly right now, one point is indisputable," he said.
The State Department had no immediate comment on whether the decision to charge Poursafi was in any way linked to US diplomacy seeking to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
Indirect talks between the United States and Iran wrapped up in Vienna on Monday with European Union officials saying they had put forward a final text to resuscitate the agreement.
Under the agreement, Tehran has curbed its nuclear programme in return for relief from US, EU and UN economic sanctions.
Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal in 2018 and restored harsh US sanctions, prompting Tehran to start violating the agreement's nuclear limits about a year later, reviving fears Iran might be seeking to develop nuclear weapons – an ambition it denies.
READ MORE: Iran nuclear talks restart in Vienna as officials look to remove hurdles
Source: TRTWorld and agencies
Politics
25 July 2022, 8:26 pm. 1 minute
Reuters revealed South Korea is pouring resources into its strategy of deterring any North Korean nuclear attack by preparing for preemptive strikes, if necessary. South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who took office in May, has publicly given new emphasis to the so-called “Kill Chain” system to counter a North Korean nuclear attack.
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Regions: Asia
Countries: North KoreaSouth Korea
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Customer Impact: Important Regional Story
The Democratic Republic of Congo has launched an investigation after the UN peacekeeping mission in the country, MONUSCO, admitted that its troops killed two people in a shootout in a town on the border with Uganda.
“Two compatriots died and 15 were wounded following shots fired by peacekeepers from a contingent of the MONUSCO intervention brigade from Uganda,” said Patrick Muyaya Katembwe, the DRC's minister in charge of communication and media and government spokesman on Sunday.
He announced the opening of a joint investigation with MONUSCO to establish responsibility for the incident, learn the motivation behind it and to impose severe sanctions against the peacekeepers involved.
Katembwe said they are already under arrest, stressing that they can no longer be part of the contingents of the UN mission pending the outcome of a plan to withdraw MONUSCO from the DRC.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_9Ig-tYT2w[/embed]
'Serious incident'
In a statement, Bintou Keita, head of the mission, said she had learned with deep shock about the grave incident, which happened Sunday morning.
“During this incident, soldiers of the Intervention Brigade of the MONUSCO force, returning from leave, opened fire at the border crossing for unexplained reasons and forced their way through. This serious incident resulted in loss of life and serious injuries,” she said.
Footage of the incident posted on social media showed uniformed men advancing towards an immobilised UN convoy behind a closed barrier in the town of Kasindi in eastern DR Congo's Beni territory.
After a verbal exchange, the peacekeepers appear to have opened fire before opening the gate. They drove on and continued to shoot, scattering residents.
“The perpetrators of the shooting have been identified and arrested pending the conclusions of the investigation that has already begun in collaboration with the Congolese authorities,” added Keita.
The incident came days after demonstrators took to the streets in several towns in eastern Congo’s North Kivu province to demand the departure of the UN mission.
The protests claimed the lives of 19 people, including three peacekeepers.
Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the UN under-secretary-general for peace operations, visited Congo on Saturday, where he held talks with Congolese authorities aimed at avoiding a recurrence of the tragic incidents.
The UN mission in Congo has been facing criticism for its perceived ineffectiveness at stopping fighting in the volatile east.
READ MORE: DRC's Tshisekedi accuses Rwanda of backing M23 rebels
Source: TRTWorld and agencies
Fast News
At least 15 soldiers and three civilians were killed in coordinated "terrorist" attacks in Mali, the chronically unstable country's army said, the latest deadly violence to rock the Sahel state.
In Kalumba, near the Mauritanian border, "the death toll on the friendly side is 12, including three civilians from a road construction company", the army said Wednesday in a statement.
The army death toll in Sokolo, in central Mali, was six with 25 others wounded, five of them seriously.
The army claims to have killed 48 attackers and "neutralised three terrorist pick-up trucks 15 kilometres (10 miles) from Sokolo with (an) estimated fifteen fighters and their equipment" destroyed, the statement said.
A third attack, in centrally-located Mopti ended without casualties overnight.
READ MORE: Attack on Mali military base repelled, situation under control: Army
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1rgpd8mrSg[/embed]
Intensified anti-terror operations
Over the weekend, Mali's army said it had thwarted a new attack on a military camp in the centre of the country, two days after a deadly suicide attack in a strategic garrison town near the capital.
It was the first time since 2012 that such coordinated attacks have taken place so close to the capital.
The Malian army has intensified its anti-terror operations in recent months, relying on what it describes as Russian instructors.
READ MORE: Mali to suspend UN peacekeeping mission rotations
Source: AFP
