ISLAMABAD: A suicide bomber struck outside a crowded polling station in Pakistan's southwestern city of Quetta, killing 31 people as Pakistanis cast ballots Wednesday in a general election meant to lead to the nation's third consecutive civilian government.
The attack in Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan, also wounded 35 people and several were reported to be in critical condition, raising concerns the death toll could rise further, according to hospital official Jaffar Kakar, a doctor.
A witness who was waiting to cast his ballot, Abdul Haleem, said he saw a motorcycle drive into the crowd of voters just seconds before the explosion. Haleem's uncle was killed in the explosion.
"There was a deafening bang followed by thick cloud of smoke and dust and so much crying from the wounded people," he told The Associated Press.
Baluchistan also saw the worst violence of the election campaign earlier this month when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a political rally, killing 149 people, including the candidate Siraj Raisani. Another 400 were wounded. Voting in that constituency has been suspended
Citing security concerns, the election commission announced that internet and cellphone services in several districts in Baluchistan have been suspended. Election commission secretary Babar Yaqub told reporters late Tuesday that threats against polling stations, staff and even candidates have been received.
Hours earlier, militants lobbed grenades and opened fire at a military convoy escorting election staffers and voting material in Baluchistan's district of Turbat, killing four troops. At the request of the election commission, Pakistan's military is deploying 350,000 troops countrywide outside and inside polling stations.
Also on Wednesday, police said a shooting between supporters of two opposing political parties killed one person and wounded two in a village near the northwestern city of Swabi.
Early voting was heavy at some polling stations in Islamabad, the capital, and also in the Punjab provincial capital, with several political party leaders standing in line to cast their ballots. Local television reported scattered incidences of police arresting people with pre-marked ballots,
Rights groups have warned that a rancorous election campaign and widespread allegations of manipulation imperil the wobbly transition to democratic rule and raise the specter of bitter challenges of fraud after the elections.
The unprecedented participation of radical religious groups, including those banned for terror links but resurrected and renamed, has also raised fears that the space for moderate thought may shrink further in Pakistan.
Attacks against minorities have increased in recent years.
One candidate, Jibran Nasir, an independent from Pakistan's financial hub of Karachi, received death threats and even had a fatwa, or religious edict, issued against him after he refused to condemn Ahmadis, reviled by mainstream Muslims as heretics because they believe the messiah promised in Islam arrived over a century ago. Pakistan in 1974 declared Ahmadis non-Muslims.
"I am speaking for the millions of Pakistanis who are too afraid to confront religious bigotry," Nasir said in a telephone interview. He also said that no arrests have been made of those who threatened him.
The leading contenders in Wednesday's polling are former cricket star Imran Khan and his right-of-center Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Party, and the right-of-center Pakistan Muslim League, the party of disgraced Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who is in jail serving 10 years on corruption charges. His younger brother Shahbaz Sharif took control of the party.
Khan's supporters showered his vehicle with rose petals as he arrived to vote at a polling station near his home suburb in. Islamabad. After voting, he appealed on Pakistanis to come out and vote in huge numbers "to save future generations."
The third-largest party in the running is the left-leaning Pakistan People's Party, headed by Bilawal Bhutto, the son of late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, assassinated by Pakistan's Taliban militants, whom she had vowed to eradicate.
Election officials say more than 11,000 candidates are vying for 270 seats in Pakistan's law-making Lower House of Parliament and 577 seats in four provincial assemblies.
The 85,307 polling stations opened at 8 a.m. and will continue for 10 hours, an hour longer than in the 2013 polls. Voting for two parliamentary seats and six seats in provincial assemblies has been postponed due to attacks on candidates or disqualifications.
There are 105.96 million eligible voters in Pakistan, with 59.22 million men and 46.73 million women.
Pakistan's election commission reminded candidates their elections will be nullified if the female voter turnout does not reach 10 percent. The requirement was imposed after the 2013 elections, when several areas banned voting by women, mostly in Pakistan's religiously conservative northwest. Some candidates were elected without a single woman marking a ballot.
The commission issued its reminder Tuesday after veteran rights activist Tahira Abdullah said local jirgas, or councils, of elders from 60 areas of the country, representing 16 different constituencies, had signed agreements banning women from voting.
Results will trickle in after polling ends, with the outcome expected early Thursday, according to election officials.
International and domestic election observers will monitor voting. The European Union Election Observation Mission has 120 monitors at polling stations in major centers across Pakistan, with the exception of Baluchistan, where a suicide bomber earlier this month killed 149 people, including a candidate.
Under Pakistani law, separate seats are reserved for women and for non-Muslim minorities, which comprise 4 percent of the population.
Explosion kills 31 as Pakistanis vote in general elections
Explosion kills 31 as Pakistanis vote in general elections
- A witness said he saw a motorcycle drive into the crowd of voters seconds before the explosion
- The incident and toll were confirmed by a second senior local official
Pope Francis’ body to lie in state in St. Peter’s Basilica as the faithful mourn
- Heads of state are expected for Pope Francis’ funeral Saturday in St. Peter’s Square
- The three days of public viewing are largely for ordinary Catholics to grieve the pontiff
Heads of state are expected for the funeral Saturday in St. Peter’s Square, but the three days of public viewing are largely for ordinary Catholics to grieve the 88-year-old pope, who died Monday after suffering a stroke.
Francis first lay in state in the Santa Marta Domus in a private viewing for Vatican residents and the papal household. Images released by the Vatican on Tuesday showed Francis lying in an open casket, wearing the traditional pointed headdress of bishops and red robes, his hands folded over a rosary. The Vatican’s No. 2, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, was pictured praying by Francis.
His body will be transferred Wednesday morning to St. Peter’s Basilica, which will be kept open until midnight on Wednesday and Thursday to allow the faithful to mourn. The public mourning period will end on Friday at 7 p.m.
Once inside the basilica, his casket won’t be put on an elevated bier – as was the case with past popes – but will just be placed on the main altar of the 16th-century basilica, simply facing the pews.
Italian police have tightened security for the viewing and the funeral, carrying out foot and horse patrols around the Vatican, where pilgrims continued to arrive for the Holy Year celebrations that Francis opened in December. The faithful who walk through St. Peter’s Holy Door are granted indulgences, a way to help atone for sins.
“For me, Pope Francis represents a great pastor, as well as a great friend to all of us,’’ said Micale Sales, visiting St. Peter’s Basilica from Brazil.
“I think he spread a positive message around the world, saying there shouldn’t be any violence, there should be peace around the world,’’ said Amit Kukreja, from Australia.
The funeral has been set for Saturday at 10 a.m. in St. Peter’s Square, and will be attended by leaders including US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelensky.
Cardinals are continuing their meetings this week to plan the conclave to elect Francis’ successor, make other decisions about running the Catholic Church as world leaders and the ordinary faithful grieve the pontiff’s death.
History’s first Latin American pontiff charmed the world with his humble style and concern for the poor but alienated many conservatives with critiques of capitalism and climate change. He last appeared in public on Sunday with an Easter blessing and popemobile tour through a cheering crowd in St. Peter’s Square.
He had some reservations about looping through the square packed with 50,000 faithful, Vatican News reported on Tuesday, but overcame them – and was thankful that he had greeted the crowd. He died the next morning.
“The death of a pope is not a small thing, because we’ve lost our leader,’’ said Julio Henrique from Brazil. “But still, in a few days, we will have a new leader. So … the thing of hope remains. Who will assume Peter’s throne?”
Vietnam village starts over with climate defenses after landslide
- Last year, Typhoon Yagi’s rains unleashed a landslide that engulfed much of Lang Nu village in mountainous Lao Cai province
LAO CAI, Vietnam: Nguyen Thi Kim’s small verdant community in northern Vietnam no longer exists, wiped away in a landslide triggered by Typhoon Yagi’s devastating heavy rains last year.
She and dozens of survivors have been relocated to a site that authorities hope will withstand future climate change-linked disasters, with stronger homes, drainage canals and a gentler topography that lessens landslide risks.
It is an example of the challenges communities around the world face in adapting to climate change, including more intense rains and flash floods like those Typhoon Yagi brought last September.
Kim lost 14 relatives and her traditional timber stilt home when Yagi’s rains unleashed a landslide that engulfed much of Lang Nu village in mountainous Lao Cai province.
The storm was the strongest to hit Vietnam in decades, killing at least 320 people in the country and causing an estimated $1.6 billion in economic losses.
It is unlikely to be an outlier though, with research last year showing climate change is causing typhoons in the region to intensify faster and last longer over land.
Climate change, caused largely by burning fossil fuels, impacts typhoons in multiple ways: a warmer atmosphere holds more water, making for heavier rains, and warmer oceans also help fuel tropical storms.
Kim remains traumatized by the landslide.
She says everything is painful, especially the memory of the moment a torrent of mud swept away her and her two-year-old daughter.
“This disaster was too big for us all,” she said recalling the moment the pair were pulled from the mud hours later.
“I still cannot talk about it without crying. I can’t forget,” the 28-year-old said.
Yagi hit Vietnam with winds in excess of 149 kilometers (92 miles) per hour and brought a deluge of rain that caused destructive flooding in parts of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar.
In Lang Nu, 67 residents were killed, and authorities vowed to rebuild the homes of survivors in a safe spot.
By December, 40 new houses were ready at a site around two kilometers away.
It was chosen for its elevation, which should be less impacted by adjacent streams, and its relatively gentle slope gradient.
“Predicting absolute safety in geology is actually very difficult,” said Tran Thanh Hai, rector of Hanoi University of Geology and Mining, who was involved in choosing a new site.
But the site is secure, “to the best of our knowledge and understanding.”
Lao Cai is one of Vietnam’s poorest areas, with little money for expensive warning systems.
However, a simple drainage system runs through the new community, diverting water away from the slope.
This should reduce soil saturation and the chances of another landslide, scientists who worked on the site said.
The village’s new homes are all built of sturdier concrete, rather than traditional wood.
“We want to follow our traditions, but if it’s not safe any longer, we need to change,” Kim said, staring out at the expanse of mud and rock where her old village once stood.
Months later it remains frozen in time, strewn with children’s toys, kitchen pans and motorcycle helmets caught up in the landslide.
Like Kim, 41-year-old Hoang Thi Bay now lives in the new village in a modern stilt house with steel structural beams.
Her roof, once made of palm leaves, is now corrugated iron and her doors are aluminum glass.
She survived the landslide by clinging desperately to the single concrete pillar in her old home as a wall of mud and rocks swept her neighborhood away.
“I still wake up in the night obsessing over what happened,” she said.
“Our old house was bigger and nicer, with gardens and fields. But I sleep here in the new house and I feel much safer,” she said.
Even at the new site, home to around 70 people, there are risks, warned Hai.
Development that changes the slope’s gradient, or construction of dams or reservoirs in the area could make the region more landslide-prone, he said.
Building more houses or new roads in the immediate area, or losing protective forest cover that holds earth in place, could also make the site unsafe, added Do Minh Duc, a professor at the Institute of Geotechnics and Environment at the Vietnam National University in Hanoi.
Yagi wiped out large areas of mature natural forest in Lao Cai and while private companies have donated trees for planting, it is unclear whether they can provide much protection.
“In terms of landslide prevention, the only forest that can have good (protective) effects is rainforest with a very high density of trees, so-called primary forest,” explained Duc, an expert on disaster risk maps who also helped choose the new site.
Leaving the old community was hard for Kim, whose family had lived and farmed there for nearly half a century.
But she is grateful that she and other survivors have a second chance.
“I believe this is the safest ground for us.”
India hunts gunmen who massacred 26 in Kashmir tourist hotspot
- Kashmir has been divided between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan since their independence in 1947
- Rebel groups have fought for decades demanding independence for Kashmir or its merger with Pakistan
Pahalgam, India: Indian security forces in Kashmir carried out a major manhunt Wednesday, a day after gunmen opened fire on tourists, slaughtering 26 people in the region's deadliest attack on civilians since 2000.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who cut short a state visit to Saudi Arabia, decried the "heinous act" and pledged that the attackers "will be brought to justice".
A hospital list of the dead verified by police listed 26 dead in the attack -- all men, who were killed on Tuesday afternoon when gunmen burst out of forests at a popular tourist spot and raked crowds of visitors with automatic gunfire.
All the dead were listed as residents of India -- many from across the country -- except one living in neighbouring Nepal.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said the attack had been "much larger than anything we've seen directed at civilians in recent years".
No group has claimed responsibility, but rebels in the Muslim-majority region have waged an insurgency since 1989.
They are seeking independence or a merger with Pakistan, which controls a smaller part of the Kashmir region and, like India, claims it in full.
"This attack on our visitors is an abomination," Abdullah said in a statement after the attack.
"The perpetrators of this attack are animals, inhuman and worthy of contempt."
AFP journalists near the site of the attack in Pahalgam, a popular site for tourists in summer some 90 kilometres (55 miles) by road from the key city of Srinagar, reported heavy deployment of security forces.
"The search operation is currently in progress, with all efforts focused on bringing the attackers to justice," the Indian army said in a statement.
In a separate incident, at Barumulla, the army reported Wednesday a "heavy exchange of fire" with gunmen they said were part of an "infiltration bid" crossing the contested frontier from Pakistan.
"Two terrorists have been eliminated", the army said.
At Pahalgam, a tour guide told AFP he reached the scene after hearing gunfire and had transported some of the wounded away on horseback.
Waheed, who gave only one name, said he saw several men lying dead on the ground, while a witness who requested anonymity said the attackers were "clearly sparing women".
The killings came a day after Modi met US Vice President JD Vance in New Delhi.
"Their evil agenda will never succeed. Our resolve to fight terrorism is unshakable and it will get even stronger," Modi said in a statement shortly after the attack.
The deadliest recent attack on civilians was in March 2000, when 36 Indians were killed. That attack occurred on the eve of a visit by US president Bill Clinton.
The killings on Tuesday sparked global outrage.
US President Donald Trump called Modi to quickly offer "full support to India to bring to justice the perpetrators of this heinous attack".
Among the foreign leaders condemning the attack and offering support, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen pledged that "Europe will stand with you".
India has an estimated 500,000 soldiers permanently deployed in the territory but fighting has eased since Modi's government revoked Kashmir's limited autonomy in 2019.
In recent years, the authorities have promoted the mountainous region as a holiday destination, both for skiing in winter, and to escape the sweltering summer heat elsewhere in India.
Around 3.5 million tourists visited Kashmir in 2024, mostly domestic visitors.
Air India said it was adding two extra flights out of Srinagar on Wednesday, as terrified tourists sought to return home.
The worst attack in recent years took place in Pulwama in February 2019, when insurgents rammed a car packed with explosives into a police convoy killing 40 and wounding at least 35 others.
Analyst Michael Kugelman argued that the attack posed a "very serious risk of a new crisis between India and Pakistan, and probably the most serious risk of a crisis since the brief military conflict that happened in 2019".
India regularly blames Pakistan for backing gunmen behind the insurgency.
Islamabad denies the allegation, saying it only supports Kashmir's struggle for self-determination.
One woman survivor described how men in uniform emerged from forests at a meadow where tourists were enjoying the peace of nature, The Indian Express newspaper reported.
Survivors said they had assumed they were policemen.
"They were there at least for 20 minutes, undeterred, moving around and opening fire", the newspaper quoted the survivor as saying.
"It seemed like an eternity".
Thousands evacuate as fire spreads in US state of New Jersey
- Jones Road Wildfire was raging across Ocean County and was 10 percent contained
- Local media said the blaze had begun in a massive, rural coastal ecosystem known as the Pine Barrens
NEW YORK: Some 3,000 residents were evacuated in the US state of New Jersey after a wildfire exploded in size, scorching thousands of acres and threatening hundreds of structures, the state’s fire service said Tuesday.
As of 10:30 p.m. (0230 GMT) the Jones Road Wildfire was raging across Ocean County and was 10 percent contained, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service said in a post on social media platform X.
It put the size of the blaze at 8,500 acres (3,440 hectares), just two hours after reporting the fire had hit 3,200 acres.
The fire service said “numerous” fire and rescue personnel had been deployed along with fire engines, bulldozers and ground crews.
It said the cause of the fire was “under investigation.”
Local media said the blaze had begun in a massive, rural coastal ecosystem known as the Pine Barrens, one of the largest protected land areas on the US East Coast.
New Jersey had been under an official drought warning, the state’s Department of Environmental Protection said in March.
Power was knocked out to roughly 25,000 customers, Jersey Central Power & Light said in a post on X.
The blaze also forced the closure of a section of the Garden State Parkway, a major highway through the state.
Ocean County, south of New York City, is a popular tourist destination that is part of the Jersey Shore and contains sights such as the Six Flags amusement park.
The fire service said it would hold a press conference on Wednesday.
Japan PM to visit Vietnam, the Philippines from Sunday
- The April 27-30 trip follows a Southeast Asia tour by Chinese President Xi Jinping
- Some Japanese companies are increasingly shifting production to Vietnam and its neighbor Cambodia
TOKYO: Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will visit Vietnam and the Philippines next week, officials said Wednesday, as Tokyo seeks to ramp up regional ties after Donald Trump’s tariff onslaught.
The April 27-30 trip follows a Southeast Asia tour by Chinese President Xi Jinping, with Beijing trying to position itself as a stable alternative to the United States as leaders confront Trump’s levies.
“Strengthening relations with Southeast Asia, a global growth center and strategic location, is one of the top priorities of Japanese diplomacy,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters.
“Relations with Vietnam and the Philippines are of particular importance, with their populations exceeding 100 million and as they continue their strong economic growth.”
Xi last week urged Vietnam to join forces with China to “oppose unilateral bullying and uphold the stability of the global free trade system.”
Hours later, Trump said Xi’s visit to Hanoi had been aiming to “screw” the United States.
Despite being a key US ally and the biggest investor into the United States, Japan has been pinched by steep tariffs imposed by Trump on imports of cars, steel and aluminum.
Some Japanese companies, reportedly including gaming giant Nintendo, are increasingly shifting production to Vietnam and its neighbor Cambodia, partly because of the fallout from the last US-China trade war.
An official statement from Manila said that Ishiba would visit the Philippines on Tuesday and Wednesday next week.
A meeting between Ishiba and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos “will aim to deepen and improve economic and development cooperation, political and defense engagements, and people-to-people exchanges,” it said.
Japan is a key security partner of the Philippines, and an agreement that would allow them to deploy troops on each other’s territory is awaiting ratification by Tokyo.
The two countries in January vowed to strengthen cooperation to counter China’s actions in the disputed South China Sea – with Japan pledging to enhance the Philippines’ “maritime security” and “maritime safety capabilities.”
