QUETTA, Pakistan: A suicide bomber blew himself up at a train station in restive southwestern Pakistan on Saturday, killing at least 26 people, including soldiers and railway staff, and wounding about 62 others, some critically, officials said.
The attack happened when nearly 100 passengers were waiting for a train to travel to the garrison city of Rawalpindi from Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, according to Hamza Shafqaat, a senior government administrator.
When asked about a security breach that led to the bombing, Shafqaat told reporters that “it is usually very difficult to stop such suicide attacks.”
However, Shahid Nawaz, who is in charge of security at Quetta’s train station, insisted there was no breach as the attacker was disguised as a passenger and blew himself up among people at the station.
TV footage showed the steel structure of the platform’s roof blown apart and a destroyed tea stall. Luggage was strewn everywhere. Most of the victims were taken to a state-owned hospital and some to a military one.
Wasim Baig, a spokesman for the health department and police said over a dozen soldiers and six railway employees were among the dead at the station, where a walk-through gate has been installed to check whether anyone is carrying explosives. Still, there are multiple other entrances to the station without such security.
A separatist group, the Balochistan Liberation Army, claimed the attack in a statement, saying a suicide bomber targeted troops present at the railway station. The outlawed BLA has long waged an insurgency seeking independence from Islamabad.
A senior superintendent of police operations, Muhammad Baloch, said separatists frequently attacked soft targets.
“When their people are arrested, they also attack in retaliation. We all have to fight this war. We are resilient. Our teams are here and trying to save as many lives as we can.”
Police said some of the critically wounded passengers had died in the hospital, raising the death toll.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif denounced the bombing in a statement, saying those who orchestrated the attack “will pay a very heavy price for it,” adding that security forces were determined to eliminate “the menace of terrorism.”
Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry also condemned the bombing and expressed its condolences to the families of the victims, as did the Russian Embassy in Islamabad.
Saturday’s assault came a little over a week after a powerful bomb attached to a motorcycle exploded near a vehicle carrying police officers assigned to protect polio workers in the province, killing nine people, including five children who were nearby.
In August, the BLA carried out multiple coordinated attacks on passengers buses, police and security forces across Balochistan, killing more than 50 people, mostly civilians.
Oil- and mineral-rich Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest but also least populated province. It is a hub for the country’s ethnic Baloch minority whose members say they face discrimination and exploitation by the central government. Along with separatist groups, Islamic militants also operate in the province.
The BLA mostly targets security forces and foreigners, especially Chinese nationals who are in Pakistan as part of Beijing’s multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, which is working on major infrastructure projects. The group often demands the halt of all Chinese-funded projects and for workers to leave Pakistan to avoid further attacks.
Last month, the BLA claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that targeted a convoy with Chinese nationals outside Karachi airport, killing two. Beijing has asked Pakistan to ensure the safety of its citizens working in Balochistan and other parts of the country.
A powerful suicide bombing at a rail station in southwestern Pakistan kills at least 26
https://arab.news/8w4bx
A powerful suicide bombing at a rail station in southwestern Pakistan kills at least 26
- The attack happened when nearly 100 passengers were waiting for a train to travel to the garrison city of Rawalpindi from Quetta
- TV footage showed the steel structure of the platform’s roof blown apart and a destroyed tea stall
How Trump plans to crack down on immigration during his second term
- Trump has said he would restore his 2019 “remain in Mexico” program, which forced asylum-seekers of certain nationalities attempting to enter the US at the southern border to wait in Mexico for the resolution of their cases
- Trump told Time he did not rule out building new migrant detention camps but “there wouldn’t be that much of a need for them” because migrants would be rapidly removed
WASHINGTON: Republican Donald Trump is expected to crack down on illegal immigration and try to restrict legal immigration when he returns to the White House on Jan. 20, following up on campaign promises and unfinished efforts from his 2017-2021 presidency.
Here are some of the policies under consideration, according to Trump, his campaign and news reports:
BORDER ENFORCEMENT
Trump is expected to take a slew of executive actions on his first day as president to ramp up immigration enforcement, including deploying National Guard troops to the US-Mexico border and declaring a national emergency to unlock funds to resume construction of a wall on the US-Mexico border. Trump has said he would restore his 2019 “remain in Mexico” program, which forced asylum-seekers of certain nationalities attempting to enter the US at the southern border to wait in Mexico for the resolution of their cases. The program was terminated by Biden, a Democrat who ended his faltering reelection campaign in July, making Vice President Kamala Harris the candidate. Biden defeated Trump in 2020, pledging more humane and orderly immigration policies, but struggled to deal with record levels of migrants caught crossing the US-Mexico border illegally. Immigration was a top voter issue heading into last week’s election, in which Trump defeated Harris in a stunning political comeback. Edison Research exit polls showed 39 percent of voters said most immigrants in the US illegally should be deported while 56 percent said they should be offered a chance to apply for legal status.
Trump also would reinstate the COVID-19-era Title 42 policy, which allowed US border authorities to quickly expel migrants back to Mexico without the chance to claim asylum, he told Time magazine in an interview.
He would use record border crossings and trafficking of fentanyl and children as reasons for the emergency moves, Time reported, citing comments from advisers.
Trump has said he will seek to detain all migrants caught crossing the border illegally or violating other immigration laws, ending what he calls “catch and release.” At an October campaign event, Trump said he would call on Congress to fund an additional 10,000 Border Patrol agents, a substantial increase over the existing force. Harris criticized Trump for helping kill a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year that could have added 1,300 more agents. Trump criticized a Biden asylum ban rolled out last June and pledged to reverse it during a campaign event in Arizona. He said the measure would not adequately secure the border, even though it mirrored Trump-era policies to deter would-be migrants and has contributed to a steep drop in migrants caught crossing illegally. Trump also said at the campaign event that he would consider using tariffs to pressure China and other nations to stop migrants from their countries from coming to the US-Mexico border.
MASS DEPORTATIONS
Trump has pledged to launch the largest deportation effort in American history, focusing on criminals but aiming to send millions back to their home countries, an effort that is expected to tap resources across the US government but also face obstacles. As part of his Day One executive actions, Trump is expected to scrap Biden’s immigration enforcement priorities, which focused on arresting serious criminals and limited enforcement against people with no criminal records.
During a rally in Wisconsin in September, Trump said deporting migrants would be “a bloody story,” rhetoric that sparked criticism from immigrant advocates.
Trump told Time he did not rule out building new migrant detention camps but “there wouldn’t be that much of a need for them” because migrants would be rapidly removed.
Trump would rely on the National Guard, if needed, to arrest and deport immigrants in the US illegally, he said. When questioned, he also said he would be willing to consider using federal troops if necessary, a step likely to be challenged in the courts. Trump has also vowed to take aggressive new steps to deport immigrants with criminal records and suspected gang members by using the Alien Enemies Act, a 226-year-old statute last utilized for interning people of Japanese, German and Italian descent during World War Two. Trump called for the death penalty for migrants who kill US citizens or law enforcement officers at an October rally in Aurora, Colorado. Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s first-term immigration agenda who reportedly will return in a top White House role, said in an interview last year with a right-wing podcast that National Guard troops from cooperative states could potentially be deployed to what he characterized as “unfriendly” states to assist with deportations, which could trigger legal battles.
Vice President-elect JD Vance said in a New York Times interview published in October that deporting 1 million immigrants per year would be “reasonable.” Biden in the 2023 federal fiscal year outpaced Trump deportation totals for any single year — with a total 468,000 migrants being deported to their home countries or returned to Mexico by US immigration authorities — and is on pace for even more this year, a tally that includes migrants returned to Mexico.
TRAVEL BANS
Trump has said he would implement travel bans on people from certain countries or with certain ideologies, expanding on a policy upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018. Trump previewed some parts of the world that could be subjected to a renewed travel ban in an October 2023 speech, pledging to restrict people from the Gaza Strip, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and “anywhere else that threatens our security.” During the speech, Trump focused on the conflict in Gaza, saying he would bar the entry of immigrants who support the Islamist militant group Hamas and send deportation officers to pro-Hamas protests.
Trump said last June he would seek to block communists, Marxists and socialists from entering the US
LEGAL IMMIGRATION
Trump plans to end Biden’s humanitarian “parole” programs, including one that allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants with US sponsors to enter the US and obtain work permits. He has called Biden’s programs an “outrageous abuse of parole authority.” Trump said last year that he would seek to end automatic citizenship for children born in the US to immigrants living in the country illegally, an idea he flirted with as president.
Such an action would run against the long-running interpretation of an amendment to the US Constitution and would likely trigger legal challenges. During his first term, Trump greatly reduced the number of refugees allowed into the US and has criticized Biden’s decision to increase admissions. He would again suspend the resettlement program if elected, the New York Times reported in November 2023.
Trump has said he would push for “a merit-based immigration system that protects American labor and promotes American values.” In his first term, he took steps to tighten access to some visa programs, including a suspension of many work visas during the COVID pandemic. The Trump campaign criticized a Biden program — currently blocked by a federal judge — that offered a path to citizenship to immigrants in the US illegally who are married to an American citizen and have lived in the US for at least a decade. Trump said on a podcast in June that he backed giving green cards to foreign students who graduate from US colleges or junior colleges, but Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt later said the proposal “would only apply to the most thoroughly vetted college graduates who would never undercut American wages or workers.”
He would seek to roll back Temporary Protected Status designations, the New York Times reported, targeting a humanitarian program that offers deportation relief and work permits to hundreds of thousands. Trump tried to phase out most Temporary Protected Status enrollment during his first term, but was slowed by legal challenges. A federal appeals court in September 2020 allowed him to proceed with the wind-down, but Biden reversed that and expanded the program after taking office.
FAMILY SEPARATION
In a town hall with CNN last year, Trump declined to rule out resuming his contentious “zero tolerance” policy that led thousands of migrant children and parents to be separated at the US-Mexico border in 2018.
He defended the separations again in November 2023, telling Spanish-language news outlet Univision that “it stopped people from coming by the hundreds of thousands.” While Trump has refused to rule out reinstating a family separation policy, Trump’s incoming “border czar” Tom Homan told Reuters last year that the separations “caused an uproar” and that it would be better to detain families together. The Biden administration last year reached a settlement agreement with separated families that would offer them temporary legal status and other benefits while barring similar separations for at least eight years.
DACA
Trump tried to end a program that grants deportation relief and work permits to “Dreamer” immigrants brought to the US illegally as children, but the termination was rebuffed by the Supreme Court in June 2020. Following the Supreme Court ruling, the Trump administration said it would not accept any new applications to the program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, and would explore whether it could again attempt to end it.
Trump plans to try to end DACA if elected, the New York Times reported.
Fresh off prison release, former Trump adviser Bannon returns to court
- Bannon has called himself a “political prisoner” and resumed hosting his “War Room” podcast, known for its fierce criticism of Trump’s opponents
NEW YORK: Steve Bannon, a former adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, returned to court on Tuesday ahead of his trial on criminal fraud charges over a push to fund Trump’s signature border wall, weeks after he was released from prison on a separate conviction. Bannon, 70, is scheduled to stand trial starting on Dec. 9 in New York state court in Manhattan. Prosecutors say he deceived donors who contributed more than $15 million in 2019 to a private fundraising drive to build a barrier along the US-Mexico border. He has pleaded not guilty.
At the hearing, Bannon’s defense lawyer John Carman urged Acting Justice April Newbauer to delay the trial until January due to additional evidence prosecutors were seeking to introduce.
Newbauer did not rule on that request, but said she would hold a hearing on Monday to determine whether the evidence could be presented at trial.
Construction of a border wall was a key element of Trump’s immigration policies during his presidency, supported by his fellow Republicans but opposed by Democrats and immigrant advocacy groups. Trump again made cracking down on illegal immigration a centerpiece of his successful 2024 campaign.
In the final hours of his first four-year term in January 2021, Trump pardoned Bannon on federal charges brought in 2020 over the same underlying conduct.
The following year, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, secured a four-count indictment of Bannon on charges including money laundering, conspiracy and scheme to defraud.
Presidential pardons do not prohibit state prosecutions. If Bannon is convicted at trial, Trump would not be able to pardon him after returning to the White House on Jan. 20.
According to Bragg’s indictment, Bannon promised donors that all their money would go toward building Trump’s wall, but he concealed his role in diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars to the drive’s chief executive, Brian Kolfage, a decorated US Air Force veteran who had promised to take no salary.
Bannon’s lawyers have argued that Bannon transferred some funds to entities Kolfage controlled to reimburse him for reasonable expenses.
Kolfage pleaded guilty in April 2022 to federal fraud and tax charges, and is serving a 4-1/4-year prison sentence. Neither he nor two other men indicted alongside Bannon were pardoned by Trump.
Bannon was a key adviser to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, then served as his chief White House strategist in 2017 before a falling-out between them, which was later patched up. He also has played an instrumental role in right-wing media.
In a separate federal case, Bannon was convicted at trial in 2022 of two misdemeanor counts of contempt of Congress after refusing to turn over documents or testify to a Democratic-led House of Representatives committee that probed the Jan. 6, 2021, US Capitol attack.
He was released on Oct. 29 from a low-security facility in Danbury, Connecticut, after serving a four-month sentence. He has called himself a “political prisoner” and resumed hosting his “War Room” podcast, known for its fierce criticism of Trump’s opponents.
Fifteen inmates killed in new Ecuador jail massacre
- “Serious incidents were reported between inmates, resulting in a preliminary toll of 15 dead and 14 wounded,” the prison service said
- The prison service said that a “significant contingent” of troops and police had been deployed to restore order at the prison, which was now under the “full control” of the authorities
GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador: At least 15 inmates were killed and 14 injured in clashes Tuesday at a prison in the Ecuadoran port of Guayaquil, the latest in a series of massacres blamed on a war between drug cartels.
Once seen as a beacon of stability in South America, Ecuador has become one of the world’s most violent nations and a major drug trafficking hub in recent years.
Much of the violence has taken place in prisons where more than 460 inmates have been killed since February 2021, often in gruesome fashion, with their bodies dismembered and burnt.
The latest bloodshed took place in Litoral penitentiary, the country’s biggest, where 119 inmates were killed in September 2021 in Ecuador’s worst prison massacre.
“This morning, in a pavilion of the Litoral penitentiary, serious incidents were reported between inmates, resulting in a preliminary toll of 15 dead and 14 wounded,” the prison service said.
AFP drone images of the prison yard showed inmates in orange prison garb placing a body on the ground next to a dozen corpses wrapped in blankets.
In another part of the prison, dozens of prisoners could be seen sitting in rows, guarded by security force members.
The prison service said that a “significant contingent” of troops and police had been deployed to restore order at the prison, which was now under the “full control” of the authorities.
The violence in Ecuador’s prisons has spilled over onto the streets.
The Andean country registered a record 47 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023, up from a rate of six per 100,000 in 2018.
In January, the violence reached a new peak following the jailbreak of a powerful narco boss, Jose Adolfo Macias.
In the most dramatic incident, gunmen stormed the studios of a television station in Guayaquil and held a presenter at gunpoint live on air.
Gang members also took scores of prison guards hostage and set off explosions prompting President Daniel Noboa to declare war on organized crime and deploy the army to combat the gangs.
Tuesday’s massacre is the first at a prison since then.
But tit-for-tat gang attacks left at least 17 dead near Guayaquil last month and prison officials continue to be targeted.
Five penitentiary staff were shot dead in the space of a month between late August and late September.
The victims included the director of Litoral, who was shot dead after her car was ambushed while traveling near Guayaquil and the head of another prison in the Amazonian province of Sucumbios, who too was shot dead while traveling by car.
Noboa claims his offensive against organized crime is nonetheless yielding results.
Between January and September, 4,236 murders were reported, down from 5,112 for the same period in 2023.
Spanish flood-hit towns brace for another storm
- AEMET forecasts as much as 120 mm of rain in 12 hours
- While the storm is not expected to be as powerful, it could be devastating for the towns that are still recovering
MADRID: Flood-hit towns near the eastern city of Valencia were rushing on Tuesday to clear the sewage system of mud and debris, pile sandbags and cancel school classes as they prepared for another approaching storm.
Two weeks after the worst floods in Spain’s modern history killed more than 200 people, national weather service AEMET issued an orange alert, the second-highest, for strong or torrential rains expected on Wednesday in the same area.
AEMET forecasts as much as 120 mm (4.7 inches) of rain in 12 hours. While the storm is not expected to be as powerful, it could be devastating for the towns that are still recovering.
The impact of the rain could be severe because of the quantities of mud already on the ground and because of the condition of the sewage system, Rosa Tauris, a spokesperson for Valencia’s emergency committee, told reporters.
Thousands of workers are cleaning buildings while removing the mud that accumulated on roads and sidewalks and clogged the sewage pipes and drains in towns and suburbs around Valencia.
The emergency committee issued a special warning requesting that municipalities and organizations take preventive measures, including closing schools.
Tauris recommended citizens work remotely when possible, avoid non-essential travel and follow emergency services’ updates.
The town council of Chiva, one of the worst-hit sites, canceled classes and sports activities, while in nearby Aldaia, workers piled up sandbags to protect the town.
“We are placing sandbags to replace the floodgates that the previous floods tore down,” municipal worker Antonio Ojeda said, hoping this would prevent the Saleta ravine from overflowing again.
They are also cleaning the ditches and drains that are obstructed with trees, tires and car parts.
On Monday, 10,000 tons of furniture, appliances and clothing were removed, almost as much waste as Valencia disposes of in a year.
Valencian authorities suspended classes and activities at recreational centers in the flood-hit suburbs, advising volunteers who flocked to the area to help clean up to avoid travel.
The AEMET’s weather alerts cover much of the Mediterranean coast of Catalonia, Valencia and Andalusia and the Balearic Islands.
Court delays decision on sentencing Trump to November 19
- Ahead of election, Trump’s lawyers moved to have case thrown out
- Trump’s legal team almost certain to seek to oppose or delay any sentencing
NEW YORK: The judge in Donald Trump’s New York criminal case has delayed to November 19 a decision on potentially throwing out the US president-elect’s conviction, the court said Tuesday.
Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts in May after a jury found he had fraudulently manipulated business records to cover up an alleged sexual encounter with a porn star ahead of the 2016 election.
The president-elect is due to be sentenced on November 26, may receive a reprieve if Judge Juan Merchan decides to dismiss the case following the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity.
That landmark ruling saw the court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, decide that presidents have sweeping immunity from prosecution for a range of official acts committed while in office.
Ahead of the election, Trump’s lawyers moved to have the case thrown out in light of the Supreme Court decision, a move that prosecutors have firmly rejected.
If the judge throws out the case on that basis, there will be no sentencing of Trump, 78.
If he does not, Trump’s legal team would almost certainly seek to oppose or delay any sentencing, insisting it would interfere with Trump’s role as commander-in-chief once he is sworn in on January 20.
“The joint application for a stay of the current deadlines... until November 19, is granted,” the court wrote in an email to parties in the case, seen by AFP.
Alongside the New York case, brought by state-level prosecutors, Trump faces two active federal cases, one related to his effort to overturn the 2020 election and the other connected to classified documents he allegedly mishandled after leaving office.
However, as president, he would be able to intervene to end those cases, and Jack Smith, the special counsel handling both cases, has reportedly begun to wind them down.
A Trump-appointed federal judge already threw out the documents case, but Smith had sought to appeal that decision.
“Trump’s victory means he is unlikely to be held accountable for any of his alleged criminal misconduct,” said former prosecutor Randall Eliason in an article on Substack.
“That’s a severe blow to the ideal of the rule of law.”
The New York conviction, coming just months before an election that Trump won convincingly, was one of several dramatic developments in the race for the White House.
In July, Trump survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania when a bullet grazed his ear.
Later that month, President Joe Biden stepped aside as the Democratic Party’s candidate following a disastrous performance against Trump in a televised debate.
That paved the way for Vice President Kamala Harris to become the first woman of color from a major US party to stand for president.
