The death toll from the earthquake in Afghanistan, the worst in the region in years, has surged to 1,411, the Taliban administration’s spokesperson said on Tuesday. The group also reported that at least 3,251 people have been injured and more than 8,000 houses have been destroyed in the disaster. Rescuers are now attempting to reach isolated villages in the eastern region of Kunar, the epicenter of the earthquake, which is one of the deadliest seismic events the nation has witnessed. Ehsanullah Ehsan, the provincial head of disaster management, said that while rescue operations were conducted in four villages in Kunar…
Author: Raja Zahid Khanzada
In India’s Punjab state, a thousand villages have been marooned by deadly floods, with thousands of residents forced to seek shelter in relief camps, according to government authorities. The flooding across the northwestern state killed at least 29 people and affected over 250,000 last month, with the state’s chief minister calling it “one of the worst flood disasters in decades.” The region is often called India’s breadbasket, but more than 940 square kilometers (360 square miles) of farmland are flooded, leading to “devastating crop losses,” Punjab’s Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann wrote in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. On…
A massive landslide in Sudan’s western Darfur region has flattened an entire mountain village and killed more than 1,000 people, according to a rebel group, with only one reported survivor. The disaster struck on Sunday after days of heavy rain, devastating the village of Tarasin in the Jebel Marra area, said the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM), led by Abdulwahid al-Nur, in a statement. “Initial information indicates the death of all village residents, estimated at more than 1,000 individuals, with only one survivor,” the group said, calling the landslide “massive and devastating.” The group appealed to the United Nations and other…
Madagascar held a ceremony on Tuesday to mark the return of three skulls that had been held by France for 128 years. One of the skulls is believed to be that of a Malagasy king who was decapitated by French troops in the 19th century. France handed over the skulls in Paris on August 27, in the first such restitution since it passed a law in 2023 that simplifies the return of human remains taken during its colonial conquests. The skulls are thought to belong to King Toera, leader of the Sakalava people, who was beheaded by French troops in…
On Monday, US President Donald Trump said that India has offered to reduce its tariffs on US goods to zero. This claim comes as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was publicly showing solidarity with Chinese and Russian leaders in the face of trade pressure from Washington. While calling the US relationship with India “one sided,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform: “They have now offered to cut their Tariffs to nothing, but it’s getting late. They should have done so years ago.” The Indian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to Trump’s remarks, which follow the implementation of…
On Monday, US President Donald Trump called on pharmaceutical companies to justify the success of their Covid-19 drugs. He said there is a disagreement over whether the drugs saved lives. “With the CDC being ripped apart over this question, I want the answer, and I want it NOW,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I have been shown information from Pfizer, and others, that is extraordinary, but they never seem to show those results to the public.” In his post, Trump urged drug companies to be more transparent about their results to “clear up this mess.” Last week, the Food and…
Britain has committed £1 million in emergency aid to assist people in Afghanistan after a powerful earthquake left families in mourning and communities in ruins. The funds will be channeled through international partners to ensure that critical healthcare and supplies reach those most in need, as the UK aims to prevent the funding from falling into the hands of the Taliban administration. Authorities reported that Sunday’s disaster, one of Afghanistan’s most severe earthquakes, has killed more than a thousand people and injured at least 3,251, with rescue operations still underway. The country’s response to the crisis has been hampered by…
On Monday, Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin used a gathering of Eurasian leaders to criticize the West, with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) positioning itself as a non-Western alternative for regional collaboration. The summit aimed to place Beijing at the center of regional relations. In his address to leaders, including Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Xi described the global situation as increasingly “chaotic and intertwined.” The Chinese leader also condemned “bullying behavior” by certain countries, a thinly veiled reference to the United States. Speaking in the northern port city of Tianjin, he said, “The…
The US Congress returned on Tuesday with less than a month to perform one of its core duties—keeping federal agencies funded and preventing a partial government shutdown—a task it has struggled with in recent years. The chamber’s sharp partisan divides have become more entrenched in the first year of President Donald Trump’s new administration. This has angered Democratic lawmakers due to the administration’s decision not to spend some funds previously approved in bipartisan deals, as well as the July passage of a tax-cut bill that nonpartisan analysts said could cause more than 10 million low-income Americans to lose healthcare coverage.…
Colin Farrell has delivered another Oscar-worthy performance in Ballad of a Small Player, and the actor is now explaining why he chose to do the film. In the movie, Farrell plays a British lawyer who calls himself Lord Doyle and gambles away his clients’ money in Macau. Revealing why he selected the film, the star of The Penguin told Deadline, “Well, the script I found was extraordinarily beautiful, moving, all those things that you kind of dream of being involved in, things that touch you as a reader.” He added, “If it doesn’t touch you as a reader, you might…
