The death toll from a bridge collapse in Pakistan’s northern town of Mardan rose to at least 39 on Sunday as rescuers continued searching for dozens of people feared drowned in floods, reports and officials said. ”According to local people, more than 100 people were on the bridge when it caved in,” a senior district administrator said.
Landslides and flash floods caused by torrential rains have killed at least 14 people, including four children, living in tents in earthquake devastated areas of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province, police said on Thursday. Ten people were killed during early morning prayers when a mudslide hit their tents at the foot of a mountain in Dadar Kadim.
Pakistan edged closer on Wednesday to reforming Islamic laws that discriminate against women, one of which makes rape victims liable to prosecution for adultery unless they produce four male witnesses. A Cabinet meeting approved in principle a draft of amendments to the Hudood Ordinances, as the laws are called, that will be presented to the National Assembly.
Pakistan said on Monday that Osama bin Laden was likely to be in Afghanistan, rejecting a reported claim by Kabul’s foreign minister that the al-Qaeda chief is hiding in Pakistani territory. In the latest verbal salvo between the neighbours, Islamabad dismissed criticism by new Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta of its attempts to catch Bin Laden.
Afghanistan’s Taliban militia has released a DVD purporting to show suicide bombers shortly before they carry out attacks and calling for more strikes on United States and British coalition troops. The film is called Convoy of Martyrdom Seekers and is sold at markets in restive north-west Pakistan and on the other side of the border in eastern Afghanistan.
Pakistan and India agreed to work towards finalising a draft agreement reducing the risk of an accidental nuclear conflict between them at the end of two days of talks on Wednesday. "The two sides held detailed discussions on the draft text of an agreement," said a joint statement.
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/ 14 February 2006
Police used tear gas and water cannon on Tuesday to disperse hundreds of students who stormed the diplomatic enclave in Pakistan’s capital in protest against cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. Around 600 demonstrators, most of them wearing school uniforms, chanted "Death to Denmark, Death to America" as they marched towards the Indian and British high commissions.
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/ 14 January 2006
Pakistan is investigating whether al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a deadly United States air strike on a village near the Afghan border, Pakistani and US officials said on Saturday. US Central Intelligence Agency sources said they had unconfirmed indications that a high-level target was killed by a US Predator drone in Pakistan.
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/ 13 December 2005
A strong tremor triggered panic on Tuesday among survivors of October’s earthquake disaster in South Asia, forcing people out of temporary shelters and into the freezing Himalayan winter. Witnesses said it felt like the strongest tremor since the disastrous 7,6-magnitude earthquake on October 8.
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/ 4 November 2005
At least 60 people on their way to a memorial died on Friday when their overloaded ferry capsized in the Arabian Sea off southern Pakistan, a navy spokesperson said. The accident occurred near the remote coastal town of Kharo Chao, about 180km south-east of the port city of Karachi.
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/ 25 October 2005
Pakistani captain Inzamam-ul Haq has vowed to salve his country’s earthquake wounds with an exciting Test series against a resurgent England, who arrive on Wednesday on a high from their Ashes triumph. ”Cricket has been a great healer and we hope that both teams put on their best show to heal some of the wounds caused by the earthquake,” Inzamam said from Lahore.
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/ 21 October 2005
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said the amount of foreign reconstruction aid promised after the devastating South Asian quake is ”totally inadequate”. Musharraf was quoted by the British Broadcasting Corporation as saying that Pakistan needed about -billion in disaster aid but the international community had pledged only around -million.
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/ 20 October 2005
Pakistani authorities on Thursday confirmed about 48Â 000 people died in the October 8 earthquake and said there were discrepancies in a higher toll of about 79Â 000 given by provincial authorities on Wednesday. The United Nations said the aid shortfall makes the situation worse than after the Indian Ocean tsunami last year.
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/ 18 October 2005
A senior United Nations official said on Tuesday there are not enough tents in the world to protect refugees from the coming winter after the October 8 earthquake in South Asia. Tents are a priority item with about three million people made homeless, with many of them forced to live in the open in plummeting temperatures.
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/ 15 October 2005
Pakistan said on Saturday the death toll from the region’s massive earthquake has reached 38 000 people, a jump of 13 000, with about 3,3-million people homeless ahead of the Himalayan winter. The October 8 earthquake also ravaged the Indian side of divided Kashmir, killing 1 329 people there.
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/ 14 October 2005
With vast parts of Pakistan still digging out from last week’s earthquake, donors are already planning a massive reconstruction effort that will require billions of dollars over five to 10 years, United Nations and British officials said on Friday. But so far, even the immediate needs have gone unmet for survivors of last Saturday’s earthquake.
Pakistan’s interior ministry said on Sunday that more than 19 000 people died in the huge earthquake that shook parts of South Asia on Saturday, while India raised its toll to 583. Another Pakistani official said an estimated 30 000 people were killed in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir alone.
Rescue experts, medical teams, sniffer dogs and supplies were being mobilised on Sunday as a worldwide effort cranked into gear to bring aid to victims of a massive earthquake that struck South Asia. Japan, the United States and the European Union were among the first to offer manpower and financial aid to Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.
Thousands of people were killed on Saturday when a massive earthquake measuring 7,6 on the Richter scale shook parts of Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, flattening houses and sweeping whole villages away. The confirmed tally of deaths has been pushed above 3 000.
An earthquake measuring at least 7,6 on the Richter scale caused massive devastation on Saturday across a swathe of Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, leaving more than 1Â 800 dead with fears for many more. The quake triggered deadly landslides that wiped out entire villages.
A massive earthquake is feared to have killed more than 1 000 people in Pakistan on Saturday, said chief military spokesperson Major General Shaukat Sultan. ”The death toll could be more than 1 000. There could be massive casualties but we do not have exact numbers,” Sultan said from the capital Islamabad.
Gunmen riding motorcycles opened fire on worshippers from a minority Muslim sect at a mosque in Pakistan Friday, killing at least eight people and wounding 12, a security official and police said. Three attackers sprayed the dawn prayer session marking the second day of Ramadan in Mong village, part of Mandi Bahauddin town, 100km south of the capital Islamabad.
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/ 1 September 2005
Pakistan plans to send a delegation to Israel following historic talks on Thursday between their foreign ministers, but it still does not recognise the Jewish state, President General Pervez Musharraf said. Musharraf said the talks held in Istanbul, Turkey, were ”the first formal contact between our two countries”.
Pakistani voters went to the polls on Thursday for local elections that are being seen as a test of President Pervez Musharraf’s fight against Islamic hard-liners and his commitment to women’s rights. Five people died and scores were injured in clashes between rival supporters in the first elections in Pakistan in almost three years.
Egypt has told Pakistan that no Pakistani national was involved in the weekend’s deadly Red Sea resort bombings, Cairo’s embassy in Islamabad said on Tuesday. Cairo police had earlier said they were searching for several Pakistani nationals in relation to the bombings that killed scores of people at the weekend in the popular resort.
The road from the airport to the centre of Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, should be a straightforward drive. Six lanes wide and well maintained, it has lights, even banks of flowers. But it is choked by a throng of black and yellow taxis, overloaded buses, lorries, scores of motorbikes and hundreds of bicycles. On a bank beside the road, spelled out in six-feet high letters: ‘Faith, discipline and unity’.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister, Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, on Wednesday confirmed 200 Islamic activists have been rounded up in a renewed crackdown on religious extremists, but denied any links with the London bombings. Pakistani security agencies on Tuesday raided various mosques and Islamic schools across the country.
Police began efforts on Saturday to identify the remains of a suspected suicide bomber who attacked a popular Muslim shrine near the official residence of Pakistan’s prime minister, killing at least 20 people and wounding scores more, an official said. Friday’s blast ripped through hundreds of mainly Shi’ite worshippers.
A suicide bombing at a shrine crowded with Shi’ite Muslims celebrating a religious festival near Pakistan’s capital killed at least 20 people and wounded dozens of others, witnesses said. The explosion ripped through hundreds of worshippers as they recited the Qur’an beneath tents at the Bari Imam shrine on the outskirts of Islamabad.
A suicide attacker detonated a huge bomb that ripped through a Shi’ite Muslim mosque in an eastern Pakistani city during Friday prayers, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens, officials said. Police said that hundreds of people were inside the Zainabia mosque in the centre of Sialkot city at the time of the blast, which severely damaged walls and left body parts scattered inside.
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/ 9 September 2004
At least 60 people were killed on Thursday in Pakistan’s heaviest-ever bombing in the tribal South Waziristan region where al-Qaeda suspects were believed to be hiding, witnesses said. Military spokesperson Major General Shaukat Sultan did not give the number of casualties, however, locals said two fighter jets, supported by at least 10 gunship helicopters, killed about 60 individuals, mainly women and children.
The chief of police in Gujrat, the Pakistani city where two South Africans have been arrested along with a senior al-Qaeda terrorist, said on Wednesday maps of South African cities were found among items seized after the raid.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=119832">’No comment’ on terror claims</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=119792">’Terror’ pair under lock and key</a>