Kabul: Gunmen kill 14 in attack on Shiites marking Ashura

October 12, 2016

Kabul, Oct 12: Gunmen targeted Shiite pilgrims in Kabul late today, killing at least 14 people as they gathered to celebrate Ashura, one of the most important festivals on the Shiite calendar, officials said.

ashooraSome 36 people were wounded and at least one attacker killed, interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said, adding that the assault was over.

Special forces had briefly entered the Karte Sakhi shrine near Kabul University to see if any more gunmen were sheltering inside, with police evacuating people from the area, officials said.

Of the 14 killed, 13 were civilians and one a police officer. Three police were among the wounded, Seddiqi said.

"A number of attackers have targeted people in Karte Sakhi shrine," said Kabul Police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi. "Police have evacuated dozens of people from the shrine. A number of civilians and police have been injured."

Police also said two grenades had been detonated during the attack. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the assault, which President Ashraf Ghani condemned as a "clear sign of a crime against humanity".

Ghani vowed the government would use its "maximum capacity" to provide security during Ashura, which will be celebrated on Wednesday, and called on all Afghanistan's sects to "stand firmly against" the country's enemies.

The threat of attack targeting Shiites was considered particularly serious during Ashura, and many foreign embassies had restricted their staff's movements until the end of the week in Kabul.

Ashura commemorates the death of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, who was assassinated in 680 and whose tragic end laid the foundation for the faith.

For Shiites around the world, Ashura is a symbol of the struggle against oppression. The last attack on the Afghan Shiite minority, on July 23 in Kabul, killed 84 people and left 130 injured. It was claimed by the Islamic State organisation.

Today's attack came as Afghanistan deployed hundreds of commandos backed by NATO air strikes in Lashkar Gah to drive Taliban insurgents from the southern city after their latest attempt to seize the capital of Helmand province.

The wave of violence underscored unravelling security in Afghanistan as the resurgent Taliban continue a push into urban centres 15 years after they were toppled from power by the US invasion.

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Herman DSouza
 - 
Wednesday, 12 Oct 2016

Brothers killing brothers then what about other people we all need Jesus love and forgiveness for better world. Lord said love your neighbor as yourself even our enemies too.

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News Network
March 12,2020

Geneva, Mar 12: For the global economy, virus repercussions were profound, with increasing concerns of wealth- and job-wrecking recessions. U.S. stocks wiped out more than all the gains from a huge rally a day earlier as Wall Street continued to reel.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,464 points, bringing it 20% below its record set last month and putting it in what Wall Street calls a “bear market.” The broader S&P 500 is just 1 percentage point away from falling into bear territory and bringing to an end one of the greatest runs in Wall Street’s history.

WHO officials said they thought long and hard about labeling the crisis a pandemic — defined as sustained outbreaks in multiple regions of the world.

The risk of employing the term, Ryan said, is “if people use it as an excuse to give up.” But the benefit is “potentially of galvanizing the world to fight.”

Underscoring the mounting challenge: soaring numbers in the U.S. and Europe’s status as the new epicenter of the pandemic. While Italy exceeds 12,000 cases and the United States has topped 1,300, China reported a record low of just 15 new cases Thursday and three-fourths of its infected patients have recovered.

China’s totals of 80,793 cases and 3,169 deaths are a shrinking portion of the world’s more than 126,000 infections and 4,600 deaths.

“If you want to be blunt, Europe is the new China,” said Robert Redfield, the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

With 12,462 cases and 827 deaths, Italy said all shops and businesses except pharmacies and grocery stores would be closed beginning Thursday and designated billions in financial relief to cushion economic shocks in its latest efforts to adjust to the fast-evolving crisis that silenced the usually bustling heart of the Catholic faith, St. Peter’s Square.

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News Network
May 20,2020

London, May 20: The current physical distancing guidelines of 6 feet may be insufficient to prevent COVID-19 transmission, according to a study which says a mild cough in low wind speeds can propel saliva droplets by as much as 18 feet.

Researchers, including those from the University of Nicosia in Cyprus, said a good baseline for studying the airborne transmission of viruses, like the one behind the COVID-19 pandemic, is a deeper understanding of how particles travel through the air when people cough.

In the study, published in the journal Physics of Fluids, they said even with a slight breeze of about four kilometres per hour (kph), saliva travels 18 feet in 5 seconds.

"The droplet cloud will affect both adults and children of different heights," said study co-author Dimitris Drikakis from the University of Nicosia.

According to the scientists, shorter adults and children could be at higher risk if they are located within the trajectory of the saliva droplets.

They said saliva is a complex fluid, which travels suspended in a bulk of surrounding air released by a cough, adding that many factors affect how saliva droplets travel in the air.

These factors, the study noted, include the size and number of droplets, how they interact with one another and the surrounding air as they disperse and evaporate, how heat and mass are transferred, and the humidity and temperature of the surrounding air.

In the study, the scientists created a computer simulation to examine the state of every saliva droplet moving through the air in front of a coughing person.

The model considered the effects of humidity, dispersion force, interactions of molecules of saliva and air, and how the droplets change from liquid to vapour and evaporate, along with a grid representing the space in front of a coughing person.

Each grid, the scientists said, holds information about variables like pressure, fluid velocity, temperature, droplet mass, and droplet position.

The study analysed the fates of nearly 1,008 simulated saliva droplets, and solved as many as 3.7 million equations.

"The purpose of the mathematical modelling and simulation is to take into account all the real coupling or interaction mechanisms that may take place between the main bulk fluid flow and the saliva droplets, and between the saliva droplets themselves," explained Talib Dbouk, another co-author of the study.

However, the researchers added that further studies are needed to determine the effect of ground surface temperature on the behaviour of saliva in air.

They also believe that indoor environments, especially ones with air conditioning, may significantly affect the particle movement through air.

This work is important since it concerns safety distance guidelines, and advances the understanding of the transmission of airborne diseases, Drikakis said.

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Agencies
June 16,2020

China on Tuesday justified the killing of an army officer and two soldiers of India and accused Indian troops of crossing a disputed border between the two countries.

Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Indian troops crossed the border line twice on Monday, "provoking and attacking Chinese personnel, resulting in a serious physical confrontation between border forces on the two sides".

An Indian Army officer and two soldiers have been killed in a "violent face-off" with Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), disrupting the fragile peace talks.

"During the de-escalation process underway in the Galwan Valley, a violent face-off took place last night with casualties on both sides," the Indian Army said in a statement.
 

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