CANBERRA (Xinhua) – The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has been deployed to aid in the response to catastrophic flooding in the country’s second most populated state. Prime Minister (PM) Anthony Albanese on Sunday toured flood-affected areas in Victoria. Hundreds of homes in the region have been impacted by floods following heavy rains, with waters expected to continue rising. Authorities have warned thousands of homes could be inundated when water levels peak. Residents who stayed beyond evacuation orders have now been told it is too late to leave their properties.

 

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DHAKA (Anadolu) – A mob of a dozen people killed on Saturday two Rohingya Muslim community leaders in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, which houses over a million refugees, police said. The deceased have been identified as Maulvi Md. Yunus and Anwar Hossain, both of them camp leaders locally known as majhi. According to the Armed Police Battalion, the elite police unit tasked with security in the camps, miscreants attacked the two with sharp machetes and fled the scene. Yunus died on the spot while Amwar died at a hospital. Police spokesman Faruk Ahmed told Anadolu Agency that raids continue to arrest the culprits who killed the refugee leaders at Camp 13, adding that security has been tightened across the Rohingya settlements which are divided into 34 camps. Ahmed added that the presence of armed groups is said to have increased since the Feb. 1 coup in Myanmar last year. “We have formed volunteer teams with Rohingya youths and police to patrol at night,” he said. “We also have a 24/7 hotline service.”

 

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BAKU (TASS) – The Azerbaijani armed forces’ positions on the border with Armenia came under fire late on Saturday and in the early hours of Sunday, Azerbaijan’s defense ministry said in a statement.  “The Armenian armed forces used weapons of various calibers to shell the positions of the Azerbaijani army in the direction of the Jamilli and Mollabairamly settlements in the Kalbajar District, the Husulu settlement in the Lachin District and the Kokhanabi settlement in the Tovuz District between 3:20 pm and 6:00 pm on Saturday and during the night on October 16,” the statement reads. The ministry added that the Azerbaijani forces “took adequate retaliatory measures”.

 

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MEXICO CITY (Al Jazeera) – Unidentified gunmen have opened fire in a bar in the central Mexican city of Irapuato, killing 12 people, including six women, local authorities said, the second mass shooting in the state of Guanajuato in less than a month. Three people were injured in the attack on Saturday evening in the south of Irapuato, the city government said in a statement, adding that security officials were trying to track down the assailants. The motive behind the shooting was not immediately clear. Guanajuato, a major manufacturing hub and production site for many of the world’s top carmakers, has been convulsed in recent years by brutal turf wars between rival drug gangs. On September 21, gunmen shot dead 10 people in an attack at a bar in the Guanajuato town of Tarimoro, about 96km (60 miles) southeast of Irapuato. Earlier this month, gunmen allegedly affiliated with a drug gang killed 20 people, including a mayor, in an attack in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, local officials said.

 

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NEW YORK (Anadolu) – Some 71 million people have faced poverty due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, according to the UN Development Program (UNDP). The impact of the war on food and energy prices is expected to increase the number of poor in the world. According to the UNDP report on the effects of the Russia-Ukraine war, approximately 51 million people fell below the poverty line in the first three months of the war which started on Feb. 24. Increasing the number of the poor in the world to 9%, the war has also caused the daily income of around 20 million people to fall below the poverty line of $3.20 in lower-middle-income countries. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic caused up to 163 million people to fall below the poverty line last year, while increasing the number of people working for $2.15 a day by 8.1%, which is the extreme poverty line. The World Bank estimates that this year, the figure will rise by 75-95 million.

 

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ATHENS (AFP) – Two people were killed after torrential rain brought major flooding to the Greek island of Crete, firefighters said on Sunday. Rain started to fall on Saturday morning in the southern Greek island, a popular holiday destination, hitting the Heraklion region particularly hard. Greek firefighters said the body of a 49-year-old woman was found in the sea on Sunday, raising the death toll to two from the floods. On Saturday, a man in his 50s was found dead after he was trapped in his car as torrential rains began. The two individuals were going to Heraklion for work, Greek public television ERT reported. A second missing individual was found alive on Saturday evening. The rains forced the evacuation of several homes and unleashed extensive damage in seaside villages, where streets became rivers carrying away everything in their path, local media reported.