ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Police fired tear gas and live rounds at supporters of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday as clashes erupted over the suspension of his party’s provincial government, party officials said, an account the provincial administration rejected. The federal government imposed a state of emergency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Sunday and placed it under direct control, citing a surge in militant violence. Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said that was a pretext for a political takeover.

 

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BERLIN (AFP) - A cyber incident has hit a contractor building the Fehmarn Belt tunnel linking Denmark and Germany, reportedly disabling central systems and disrupting construction, local media reported Tuesday. Femern Link Contractors (FLC), the project’s main contractor, informed Danish state-owned infrastructure company Sund & Baelt of the incident. “We are in dialogue with FLC about the situation, and at the present time we do not have further information,” Sund & Baelt press director Jens Villemoes said in a statement published on the project’s official website.

 

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SYDNEY (AFP) - Police-recorded sexual assault and family violence against children in Australia rose sharply over the past decade, with the steepest increases occurring in the last three to five years, according to a study published Tuesday. The University of Sydney research, published in JAMA Network Open, examined national data on sexual assault, family and domestic violence, hospitalizations and child protection cases between 2014 and 2024. Sexual assault rates among boys aged 10 to 17 rose by 60% over the decade, accelerating to 15.7% annually after 2021. Among girls aged 10 to 17, rates increased by 51% over the decade, while those among girls aged 9 and younger rose by 32%.

 

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MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia has arrested a Japanese journalist on suspicion of espionage, the foreign ministry said. Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova identified the reporter as Yuki Imai from the Hokkaido Shimbun newspaper, saying he was accredited with the ministry but was accused of “conducting espionage activities on Russian territory.” The FSB security service said a Japanese national, who it did not name, was arrested on the Far East island of Sakhalin and had worked for Japanese intelligence to collect information about Russia’s defenses.

 

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BRASILIA (AFP) - El Nino, climate change and human activity are fuelling a surge in fires deep in Brazil’s Amazon in October, as firefighters race to contain blazes whose smoke is choking residents and causing events to be cancelled in nearby towns. There were 1,679 fires in Brazil’s Amazonas state in the first two weeks of October, a 253% surge compared to the same period in 2025, according to data from the country’s Amazon surveillance system. The fires, which officials suspect were set on purpose, have sent plumes of smoke across the sky and provoked states of emergency in at least 36 municipalities across Amazonas, causing respiratory problems for residents.