News in Brief

Date: 30 October 2022 - 20:36

News ID: ۱۰۸۳۹۹

NEW DELHI (Al Jazeera) – At least 30 people were killed and dozens critically injured when a suspension bridge in India’s western Gujarat state collapsed on Sunday. “We can confirm that 30 people have lost their lives, many have been rescued from the river, and some are still missing,” said Amit Jhala, a senior administrator at the state-run hospital to where victims were taken. More than 400 people were on the bridge over the Machhu River in the town of Morbi at the time of the collapse, local TV channel Zee News reported. Footage broadcast by the TV channel showed dozens of people clinging onto the cables of the collapsed bridge as emergency teams struggled to rescue them. The 230-metre historic bridge was built during British rule in the 19th century. It had been closed for renovation for six months and was reopened for the public last week. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is in his home state Gujarat for a three-day visit, said he has directed the state chief minister to mobilize teams urgently for the rescue operation.

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SAINTE-SOLINE (AFP) – Thousands of demonstrators defied an official ban to march on Saturday against the deployment of new water storage infrastructure for agricultural irrigation in western France, according to organizers. Clashes between paramilitary gendarmes and demonstrators erupted with Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin reporting that 61 officers had been hurt, 22 seriously, but giving no toll for casualties among protesters. “Bassines Non Merci” a pressure group that brings together environmental associations, trade unions and anti-capitalist groups, organized the demonstration against what it claims is a “water grab” by the “agro-industry” in western France. The deployment of giant water “basins” is underway in the village of Sainte-Soline, in the Deux-Sevres department, to irrigate crops, which opponents claim distorts access to water amid drought conditions. Around 1,500 police were deployed according to the prefect of the Deux-Sevres department Emmanuelle Dubee who said she expected some 5,000 demonstrators to descend on the village of around 350 inhabitants.

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LONDON (Reuters) – A man threw petrol bombs attached with fireworks at a centre for processing migrants in the southern English port of Dover on Sunday and then killed himself. The attacker, a white man in a striped top, drove up to the center in a white SEAT sports utility vehicle. He got out and threw three petrol bombs, one of which did not go off, a photographer for the news agency said. He then drove to a nearby petrol station, tied an improvised noose around his neck, attached it to a metal pole and drove off, killing himself. Police were unable to confirm reports that the suspect had died and said inquiries are ongoing. Nathalie Elphicke, the Conservative MP for Dover, said she was “deeply shocked” by the incident. Kent police said in an emailed statement that officers in Dover “established that two to three incendiary devices had been thrown into a Home Office immigration premises”. Video posted on social media by a GB News journalist showed staff putting out a small fire on the centre’s exterior wall.

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GENEVA (AP) – The number of people infected with tuberculosis, including the kind resistant to drugs, rose globally for the first time in years, according to a report by the World Health Organization. The UN health agency said more than 10 million people worldwide were sickened by tuberculosis in 2021, a 4.5% rise from the year before. About 1.6 million people died, it said. WHO said about 450,000 cases involved people infected with drug-resistant TB, 3% more than in 2020. Dr. Mel Spigelman, president of the non-profit TB Alliance, said more than a decade of progress was lost when COVID-19 emerged in 2020. “Despite gains in areas like preventative therapy, we are still behind in just about every pledge and goal regarding TB,” Spigelman said. WHO also blamed COVID-19 for much of the rise in TB, saying the pandemic “continues to have a damaging impact on access to TB diagnosis and treatment.” It said progress made before 2019 has since “slowed, stalled or reversed.”

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MOGADISHU (AFP) – Anguished families in Somalia on Sunday desperately searched under debris and into body bags for loved ones after two simultaneous bombings tore through a busy intersection in the capital Mogadishu. At least 100 civilians lost their lives and 300 others were wounded in Saturday’s attack claimed by Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab militants, the deadliest assault in the troubled nation in five years. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said the death toll was expected to rise. The attack has inundated first responders and hospitals in the Horn of Africa nation, which has one of the world’s weakest health systems after decades of conflict. The government put out an appeal for blood donations with dozens of people gathered outside hospitals in the capital Mogadishu, seeking news of family members.  Police spokesman Sadik Dudishe on Saturday said the “ruthless terrorists” had killed mothers some of whom had “children trapped on their backs.” The attack took place at the same busy junction where a truck packed with explosives blew up on October 14, 2017, killing 512 people and injuring more than 290, the deadliest attack in the troubled country.

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WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – Progressive Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says that the United States is “facing an environment of fascism” similar to the days of Jim Crow in the lead-up to the 2022 midterms which Democrats are likely to lose to Republicans. Federal officials at the Department of Homeland Security and FBI have warned of a “heightened threat” ahead of the midterm elections charged by violent extremism, CBS News reported. What they’re saying: “We are really truly facing an environment of fascism in the United States of America. This type of intimidation at the polls brings us to Jim Crow,” Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told MSNBC on Friday about reports of intimidation at Arizona ballot boxes. “It brings us back and harkens back to a very unique form of American apartheid that is not that long past ago,” she added. “And we have never fully healed from it and those wounds threaten to rip right back open if we do not strongly defend democracy in the United States of America.” U.S. authorities released a bulletin on Friday that said domestic violent extremists pose a threat of violence for the 2022 midterms and the days after.