News in Brief

Date: 13 May 2023 - 23:13

News ID: ۱۱۵۰۱۱

LONDON (Dispatches) – A British think tank has warned that nearly 1.6 million British households are yet to encounter a 2,300 pound ($2,903) payment surge following the mortgage rate increase amid the UK’s persisting housing crisis. According to the Resolution Foundation’s report, which focuses on living standards, only about half of the 7.5 million households holding mortgage loans have so far witnessed a change in their mortgage rate and payments. This development comes after the Bank of England (BoE) began increasing interest rates in December 2021, which according to the report, will mostly impact poorer and younger borrowers. The BoE raised the Bank rate from 4.25 to 4.5 percent last week in an effort to bring the highest rate of inflation in Western Europe from 10.1 percent back to its 2-percent target. Homeowners on fixed-rate mortgages feel the impact of the increase in costs once their mortgage terms expire and they need to renew their housing loans. Simon Pittaway, senior economist at the Resolution Foundation, said while the BoE’s rate rise run could be nearing an end, the majority of households still face mortgage pain. “Two thirds of the 12 billion pounds a year increase in mortgage costs that British households face as a result of rising rates is still to come,” Pittaway said as quoted in a Reuters report.

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DAKAR (AFP) – The Malian army and foreign fighters executed at least 500 people during an anti-militant operation in Mali in March 2022, according to a much-awaited UN report. The figures by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) amount to the worst atrocity the Sahel country has experienced since a militant insurgency flared in 2012. It is also the most damning document yet against Mali’s armed forces and their foreign allies. Their nationality is not explicitly identified in the report. Describing events that unfolded in the central town of Moura between March 27-31 2022, the OHCHR said it had “reasonable grounds to believe that at least 500 people were killed in violation of norms, standards, rules and/or principles of international law.” The victims were “executed by the FAMa (Malian Armed Forces) and foreign military personnel” who had complete control over the area, it said. The report was published after a lengthy investigation by the human rights division of the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, MINUSMA. Around 20 women and seven children were among those killed, while evidence suggests 58 women and girls were victims of rape and other forms of sexual violence, the report said.

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BALOCHISTAN, Pakistan (Al Jazeera) – At least 13 people including soldiers have been killed in an attack on a security facility in southwestern Pakistan. A Frontier Corps camp in the Muslim Bagh area of northern Balochistan was attacked in the early hours of Friday. The military launched an operation to rescue hostages and clear the area, the military’s media wing, Inter-Services Public Relations, said in a statement on Saturday. In the process of the operation, “at least six soldiers and a civilian were killed”, it said. Another six people including a woman were wounded. The dead included all six attackers who the military said were well-equipped and stormed the compound. “The complex clearance operation involved a hostage rescue operation as well to save three families from a residential block. The terrorists had not even spared children of their horrendous approach,” the statement said. “The security forces, in step with the nation, remain determined to thwart all attempts at sabotaging the peace, stability and progress of Balochistan,” it said.

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WASHINGTON (CBS) – A 17-year-old migrant child from Honduras, who arrived in the U.S. without a parent or guardian, has died in government custody in Florida, officials have confirmed. The child was identified as Ángel Eduardo Maradiaga Espinoza by Enrique Reina, the Honduran secretary of foreign affairs. Reina has called for a thorough investigation into the death. Espinoza was located in Safety Harbor, Florida, a small city west of Tampa, where a shelter is used to house unaccompanied children. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) acknowledged the death but provided limited details about the circumstances. In a statement, the agency expressed deep sadness and extended condolences to the family, with whom they are in contact. According to a U.S. official, there was no altercation involved in the death. Gulf Coast Jewish Family and Community Services, the shelter in Safety Harbor, declined to comment on the teenager’s death and directed inquiries to HHS.

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LAHORE (AFP) – Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan arrived at his Lahore residence on Saturday after being freed on bail following days of legal drama and nationwide riots over his arrest on corruption charges. Khan was swooped on by dozens of paramilitary troops and arrested during a routine court appearance on Tuesday, triggering violent clashes in several cities between his supporters and security forces. “The head of the country’s largest party was abducted, kidnapped from the high court, and in front of the entire nation,” Khan told AFP from Islamabad High Court on Friday. “They treated me like a terrorist, this had to have a reaction,” he said of the protests that followed. Khan has repeatedly clashed with Pakistan’s powerful military since being booted from power, and told reporters after being granted bail that “one man, the army chief” was behind his arrest. His detention came just hours after he was rebuked by the army for claiming it was involved in an assassination attempt against him last year. After his arrest, thousands of protesters began setting fire to government buildings, blocked roads and damaged military installations in a country wracked by a spiraling economic crisis.

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NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday conceded defeat in a crucial regional election in Karnataka, losing its sole bastion in southern India. The vote in the state, which is India’s technology hub and home to 65 million people, was the first of a series of crucial state polls seen as setting the tone for the general elections due in April and May 2024, when Modi will seek a third term. The BJP had been in power in Karnataka since 2019 and campaigned hard to hold on to it — the only one out of southern India’s five states that was under its rule. As the ballots were counted, it became clear that the opposition Congress party had won an overwhelming majority in the state, and Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai admitted the defeat. For Congress, the win is a major boost to its morale. The party has been on the margins of Indian politics since the rise of Modi’s nationalist BJP in 2014. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi — a scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, which has given India four prime ministers — has been seen as the main opponent to Modi’s rule. In March, he was convicted of defaming Modi and excluded from parliament.