Twin quakes kills at least 29 in south Japan; many trapped

Mashiki, Japan (AP):  Two powerful earthquakes a day apart shook southwestern Japan, killing at least 29 people, injuring 1,500, trapping many beneath flattened homes and sending thousands to seek shelter in gymnasiums and hotel lobbies.

The exact number of casualties remained unclear as rescue efforts continued to unfold Saturday. Oncoming rains could further complicate the relief operation and set off more mudslides in isolated rural towns, where people were waiting to be rescued in collapsed homes.

Kumamoto Prefectural official Tomoyuki Tanaka said the death toll was climbing by the hour, with the latest standing at 19 from Saturday’s magnitude-7.3 quake that shook the Kumamoto region on the southwestern island of Kyushu at 1:25 a.m. On Thursday night, Kyushu was hit by a magnitude-6.5 quake that left 10 dead.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that 1,500 people have been injured, 80 of them seriously. Nearly 70,000 have left their homes, he said.

 

A series of aftershocks ensued, including a magnitude-5.4 Saturday morning. The Japan Meteorological Agency said that the quake that struck earlier Saturday may be the main quake, with the earlier one a precursor. The quakes’ epicenters have been relatively shallow — about 10 kilometers (6 miles) — and close to the surface, resulting in more severe shaking and damage. NHK TV said as many as eight quakes were being felt an hour in the area.

 

Japanese media reported that nearly 200,000 homes were without electricity. Drinking water systems had also failed in the area. TV footage showed people huddled in blankets, quietly, shoulder to shoulder, on floors of evacuation centers.

Suga told reporters the number of troops in the area was being raised to 20,000 for rescue efforts, while additional police and firefighters were also on the way. He said 80 people had been seriously injured, while holding back on giving a death tally, warning that such numbers may grow. Some 1,500 people were injured, and nearly 70,000 people had evacuated, he said.

He pleaded with people not to panic. “Please let’s help each other and stay calm,” he said in a nationally televised news conference.
Mount Aso, the largest active volcano in Japan which is located on Kyushu, erupted for the first time in a month, sending smoke rising about 100 meters (328 feet) into the air, but no damage was reported. It was not immediately clear if there’s a link the seismic activity and the eruption. The 1,592 meter (5,223 foot) high mountain is about 1 ½ hour drive from the epicenter.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority reported no abnormalities at Kyushu’s Sendai nuclear plant.

Turkey's military declares coup; Erdogan says he is still President

Ankara: Tanks opened fire around the Turkish parliament building and military jets were seen flying low over the city as the Turkish military claimed it has seized control of the country late on Friday night.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, addressing Turkey via Facetime, asserted he is President and vowed to crush the opposition forces.

“I am calling on our nation. Go to squares, let us give them the best answer,” Erdogan said in a video message, “I do not believe this coup attempt will be successful. No coup-plotter in history has ever succeeded,” he said.

First Army commander Umit Dundar said that the coup-plotters represent a small minority in First Army command. “There is nothing to worry about. We are taking necessary measures with the soldiers who have not joined them and are still acting within chain of command.”

Erdogan said he was Turkey’s commander in chief and there had not been any attempt against him. The Turkish presidency said the president is at a secure location.

Erdogan identified the group as belonging to the FETO/PDY terrorist organization, which three years ago staged an unsuccessful overthrow of the government, Turkey’s Anadolu agency reported.

“This is an insurgency against democracy and national will,” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told the nation on live TV late on Friday night. “We will not allow it. There will never be any compromise on democracy. The perpetrators will pay the heaviest price.”

State broadcaster TRT said the military had declared martial law and a curfew, in a statement signed by a group calling itself the “Council for Peace in the Homeland”.

“The power in the country has been seized in its entirety,” said a military statement quoted by Turkish media.
It said the coup had been launched “to ensure and restore constitutional order, democracy, human rights and freedoms and let the supremacy law in the country prevail, to restore order which was disrupted”.
“All our international agreements and commitments retain their validity,” the statement added.

“We hope our good relations will continue with all countries in the world.”
The presidency said the statement was invalid.
Major bridges, Bosphorus Bridge and Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge, in Istanbul were closed and gunfire was heard at Istanbul airport as soldiers took to the streets of Ankara and Istanbul.

There were reports that coup attempters opened fire on civilians, who hit the streets in several cities to protest the attempt, Hurriyet Daily News online reported.
Soldiers fired bullets at civilians who walked to the Bosphorus Bridge.

Another incident was in the Bayrampasa district of Istanbul, where one person was wounded.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said those responsible for what he described as an attempted coup by a faction within the military would pay the highest price.

He said they would not be allowed to do anything to interrupt democracy.
Meanwhile, President Erdogan is reportedly seeking asylum in Europe, amid the military coup.
US military sources were quoted as telling NBC News that Erdogan’s presidential jet was allegedly denied landing rights at Istanbul’s airport, before it headed out of the country.

He was then denied asylum in Germany, according to NBC, before heading to London.
He also said “This country can’t be managed from Pennsylvania,”

India's bid to NSG opposed by China on 'principle': Pakistan

Islamabad: Calling Beijing as Islamabad’s ‘all time friend’, Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry has said that that China acted upon its principled stance in opposing India’s membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

In an interview with state-owned Pakistan Television (PTV), Chaudhry said that regarding India’s bid to NSG membership, China along with other countries supported the principled stance that it would be a bad precedent if New Delhi was granted membership without signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

“We remained in touch with them in Seoul (during the NSG session) and we are happy that the truth has won,” Dawn quoted him as saying.

Chaudhry claimed that Pakistan based its case on two points, one that the Indian membership will further increase the strategic and conventional imbalance in South Asia.

“Our second point was that when in 2008 they (India) got a waiver, they increased their nuclear stockpile. It was clear that they are using their own fissile material for military purposes and were taking the material from other countries for civil purposes…the world appreciated this point,” he said.

He said the matter has not ended and Islamabad will continue to pursue the matter of NSG membership.
The Nuclear Suppliers Group on Thursday failed to reach consensus on New Delhi’s membership application after several members of the 48-member group insisted on adhering to Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) condition for admission.

China, Russia, Brazil, Austria, New Zealand, Ireland and Turkey are the countries that opposed India’s application.

Dhaka attack: Affluent and educated killers

DHAKA: The Bangladesh capital woke up to a cloudy Sunday after incessant rain through the night. But another spectre crept up and menaced Dhaka as it emerged that most of the cafe terrorists came from well-to-do families and might have been alumni of elite private institutions.

“Terror activities in our country were always linked to madarsa students coming from a poor background and brainwashed by religious teachers…. The terror attack at the Holey Artisan cafe is a game-changer. I was surprised to learn about the background of the terrorists,” said a businessman before taking a flight to Calcutta from Dhaka’s Shah Jalal International Airport.

Several times in the past, the rise of radicalisation has been linked to the spread of madarsas – which do offer an avenue for parents who cannot afford mainstream education for their children – across the country with funding from the Jamaat-e-Islami, the hardline party.

 ALSO READ: Bangladesh ruling party leader’s son identified among hostage-takers

Against this backdrop, the limited information trickling out has caught Bangladesh by surprise and convulsed social media.

Reports in local media, which spoke to acquaintances of the attackers and picked up information from social media, suggested that the gunmen were not have-nots. Although tight-lipped on specific information, officials also echoed the view.

Official sources have identified five of the gunmen as Akash, Bikash, Don, Badhon and Ripon. However, The Daily Star newspaper of Bangladesh said friends of three of these attackers cited different names: Nibras Islam, Meer Saameh Mubasher and Rohan Imtiaz.

Sikh politician Sardar Sooran Singh shot dead in Pakistan

Peshawar: A prominent Pakistani Sikh politician was shot dead on Friday by unidentified motorcycle- borne gunmen near his home in the country’s restive northwest.

Sardar Sooran Singh, the Special Assistant to Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) on Minority Affairs, was assassinated in Pir Baba area of Buner district in the province when he was going back to his home after a routine walk, police said.

He was immediately taken to a nearby hospital where he was declared dead. Police said that Singh had no guard at the time of attack.
Initial postmortem report stated that he received only one bullet in his head.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for the killing.
Governor KP Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, Special Assistant to KP Mushtaq Ghani and Provincial Ministers Shahram Tarakai have condemned the killing of Singh.

They vowed to bring to justice all those responsible for the killing.
Singh was a doctor, TV anchor and politician.

Before joining Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf in 2011, Singh was a member of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan for nine years.

He was also member of Tehsil council, Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee and Evacuee Trust Property Board.

Singh also hosted programme ‘Za Hum Pakistani Yam’ for three and a half years with Khyber News.

Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz emerge victorious in Wisconsin primaries, blow to Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton

Milwaukee: Republican Ted Cruz stormed to a commanding victory in Wisconsin Tuesday, denting front-runner Donald Trump’s chances of capturing the Republican nomination before the party’s convention.
Democrat Bernie Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton, but still faces a mathematically difficult path to the White House.

Trump’s defeat capped one of the worst periods of his campaign, a brutal stretch that highlighted his weaknesses with women and raised questions about his policy depth. While the billionaire businessman still leads the Republican field, Cruz and an array of anti-Trump forces hope Wisconsin signals the start of his decline.

“Tonight is a turning point,” Cruz told cheering supporters at a victory rally. “It is a call from the hardworking people of Wisconsin to America. We have a choice. A real choice.”
Cruz, an ultraconservative Texas senator with a complicated relationship with Republican leaders, also cast his victory as a moment for unity in a party that has been roiled by a contentious primary campaign.

But Trump was unbowed. His campaign put out a biting statement: “Ted Cruz is worse than a puppet— he is a Trojan horse, being used by the party bosses attempting to steal the nomination from Mr. Trump.”

Sanders’s sweeping win in virtually every county in Wisconsin, except Milwaukee, gives him greater incentive to keep competing against Clinton. But he still trails her in the pledged delegate count and has so far been unable to persuade superdelegates— the party officials who can back any candidate — to drop their allegiance to the former secretary of state and back his campaign.

At a raucous rally in Wyoming, Sanders cast his victory as a sign of mounting momentum for his campaign.
“With our victory tonight is Wisconsin, we have now won 7 out of 8 of the last caucuses and primaries,” he declared. Sanders is favored to win the Wyoming Democratic caucuses on Saturday.

The results in Wisconsin make it likely both parties’ primaries will continue deep into the spring, draping front-runners Trump and Clinton in uncertainty and preventing both from fully setting their sights on the general election.

With an overwhelming white electorate and liberal pockets of voters, Wisconsin was favorable territory for Sanders. In a sign of Clinton’s low expectations in the Midwestern state, she spent Tuesday night at a fundraiser with top donors in New York City. The focus of the campaign now turns to New York which holds its critical primary on April 19.

Clinton congratulated Sanders on Twitter and thanked her supporters in Wisconsin. “To all the voters and volunteers who poured your hearts into this campaign: Forward!” she wrote.

Because Democrats award delegates proportionally, Sanders’ victory in Wisconsin will not cut significantly into Clinton’s lead in the pledged delegate count. With 86 delegates at stake in Wisconsin, Sanders will pick up at least 44 and Clinton will gain at least 28. The state-by-state nominating contests are choosing delegates to the parties’ national conventions that will select the presidential nominees.

18-year-old Pak woman burnt alive for love marriage

Lahore: A Pakistani woman was arrested on Wednesday after dousing her daughter with kerosene and burning her alive, allegedly because the girl had defied her family to marry a man she was in love with, police said.

Police official Sheikh Hammad said that the killing took place in the eastern city of Lahore, the country’s cultural hub, and that the mother was arrested the same day.

The suspect, Parveen Rafiq, has confessed to tying up her 18-year-old daughter Zeenat Rafiq to a cot after which, with the help of her son, Ahmar Rafiq, she poured the oil on the girl and set her ablaze, Hammad said.
Nearly 1,000 women are killed each year in so-called “honor killings” in Pakistan for allegedly violating conservative norms on love and marriage.

A schoolteacher, Maria Bibi, was assaulted and set on fire last week for refusing to marry a man twice her age. Before she died, she managed to give a statement to the police, testifying that five attackers had broken into her home, dragged her out to an open area, beat her and set her ablaze.

The prime suspect in the case, the father of the man she refused to marry, and the other four are all in custody.

A month earlier, police arrested 13 members of a local tribal council who allegedly strangled a girl and set her on fire for helping a friend elope. The charred body of 17-year-old Ambreen Riasat was found in a burned van.

The daughter killed in Lahore, Zeenat Rafiq, had gotten married last month before a court magistrate to a motorcycle mechanic, Hasan Khan, said Hammad.

Three days ago, he said, the girl’s mother and an uncle visited her to try to persuade her to return home and have the marriage ceremony repeated in a traditional family function, instead of being labelled her whole life as someone who had “eloped”.

Khan, her husband, told the local Geo News TV station that his bride had feared the worst.