Canada bans passenger flights from India, Pakistan for 30 days

OTTAWA - Canada suspended all passenger flights from India and Pakistan on Thursday for 30 days, Transportation Minister Omar Alghabra announced, citing increased Covid-19 cases detected in travelers arriving from these countries.

"Given the higher number of cases of Covid-19 detected in air passengers arriving in Canada from India and Pakistan... I am suspending all commercial and private passenger flights arriving in Canada from Indian and Pakistan for 30 days," Alghabra told a news conference.

"This is a temporary measure, while we assess the evolving situation and determine appropriate measures going forward," he added.

The restriction will go into effect at 11:30 pm Eastern Time Thursday (0330 GMT Friday).

It will not apply to cargo flights, Alghabra said, particularly to ensure the continued shipment of vaccines, personal protective equipment and other essential goods.

India, which is undergoing an alarming surge being blamed on a "double mutant" variant and super-spreader events, reported a single-day high of more than 300,000 new cases of Covid-19 on Thursday.

Health Minister Patty Hajdu said that overall only 1.8 percent of travelers to Canada have tested positive for coronavirus.

While India accounts for 20 percent of recent air travel to Canada, more than half of all positive tests at the border were from flights arriving from the country, she said, adding that "a similarly high level of cases... have also been linked to Pakistan."

"It is a significant volume," she said, "and given the epidemiological situation in India, it makes sense to pause travel from that region while our scientists and researchers (try) to better understand this variance of interest, to better understand where the trajectory of the cases in that region are going."

BAN ON NON-ESSENTIAL FLIGHTS

Health Canada data showed 18 flights from Delhi and two from Lahore, to Toronto or Vancouver, in the past two weeks had at least one passenger onboard who was diagnosed with the illness.

Canada last December briefly suspended flights from Britain over concerns about outbreaks of a Covid variant. 

Earlier on Thursday Parliament voted unanimously to urge the government to ban non-essential flights from Covid hotspots where variants have surged, including India and Brazil.

Alghabra said there are currently no scheduled flights between Canada and Brazil, but added that "we will not hesitate to ban travel to other countries if the science bears that out."

Several dozen cases of the variant of the virus initially declared in India have already been identified in Canada, according to media reports.

Some countries have taken similar steps to prevent worsening outbreaks due to this variant: the United Arab Emirates announced Thursday that it will suspend all flights from India.

Britain also this week banned entry to travelers from India, and France has announced that they will be subject to a 10-day quarantine upon arrival in the country.

All travelers to Canada are already subject to a mandatory 14-day quarantine. They must also present a negative Covid test before boarding an international flight, and another upon arrival in Canada.

Struggling with a third wave of infections, Canada recorded 9,000 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday, bringing its total to 1,151,276 cases and 23,812 deaths.

Agence France-Presse

Strong 6.3-magnitude quake strikes off Pakistan - USGS

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan --  A strong 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck near the coast of Pakistan early Wednesday, the US Geological Survey said.

The shallow quake struck at 3:03 am (2203 GMT), with an epicenter just 23 kilometers (14 miles) southwest of Pakistan's coastal city of Pasni, the USGS said.

Last April, a large 6.6-magnitude quake struck neighbouring northeastern Afghanistan, rattling parts of South Asia and killing at least six Pakistanis.

In October 2015, a 7.5-magnitude quake in Pakistan and Afghanistan killed almost 400 people, flattening buildings in rugged terrain that impeded relief efforts.

Pakistan straddles part of the boundary where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet, making the country susceptible to earthquakes.

It was hit by a 7.6-magnitude quake on October 8, 2005 that killed more than 73,000 people and left about 3.5 million homeless, mainly in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

source: interaksyon.com

Two gunmen dead in Indian air base attack - police

PATHANKOT, India - Two suspected Islamic insurgents were killed Sunday when fighting flared up again at an Indian air force base, a senior police officer said, a day after the initial bloody raid on the base close to Pakistan.

Seven soldiers and four attackers were earlier confirmed killed during the assault on the Pathankot base in the northern state of Punjab, which triggered a 14-hour gunbattle Saturday.

The attack -- a rare targeting of an Indian military installation outside disputed Kashmir -- threatens to undermine improving relations with Pakistan.

It came just about a week after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid a surprise visit to Pakistan, the first by an Indian premier in 11 years

Security officials suspect the gunmen belong to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed, the group that staged the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament which brought the two countries to the brink of war.

Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh Saturday tweeted "all five terrorists" have been killed but security officials at the site had found only four bodies.

Early Sunday afternoon security forces came under heavy fire inside the base during a search for munitions and possible militants.

The police officer told AFP on condition of anonymity the two militants were killed four hours after the first contact was made Sunday. But the search would continue before the base was declared safe.

"Both have been killed. We are yet to retrieve their bodies," the officer said.

The base commander, J S Dhamoon, told reporters separately the operation was close to completion but gave no information on any fresh casualties.

The Pathankot air base houses dozens of jet fighters and is important for its strategic location about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the Pakistan border.

Rajiv Mehrishi, a top home ministry official, said troops and police had foiled the aim of the intruders to damage equipment at the base.

"Due to active intelligence and quick action taken by forces we were able to ensure there was no damage to the assets," Mehrishi told reporters in New Delhi.

Mehrishi said seven security personnel were killed and 20 injured but declined to give any details of Sunday's gunbattle.

Among the military dead was a lieutenant-colonel in the elite National Security Guard, a commando unit. Also killed was Subedar Fateh Singh, a gold medallist at the 1995 Commonwealth Shooting Championships in New Delhi, an air force spokeswoman said.

In July three gunmen said to be Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militants killed seven people including four policemen in an attack in the Sikh-majority state of Punjab.

The possible involvement of Pakistan-based militants in the latest raid could be a setback for peace overtures between the nuclear-armed rivals, who have fought three wars since independence in 1947.

Modi Saturday termed the attackers as "enemies of humanity" but did not blame Pakistan.

Islamabad, meanwhile, moved quickly to condemn the attack which it described as a "terrorist incident".

The US State Department termed the assault "a heinous" terrorist attack and urged the two rivals to work together to hunt down those responsible.

Modi's December 25 visit to the Pakistani city of Lahore to meet his counterpart Nawaz Sharif indicated a potential thaw in tensions, and the foreign secretaries of both countries are scheduled to meet in Islamabad this month.

source: interaksyon.com

Suicide bombers kill more than 60 at Pakistan church

PESHAWAR—A double suicide bombing killed more than 60 people at a church service in northwest Pakistan on Sunday, officials said, believed to be the deadliest attack on Christians in the troubled country.

Pakistan's small and largely impoverished Christian community suffers discrimination in overwhelmingly Muslim-majority Pakistan but bombings against them are extremely rare.

The two bombers struck at the end of a service at All Saints Church in Peshawar, the main town of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which has borne the brunt of a bloody Islamist insurgency in recent years.

Doctor Mohammad Iqbal of Peshawar's Lady Reading Hospital told AFP that 61 people had been killed and 120 wounded. Fellow doctor Sher Ali confirmed the numbers.

Sahibzada Anees, one of Peshawar's most senior officials, told reporters the bombers struck when the service had just ended.

"Most of the wounded are in critical condition," Anees said.

"We are in an area which is a target of terrorism and within that area there was a special security arrangement for the church. We are in a rescue phase and once it is over we will investigate what went wrong."

Former minister for inter-faith harmony Paul Bhatti and provincial lawmaker Fredrich Azeem Ghauri both said the attack was the deadliest ever targeting Christians in Pakistan.

School teacher Nazir Khan, 50, said the service had just ended and at least 400 worshippers were greeting each other when there was a big explosion.

"A huge blast threw me on the floor and as soon as I regained my senses, a second blast took place and I saw wounded people everywhere," Khan told AFP.

Grieving relatives blocked the main Grand Trunk road highway with bodies of the victims to protest against the killings, an AFP reporter said.

Sectarian violence between majority Sunni and minority Shiite Muslims is on the rise in Pakistan and Sunday's attack will fuel fears the already beleaguered Christian community could be increasingly targeted.

Islamist militants have carried out hundreds of bombings targeting security forces and minority Muslim groups they regard as heretical, but attacks on Christians have previously largely been confined to grenade attacks and occasional riots.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is a deeply conservative province bordering the tribal districts along the Afghan frontier, which are home to Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants.

Provincial lawmaker Ghauri said there were about 200,000 Christians in the province, of whom 70,000 lived in Peshawar.

"Now after this attack Christians across Pakistan will fear for their lives," he warned.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif strongly condemned the bombings.

"Terrorists have no religion and targeting innocent people is against the teachings of Islam and all religions," he said in a statement.

Sharif said such "cruel acts of terrorism reflect the brutality and inhumane mindset of the terrorists".

Only around two percent of Pakistan's population of 180 million are Christian. The community is largely poor and complains of growing discrimination.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has warned that the risk to Pakistan's minorities has reached crisis levels.

Christians have a precarious existence in Pakistan, often living in slum-like "colonies" cheek-by-jowl with Muslims and fearful of allegations of blasphemy, a sensitive subject that can provoke sudden outbursts of public violence.

In the town of Gojra, in Punjab province, in 2009, a mob burned 77 houses and killed seven people after rumours that a copy of the Islamic holy book the Koran had been desecrated during a Christian marriage ceremony.

Last year a young Christian girl, Rimsha Masih, spent three weeks in jail after being accused of blasphemy. The case was thrown out but she and her family have been in hiding ever since, fearing for their lives.

source: interaksyon.com

Bin Laden family deported from Pakistan

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — Osama bin Laden’s family were deported from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia early Friday, officials said, nearly a year after the al-Qaida leader was killed in a U.S. raid.

The 9/11 mastermind’s three widows and their children were detained by Pakistan after he was killed on May 2 last year in a secret U.S. Navy SEAL operation in the garrison town of Abbottabad, north of Islamabad.

Washington and Islamabad are currently working to repair their relationship, which was badly damaged by the revelation that the world’s most wanted man was living a stone’s throw from Pakistan’s elite military academy.

Pakistani authorities have already demolished the Abbottabad house and with the one-year anniversary of bin Laden’s death just a few days away, they will be keen for the deportation to mark a definitive end to what has been an extremely embarrassing episode.

After 10 months in detention, the widows and two of bin Laden’s older daughters were sentenced by a Pakistani court to 45 days’ detention on charges of illegal entry and residency in the country and ordered to be deportation.

Around midnight on Thursday, a minibus collected the family from the Islamabad house where they had served the sentence, which was completed 10 days ago.

The family were believed to number 12—three widows, eight children and one grandchild—though an interior ministry spokesman said orders were passed for the deportation of 14 bin Laden relatives.

They were taken to Islamabad airport to board a special flight to the Gulf kingdom which took off shortly before 2 a.m. Friday.

An interior ministry spokesman told AFP: “The plane has left for Saudi Arabia.”

The family were originally supposed to be deported after completing their sentence last week but the move dragged on—officially because legal formalities were not complete but amid suggestions the Saudis were reluctant to accept such a notorious group.

Then on Thursday, a Pakistani security official said, “some development happened late in the evening” allowing them to be expelled.

The family’s lawyer Atif Ali Khan last week said bin Laden’s Yemeni widow Amal Abdulfattah and her five children could be sent to Yemen after Saudi Arabia.

Bin Laden’s discovery in Abbottabad dealt a huge blow to U.S.-Pakistan relations and led to accusations of Pakistani complicity or incompetence.

After fleeing Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, bin Laden moved his family around Pakistan before settling in a three-story house inside a walled compound in the garrison town in 2005.

The family’s prolonged detention after the raid fed speculation that the Pakistani authorities were worried about what they might reveal about bin Laden’s time in the country—and how he was able to live there for so long undetected.

Abdulfattah, 30, bin Laden’s youngest and reportedly favorite wife, told Pakistani interrogators that her husband fathered four children while he hid out in Pakistan, according to a police report seen by AFP last month.

source: japantoday.com