News in Brief
Wave of attacks kills 55 people in Iraq
AROUND 55 people were killed in Iraq yesterday in attacks that targeted a Shia Muslim gathering, a police checkpoint and the family of a Sunni paramilitary leader opposed to Isil.
The escalation comes as Iraqi forces get ready to launch an offensive to take back Mosul, the last Iraqi city still under control of Islamic State, in northern Iraq.
The heaviest toll was caused by a suicide bomber who detonated an explosive vest in the middle of a Shia gathering in Baghdad, killing at least 41 people and wounding 33. The explosion went off inside a tent filled with people taking part in Shia Ashura rituals, which mourn the killing of Prophet Mohammad’s grandson Hussein in the 7th century.
Isil claimed the attack in an online statement.
Saudis say funeral bombing was ‘mistake’
A SAUDI-LED coalition yesterday blamed “wrong information” for the bombing last weekend of a packed funeral hall in the rebel-held Yemeni capital that killed at least 140 people and wounded some 600.
The bombing of the funeral hall on October 8 was not the first by the coalition to cause civilian casualties. Over the past year, coalition warplanes have bombed busy markets, weddings, schools and hospitals, killing hundreds of people and wounding thousands.
Countries reach deal on greenhouse gases
NEARLY 200 nations have reached a deal to limit the use of greenhouse gases far more powerful than carbon dioxide in a major effort to fight climate change.
The talks on hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, were called the first test of global will since the historic Paris Agreement to cut carbon emissions was reached last year. HFCs are the world’s fastest-growing climate pollutant and are used in air conditioners and fridges.
The agreement announced yesterday, after allnight negotiations, caps and reduces the use of HFCs in a gradual process beginning by 2019 with action by developed countries including the US — the world’s second-worst polluter.
Stampede at religious event kills 24
AT LEAST 24 people died yesterday in a stampede at a religious event on the outskirts of Varanassi in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Twenty others were injured in the crush.
Police said that 3,000 devotees were expected at the event but 70,000 showed up. Many of the injured people remain in a serious condition. Of the dead, 14 are women.
Organisers said that after police started turning people back from an overcrowded bridge, a rumour spread that the bridge was broken and people started to stampede.
Central Europeans block Euro gas pipeline
FOUR Central European nations are united in opposing a pipeline that would deliver natural gas directly from Russia to Germany because it would harm Europe’s ability to create an efficient energy system, Poland’s president said yesterday.
President Andrzej Duda described the Nord Stream 2 project, which would bypass traditional transit pipelines in Ukraine and Slovakia, as having “no economic justification”, describing it as a political project implemented by Gazprom on behalf of Russia.