Massive explosion at India wedding kills 18
Trudeau visits India
AJMER, India, Feb 18, (Agencies): Rescuers discovered nine more bodies Sunday beneath the ruins of an Indian hotel, bringing the known death toll from an explosion which tore through a wedding party to 18, an official said. A gas cylinder exploded late Friday at the hotel in the city of Beawar, in the western state of Rajasthan, reducing the venue to ruins and sparking a huge fire.
By Saturday evening officials said nine bodies had been found.
But the figure rose sharply Sunday as rescue teams, aided by the army, found nine more victims including women and children under rubble.
The blast all but levelled the three-storey hotel where a wedding was underway. Eyewitnesses told local broadcaster NDTV the explosion occurred as a chef tried to refill a cooking canister. Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje visited survivors in hospital late Saturday and announced compensation of 200,000 rupees ($3,106) each for the families of the dead.
Raje
Trudeau begins India trip:
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Sunday toured the Taj Mahal with his wife and children as he began a week-long visit to promote trade and investment with India.
Trudeau, his wife Sophie Gregoire and their three children posed for a family portrait before marvelling at the legendary marble monument frequently visited by foreign leaders during roadshows to India.
It was Trudeau's first visit to India since taking office in 2015. He will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and efforts to expand trade will dominate an agenda also covering energy, education and infrastructure.
Afghan gov defies Ghani:
A second Afghan provincial governor defied an attempt by President Ashraf Ghani to remove him on Sunday, deepening a political crisis that has underlined the weakness of the Western-backed government in Kabul.
Abdulkarim Khaddam, governor of the northern province of Samangan, followed the leader of neighbouring Balkh province, Atta Mohammad Noor, in rejecting an order to step down, issued last week as part of a shakeup of regional governors.
Ghani has been struggling for weeks to resolve the conflict with Atta Noor, who has refused to cede the governorship of Balkh, a province straddling key trade routes into Central Asia that includes Afghanistan's second-biggest city Mazar-i Sharif.
Maldives police arrest 25:
Maldives police arrested 25 people under a state of emergency, opposition legislators said on Saturday, after thousands of protesters gathered a day earlier to call for the detention of the president and release of opposition leaders.
The tiny Indian Ocean archipelago, best known for its luxury hotels and dive resorts, imposed a 15-day state of emergency on Feb. 5 to annul a Supreme Court ruling ordering the release of nine leading opposition figures.