Subcontinent

Relatives and neighbors offer prayers near the coffin of Nazir Ahmed Wani during his funeral in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir on Oct 5. Suspected rebels on Friday shot and killed two activists, which included Wani, affiliated with a pro-India

Kashmiri political group in the disputed region’s main city, officials said. (AP)

Dozens killed in Afghan clashes:

At least 15 Afghan border police were killed battling Taleban insurgents on Thursday, an official said, as fighting continues ahead of this month’s elections, with 21 Taleban killed in an operation in Wardak, west of the capital Kabul.

Amruddin Wali, a member of the provincial council in Kunduz in northern Afghanistan, said 15 members of the paramilitary border police were killed when Taleban fighters attacked a checkpoint in Qala-e Zal district.

Taleban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid put the casualty total at 25 and said seven police were wounded.

The latest violence follows increasing pressure by the Taleban on Kunduz, the northern city they twice overran in 2015 and 2016. The city has remained relatively secure over the past two years, but the insurgents control many of the surrounding districts. (RTRS)

Uphold death sentence – Islamists:

A Pakistani extremist Islamist party is demanding the country’s Supreme Court uphold the death sentence for a Christian woman convicted of blasphemy.

Asia Bibi has appealed her sentence and the court earlier this week postponed ruling on the final appeal. Her lawyers say she was falsely accused.

The Tehreek-e-Labbaik party said on Wednesday that if the court’s three-judge panel frees Bibi, the judges will face “consequences.” The party also says its supporters will rally on Friday to demand death for Bibi.

The charge against Bibi dates back to a hot day in 2009 when she went to get water for fellow farmworkers. Two Muslim women refused to drink from a container used by a Christian. (AP)

No Chinese port base – Lanka:

Sri Lanka rejected on Wednesday US claims that China might establish a “forward military base” at a strategic port leased to Beijing by the indebted Indian Ocean island nation.

Sri Lanka last year granted a 99-year lease on the Hambantota deep-sea port to Beijing, after it was unable to repay Chinese loans for the $1.4-billion project.

The port, situated along key shipping routes, is one of a string of infrastructure projects in Asia, Africa and Europe being funded under China’s Belt and Road Initiative that has rattled the US and its allies, including neighbouring India.

Last week US Vice-President Mike Pence said Hambantota “may soon become a forward military base for China’s growing blue-water navy,” according to US media.

But Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s office said that there would be no foreign military presence at Hambantota, and that the US State Depart-

Solih

Rajapakse

ment had been briefed. (RTRS)

Lanka law compensates victims:

Sri Lanka’s parliament Wednesday passed legislation to pay compensation to victims of the island’s brutal civil war, nearly a decade after the end of the conflict which claimed 100,000 lives.

The legislature voted 59-43 to approve a broad reparations bill which seeks to establish an independent office that will compensate survivors as well as victims’ next of kin.

Former strongman president Mahinda Rajapakse’s followers voted against the bill, arguing that it amounted to compensating separatist Tamil rebels who were crushed in a no-holds-barred military campaign in May 2009.

The office will decide on potentially tens of thousands of compensation claims from those afflicted by fighting that ended in 2009 with the defeat of the Tamil Tiger rebels. (AFP)

Election officials flee Maldives:

Four of the five members of Maldives’ Elections Commission have fled the country because of threats from supporters of outgoing President Yameen Abdul Gayoom, who accused them of rigging last month’s presidential election in favor of the opposition candidate, the head of the commission said Wednesday.

Yameen’s party filed a complaint with police on Wednesday challenging the results of the election, in which he was decisively defeated by opposition candidate Ibrahim Mohamed Solih. Elections Commissioner Ahmed Shareef said groups of Yameen supporters had gathered in front of the members’ homes and threatened them, accusing them of accepting bribes from the opposition. (RTRS)