Eight die as floods cut off 200,000 people

Dima Hasao: At least eight people died in floods and mudslides triggered by heavy rains in India’s remote northeast region.

Several railway stations were not working because of floods.

Nearly 200,000 people in the district were cut off from the rest of the state, as roads and bridges leading to it were either blocked by landslides or washed away.

Officials said four people were killed in the region’s frontier state of Arunachal Pradesh.

Two others died when their houses on a small hillock caved in in the state’s capital Itanagar, and two road construction workers were killed due to mudslides at another location. Four other people were killed in the neighbouring Assam state.

North Waziristan: Pakistani security forces killed two local Taliban commanders in a shootout in a former militant stronghold in the country’s northwest, the military said.

It said the militants were killed in North Waziristan, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan.

The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-etaliban Pakistan or TTP, are a separate group from the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan who took over that country last year, but the two are allies.

Tripoli: An attempt by one of Libya’s rival prime ministers to seat his government in the capital of Tripoli triggered clashes yesterday between competing militias, forcing the newly appointed premier to leave the city.

The development underscored the fragility of the situation in the war-wracked country.

Prime Minister Fathi Bashagha’s office said he had arrived in Tripoli with a number of Cabinet ministers early yesterday – three months after his appointment to lead an interim government.

In the morning, local media reported clashes between different militias and rival forces supporting the two sides in central Tripoli and elsewhere in the city.

Later in the day, Mr Bashagha’s office said he and his ministers left Tripoli “for the sake of the security and safety of citizens and to stop the bloodshed”.

Bamako: The Malian government headed by a two-time coup leader said security forces had thwarted a countercoup attempt that it claimed was supported by an unnamed Western government.

The announcement was the latest turmoil to unfold in Mali, where Colonel Assimi Goita led coups in 2020 and 2021 before becoming president of the west African nation.

The news release did not name the country it was accusing.

However, relations with former colonial power France have deteriorated significantly under Mr Goita’s rule, prompting the French military to begin a withdrawal of its forces that had spent nine years fighting Islamic extremists.

Beirut: Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group and its allies lost their parliamentary majority, while more than a dozen independents gained seats, according to final tally.

The Hezbollah-led coalition won 61 seats in the 128-member legislature, a drop of 10 members since the last vote was held four years ago.

The loss was largely due to setbacks suffered by the group’s political partners, and was not expected to weaken the Iran-backed group’s domination of Lebanese politics.