NEWS OF THE DAY
From Around the World
Pakistan bombing: A roadside bomb targeting a minivan in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region on Tuesday killed 14 people, a local official said, raising an earlier reported death toll of nine killed. The attack was claimed by a breakaway Taliban faction. The blast ripped through the van traveling through a minority Shiite region of the Kurram tribal area, which borders Afghanistan, said Arif Khan, a tribal administration official in the town of Parachinar. The area has long been the scene of sectarian violence.
Afghan attack: The Taliban overran three security checkpoints in Afghanistan’s northern Takhar province, killing eight policemen and cutting off a key road and two of the region’s districts, an Afghan official said Tuesday. Monday’s attack triggered an hours-long firefight and also left three police officers wounded. Eight of the attackers were also killed in the gunbattle. The Taliban have stepped up their attacks against both Afghan forces and civilians since foreign combat troops pulled out of the country at the end of 2014, leaving only an advisory and training contingent of international forces. The Afghan military and security forces, with 195,000 soldiers and more than 150,000 policemen, have struggled to contain insurgency on their own.
No meeting: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday canceled a meeting with visiting German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel over the latter’s plans to sit down with Israeli rights groups, sparking a rare diplomatic feud with one of Israel’s closest allies. The last-minute cancellation cast a cloud over a visit that had been meant to draw attention to years of friendship between the two countries. An Israeli official said Netanyahu was upset Gabriel was meeting with Breaking the Silence, a whistle-blower group critical of Israeli military actions in the West Bank.
Deadly collision: Kenyan police say 27 people have been killed in a collision between a passenger bus and a trailer truck. Police say the accident took place along the major road linking two of Kenya’s biggest cities, capital Nairobi and the port of Mombasa. Road accidents kill around 3,000 people in Kenya every year. Deaths through road accidents have increased in recent years despite a crackdown on drunken driving, including tougher fines and Breathalyzer tests at random police roadblocks.
Shark debate: The state of Western Australia wants to subsidize surfers who buy electromagnetic devices to repel sharks. Other voices, however, insist on deploying nets or hooks to catch and kill them. The death last week of Laeticia Brouwer, a 17-year-old surfer, in a shark attack off the southern coast has renewed debate in Australia over what should be done to protect people who venture offshore. Fourteen people have been killed by sharks nationwide since 2012.
Cyberattack business: A British man has been sentenced to two years in prison for creating and selling a program used in online attacks around the world. Adam Mudd was 16 when he created Titanium Stresser, a program that carried out more than 1.7 million denial-of-service attacks on websites including gaming platforms Minecraft and Xbox Live. Mudd, now 20, admitted creating and selling the program, earning $495,000 . He also acknowledged carrying out 594 attacks himself. Defense lawyer Ben Cooper said Mudd, who has Asperger’s syndrome, had become “lost in an alternate reality.”
Chronicle News Services