LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — A suicide bomber attacked security forces guarding a famous Sufi shrine in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore on Wednesday, killing at least 10 people and wounding 20 others, police said.
Hizbul Ahrar, an offshoot of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying their target was the police. Hundreds of pilgrims were inside and outside the shrine, where a local Sufi saint is buried, when the blast took place.
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CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelans opposition leader Juan Guaidó’s call to fill streets around the nation Wednesday but security forces showed no sign of answering his cry for a widespread military uprising, instead dispersing crowds with tear gas as the political crisis threatened to deepen.
Thousands cheered Guaidó in Caracas as he rolled up his sleeves and called on Venezuelans to remain out in force and prepare for a general strike, a day after his bold attempt to spark a mass military defection against President Nicolas Maduro failed to tilt the balance of power.
Clashes raged again between protesters and troops loyal to Maduro, making clear the standoff would drag on. State security forces launched tear gas and fired rubber bullets while bands of mostly young men threw rocks.
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BAUTA, Cuba (AP) — Just after 8 a.m., Pura Castell got in line behind about 100 other people waiting for a chance to buy frozen chicken legs. For two hours she leaned on her cane watching people leave the state-run market with their 5-pound limit.
The chicken ran out at 10 a.m. while the 80-year-old Castell still had 20 people in front of her. She returned the next morning, but no chicken. Then, relief. A neighbor told her that chicken had arrived at the government store that distributes heavily subsidized monthly food rations. Her household of three was due three pieces, either thighs or drumsticks.
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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AFP) – A string of blasts ripped through high-end hotels and churches holding Easter services in Sri Lanka on Sunday, killing more than 220 people, including 35 foreigners. More than 350 people injured in the blast.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe condemned the attacks as “cowardly” and said the government was working to “contain the situation”.
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PARIS (AP) — A catastrophic fire engulfed the upper reaches of Paris’ soaring Notre Dame Cathedral as it was undergoing renovations Monday, threatening one of the greatest architectural treasures of the Western world as tourists and Parisians looked on aghast from the streets below.
The blaze collapsed the cathedral’s spire and spread to one of its landmark rectangular towers, but Paris fire chief Jean-Claude Gallet said the church’s structure had been saved after firefighters managed to stop the fire spreading to the northern belfry. The 12th-century cathedral is home to incalculable works of art and is one of the world’s most famous tourist attractions, immortalized by Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
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ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — Algerian protesters rejected the interim leader named Tuesday to replace former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, shouting “out with the system” as they demonstrated for the dismantling of the political hierarchy that has led Algeria for two decades.
The north African country’s influential military stayed silent on the appointment, saying only that it would work to ensure the “tranquility” of the country.
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CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Rival political factions took to the streets across Venezuela on Saturday in a mounting struggle for control of the crisis-wracked nation, where U.S.- backed opposition leader Juan Guaidó is attempting to oust socialist President Nicólas Maduro.
It was the first march Guaidó has led since Maduro loyalists stripped him of legal protections he’s granted as a congressman, opening a path to prosecute and possibly arrest him for allegedly violating the constitution.
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HOUSTON (AP) — Vice President Mike Pence said Friday during a visit to Texas that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro “must go” because of the “suffering he has brought” to the people of that country.
“The struggle in Venezuela is between dictatorship and democracy, but freedom has the momentum. Nicolas Maduro is a dictator with no legitimate claim to power, and Nicolas Maduro must go,” Pence said at the Baker Institute at Rice University in Houston, named for former Secretary of State James Baker.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Mike Pence called on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to immediately release six American oil executives who have been jailed for more than a year without trial, but he acknowledged, practically in the same breath, that their freedom will be slow to come as long as Maduro remains in power.
Continue readingMarch 30, 2019 1400 GMT | Red Cross members | Caracas, Venezuela (File Photo IFRC)
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said Friday that it is poised to deliver aid to Venezuela, warning that it will not accept any interference from embattled President Maduro or national assembly leaders.
Earlier in february this year, speaking at a press conference in the Venezuela capital Caracas, IFRC President Francesco Continue reading
