Foreign News
Floods kill 50 people in northern Afghanistan’s Baghlan province
At least 50 people have died in Afghanistan in flooding following heavy rain in the northern province of Baghlan, a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior said, adding that the death toll may rise.
Ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qaniee told the Reuters news agency that there had been flooding in more than five districts in Baghlan after heavy rains, and that some families were stuck and in need of urgent help.
He added that two heavy storms had been predicted for Friday night. “The Ministry of Interior has sent teams and helicopters to the area, but due to a shortage of night vision lights in helicopters, the operation may not be successful,” he said.
The toll was confirmed by local official Hedayatullah Hamdard, the head of the provincial natural disaster management department, who also told AFP that the death toll could rise. Hamdard explained that heavy seasonal rains caused the flooding, and residents were unprepared for the sudden rush of water.
Since mid-April, flash flooding and other floods have left about 100 people dead in 10 of Afghanistan’s provinces, with no region entirely spared, according to authorities.
Farmland has been swamped in a country where 80 percent of the more than 40 million people depend on agriculture to survive.
Afghanistan – which had a relatively dry winter, making it more difficult for the soil to absorb rainfall – is particularly vulnerable to climate change.
The nation, ravaged by four decades of war, is one of the poorest in the world and, according to scientists, one of the worst prepared to face the consequences of global warming.
Afghanistan, which is responsible for only 0.06 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, ranks sixth on the list of countries most at risk from climate change, experts have said.
(Aljazeera)
Six Russian and four Belarusian athletes will compete under their nations’ flags at the upcoming Winter Paralympics.
In September, the International Paralympic Committee lifted its ban on athletes from the two countries competing at the Games.
Both countries were suspended from Paralympic competition after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with Belarus a close ally of Russia. A partial ban – allowing athletes to compete as neutrals – was introduced in 2023.
However, the four individual governing bodies in charge of the six sports contested at the Paralympics decided to keep their bans in place.
In December, Russia and Belarus won an appeal against FIS – the governing body for skiing and snowboarding – at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas), permitting them to compete and accumulate ranking points.
The IPC confirmed to BBC Sport that the 10 athletes have been awarded bipartite commission invitations to compete in Para-alpine skiing, Para-cross country skiing and Para-snowboarding at the Milan-Cortina Games.
“The IPC can confirm that NPC Russia has been awarded a total of six slots: two in Para-alpine skiing (one male, one female), two in Para-cross country skiing (one male, one female), and two in Para-snowboard (both male),” it said in a statement.
“NPC Belarus has been awarded four slots in total, all in cross-country skiing (one male and three female).”
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said it was “completely the wrong decision”.
“Allowing athletes from Russia and Belarus to compete under their own flags while the brutal invasion of Ukraine continues sends a terrible message,” Nandy wrote on X.
“The International Paralympic Committee should reconsider this decision urgently.”
Bipartite commission invites are granted to individual athletes, rather than their international federation, and allow the participation of top athletes “who may not have had the opportunity to qualify through other methods due to extraordinary circumstances”, among other factors.
Ukraine has also been awarded bipartite slots in three sports.
It will mark the first time a Russian flag has been flown at a Paralympic Games since the Sochi 2014 Games, firstly due to the country’s state-sponsored doping programme, before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Russian news agency TASS reports that among the athletes set to compete are Aleksey Bugaev, a three-time Paralympic champion in alpine skiing, and cross-country skiers Ivan Golubkov and Anastasiia Bagiian – both are World Championship medallists.
All three returned to competition in January, and both Bugaev and Bagiian have since won World Cup titles.
The Milan-Cortina Winter Paralympics will take place from 6-15 March.
[BBC]
US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson died aged 84 on Tuesday morning surrounded by relatives, according to a statement released by his family.
“It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Civil Rights leader and founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Honorable Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr,” the family said, adding he died “peacefully.”
His cause of death has not been released, but Jackson had been diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy and was in hospital late last year.
Tributes poured in for the prominent activist who twice ran to be Democrats’ presidential nominee, including from the first black US president, Barack Obama.
Jackson is survived by his wife Jacqueline and their children: Santita, Jesse Jr, Jonathan, Yusef, Jacqueline and Ashley.
In their statement, Jackson’s family said his “unwavering commitment to justice, equality, and human rights helped shape a global movement for freedom and dignity”.
“A tireless change agent, he elevated the voices of the voiceless from his Presidential campaigns in the 1980s to mobilising millions to register to vote – leaving an indelible mark on history,” they added.
Along with working with Martin Luther King, Jr, and running for president in 1984 and 1988, Jackson is remembered as the founder of a nonprofit organisation focused on social justice and civil rights, the Rainbow PUSH coalition.
Calling Jackson a “true giant”, Obama said in a statement that Jackson’s “two historic runs for president” had “laid the foundation for my own campaign to the highest office of the land”. Obama added that his wife Michelle “got her first glimpse of political organizing at the Jacksons’ kitchen table when she was a teenager”.
“For more than 60 years, Reverend Jackson helped lead some of the most significant movements for change in human history,” the Obamas also said in the statement.
“From organizing boycotts and sit-ins, to registering millions of voters, to advocating for freedom and democracy around the world, he was relentless in his belief that we are all children of God, deserving of dignity and respect.”
Jackson was admitted to hospital last November, and doctors said he had been diagnosed with a rare degenerative condition called progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) in April 2025, revising an earlier diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease that Jackson had said was made in 2015.
Both diseases affect the brain, nervous system, and muscle control and, according to the American Parkinson Disease Association and the group CurePSP, many people with PSP are initially diagnosed with Parkinson’s because a number of the symptoms overlap.
Born in 1941 in Greenville, South Carolina, Jackson became involved in politics at an early age. He rose to prominence in the 1960s as a leader in Martin Luther King, Jr ‘s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and was with King when he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968.
Over the course of his career, Jackson built a movement to bring America’s increasingly diverse population together, with a message that centred on poor and working-class Americans.
After his presidential runs, Jackson later positioned himself as an elder statesman within the Democratic Party.
His son Jesse Jackson, Jr is a former US congressman.
[BBC]
An elephant foot bone found by archaeologists digging in southern Spain may be evidence that a troop of war elephants stomped through ancient Europe.
It would be the first concrete proof of the legendary Carthaginian General Hannibal’s troop of battle elephants, according to academics.
Drawings of Hannibal’s war against the Romans had long suggested that the beasts were used in fighting, but no hard evidence backed up the theories.
Now the creatures’ skeletal remains appear to have been found in an Iron Age dig near Cordoba.
Beyond ivory, the discovery of elephant remains in European archaeological contexts is exceptionally rare,” says the team of scientists in a paper published in Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.
Often considered one of the most successful commanders of classical times, Hannibal led his army from the powerful imperial city Carthage, in modern day Tunisia, into Europe as he battled to control the Mediterranean.
It is thought he took soldiers and animals from Carthage through Spain and France to invade Italy, crossing the Alps with 37 elephants in 218 BCE during the second of the so-called Punic Wars.
The remains found in Spain are presumed to be from an animal that died before reaching the Alps.
The archaeologists, led by Professor Rafael M. Martínez Sánchez, found the elephant’s bone beneath a collapsed wall on a site called Colina de los Quemados.
They used carbon dating techniques to estimate the age of the 10cm cube-shaped bone.
The result led them to believe it is from the Second Punic War.
They also compared the bone of modern elephants and steppe mammoths to determine which animal it came from.
The team found artillery, coins and ceramics during the excavations in 2020, providing more clues that the place was the site of a battle.
“As non-native species and the largest living terrestrial animals, these imported beasts would have required transportation by ship,” the academics said.
They say that it is very unlikely that dead animals were transported, and the bones are unattractive suggesting they were not decorative or used in craft.
But the scientists say it will be very challenging to work out which species of elephant the creature was.
“While [the bone] would not represent one of the mythical specimens Hannibal took across the Alps, it could potentially embody the first known relic − so sought after by European scholars of the Modern Age − of the animals used in the Punic Roman wars for the control of the Mediterranean,” the scientists conclude in their paper.
[BBC]
India look to go into Super Eight stage with all-win record
Cabinet approves construction of new 300 bed Base Hospital in Deniyaya
Heavy showers about 100 mm are likely at some places in the Eastern, Uva and North-central provinces and in Matale and Nuwara-Eliya districts
Cabinet nod to legally empower methodology for implementing the ‘Praja Shakthi’ poverty alleviation national movement
NPP not under Indian pressure to hold PC polls – JVP
Battery storage drive to power Sri Lanka’s renewable leap
‘Dates have the highest sugar content to fight Coronavirus’
Sunday Island 27 December – Headlines
#SundayIsland 17th December – Headlines
Sunday Island – 28th March
Sunday Island Headlines – 21 March
Sunday Island – 21st February – Headlines
-
Life style3 days agoMarriot new GM Suranga
-
Business2 days agoMinistry of Brands to launch Sri Lanka’s first off-price retail destination
-
Features3 days agoMonks’ march, in America and Sri Lanka
-
Opinion6 days agoWill computers ever be intelligent?
-
Features3 days agoThe Rise of Takaichi
-
Features3 days agoWetlands of Sri Lanka:
-
News3 days agoThailand to recruit 10,000 Lankans under new labour pact
-
News3 days agoMassive Sangha confab to address alleged injustices against monks