Foreign News
Several people killed in multistorey building collapse in Pakistan
A five-storey building has collapsed in Pakistan, killing at least eight people and injuring nine others, officials said, with rescuers searching through the rubble for more trapped victims.
The incident occurred on Friday, shortly after 10am (05:00 GMT) in the impoverished Lyari neighbourhood of Karachi, which was once plagued by gang violence.
Up to 100 people had been living in the building, senior police officer Arif Aziz told the AFP news agency.
Shankar Kamho, 30, a resident of the building who was out at the time, said he got a call from his wife saying “the building was cracking” and he told her to “get out immediately”.
“She went to warn the neighbours, but one woman told her ‘this building will stand for at least 10 more years.’ Still, my wife took our daughter and left. About 20 minutes later, the building collapsed,” he told AFP.
Residents also said the building was located on a narrow street, making it difficult for rescue teams to bring in additional heavy equipment.
Television footage showed rescuers removing the rubble and evacuating nearby buildings as a precaution.
Saad Edhi, of the Edhi welfare foundation that is part of the rescue operation, told AFP there could be “at least eight to 10 more people still trapped”, describing it as a “worn-out building”.
All six members of 70-year-old Jumho Maheshwari’s family were at his flat on the first floor when he left for work early in the morning.
“Nothing is left for me now. My family is all trapped and all I can do is pray for their safe recovery,” he told AFP.
Building collapses are common in Pakistan, where construction standards are often poorly enforced. Many structures are built with substandard materials, and safety regulations are frequently ignored to cut costs.
But Karachi, home to more than 20 million, is especially notorious for poor construction, illegal extensions, ageing infrastructure, overcrowding and lax enforcement of building regulations.
In June 2020, an apartment building collapsed in Karachi, killing 22 people.
[Aljazeera]
Indian tax authorities and market regulator are considering widening their probe of United States trading giant Jane Street Group to investigate it for tax evasion in addition to an earlier charge of price rigging in the Bombay Stock Exchange’s benchmark Sensex, according to media reports.
The tax evasion charge comes on the heels of market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), seizing 48.43 billion rupees ($570m) and banning four Jane Street-related entities from operating in the market for alleged price manipulation in the National Stock Exchange (NSE).
SEBI’s order has roiled the Indian markets, raising questions about regulator surveillance and investor protection in the world’s largest options trading market. Trading in India’s weekly equity index options has slumped by a third on the ban on Jane Street, the Reuters news agency reported on Thursday.
Trading of equity options lets investors buy or sell a stock at a predetermined price and date. As the Indian market rapidly grew to handle more than half of all global options trades, retail investors entered the market too.
Questions of price manipulation have dogged this rapid rise but remained vacuous until a New York court case in April 2024, where Jane Street alleged that its rival, Millennium Partners, had stolen its algorithms that helped it make in the Indian options market. A whistleblower, Mayank Bansal, then made presentations to SEBI showing Jane Street’s trading patterns. Bansal had agreed to speak to Al Jazeera about his interaction with SEBI on the matter, but then backtracked.
On July 3, in a detailed interim order, the regulator said that “by preponderance of probability, there is no economic rationale that can account for this sudden burst of large and aggressive activity, other than the intent to manipulate the price of securities and index benchmark”.
SEBI has alleged that Jane Street accumulated large long positions in stocks that are a part of the NSE’s Bank Index and built large short positions in index options at the start of trade. Around market closing time, it would reverse its trades in the cash and futures segments, pushing down the index and earning large profits in the options segment.
This activity was blurred by its offshore entities making some of these trades.
“Lawyers [can] push back with SEBI on jurisdiction-related issues, but when underlying [Indian] securities are issued, SEBI can take action,” Joby Mathew, managing partner at the law firm Joby Mathew and Associates and a former legal officer at SEBI, told Al Jazeera.
Jane Street has disputed SEBI’s findings and has hired lawyers to represent it before SEBI in the case. It has deposited the 48.43 billion rupees ($563m) of allegedly ill-gotten gains in an account pending the investigation and final report.
[Aljazeera]
A highly respected police officer has shaken South Africa’s government – and won the admiration of many ordinary people – with his explosive allegations that organised crime groups have penetrated the upper echelons of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration.
Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi did it in dramatic style – dressed in military-like uniform and surrounded by masked police officers with automatic weapons, he called a press conference to accuse Police Minister Senzo Mchunu of having ties to criminal gangs.
He also said his boss had closed down an elite unit investigating political murders after it uncovered a drug cartel with tentacles in the business sector, prison department, prosecution service and judiciary.
“We are on combat mode, I am taking on the criminals directly,” he declared, in an address broadcast live on national TV earlier this month.
South Africans have long been concerned about organised crime, which, leading crime expert Dr Johan Burger pointed out, was at a “very serious level”.
One of the most notorious cases was that of South Africa’s longest-serving police chief, Jackie Selebi, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2010 after being convicted of taking bribes from an Italian drug lord, Glen Agliotti, in exchange for turning a blind eye to his criminal activity.
But Gen Mkhwanazi’s intervention was unprecedented – the first time that a police officer had publicly accused a cabinet member, let alone the one in charge of policing, of having links to criminal gangs.
The reaction was instantaneous. Mchunu dismissed the allegations as “wild and baseless” and said he “stood ready to respond to the accusations”, but the public rallied around Gen Mkhwanazi – the police commissioner in KwaZulu-Natal – despite the province also being Mchunu’s political turf.
#HandsoffNhlanhlaMkhwanazi topped the trends list on X, in a warning shot to the government not to touch the 52-year-old officer.
“He’s seen as a no-nonsense person who takes the bull by the horn,” Calvin Rafadi, a crime expert based at South Africa’s University of Johannesburg, told the BBC.
[BBC]
Three officers were killed in an explosion at a law enforcement training facility in East Los Angeles, officials say.
The blast occurred at around 07:30 local time (15:30 BST) on Friday at the Biscailuz Center Academy Training facility, which houses the Sheriff’s department’s special enforcement bureau and arson explosives detail, including the bomb squad.
The exact cause of the explosion is still under investigation, but Sheriff Robert Luna of the LASD described it as “an isolated incident”. There were no additional injuries.
The three officers killed in the blast were “fantastic experts” and veterans of the department, each serving between 19 to 33 years, the sheriff said.
Authorities have not released the names of the deceased officers, citing the need to notify their families first. All three were assigned to the sheriff department’s arson explosives detail.
Friday’s incident represents the department’s largest loss of life in a single incident since its founding in 1857, Sheriff Luna said.
“We have to go back and investigate what happened from the very beginning,” he said. The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are assisting with the investigation.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi called the incident “horrific” and said federal agents had been deployed on the scene and “working to learn more”.
Authorities say the explosion took place in the parking lot of the facility’s special enforcement bureau.
According to the BBC’s US partner CBS, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s bomb squad responded to a Santa Monica garage on Thursday where at least one grenade was found.
The grenade was transported to the training facility on Friday, where officers were reportedly working to render it safe before it exploded, CBS reported citing police sources.
The area surrounding the facility was evacuated and has since been sealed off as investigators continue to work at the scene.
California Governor Gavin Newsom was briefed about the explosion and was “closely monitoring the situation”, his office said in a statement on X.
Newsom’s office added that state assistance has also been offered to help respond to the incident.
Kathryn Barger, Chief of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, wrote in a statement that she was “closely tracking the situation as we learn more about what occurred and the condition of those affected”.
“My heart is heavy, and my thoughts are with the brave men and women of the Sheriff’s Department during this difficult time,” she said.
[BBC]
India’s ban on Jane Street raises concerns over regulator role
Naval and fishing communities are advised not to venture into the sea areas extending from Puttalam to Pottuvil via Colombo, Galle Hambantota for next 24 hours
Lyles and Bol seek third successive London victories
UAE likely to host Afghanistan-Bangladesh T20Is in October
Top policeman shakes South Africa with explosive allegations about his boss
Three killed in explosion at Los Angeles police training facility
‘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
-
Business6 days agoSLIC Life among Asia’s Best: Finalist in 3 key categories at 10th Trusted Life Awards
-
Features6 days agoAfghanistan:Broken promises, burning nation
-
News7 days agoUtilize capital allocated by the government effectively to reach targeted economic development goals – President
-
Editorial6 days agoNavigating tariff shocks
-
Opinion4 days ago‘Daily shooting of wild elephants’ in Sri Lanka? Govt. gives out guns
-
News6 days agoCardinal honoured for national contributions
-
News6 days agoEnvironmentalists welcome presidential probe into X-Press Pearl disaster
-
Features6 days agoHow one man’s call to action could save Sri Lanka’s vanishing wings