Pakistan attack: Gunmen storm five-star hotel in Balochistan
Three gunmen who stormed a five-star hotel in the restive Pakistani province of Balochistan, killing at least one guard, have been shot dead by security forces, officials say.
The attack and subsequent siege, which targeted the Zaver Pearl-Continental Hotel in the strategic port city of Gwadar, lasted several hours.
A hotel spokesman said there were no guests and few staff due to Ramadan.
The separatist Balochistan Liberation Army said it carried out the attack.
The group said that the hotel, the centrepiece of a multi-billion-dollar Chinese project, was selected in order to target Chinese and other investors.
The Observer view on the European elections and Nigel Farage’s malign message
Across Europe, rightwing nationalist populism is on the march. Britain is no exception. Polls are putting Nigel Farage’s Brexit party in the lead. If it does as well as expected in the European elections, it will be the second time Farage has pulled it off: in 2014, Ukip topped the poll with 27% of the vote. Farage’s relative success is partly the product of his intuitive understanding of how to deploy the populist playbook: whip up public disenchantment with the establishment, accuse the elites of thwarting the will of the people and offer misleadingly simple solutions to complex problems.
With voters so disillusioned with the two main parties, it’s a seductive formula. But his success is at least as much explained by the eagerness of mainstream politicians to yield to his brand of politics, rather than to challenge it. On Europe, Farage has only ever stoked anti-EU sentiment without ever offering constructive fixes. He has consistently got away with telling untruths: that the EU is on the cusp of creating a pan-European army; that EU membership costs the UK £55m a day; that three-quarters of British law is made in Brussels. He has repeatedly praised Norway as a model for the UK’s relationship with the EU in the past, but last week denied it.
Yemen war: End to fighting could be in sight as Houthi rebels announce withdrawal from lifeline port
Yemen’s Houthi rebels said they are beginning a unilateral withdrawal from Hodeidah, a move which could save a fractured peace deal and end the fighting.
The bulk of food and humanitarian aid to the war-torn country comes through the lifeline port, which over the past year has become the front line of the war between the rebels and the Gulf-backed Yemeni government.
The fighting had strangled the flow of aid to millions who are on the brink of famine.
A witness told the Reuters news agency that Houthi forces had started leaving the port. The information is yet to be confirmed by the United Nations (UN).
Terror Group Boko HaramThe Suicide Bomber Who Survived
Halima was supposed to die at a market in Chad. And her mission was to take as many people as possible with her — a mission forced upon her by the terror group Boko Haram. But she survived, and the 20-year-old is now learning how to live again.
With just a few meters left to go before reaching her village, Halima can hardly stand it. The 20-year-old quickens her pace when she sees the first huts, ecstatic to be back home, even if only for a brief visit. Her gait is a bit unsteady — after all, it’s not easy to walk through fine sand on two prosthetic legs.
Halima doesn’t come often to the Lake Chad island of Gomerom Doumou, which lies at the southern edge of the Sahara and straddles the borders of Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria. It takes an hour and a half to travel by boat from the small town of Bol in Chad to Halima’s home island, weaving through a maze of small islands and floating grass carpets.
“Am I a bad person?” Why one mom didn’t take her kid to the ER — even after poison control said to.
The emergency room bill I can’t stop thinking about.
Two years ago, 36-year-old Lindsay Clark was facing a terrible decision.
Her 2-year-old daughter Lily had gotten into a small bottle of the anti-nausea drug Dramamine.
“It had a child lock on it, but I caught her sitting there with a bunch of white stuff in her mouth,” Clark says. “I immediately swept her mouth with my finger, but I wasn’t sure how many pills she ate.”
Clark had to decide: Should she take Lily to the emergency room?
Sri Lanka Catholics hold first Sunday mass after Easter attacks
Thousands of Catholics attended mass in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo Sunday amid tight security to prevent a repeat of Easter bomb attacks that killed 258 people.
Soldiers armed with automatic assault rifles guarded St. Theresa’s church at Colombo’s Thimbirigasyaya residential quarter, while members of the congregation were searched for explosives.
The sprawling church car park was empty as the authorities did not allow any vehicles into the compound as part of high-level security.
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