Policeman stabbed in Brussels, attacker shot
BRUSSELS: A policeman was stabbed in Brussels on Tuesday, while the attacker was shot and injured by another officer, the Belgian Interior Ministry has confirmed.
In a statement posted on Twitter, Interior Minister Jan Jambon said the victim was transferred to hospital with minor injuries following the attack that took place outside the Belgian capital’s central police station at 5.30 a.m., reports Efe news.
Jambon described the attack as a “cowardly act”, adding the assailant was not known to the police for terror offences at the moment.
The prosecutor’s office ruled out terrorism as a motive in an initial investigation into the events surrounding the incident. (IANS)
Facebook Messenger crashes globally
TSAN FRANSISCO: Several users in the US and Europe on Tuesday reported that Facebook Messenger was not working for them.
According to DownDetector.com, a portal that tracks when outages happen in the digital world, thousands of Messenger users were unable to receive messages, log in and connect to server.
The outage began after midnight and continued for a few hours, before the Messenger was restored.
Facebook was yet to reveal the reason behind the outage.
“Messenger is generally reliable, but has had more issues recently, with four outages in September alone,” said a Forbes report.
The outage came a day after Facebook unveiled a new update to Messenger which will allow over 1.3 billion users delete sent messages from chat threads, under 10 minutes of sending.
Facebook is also testing a feature called “Watch Videos Together” on Messenger that would enable simultaneous co-viewing of videos over a group chat on different devices. (IANS)
In Pakistani village, home is where the cave is
ISLAMABAD: Bomb-proof, earthquake-resistant and cheap: thousands of Pakistanis are choosing to hunker down in caves northwest of Islamabad, snapping up the hobbit-like homes amid a nationwide housing shortage.
Located around 60 kilometres (40 miles) from Pakistan’s capital, nearly 3,000 people live in caves in the village of Hasan Abdal, according to councilor Haji Abdul Rasheed — whose own home is among the dwellings carved into the rugged, earthen hillside embankments.
Rasheed’s spartan cave — or “buray” as it is locally known — consists of a few minimally furnished rooms complemented by a breezy veranda.
The modern-day cave dwellers recommend the structures as ideally suited to Pakistan’s weather
The caves are usually dug by hand, with residents using clay to plaster the walls — a practice which serves as a bulwark against landslides, they say.
“There is nothing like it. If you build a mud house, it collapses during the rains. This does not collapse,” says Rasheed.
“It’s earthquake-proof and bomb-proof.”
Although locals have been living in caves for at least five centuries since the area was settled by a Mughal tribe, a surge in housing prices has renewed the appetite for the cavernous homes, which cost much less than their urban counterparts.
Locals have been living in caves for at least five centuries since the area was settled by a Mughal tribe
“We bought this because it’s cheaper… we dug it ourselves,” says resident Ameer Ullah Khan.
The modern-day cave dwellers also recommend the structures as ideally suited to Pakistan’s weather — staying cool as summertime temperature soar past 40 degrees Celsius and providing a warm cocoon during the area’s chilly winters.
“We mostly spend our summers here… using the caves as our residence and to store our belongings, including our wheat and corn harvest,” says Muhammad Sohail, who lives elsewhere the rest of the year.
Life is not all easy however: lacking sufficient natural light, the caves rely on electricity cabled in from outside to power TV sets and mobile phones, while indoor plumbing is a rare luxury. (AFP)