5 schoolchildren among 9 killed in blast in Pakistan
Islamabad/Karachi, Nov 1: At least nine people, including five schoolchildren and a policeman, were killed while 27 others were injured on Friday in a remote-controlled blast targeting a police van in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province. The blast occurred at 8.35 am near a girl’s high school at the Civil Hospital Chowk of the Mastung district of the province. Terrorists used a remote control device to detonate explosive material hidden in a parked motorbike, officials said. “It was an IED (improvised explosive device) used in the blast, and the target apparently was a police mobile parked near the school,” Kalat Division Commissioner Naeem Bazai said. The IED detonated when the police mobile came close to it, and a school van was caught in the mayhem. (PTI)
N Korea boasts of ‘world’s strongest’ missile
Seoul, Nov 1: North Korea boasted Friday that the new intercontinental ballistic missile it just test-launched is “the world’s strongest,” a claim seen as pure propaganda after experts assessed it as being too big to be useful in a war situation. The ICBM launched Thursday flew higher and for a longer duration than any other weapon North Korea has tested. But foreign experts say the test failed to show North Korea has mastered some of the last remaining technological hurdles to possess functioning ICBMs that can strike the mainland US. The North’s Korean Central News Agency identified the missile as a Hwasong-19 and called it “the world’s strongest strategic missile” and “the perfected weapon system.” The colour and shape of the exhaust flames seen in North Korean media photos of the launch suggest the missile uses preloaded solid fuel, which makes weapons more agile and harder to detect than liquid propellants that in general must be fuelled beforehand. But experts say the photos show the ICBM and its launch vehicle are both oversized, raising a serious question about their wartime mobility and survivability. (AP)
Adani reduces power supply to B’desh over outstanding bills
Dhaka, Nov 1: India’s Adani Power Jharkhand Limited (APJL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Adani Power, has stopped half of its power supply to Bangladesh because of outstanding bills of USD 846 million, according to a local media report on Friday. Data from Power Grid Bangladesh PLC showed the Adani plant reduced supply on Thursday night, The Daily Star newspaper said. Bangladesh reported a shortfall of more than 1,600 megawatts (MW) on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday as the 1,496 MW plant is now producing 700 MW from a single unit, the newspaper reported. Earlier, the Adani company wrote to the power secretary asking the Bangladesh Power Development Board (PDB) to clear its outstanding dues by October 30. The letter, dated October 27, said that if the bills are not paid, the company shall be constrained to take remedial action under the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) by suspending the power supply on October 31. (PTI)