India, Pakistan exchange small arms fire, China urges restraint

Above, an Indian farmer carries harvested cattle feed on a horse cart near fencing at the India-Pakistan international border in Ranbir Singh Pora, outskirts of Jammu on April 28, 2025. (AP)
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Updated 28 April 2025
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India, Pakistan exchange small arms fire, China urges restraint

  • After the April 22 attack that killed 26 people, India has identified two of the three suspected militants as Pakistani
  • The attack triggered outrage and grief in Hindu-majority India, along with calls for action against Islamic Pakistan

SRINAGAR, India: India said on Monday it had responded to ‘unprovoked’ small arms firing from Pakistan along the de facto border for the fourth consecutive night, as it deepens its search for militants in the region following last week’s deadly attack on tourists in Kashmir.
After the April 22 attack that killed 26 people, India has identified two of the three suspected militants as Pakistani, although Islamabad has denied any role and called for a neutral probe.
Security officials and survivors have said the militants segregated the men at the site, a meadow in the Pahalgam area, asked their names and targeted Hindus before shooting them at close range.
The attack triggered outrage and grief in Hindu-majority India, along with calls for action against Islamic Pakistan, whom New Delhi accuses of funding and encouraging terrorism in Kashmir, a region both nations claim and have fought two wars over.
The nuclear-armed nations have unleashed a raft of measures against each other, with India putting the critical Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance and Pakistan closing its airspace to Indian airlines.
China, a key player in the region, said on Monday it hoped India and Pakistan will exercise restraint and welcomed all measures that will help cool down the situation.
The Indian Army said it had responded to “unprovoked” small arms fire from multiple Pakistan Army posts around midnight on Sunday along the 740-km de facto border separating the Indian and Pakistani areas of Kashmir. It gave no further details and reported no casualties.
The Pakistani military did not respond to a request for comment.
In a separate statement, the Pakistan army said it has killed 54 Islamist militants who were trying to enter the country from the Afghanistan border to the west in the last two days.
India’s defense forces have conducted several military exercises across the country since the attack. Some of these are routine preparedness drills, a defense official said.
Security forces have detained around 500 people for questioning after they searched nearly 1,000 houses and forests hunting for militants in Indian Kashmir, a local police official told Reuters on Monday.
At least nine houses have been demolished so far, the official added.
Political leaders in the state have called for caution to ensure the innocent are not harmed in the government’s actions against terrorism after the deadliest incident of its kind in India in nearly two decades.
“This is the first time in 26 years that I have seen people coming out in this way...to say we are not with this attack,” Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah told the legislature.
“It (militancy) will finish when people are with us, and today it seems like people are getting there,” he said.
Kashmir Resistance, also known as The Resistance Front, said in a post on X that it “unequivocally” denied involvement in last week’s attack, after an initial message that claimed responsibility.
The group, considered an offshoot of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba by a Delhi-based think tank, blamed a ‘cyber intrusion’ for the previous social media post that claimed responsibility.


Pakistan defends flood response after over 270 people killed in northwestern district

Updated 49 min 30 sec ago
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Pakistan defends flood response after over 270 people killed in northwestern district

  • Authorities said several villagers remain missing, and search efforts are focused on areas where homes were flattened by torrents of water

BUNER, Pakistan: Torrential rains triggered more flash floods in two villages in the Kathua district of Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing at least seven people and injuring five others overnight, officials said Sunday.

In Kishtwar district, teams are continuing their efforts in the remote village of Chositi, looking for dozens of missing people after the area was hit by flash floods last week. At least 60 were killed and some 150 injured, about 50 of them critically.

In Pakistan, authorities on Sunday defended their response to climate-induced flash floods that killed more than 270 people in a single northwestern district.

Mohammad Suhail, a spokesman for the emergency service, said 54 bodies were found after hours-long efforts in Buner, a mountainous district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where torrential rains and cloudbursts triggered massive flooding on Friday. Similar cloudburst have also caused devastations in the Indian-administered Kashmir.

Suhail said several villagers remain missing, and search efforts are focused on areas where homes were flattened by torrents of water that swept down from the mountains, carrying massive boulders that smashed into houses like explosions.

Authorities have warned of more deluges and possible landslides between now and Tuesday, urging local administrations to remain on alert. Higher-than-normal monsoon rains have lashed the country since June 26 and killed more than 600.

More intense weather to come?

Residents in Buner have accused officials of failing to warn them to evacuate after torrential rain and cloudbursts triggered deadly flooding and landslides. There was no warning broadcast from mosque loudspeakers, a traditional method in remote areas.

The government said that while an early warning system was in place, the sudden downpour in Buner was so intense that the deluge struck before residents could be alerted.

Lt. Gen. Inam Haider, chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority, told a hastily convened news conference in Islamabad that Pakistan was experiencing shifting weather patterns because of climate change. Since the monsoon season began in June, Pakistan has already received 50 percent more rainfall than in the same period last year, he added.

He warned that more intense weather could follow, with heavy rains forecast to continue this month.

Asfandyar Khan Khattak, director-general of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority, said there was “no forecasting system anywhere in the world” that could predict the exact time and location of a cloudburst.

Mohammad Iqbal, a schoolteacher in Pir Baba village, said the lack of a timely warning system caused casualties and forced many to flee their homes at the last moment.

“Survivors escaped with nothing,” he said. “If people had been informed earlier, lives could have been saved and residents could have moved to safer places.”

People still missing

Idrees Mahsud, a disaster management official, said Pakistan’s early warning system used satellite imagery and meteorological data to send alerts to local authorities. These were shared through the media and community leaders. He said monsoon rains that once only swelled rivers now also triggered urban flooding.

An emergency services spokesman in Buner, Mohammad Sohail, said more than half the damaged roads in the district had reopened by Sunday, allowing vehicles and heavy machinery to reach cut-off villages.

Crews were clearing piles of rocks and mud dumped by the floods. They were still using heavy machinery to remove the rubble of collapsed homes after families reported that some of their relatives were missing.

In one of the deadliest incidents, 24 people from one family died in the village of Qadar Nagar when floodwaters swept through their home on the eve of a wedding. The head of the family, Umar Khan, said he survived the floods because he was out of the house at the time. Four of his relatives have yet to be found, he added.

Extreme weather events

Pakistan is highly vulnerable to climate-induced disasters. In 2022, a record-breaking monsoon killed nearly 1,700 people and destroyed millions of homes.

The country also suffers regular flash floods and landslides during the monsoon season, which runs from June to September, particularly in the rugged northwest, where villages are often perched on steep slopes and riverbanks.

Experts say climate change is intensifying the frequency and severity of such extreme weather events in South Asia.

Khalid Khan, a weather expert, said Pakistan produces less than 1 percent of planet-warming emissions but faces heatwaves, heavy rains, glacial outburst floods and now cloudbursts, underscoring how climate change is devastating communities within hours.
Thursday’s floods struck during an annual Hindu pilgrimage. Authorities rescued over 300 people, while some 4,000 pilgrims were evacuated to safety.


France discussing ‘unjustified’ arrest of citizen in Mali

Updated 17 August 2025
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France discussing ‘unjustified’ arrest of citizen in Mali

  • Mali authorities said Thursday that the French national had been arrested on suspicion of working for the French intelligence services, and accused “foreign states” of trying to destabilize the country

PARIS: France’s foreign ministry said Saturday that it was in talks with Mali over the arrest of a Frenchman accused of working with intelligence services to “destabilize” the country, calling the claims “unjustified.”
“Discussions are underway to clear up any misunderstanding” and obtain the “immediate release” of the French embassy employee in Bamako, the ministry said.
Mali authorities said Thursday that the French national had been arrested on suspicion of working for the French intelligence services, and accused “foreign states” of trying to destabilize the country.
The West African country’s ruling junta, which came to power after back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, also said that dozens of soldiers had been detained for allegedly seeking to overthrow the government.
France’s foreign ministry said the arrested employee was covered by the Vienna convention on consular relations, meaning he should be released.
Impoverished Mali has been gripped by a security crisis since 2012, fueled notably by violence from groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State jihadist group, as well as local criminal gangs.
The junta, led by President Assimi Goita, has turned away from Western partners, notably former colonial power France, to align itself politically and militarily with Russia in the name of national sovereignty.


European leaders to join Zelensky for Ukraine talks with Trump

Updated 17 August 2025
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European leaders to join Zelensky for Ukraine talks with Trump

  • Ahead of the Washington visit on Monday, von der Leyen said she would welcome Zelensky for a meeting in Brussels which other European leaders would join by video call, before accompanying the Ukrainian leader on his US trip at his “request”

BRUSSELS: European leaders will join Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during his visit to Washington on Monday seeking an end to Moscow’s invasion, after President Donald Trump dropped his push for a ceasefire following his Alaska summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Securing a ceasefire in Ukraine, more than three years after the Kremlin ordered the invasion, had been one of Trump’s core demands before the summit, to which Ukraine and its European allies were not invited.
But after a meeting that yielded no clear breakthrough, Trump ruled out an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine — a move that would appear to favor Putin, who has long argued for negotiations on a final peace deal.
Ukraine and its European allies have criticized it as a way to buy time and press Russia’s battlefield advances, with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen among the leaders set to try and bend Trump’s ear on the matter.
Ahead of the Washington visit on Monday, von der Leyen said on X she would welcome Zelensky for a meeting in Brussels on Sunday which other European leaders would join by video call, before accompanying the Ukrainian leader on his US trip at his “request” with “other European leaders.”
The German government confirmed Merz was among those other European leaders, and would try to emphasize “interest in a swift peace agreement in Ukraine.”
Finland said its president, Alexander Stubb, would also travel to Washington.
Trump briefed Zelensky and European leaders on his flight back from Alaska to Washington, saying afterwards that “it was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a peace agreement which would end the war.”
Ceasefire agreements “often times do not hold up,” Trump added on his Truth Social platform.
But Zelensky has appeared unconvinced by the change of tack, saying on Saturday that it “complicates the situation.”
If Moscow lacks “the will to carry out a simple order to stop the strikes, it may take a lot of effort to get Russia to have the will to implement far greater — peaceful coexistence with its neighbors for decades,” he said on social media.


Trump expressed support during his call with Zelensky and European leaders for a proposal by Putin to take full control of two largely Russian-held Ukrainian regions in exchange for freezing the frontline in two others, an official briefed on the talks told AFP.
Putin “de facto demands that Ukraine leave Donbas,” an area consisting of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in eastern Ukraine, the source said.
In exchange, Russian forces would halt their offensive in the Black Sea port region of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine, where the main cities are still under Ukrainian control.
Several months into its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia in September 2022 claimed to have annexed all four Ukrainian regions even though its troops still do not fully control any of them.
“The Ukrainian president refused to leave Donbas,” the source said.
Trump notably also said the United States was prepared to provide Ukraine security guarantees, an assurance Merz hailed as “significant progress.”
But there was a scathing assessment of the summit outcome from the European Union’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas, who accused Putin of seeking to “drag out negotiations” with no commitment to end the bloodshed.
“The harsh reality is that Russia has no intention of ending this war any time soon,” Kallas said.


The main diplomatic focus now switches to Zelensky’s talks at the White House on Monday.
The Ukrainian president’s last Oval Office visit in February ended in an extraordinary shouting match, with Trump and Vice President JD Vance publicly berating Zelensky for not showing enough gratitude for US aid.
In an interview with broadcaster Fox News after his sit-down with Putin, Trump had suggested that the onus was now on Zelensky to secure a peace deal as they work toward an eventual trilateral summit with Putin.
“It’s really up to President Zelensky to get it done,” Trump said.


In an earlier statement, European leaders welcomed the plan for a Trump-Putin-Zelensky summit but added that they would maintain pressure on Russia in the absence of a ceasefire.
Meanwhile, the conflict in Ukraine raged on, with both Kyiv and Moscow launching attack drones at each other Sunday.
Back in Moscow, Putin said his summit talks with Trump had been “timely” and “very useful.”
In his post-summit statement in Alaska, Putin had warned Ukraine and European countries not to engage in any “behind-the-scenes intrigues” that could disrupt what he called “this emerging progress.”


Air Canada to resume flights after directive ending strike

Updated 17 August 2025
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Air Canada to resume flights after directive ending strike

  • Jobs Minister Patty Hajjdu issues directive to end a cabin crew strike

Air Canada plans to resume flights on Sunday after the Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) acted on a directive from the country’s Jobs Minister Patty Hajjdu to end a cabin crew strike that caused the suspension of around 700 daily flights.
The CIRB directed Air Canada to resume operations and for all Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge flight attendants to return to their duties by 2 p.m. ET (1800 GMT), the airline said in a statement.
The directive came after the government on Saturday moved to end the strike and require binding arbitration to break a contract impasse, an action that the country’s largest carrier had sought but unionized flight attendants fiercely opposed.
Thousands of Air Canada cabin crew walked off the job on Saturday for the first time since 1985, after months of negotiations over a new contract. In anticipation of the stoppage, the airline began canceling flights on Friday, forcing more than 100,000 travelers to scramble for alternatives or stay put.
Air Canada said flights would restart on Sunday evening, but some would still be canceled over the next 7-10 days as the schedule stabilizes and returns to normal.


Pope Leo XIV celebrates Mass for local homeless people, invites them to lunch at summer villa

Updated 17 August 2025
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Pope Leo XIV celebrates Mass for local homeless people, invites them to lunch at summer villa

  • He is celebrating a special Mass for them and inviting them into the Vatican’s lakeside estate for a lunch of lasagna and roast veal
  • Pope Leo XIV is spending the last Sunday of his summer vacation with several dozen homeless and poor people and the church volunteers who help them

CASTEL GANDOLFO: Pope Leo XIV spent the last Sunday of his summer vacation with several dozen homeless and poor people and the church volunteers who help them, celebrating a special Mass for them and inviting them into the Vatican’s lakeside estate for a lunch of lasagna and roast veal.
Leo celebrated Mass in the St. Mary sanctuary of Albano, near the papal summer retreat in Castel Gandolfo where he is vacationing. The Mass was attended by around 110 people cared for by the local Caritas church charity, and the volunteers who run the diocese’s shelters, clinics and social service offices.
In his homily, Leo celebrated the “fire of charity” that had brought them together.
“And I encourage you not to distinguish between those who assist and those who are assisted, between those who seem to give and those who seem to receive, between those who appear poor and those who feel they have something to offer in terms of time, skills, and help,” he said.
In the church, he said, everyone is poor and precious, and all share the same dignity.
Leo, the former Robert Prevost, spent most of his adult life working with the poor people of Peru, first as an Augustinian missionary and then as bishop. Former parishioners and church workers say he greatly reinforced the work of the local Caritas charity, opening soup kitchens and shelters for migrants and rallying funds to build oxygen plants during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Later Sunday, Leo was to preside over a luncheon with the guests at the Borgo Laudato Si’, the Vatican’s environmental educational center in the gardens of the papal villa in Castel Gandolfo. The center is named for Pope Francis’ 2015 landmark environmental encyclical, Laudato Si (Praised Be).
According to the Albano diocese, local caterers were providing a menu of lasagna, eggplant parmesan and roast veal. For dessert, the menu called for fruit salad and sweets named for the pope, “Dolce Leone.”