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LAHORE: Pakistani police are seeking to arrest a man in connection with the death of his 10-year-old daughter in the UK, officers in the eastern Punjab province said Saturday.
Sara Sharif was found dead at her home in Woking, on the southern outskirts of London, on Aug. 10, UK police said in a statement. They identified her father, Urfan, his partner, Beinash Batool, and Urfan’s brother, Faisal Malik, as people they want to speak to as part of their investigation.
An autopsy didn’t establish a cause of death but did show that Sara had suffered “multiple and extensive injuries, which are likely to have been caused over a sustained and extended period of time,” the police statement said.
Urfan Sharif traveled to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad with Batool and Malik on Aug. 9. There are five children with them, ranging from 1 to 13 years of age, the statement added.
Sharif’s family home is in Jhelum, Punjab, around 135 kilometers (84 miles) from the capital.
Officer Imran Ahmed said police found evidence that Sharif briefly returned to Jhelum, before leaving and going into hiding. Another officer in Jhelum, Nisar Ahmed, said he and his men went to Sharif’s native village of Kari but learned the family left around 20 years ago and never returned.
UK police said they were working with international agencies, including Interpol, the National Crime Agency and the UK Foreign Office to progress their enquiries with Pakistani authorities.
TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made a brief visit to the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant on Sunday to highlight the safety of an impending release of treated radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean, a divisive plan that his government wants to start soon despite protests at home and abroad.
His trip comes hours after he returned home Saturday from a summit with US and South Korean leaders at the American presidential retreat of Camp David. Before leaving Washington on Friday, Kishida said it is time to make a decision on the treated water’s release date, which has not been set due to the controversy surrounding the plan.
Since the government announced the release plan two years ago, it has faced strong opposition from Japanese fishing organizations, which worry about further damage to the reputation of their seafood as they struggle to recover from the accident. Groups in South Korea and China have also raised concerns, turning it into a political and diplomatic issue.
The government and the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., say the water must be removed to make room for the plant’s decommissioning and to prevent accidental leaks from the tanks because much of the water is still contaminated and needs further treatment.
Japan has obtained support from the International Atomic Energy Agency to improve transparency and credibility and to ensure the plan by TEPCO meets international safety standards. The government has also stepped up a campaign promoting the plan’s safety at home and through diplomatic channels.
IAEA, in a final report in July, concluded that the TEPCO plan, if conducted strictly as designed, will cause negligible impact on the environment and human health, encouraging Japan to proceed.
Kishida told reporters after Sunday’s plant visit that he hoped to meet with the head of the national fisheries organization on Monday before his ministers decide the date at a meeting next week, Kyodo News agency reported. Kishida did not mention a starting date for the water release, which is widely expected to be at the end of August.
During his visit on Sunday, Kishida saw wastewater filtering and dilution facilities and met with TEPCO president Tomoaki Kobayakawa and other top officials. He urged the officials to prioritize safety in the release and help prevent reputational damage to local fisheries, Kyodo said.
While seeking understanding from the fishing community, the government has also worked to explain the plan to South Korea to keep the issue from interfering with their relationship-building. Japan, South Korea and the US are working to bolster trilateral ties in the face of growing Chinese and North Korean threats.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s government recently showed support for the Japanese plan, but he faces criticism at home. During a joint news conference at Camp David, Yoon said he backs the IAEA’s safety evaluation of the plan but stressed the need for transparent inspection by the international community.
Kishida said Friday the outreach efforts have made progress, and that the decision will factor in safety preparations and measures for possible reputation damage on the fisheries.
A massive March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi plant’s cooling systems, causing three reactors to melt and contaminating their cooling water. The water is collected, filtered and stored in around 1,000 tanks, which will reach their capacity in early 2024.
The water is being treated with what’s called an Advanced Liquid Processing System, which can reduce the amounts of more than 60 selected radionuclides to government-set releasable levels, except for tritium, which the government and TEPCO say is safe for humans if consumed in small amounts.
Scientists generally agree that the environmental impact of the treated wastewater would be negligible, but some call for more attention to dozens of low-dose radionuclides that remain in it.
MULTAN, Pakistan: A bus in Pakistan caught fire after hitting a van parked on the shoulder of an intercity highway in eastern Punjab province, killing at least 18 people and injuring 13 others, police and rescue officials said Sunday.
The accident occurred early Sunday near Pindi Bhattian, where the Islamabad-bound bus hit a van parked on the shoulder of the Lahore-Islamabad Motorway, senior police officer Fahad Ahmed said. The van was carrying fuel drums, which caused an inferno that engulfed the bus, Ahmed said.
There were more than 40 passengers on the bus, Ahmed said. Those who were rescued were badly burned, including several in critical condition. Other passengers were slightly injured with burns after escaping through the windows.
The drivers of both vehicles died, police said.
Such accidents happen frequently on Pakistan’s highways, where safety standards are often ignored and traffic regulations violated. Fatigued drivers also fall asleep behind the wheel during long drives.
DUBAI: An American-owned oil tanker long suspected of carrying sanctioned Iranian crude oil began offloading its cargo near Texas late Saturday, tracking data showed, even as Tehran has threatened to target shipping in the Arabian Gulf over it.
The fate of the cargo aboard the Suez Rajan has become mired in the wider tensions between the US and the Islamic Republic, even as Tehran and Washington work toward a trade of billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets in South Korea for the release of five Iranian-Americans held in Tehran.
Already, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has warned that those involved in offloading the cargo “should expect to be struck back.” The US Navy has increased its presence steadily in recent weeks in the Mideast, deploying the troop-and-aircraft-carrying USS Bataan and considering putting armed personnel on commercial ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz to stop Iran from seizing additional ships.
Ship-tracking data showed the Marshall Islands-flagged Suez Rajan was undergoing a ship-to-ship transfer of its oil to another tanker, the Mr. Euphrates, near Galveston, Texas, some 70 kilometers (45 miles) southeast of Houston. That likely will allow the cargo to be offloaded.
US officials and the owners of the Suez Rajan, the Los Angeles-based private equity firm Oaktree Capital Management, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The saga over the Suez Rajan began in February 2022, when the group United Against Nuclear Iran said it suspected the tanker carried oil from Iran’s Khargh Island, its main oil distribution terminal in the Arabian Gulf.
For months, it sat in the South China Sea off the northeast coast of Singapore before suddenly sailing for the Gulf of Mexico without explanation. Analysts believe the vessel’s cargo likely had been seized by American officials, though there still were no public court documents early Sunday involving the Suez Rajan.
In the meantime, Iran has seized two tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, including one with cargo for US oil major Chevron Corp. In July, the top commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s naval arm threatened further action against anyone offloading the Suez Rajan, with state media linking the recent seizures to the cargo’s fate.
“We hereby declare that we would hold any oil company that sought to unload our crude from the vessel responsible and we also hold America responsible,” Rear Adm. Alireza Tangsiri said at the time. “The era of hit and run is over, and if they hit, they should expect to be struck back.”
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment over the offloading of the Suez Rajan. Western-backed naval organizations in the Arabian Gulf in recent days also warned of an increased risk of ship seizures from Iran around the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers saw it regain the ability to sell oil openly on the international market. But in 2018, then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the accord and re-imposed American sanctions. That slammed the door on much of Iran’s lucrative crude oil trade, a major engine for its economy and its government. It also began a cat-and-mouse hunt for Iranian oil cargo — as well as series of escalating attacks attributed to Iran since 2019.
The delay in offloading the Suez Rajan’s cargo had become a political issue as well for the Biden administration as the ship had sat for months in the Gulf of Mexico, possibly due to companies being worried about the threat from Iran.
In a letter dated Wednesday, a group of Democratic and Republican US senators asked the White House for an update on what was happening with the ship’s cargo, estimated to be worth some $56 million. They said the money could go toward the US Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund, which compensates those affected by the Sept. 11 attacks, the 1979 Iran hostage crisis and other militant assaults.
“We owe it to these American families to enforce our sanctions,” the letter read.
The US Treasury has said Iran’s oil smuggling revenue supports the Quds Force, the expeditionary unit of the Revolutionary Guard that operates across the Mideast.
Claire Jungman, the chief of staff at United Against Nuclear Iran, praised the transfer finally happening.
“By depriving the (Guard) of crucial resources, we strike a blow against terrorism that targets not only American citizens but also our global allies and partners,” Jungman said.
SEOUL: Suspected North Korean hackers have targeted a joint US-South Korea military exercise being held this week though classified information has not been compromised, South Korean police said on Sunday.
South Korean and US forces will on Monday begin 11-day Ulchi Freedom Guardian summer exercises to improve their ability to respond to North Korea’s evolving nuclear and missile threats.
North Korea objects to such exercises saying they are preparations by the US and its South Korean ally for an invasion of it.
The hackers were believed to be linked to a North Korean group that researchers call Kimsuky, and they carried out their hack via emails to South Korean contractors working at the South Korea-US combined exercise war simulation center, the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency said in a statement.
“It was confirmed that military-related information was not stolen,” police said in a statement on Sunday.
North Korea has previously denied any role in cyberattacks.
The Kimsuky hackers has long used “spear-phishing” emails that trick targets into giving up passwords or clicking attachments or links that load malware, according to researchers.
South Korean police and the US military conducted a joint investigation and found the IP address used in the hacking attempt matched one identified in a 2014 hack against South Korea’s nuclear reactor operator, police said.
At that time, South Korea accused North Korea of being behind that cyberattack.
CHERNIJIV, Ukraine: A Russian missile strike on Ukraine’s northern city of Chernihiv killed seven people and wounded more than 100 on Saturday, in what the UN denounced as a “heinous” attack.
The strike came during the Orthodox holiday of the Transfiguration of the Lord, as some attended morning church services in the city.
“It is heinous to attack the main square of a large city, in the morning, while people are out walking, some going to church to celebrate a religious day for many Ukrainians,” said Denise Brown, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine.
“I condemn this repeated pattern of Russian strikes on populated areas of Ukraine… Attacks directed against civilians or civilian objects are strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law,” she added.
Audrey Azoulay, Director General of UNESCO, the UN’s cultural organization, said she was “appalled” by the attack, in a post on social media.
“The theater partially destroyed and other cultural and educational premises damaged. All my thoughts to the victims,” she wrote.
Ukraine’s culture ministry said the center of Chernihiv, a city with a thousand-year history, is a candidate for nomination to the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The city, 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of Kyiv toward Belarus, had until now been largely spared from major attacks since the first months of Russia’s invasion as fierce fighting rages in the east and south.
The Russian army marched through the city when it invaded Ukraine through Belarus in February 2022, before being repelled by Kyiv’s forces.
Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said that after the search and rescue operation had been completed, the toll stood at seven dead and 129 wounded, including 15 children and 15 police officers.
The acting Mayor of Chernihiv, Oleksandr Lomako, said a six-year-old girl was among the fatalities.
From a hospital bed, her legs still covered in blood, Diana Kazakova said she had been inside a shop when the strike happened just minutes after sirens had sounded the alert.
When she came too, she said “people were crying, shouting” in the street outside. “It was scary.”
Iryna, a 24-year-old bartender in Chernihiv, told AFP: “There was smoke, screams, people were running, crying, moaning. We ran to the shelter when everything happened and sat there.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the attack had hit a square that houses a “polytechnic university, a theater.”
“An ordinary Saturday, which Russia turned into a day of pain and loss,” he said, after his arrival in Sweden.
Zelensky was in Sweden for talks with Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, and to finalize agreement on “joint production of CV90 combat vehicles in Ukraine,” the Ukraine leader said.
They also discussed Ukraine pilots participating in test trials of Swedish Gripen fighter jets, he said.
Hours earlier, the Kremlin said Putin had traveled to the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, Moscow’s hub for its operations in Ukraine, to meet his top generals in a rare trip close to combat zones.
Moscow gave no details of when the meeting took place, but footage released by state media indicated it was at night.
Putin “listened to briefings by the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov, commanders of directions and other senior officers of the group,” the Kremlin said.
A video published by the RIA Novosti news agency showed Putin, wearing a suit, stepping out of a jeep in the dark and being greeted with a handshake by Gerasimov, in military attire.
Gerasimov is seen leading Putin down a corridor decorated with portraits of Russian military men and of the president chairing a meeting with army chiefs.
Rostov-on-Don was also the scene of a dramatic armed mutiny by Wagner mercenaries in June, which saw them briefly take over the army HQ in Rostov, before halting their rebellion.
Gerasimov, who Wagner wanted to unseat, has rarely been seen in public since.
Kyiv said it had shot down more than a dozen Russian drones in an overnight attack.
And the Russian army said it had thwarted Ukrainian attacks on Crimea as well as attempted drone strikes on a military airfield in the northwestern Novgorod region, Moscow and its region.
A day earlier, Russian forces destroyed Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow and the Black Sea Fleet.
Both sides have reported regular drone incursions as Ukraine presses a counteroffensive to reclaim Russian-held territory.
Russia’s army also said it had “eliminated” 150 Ukrainian troops that tried to cross the Dnipro River into Russian-occupied territory in southern Ukraine, a day after admitting sabotage groups were operating in the area.