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At least 25 people were killed in three attacks in Pakistan on Tuesday, officials said, including 14 who died after a suicide bomber targeted a political rally in the southwestern province of Balochistan.  Dozens of people were wounded in that explosion, which took place in the parking lot of a stadium in the provincial capital, Quetta, where hundreds of members of the Balochistan National Party (BNP) had gathered, two provincial officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.At least seven of the wounded were in critical condition, the officials said.Another attack in Balochistan, near the border with Iran, claimed five lives on Tuesday, while six soldiers were killed after a suicide attack on their base in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest and most resource-rich province, but also its poorest, and regularly ranks among the lowest on human development indicator scorecards. The BNP campaigns on a platform calling for greater rights and economic investment in the wellbeing of members of the Baloch ethnicity.The party’s chief, Akhtar Mengal, had just finished speaking at the Quetta rally and was leaving the venue when the attack occurred. He said he was “safe” in a post on social media. Since 2014, China has invested significantly in building a road-and-infrastructure project in Balochistan linked to its One Belt One Road initiative. Many Baloch, however, say the benefits have been reaped only by outsiders.Pakistani forces have been battling an insurgency in the province for more than a decade, and in 2024 the region saw a sharp rise in violence, with 782 people killed. Elsewhere in Balochistan on Tuesday, five paramilitary personnel were killed and four wounded when a homemade bomb exploded as their convoy passed through a district near the Iranian border, a senior local official told AFP.No group immediately claimed responsibility for either attack. – Khyber Pakhtunkhwa attack -Since January 1, according to AFP figures, more than 430 people, mostly members of the security forces, have been killed in violence carried out by armed groups fighting the state in Balochistan and neighboring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. On Tuesday, six soldiers were killed in an attack on a paramilitary headquarters in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa city of Bannu, the military said. “A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the gate of the FC camp, after which five more suicide attackers entered,” a government official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.The ensuing exchange of fire lasted 12 hours, ending after the six attackers were killed, the official said. The militant group Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan claimed responsibility for that attack.

Strong aftershocks to a powerful earthquake that killed more than 1,400 people at the weekend rattled eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday as survivors in remote hard-hit villages prepared for another night without shelter. Temporary shelters had not yet reached the Mazar Dara area of Kunar province, an AFP journalist said, with roads still blocked to the remote, mountainous region bordering Pakistan where the worst of the earthquake was felt. “There is no food… there is nothing, everything has been buried in the rubble,” Nurgal district official Ijaz Ulhaq Yaad told AFP. Residents, including elderly people and children were “in the open air” with little to protect them from wet weather, he said, adding that “we still feel strong aftershocks”.A 5.2-magnitude earthquake jolted the region near the epicentre of the magnitude 6.0 earthquake that hit late Sunday night — one of at least six aftershocks recorded by the US Geological Survey.”These aftershocks are constant, but they have not caused any casualties yet,” Ehsanullah Ehsan, the disaster management spokesman in Kunar, told AFP. The number of victims from Sunday’s earthquake has mounted steadily, with 1,411 people dead and 3,124 injured in Kunar alone, chief Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Tuesday, making it one of the deadliest to hit the country in decades. Another dozen people were killed and hundreds injured in neighbouring Nangarhar province.Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, with dwindling aid since the Taliban seized power in 2021, undermining its ability to respond to disasters.The devastation could affect “hundreds of thousands”, said United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Afghanistan Indrika Ratwatte.Rescuers searched through the night and all day for survivors in the rubble of homes flattened in Kunar, where more than 5,400 houses were destroyed, government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said.The European Union said it was sending 130 tonnes of emergency supplies and providing one million euros ($1.2 million) to help victims of the deadly quake. The bloc has become one of the key aid donors to Afghanistan after the United States — previously the country’s largest aid provider — cut all but a slice of its assistance after President Donald Trump took office in January.The aid cuts risk impeding the response to the earthquake, sector experts told AFP, in a country already facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises after decades of conflict.”The scale of need far exceeds current resources,” the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said, noting that funding cuts had hit humanitarian air services, “limiting access to remote communities”. IFRC said it had launched an emergency appeal for 25 million Swiss francs ($31 million) to help with the earthquake response and recovery, as various countries pledged to send support.As Taliban military helicopters flew in food and continued to transport victims, residents buried their dead, including children, wrapping them in white shrouds and praying over their bodies before laying them to rest.- ‘Find their families’ -Sunday’s earthquake epicentre was about 27 kilometres (17 miles) from Jalalabad, according to the USGS, and just eight kilometres below the Earth’s surface.Such relatively shallow quakes can cause more damage, especially as the majority of Afghans live in mud-brick homes vulnerable to collapse.Many of those living in the quake-hit villages were among the more than four million Afghans forced back to the country from Iran and Pakistan in recent years, many coming through the Torkham border crossing in Nangarhar province. Rahmatullah Khaksar, who heads the emergency ward at a hospital in Jalalabad, Nangarhar’s provincial capital, said they had received 600 injured since Sunday night. “Most of the patients were trauma patients. They were hit on the head, back, abdomen and legs,” he told AFP, adding they had cleared a ward for unidentified patients “so they will stay there until they find their families”.Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range near the junction of the Eurasia and India tectonic plates.Western Herat province was devastated in October 2023 by a 6.3-magnitude earthquake, which killed more than 1,500 people and damaged or destroyed more than 63,000 homes.A 5.9-magnitude quake struck the eastern province of Paktika in June 2022, killing more than 1,000 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless.

A fresh 5.2-magnitude earthquake hit the east of Afghanistan on Tuesday, jolting a region still struggling with the aftermath of a powerful quake at the weekend that killed 1,400 people.The epicentre of the tremor was close to where a magnitude 6.0 earthquake hit late Sunday night, devastating remote areas in mountainous provinces near the border with Pakistan.The “quake was felt in the same areas which were affected in Kunar (province) in the first earthquake,” Ehsanullah Ehsan, the disaster management spokesman in the hard-hit province, told AFP.”These aftershocks are constant, but they have not caused any casualties yet.”The quake was reported by the US Geological Survey late Tuesday.The number of victims from Sunday’s earthquake has mounted steadily, with 1,411 people dead and 3,124 injured in Kunar alone, chief Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Tuesday, making it one of the deadliest to hit the country in decades. Another dozen people were killed and hundreds injured in neighbouring Nangarhar province.Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, with dwindling aid since the Taliban seized power in 2021 undermining its ability to respond to disasters.The devastation could affect “hundreds of thousands”, said United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Afghanistan Indrika Ratwatte.Rescuers searched through the night and all day for survivors in the rubble of homes flattened in Kunar, where more than 5,400 houses were destroyed, government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said on X.Many of the worst-affected areas were still unreachable by road, but emergency facilities were being set up and multiple countries had announced they would provide aid, Fitrat said. The European Union said it was sending 130 tonnes of emergency supplies and providing one million euros ($1.2 million) to help victims of the deadly quake.The bloc has become one of the key aid donors to Afghanistan after the United States — previously the country’s largest aid provider — cut all but a slice of its assistance after President Donald Trump took office in January.The aid cuts risk impeding the response to the earthquake, sector experts told AFP, in a country already facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises after decades of conflict.”The scale of need far exceeds current resources,” the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in a statement, noting that funding cuts had hit humanitarian air services, “limiting access to remote communities”.Emergency workers struggled to reach mountainous areas and villagers joined the rescue efforts, using their bare hands to clear debris from mud and stone homes built into steep valleys.Obaidullah Stoman, 26, who travelled to the village of Wadir to search for a friend, was overwhelmed by the level of destruction.”I’m searching here, but I didn’t see him. It was very difficult for me to see the conditions here,” he told AFP.”There is only rubble left.”The dead, including children, were wrapped in white shrouds by villagers who prayed over their bodies before burying them.- ‘Whole house collapsed’ -The earthquake epicentre was about 27 kilometres (17 miles) from Jalalabad, according to the USGS, and struck just eight kilometres below the Earth’s surface.Such relatively shallow quakes can cause more damage, especially since the majority of Afghans live in mud-brick homes vulnerable to collapse.Many of those living in the quake-hit villages were among the more than four million Afghans forced back to the country from Iran and Pakistan in recent years, many coming through the Torkham border crossing in Nangarhar province.Rahmatullah Khaksar, who heads the emergency ward at a hospital in Jalalabad, Nangarhar’s provincial capital, said they had received 600 injured since Sunday night. “Most of the patients were trauma patients. They were hit on the head, back, abdomen and legs,” he told AFP, adding they had cleared a ward for unidentified patients “so they will stay there until they find their families”.Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range near the junction of the Eurasia and India tectonic plates.Western Herat province was devastated in October 2023 by a 6.3-magnitude earthquake, which killed more than 1,500 people and damaged or destroyed more than 63,000 homes.A 5.9-magnitude quake struck the eastern province of Paktika in June 2022, killing more than 1,000 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless.

Afghanistan was already facing severe crises when it was rocked by another devastating earthquake, but this time there are fewer resources to muster after foreign funding was slashed to the bone this year.Less international aid “means fewer ambulances, fewer doctors, fewer nurses, fewer midwives” to send into the battered farming communities of Afghanistan’s mountainous east, said Arthur Comon, deputy director of operations at the non-governmental group Premiere Urgence Internationale (PUI).The humanitarian sector has issued repeated calls since the start of the year for help in Afghanistan, which faces soaring poverty, worsening drought and the mass return of migrants expelled from neighbouring countries.The 6.0-magnitude earthquake that struck around midnight on Sunday killed more than 1,400 people and injured over 3,000, a toll that was still rising.It hit “in the very worst moment”, said Rahmat Nabi Shirzad, communications officer for the UK-based NGO Islamic Relief in Afghanistan.”The impact of these global cuts to humanitarian aid is very clear,” especially in health services for the hardest-hit province of Kunar, said Shirzad, who was also on the ground after deadly earthquakes in Herat province in 2023 and Paktika in 2022. Compared to the support provided after those disasters, the resources for Kunar are “not at that level”.- ‘Already bled dry’ -“This earthquake is a crisis within a crisis,” United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Afghanistan Indrika Ratwatte told AFP.”Survivors now face overcrowded clinics, long waits and severe shortages of doctors and medicines — just when emergency trauma care is needed most.”Funding cuts forced the closure of 400 health facilities, Ratwatte said.The United States had been Afghanistan’s main donor, providing $3.71 billion in aid since the Taliban takeover in 2021. It cut all but a sliver of funding in January.”The Americans had put the country on a drip feed, and then pulled it out before the patient was healed,” said a source at a French NGO. “The earthquake is now ravaging a population that was already bled dry.”Beyond Washington, the UN said in June that it was drastically scaling back global humanitarian aid due to the “deepest funding cuts ever”.Afghanistan’s aid had already been dwindling as donors hesitated, in part due to the Taliban’s restrictions on women. A senior official in the Taliban’s information and culture ministry called on the international community to help.”We are providing basic services… but the rehabilitation of those impacted and reconstruction of their homes is not in the capacity of the Islamic Emirate alone,” said Atiqullah Azizi. Half of Afghanistan’s 48 million people are already in need of humanitarian aid, one in five goes hungry, and 3.5 million children under five are acutely malnourished, according to the UN. The earthquake is “a key moment to see how donors react”, International Rescue Committee’s Vice President of Emergencies Bob Kitchen told AFP. “What comes next will be very different — we would ordinarily be already on the phone to US government colleagues,” working to deploy funding for the earthquake response, he said.- ‘Lost interest in Afghanistan’ -PUI’s Comon said it was “unlikely” that new funding would be secured for the post-earthquake response beyond perhaps only “small top-ups to cover the most urgent needs”.The French NGO, which closed 60 health centres and laid off 480 staff this year after the US cuts, has deployed mobile clinics in the quake-hit provinces but fears for the long term.”It’s been a long time since the general public lost interest in Afghanistan,” the staff member said, adding that he hopes for aid from the European Union but expects little from the Americans, who are “completely out of the picture”.UN agencies have launched fundraising appeals, and an initial $5 million has been released from the emergency response fund.But even before the earthquake, the UN estimated it had only $606 million available for its operations across Afghanistan out of the $2.79 billion required. “With these cuts, we are being forced to make ever-tougher choices, concentrating scarce resources on those most vulnerable, while leaving many needs unmet,” Ratwatte said.

A powerful earthquake that struck eastern Afghanistan at the weekend killed more 1,400 and injured 3,000 others, the Taliban government said Tuesday, making it one of the deadliest to hit the country in decades.The casualty toll has mounted steadily since the 6.0-magnitude earthquake hit late Sunday night, devastating remote areas in mountainous provinces near the border with Pakistan. Chief Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on X Tuesday that 1,411 people were killed and 3,124 people were injured in the hard-hit province of Kunar alone. Another dozen people were killed and hundreds injured in neighbouring Nangarhar province.The earthquake could impact “hundreds of thousands”, said United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan Indrika Ratwatte.Rescuers were still desperately searching Tuesday for survivors in the rubble of homes flattened in Kunar.Emergency “operations continued throughout the night”, the head of the Kunar Provincial Disaster Management Authority, Ehsanullah Ehsan, told AFP.He said there were “still injured people left in the distant villages” in need of evacuation to hospitals.Villagers joined the rescue efforts, using their bare hands to clear debris from mud and stone homes built into steep valleys.Obaidullah Stoman, 26, who travelled to the village of Wadir to search for a friend, was overwhelmed by the level of destruction.”I’m searching here, but I didn’t see him. It was very difficult for me to see the conditions here,” he told AFP.”There is only rubble left.”The dead, including children, were wrapped in white shrouds by villagers who prayed over their bodies before burying them.Some of the hardest-hit villages remain inaccessible due to blocked roads, the UN migration agency told AFP.The earthquake epicentre was about 27 kilometres (17 miles) from Jalalabad, according to the US Geological Survey, which said it struck just eight kilometres below the Earth’s surface.Such relatively shallow quakes can cause more damage, especially since the majority of Afghans live in low-rise, mud-brick homes vulnerable to collapse.After decades of conflict, Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, facing a protracted humanitarian crisis and the influx of millions of Afghans forced back to the country by neighbours Pakistan and Iran in recent years.Since the Taliban seized power in 2021, foreign aid to the country has been slashed, undermining the already impoverished nation’s ability to respond to disasters.The United States was the largest aid donor until early 2025, when all but a sliver of funds were cancelled after President Donald Trump took office.In June, the United Nations said it was drastically scaling back its global humanitarian aid plans due to the “deepest funding cuts ever”.On Monday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement the organisation was working with authorities to “swiftly assess needs, provide emergency assistance and stand ready to mobilise additional support”, and announced an initial $5 million.- ‘Whole house collapsed’ -Many of those living in the quake-hit villages were among the more than four million Afghans who have returned to the country from Iran and Pakistan in recent years.Helicopters shuttled the injured from the remote village of Wadir in Nurgal district to hospitals in the nearest city, Jalalabad.Fourteen-year-old Akhlaq was injured and evacuated to the hospital, but five members of his family were killed when the earthquake shook Nurgal. “Our whole house collapsed, my brothers and father were all buried. Only I survived and made it out,” he told AFP. “Then I heard my father’s voice and I managed to rescue him.” “There are victims who are still under the rubble, but there is nobody to help them and pull them out.”Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, near the junction of the Eurasia and India tectonic plates.In October 2023, western Herat province was devastated by a 6.3-magnitude earthquake, which killed more than 1,500 people and damaged or destroyed more than 63,000 homes.A 5.9-magnitude quake struck the eastern province of Paktika in June 2022, killing more than 1,000 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless.

A thousand villages in India’s Punjab state are marooned by deadly floods, with thousands forced to seek shelter in relief camps, government authorities say.Flooding across the northwestern state killed at least 29 people and affected over 250,000 last month, with the state’s chief minister calling it “one of the worst flood disasters in decades”.The region is often dubbed India’s breadbasket, but more than 940 square kilometres (360 square miles) of farmland are flooded, leading to “devastating crop losses”, Punjab’s Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann wrote in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.Modi on Monday assured him of the federal government’s “full support”.Authorities have said they fear a “huge loss of livestock”, the full extent of which will only be clear when the waters recede, according to a bulletin issued by the state authorities late Monday.India’s army and disaster teams have carried out vast rescue operations, deploying more than 1,000 boats and 30 helicopters to rescue the stranded or supply food.”The most important thing is to save the lives of people and helpless animals trapped in the water,” Mann said in a statement.Rivers in the region cross into Pakistan, where floodwater has also engulfed swathes of land.Floods and landslides are common during the June-September monsoon season in the subcontinent, but experts say climate change, coupled with poorly planned development, is increasing their frequency, severity and impact.Northwest India has seen rainfall surge by more than a third on average from June to September, according to the national weather department.In the capital Delhi, relentless rains have swollen the Yamuna river — which breached its danger mark on Tuesday, inundating several areas and creating traffic snarl-ups lasting for hours.Deadly floods triggered by record-breaking rain also killed dozens in India’s Jammu and Kashmir region last month.

Rescuers desperately searched Tuesday for survivors in the rubble of homes flattened by an earthquake that struck eastern Afghanistan, killing more than 800 people.The 6.0-magnitude earthquake, followed by at least five aftershocks, hit remote areas in mountainous provinces near the border with Pakistan around midnight Sunday.The head of the Kunar Provincial Disaster Management Authority, Ehsanullah Ehsan, told AFP that “operations continued throughout the night”.He said there were “still injured people left in the distant villages” in need of evacuation to hospitals.Villagers joined the rescue efforts, using their bare hands to clear debris of simple mud and stone homes built into steep valleys.Obaidullah Stoman, 26, who travelled to the village of Wadir to search for a friend, was overwhelmed by the level of destruction.”I’m searching here, but I didn’t see him. It was very difficult for me to see the conditions here,” he told AFP.”There is only rubble left.”The dead, including children, were wrapped in white shrouds by villagers who prayed over their bodies before burying them.Some of the hardest-hit villages remain inaccessible due to blocked roads, the UN migration agency told AFP.The earthquake epicentre was about 27 kilometres (17 miles) from Jalalabad, according to the USGS, which said it struck at a shallow eight kilometres below the Earth’s surface.After decades of conflict, Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, facing a protracted humanitarian crisis and the influx of millions of Afghans forced back to the country by neighbours Pakistan and Iran in recent years. Since the Taliban seized power in 2021, foreign aid to the country has been slashed, undermining the impoverished nation’s already hamstrung ability to respond to disasters.The United States was the largest aid donor until early 2025, when all but a sliver of funds were cancelled after President Donald Trump took office.In June, the United Nations said it was drastically scaling back its global humanitarian aid plans due to the “deepest funding cuts ever”.On Monday, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement it was working with authorities to “swiftly assess needs, provide emergency assistance and stand ready to mobilise additional support”, and announced an initial $5 million.- Shallow quakes cause more damage -Taliban authorities in a provisional toll reported 800 dead and 2,500 injured in Kunar province, as well as 12 dead and 255 injured in Nangarhar.Laghman province also has dozens of injured, according to government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.Relatively shallow quakes can cause more damage, especially since the majority of Afghans live in low-rise, mud-brick homes vulnerable to collapse.Many living in quake-hit villages were among the more than four million Afghans who have returned to the country from Iran and Pakistan in recent years.”There is a lot of fear and tension… Children and women were screaming. We had never experienced anything like this in our lives,” Ijaz Ulhaq Yaad, a member of the agricultural department in Nurgal, told AFP on Monday.In a post shared by the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV said he was “deeply saddened by the significant loss of life” caused by the quake.Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, near the junction of the Eurasia and India tectonic plates.In October 2023, western Herat province was devastated by a 6.3-magnitude earthquake, which killed more than 1,500 people and damaged or destroyed more than 63,000 homes.A 5.9-magnitude quake struck the eastern province of Paktika in June 2022, killing more than 1,000 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was on his way to Beijing on Tuesday morning, having crossed the border into China aboard an armoured train ahead of a massive military parade on Wednesday.Kim will join Chinese President Xi Jinping and other world leaders including Russia’s Vladimir Putin for a huge spectacle in which China will showcase its military prowess, with troops marching in formation, flypasts and other high-tech fighting gear.More than 25 leaders will also attend Wednesday’s parade centred on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to mark 80 years since the end of World War II.Millions of Chinese people were killed during a prolonged war with imperial Japan in the 1930s and 40s, which became part of a global conflict following Tokyo’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.China has touted the parade as a show of unity with other countries, and Kim’s attendance will be the first time he has been seen with Xi and Putin at the same event.The North Korean leader’s special train passed into China early Tuesday, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported, citing the North’s state-run radio service, KCBC.His appearance in China “formalises the China-Russia-North Korea trilateral (relationship) to the public”, Soo Kim, a geopolitical risk consultant and former CIA analyst, told AFP.Kim enjoyed a brief bout of high-profile international diplomacy from around 2018, meeting US President Donald Trump and then South Korean president Moon Jae-in multiple times.But he withdrew from the global scene after the collapse of a summit with Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2019.Kim stayed in North Korea throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, but met Putin in Russia’s far east in 2023.- Flags, flowers and fanfare -Security around Beijing has tightened in recent days and weeks, with road closures, military personnel stationed on bridges and street corners, and miles upon miles of white barriers lining the capital’s wide boulevards. Art installations with flowers, doves and an emblem showing the Great Wall of China with “1945-2025” have cropped up around the city, and on Tuesday morning Chinese flags flew in residential neighbourhoods.Officials have been tight-lipped over the list of hardware to be displayed at the parade, but military enthusiasts have already spotted significant new systems, including what is rumoured to be a gigantic laser weapon.Wednesday’s event caps a bumper week of diplomacy for President Xi, who on Sunday and Monday hosted a slew of Eurasian leaders for a summit in the northern port city of Tianjin aimed at putting China front and centre of regional relations.The club of 10 countries — named the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) — touts itself as a non-Western style of collaboration in the region and seeks to be an alternative to traditional alliances.During the summit, Xi slammed “bullying behaviour” from certain countries — a veiled reference to the United States — while Putin defended Russia’s Ukraine offensive, blaming the West for triggering the conflict.Many of the guests from the Tianjin gathering, including Putin, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and several other leaders will join Xi and Kim for the parade in Beijing.

Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin took turns Monday to swipe at the West during a gathering of Eurasian leaders aimed at putting Beijing front and centre of regional relations.The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)touts itself as a non-Western style of collaboration between 10 countries in the region and seeks to be an alternative to traditional alliances.Xi told leaders including Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the global situation was becoming more “chaotic and intertwined”.The Chinese leader also slammed “bullying behaviour” from certain countries — a veiled reference to the United States.”The security and development tasks facing member states have become even more challenging,” he said in his address in the northern port city of Tianjin.”With the world undergoing turbulence and transformation, we must continue to follow the Shanghai spirit…and better perform the functions of the organisation.”Putin used his speech to defend Russia’s Ukraine offensive, blaming the West for triggering the three-and-a-half year conflict that has killed tens of thousands and devastated much of eastern Ukraine.”This crisis wasn’t triggered by Russia’s attack on Ukraine, but was a result of a coup in Ukraine, which was supported and provoked by the West,” Putin said.Ukraine’s foreign ministry urged China to work towards peace during Putin’s visit, saying in a statement from Kyiv they “would welcome a more active role” for Beijing to help find peace “based on respect for the UN Charter”.Putin meanwhile praised Turkey’s mediation efforts in the conflict as he met Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.And Putin later met his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian, the Kremlin said, with the pair expected to discuss Iran’s nuclear programme.- ‘Always insightful’ -Earlier, leaders from the 10 countries — China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus — posed for a group photo on a red carpet.Xi, Putin and Modi were seen chatting, flanked by their translators. Modi and Putin were photographed holding hands and held talks in the afternoon.Russian state media reported the pair spent nearly an hour talking “face-to-face” in Putin’s armoured presidential car before an official meeting.”Conversations with him are always insightful,” Modi posted on X alongside a photograph of them travelling in the car.Before their meeting, Modi praised the “special and privileged strategic partnership” with Moscow and added that India wanted both sides in the Ukraine conflict to “find stable peace”.- ‘Mutual trust’ -The SCO summit kicked off on Sunday, days before a massive military parade in Beijing to mark 80 years since the end of World War II.The member states signed a declaration Monday agreeing to strengthen cooperation in sectors such as security and economy, China’s Xinhua news agency said. Xinhua added that the leaders also admitted Laos as an observer country, or “dialogue partner” — the summit already has 16 observers.Xi held a flurry of back-to-back meetings with leaders including Lukashenko — one of Putin’s staunch allies — and Modi, who is on his first visit to China since 2018.Modi told Xi that India was committed to taking “forward our ties on the basis of mutual trust, dignity and sensitivity”. The world’s two most populous nations are intense rivals, competing for influence across South Asia, and fought a deadly border clash in 2020. A thaw began last October, when Modi met Xi for the first time in five years at a summit in Russia.Their rapprochement deepened as US President Donald Trump pressured both Asian economic giants with trade tariffs.More than 20 leaders are attending the bloc’s largest meeting since it was founded in 2001.Many of the assembled dignitaries will be in Beijing on Wednesday to watch the military parade, which will also be attended by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.A train carrying Kim passed into China early Tuesday, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported, citing the North’s state-run radio service.burs-jxb/ksb/tc/tym

Survivors of an earthquake that flattened villages in eastern Afghanistan, killing more than 800 people, spent the night in the open as rescuers worked Tuesday to pull victims from the rubble. The 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck just before midnight Sunday, with the worst of the destruction in Kunar province, which borders Pakistan.Rescuers searched into the night to pull to safety those trapped under the debris of simple mud and stone homes built into steep valleys. The dead, some of them children, were wrapped in white shrouds by villagers who prayed over their bodies before burying them, while helicopters ferried the wounded to hospitals.”The rooms and walls collapsed… killing some children and injuring others,” said 22-year-old Zafar Khan Gojar, who was evacuated from Nurgal to Jalalabad along with his brother, whose leg was broken.Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, facing a protracted humanitarian crisis and the influx of millions of Afghans forced back to the country by neighbours Pakistan and Iran in recent years.  The earthquake epicentre was about 27 kilometres (17 miles) from Jalalabad, according to the USGS, which said it struck a shallow eight kilometres below the Earth’s surface.Around 800 people were killed and 2,500 injured in Kunar alone, near the epicentre, Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said. “Many people are stuck under the rubble of their roofs,” the disaster management head in eastern Kunar province, Ehsanullah Ehsan, told AFP on Monday afternoon, warning the death toll could rise.Another 12 people were killed and 255 injured in neighbouring Nangarhar province, while 58 people were injured in Laghman province.Some of the most severely impacted villages in Kunar remain inaccessible due to road blockages, the UN migration agency told AFP.  The United Nations was working with authorities to “swiftly assess needs, provide emergency assistance and stand ready to mobilise additional support,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement Monday. An initial $5 million had been released from the UN’s global emergency response fund, he said.The disaster is unfolding against a grim funding outlook for humanitarian assistance. The United States was the largest aid donor to Afghanistan until early 2025, when all but a sliver of funds were cancelled after President Donald Trump took office. In June, the United Nations said it was drastically scaling back its global humanitarian aid plans due to the “deepest funding cuts ever”. – ‘Fear and tension’ -Relatively shallow quakes can cause more damage, especially since the majority of Afghans live in low-rise, mud-brick homes vulnerable to collapse. “There is a lot of fear and tension… Children and women were screaming. We had never experienced anything like this in our lives,” Ijaz Ulhaq Yaad, a member of the agricultural department in Nurgal told AFP.In a post shared by the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV said he was “deeply saddened by the significant loss of life” caused by the quake.Many living in quake-hit villages were among the more than four million Afghans who have returned to the country from Iran and Pakistan in recent years.Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, near the junction of the Eurasia and India tectonic plates. In October 2023, western Herat province was devastated by a 6.3-magnitude earthquake, which killed more than 1,500 people and damaged or destroyed more than 63,000 homes.A 5.9-magnitude quake struck the eastern province of Paktika in June 2022, killing more than 1,000 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless.Ravaged by four decades of war, Afghanistan is already contending with a series of humanitarian crises.Since the return of the Taliban in 2021, foreign aid to Afghanistan has been slashed, undermining the impoverished nation’s already hamstrung ability to respond to disasters.Around 85 percent of the Afghan population lives on less than one dollar a day, according to the UN Development Programme.