Times Of India, London :
Eight schools across the UK today received bomb attack threats, including one attended by Pakistani teenage activist and Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai, prompting authorities to launch a probe.
The schools in England and Scotland – six in Birmingham alone and two in Glasgow – received the threats this morning following which the buildings were evacuated.
Edgbaston High School for Girls in Birmingham, where 18-year-old Malala is enrolled, received a call just after 0800 GMT (1330 IST) making a bomb threat.
West Midlands Police is still investigating the call but pupils were allowed back into their classes after brief evacuation as the call is believed to be a hoax.
The other schools in the city to be hit by hoax calls include Shireland Collegiate Academy, Bristnall Hall Academy, Perryfields High School, Hall Green Secondary School and Oldbury Academy.
Today’s calls follow similar calls last week which were also deemed as a hoax.
“This morning we have reports of a further six bomb threats, following similar threats made to several schools last week. At this stage there is nothing to suggest there is any credible threat to any of the schools,” Detective Inspector Colin Mattison of West Midlands Police said in a statement.
“Our response officers have been sent to the locations to ensure there is no threat to anyone’s safety and support the schools. A police investigation is ongoing to find the person responsible for these calls,” he said.
Two schools in Glasgow also received bomb threats this morning and police officers investigating them also said “nothing untoward” was found following an investigation.
A spokesperson for Police Scotland said: “Two schools in Glasgow have received a threat via the telephone. Staff and police have searched both school buildings and nothing untoward was found.
“Schools are operating as normal and officers are continuing inquiries. At this stage, police are treating these incidents as malicious calls.”
A number of schools and academies in and around Birmingham were also affected last Thursday.
A Russia-based Twitter group had claimed responsibility for threats last week, saying they intended to cause “mayhem”.
It is unclear whether the same group is involved in the latest round of bomb threats.
Pakistan airline workers’ protest turns deadly
Al Jazeera News
At least one Pakistan airline employee was shot dead and several others injured after clashes broke out between police and workers protesting against the privatisation of the national carrier, hospital officials said.
A spokesman for Karachi’s Agha Khan hospital told Al Jazeera that one of the protesters, identified as Inayat Raza, an employee of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), died of a gunshot wound during Tuesday’s protest.
“The PIA employee was brought dead to our emergency department,” he said. “He died of a gunshot to his head. His family has identified him as well.”
Police and paramilitary rangers deployed tear gas and water cannon on the protesters after they blocked the main entrance to Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport earlier on Tuesday.
Seemi Jamali, head of the emergency department at the city’s main Jinnah Post Graduate Medical Centre, said the hospital had received four injured people, including two with non-fatal gunshot wounds.
Law enforcement agencies denied they had opened fire on protesters.
“The situation escalated when a couple of gunshots were fired. My officers told me that they might be fired from the crowd,” said Kamran Fazal, the police chief of the city’s eastern district.
“We are searching for the empty shells and only then can we establish who opened fire.”
The PIA employees’ union had announced a day earlier its plans to shut down the airline’s flights after weeks of strikes against government proposals to complete the partial sale of the carrier by July.
The move follows years of crushing losses and mismanagement that have battered the airline’s reputation.
PIA, one of the world’s leading airlines until the 1970s, now suffers from frequent cancellations and delays and has been involved in numerous controversies over the years, including the jailing of a drunk pilot in Britain in 2013.
