Reuters, Bangkok
Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha visited flooded parts of the south of the country on Friday where unseasonable downpours have killed six people, cut road and rail links and forced an airport to close.
Thailand’s wet season usually ends in late November and heavy rain and flooding is rare in January, which is high season for beach resorts in the south.
8 killed as train hits rickshaw in Multan
AP, Multan
A train crushed two motorized rickshaws on an unattended railway crossing in central Pakistan on Friday, killing seven schoolchildren and one of the rickshaw drivers, police and railway officials said.
According to police officer Javed Ahmed, the rickshaw drivers apparently misjudged the speed of the coming train due to heavy fog while attempting to cross the tracks in a suburban area near the town of Lodhran in eastern Punjab province. The train was heading to Karachi from the eastern city of Lahore.
Three ‘suicide bombers’ killed in Nigeria
AFP, Kano
Three teenage girls suspected of planning a triple suicide bomb attack in a town frequently targeted by Boko Haram have been shot dead, a local government official said on Thursday.
Civilian vigilantes opened fire on the trio near the town of Madagali when they refused to stop for a security check, the town council’s chairman, Yusuf Muhammad, told AFP.
“Explosives strapped to two of the girls exploded from the impact of the shooting, while those on the third girl were defused by soldiers,” he added.
15 dead in DR Congo ethnic clashes
AFP, Lubumbashi
At least 15 people from DR Congo’s Bantu community were killed Thursday in an attack blamed on Pygmies in an area of the southeast that has seen repeated ethnic clashes, local sources said.
“Clashes between Bantus and Pygmies in the village of Piana Mwanga have left 15 Bantus dead, 37 injured and 65 houses burned,” Paul Kwanga, bishop of the southeastern town of Manono, told AFP.
