Author: Himalaya Post

Baramulla,India – At least five terrorists have been gunned down by the security forces in an ongoing encounter in Rafiabad in Jammu and Kashmir’s Baramulla district. Yesterday, the security forces had killed four terrorists. The operation was later halted to due to a bad weather. The security forces once again started the operation on Thursday morning. This comes after security forces in another incident arrested a terrorist identified as Abdul Majid Shah, a resident of Iqbal Colony, in Pattan Baramulla in Awantipora on Tuesday. On search, arms, ammunition and other incriminating material were recovered from him. The terrorist was travelling in a car bearing registration number DL9CM0213, and he was on his way to meet other terrorists active in the area. ...

UNITED NATIONS, United States – UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday announced the appointment of Michelle Bachelet, Chile’s twice-serving president who endured torture under the Pinochet regime, as the world body’s next human rights chief. Bachelet, 66, is set to replace Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein of Jordan, a sharp critic of US President Donald Trump’s policies, who held the post of UN high commissioner for human rights since September 2014. A two-time president who ranks among the world’s most powerful women in politics, Bachelet also served in 2010 as the first director of UN Women, the UN agency promoting gender equality worldwide. Guterres informed the General Assembly of his decision in a letter on Wednesday following consultations with the heads of regional groups at the United Nations, a UN statement said. The 193-nation assembly will meet on Friday to vote on the appointment, which is expected to win approval, diplomats said. Zeid is due to step down on August 31. Bachelet will step into a position that has drawn much controversy under Zeid, who decided not to seek a second term after losing support from powerful countries including the United States, Russia and China. Zeid last year compared Trump to a bus driver “careening down a mountain path”, engaged in “reckless driving” for his attacks on the media. In an implicit swipe at Zeid, US Ambassador Nikki Haley urged...

MATARAM (WEST NUSA TENGGARA), Indonesia – The devastating earthquake on the Indonesian island of Lombok was “exceptionally destructive” and wiped out entire villages in the worst-hit regions, relief agencies warned as the death toll jumped to more than 160 on Thursday. Relief efforts have yet to reach parts of the island four days after the quake hit, Indonesian authorities said, as hopes fade of finding further survivors among the wreckage. “There are still some evacuees that have not yet been touched by aid, especially in North Lombok and West Lombok,” national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho tweeted Thursday. A total of 164 people were now confirmed dead in the quake, Nugroho told AFP, with a further 1,400 seriously injured and more than 150,000 displaced. Local authorities, international relief groups and the central government have begun organising aid, but shattered roads have slowed efforts to reach survivors in the mountainous north of Lombok, which bore the brunt of the quake. “We are still waiting for assessments from some of the more remote areas in the north of the island, but it is already clear that Sunday’s earthquake was exceptionally destructive,” Christopher Rassi, the head of a Red Cross assessment team on Lombok, said in a statement. “I visited villages yesterday that were completely collapsed.” Tens of thousands of homes, businesses and mosques were levelled by the quake, which struck...