Drone attack toll 19

REUTERS

MIRANSHAH: The death toll from a drone strike in northeastern Pakistan has risen to 19, Pakistani intelligence officials said on Saturday. Twelve people were originally reported dead in Friday’s strike on a compound in the Dhattakel region in North Waziristan. Public anger over US drone attacks has helped inflame tensions between Pakistan and the United States. Friday’s strike took place a day after two trucks carried NATO supplies across the border into Afghanistan — the first shipments since convoys were halted by Pakistan last November. Pakistanis say the drone attacks kill civilians and encroach on Pakistani sovereignty. The United States says the attacks are highly selective and that few civilians are killed. The CIA has stepped up operations in North Waziristan in recent weeks. The area is seen as a hub for militants crossing the porous border to fight US forces and their allies in Afghanistan.

Bus crash claims 14

KIEV: A bus carrying Russian pilgrims crashed in northern Ukraine on Saturday morning, killing 14 people, and injuring 22, Ukrainian and Russian Emergencies Ministries said. The bus, with 41 people on board, came off the road and rolled over near the city of Chernihiv at 5:30am local, the Ukrainian ministry said in a statement. Russia’s Emergencies Ministry said in a separate statement the passengers were pilgrims. The ministry was sending a plane to evacuate the injured, Interfax news agency reported. Quoting a ministry source, Interfax said the pilgrims were heading to an Orthodox Christian monastery in the Ukrainian town of Pochaiv.

Terrroism plotter held

LONDON: British police say they have arrested a seventh person over an alleged plot to launch a terrorist attack. The Metropolitan Police says the woman (22) was arrested ON Saturday at a home in east London ‘on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism’. Six other people were arrested on the same charges Thursday, including a British Muslim convert and three brothers who were detained by armed police at their home close to London’s Olympic Park. Counter-terror officers are on high alert ahead of the Summer Games, which begin July 27, but police say this week’s arrests are not connected to the Olympics. Britain’s terrorist threat risk remains at substantial, the middle point on a five-point scale, meaning an attack is a strong possibility.