News in English

8. April 2017, 21:58

9 killed in gun attack in Quetta

In Pakistan, 9 people have been killed and many wounded in an attack in the city of Quetta, a day after 30 were killed in a bomb blast in the same city. Today's assault was carried out by a group of unidentified gunmen who opened fire outside a mosque after prayers. Police believe local politician Ali Mohammad Jattack was the target of the attack. He escaped unharmed and spoke to reporters: "they fled after killing innocent people. I was the target. They could have fired at me. They killed innocent worshippers belonging to different communities. This is against humanity. It is brutality on the level of animals."

US withdraws staff from Lahore

Staying in Pakistan and the US has evacuated non-essential government personnel from its consulate in the city of Lahore. State Department officials say the move was in response to a terrorism threat.

US Russia talks in Washington

The conflict in Syria, arms control and missile defence will be on the agenda at talks between senior Russian and US officials later today. The meeting comes at a time of tense relations between the two countries because of Moscow's decision to grant temporary asylum to Edward Snowden who's wanted in the US over the leaking of information about surveillance programmes.

New jobless record in Greece

Unemployment in Greece has risen to a new record high of 27.6%. Young people have been the worst affected with nearly two-thirds of people in the 15-24 age group without work. The country, which has been depending on international rescue loans for the last 3 years, is in the sixth year of recession.

Growth package approved in Italy

Italy's lower house of parliament has given the final approval to a government package aimed at pulling the country out of recession. The measures include promoting public work projects and reducing bureaucracy.

Malaria vaccine shows promise

Researchers say a new malaria vaccine has shown promising results in early clinical trials. The vaccine is being developed in the US but needs to go through many more tests. According to the World Health Organization, there were nearly 220 million cases of malaria in 2010 and over 600,000 deaths from the disease. Richard Tren is from the NGO "Africa Fighting Malaria" - he's welcomed the development, but sounds a note of caution: "obviously this is very early stages. You've got to treat many more patients before you know whether or not this is going to work across all populations and we don't know if it's going to work with all types of malaria parasite."

The weather

Showers and thunderstorms forecast. Most of the sunshine will be in the east and southeast for the time being, but some severe weather conditions are forecast for later including heavy rain and strong winds. Highs are ranging between 15 in the West and 34 in parts of the east.

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