Tags: Pakistan mosque bombing | religious minorities

In the second instance of sectarian violence this week, 60 people were killed and more than 200 injured in a suicide attack on a Shia rally in Quetta. The suicide bomber was apparently part of the procession and detonated the bomb upon reaching Meezan Chowk in the heart of the city.

As in the case of the attack on a Shia procession in Lahore on Wednesday, unrest broke out as members of the gathering fired in the air and set vehicles afire. They even clashed with the police, already on alert in the restive province. According to the police, participants in the procession had been warned of a possible attack and advised to take an alternative route. The rally was being held to mark Al-Quds Day — an annual event opposing Israel's control of Jerusalem. This is one of the “anti-Zionist” processions held on the last Friday of Ramzan in most Muslim and Arab countries to protest the occupation and to express solidarity with the Palestinian cause.

In his 20 years as a boat captain, Dan Shaw had never tried to rescue an entire crew out of the water. But on Thursday, he received a radio alert that 13 workers from an oil platform that caught fire in the Gulf of Mexico were bobbing in choppy, fast-flowing waters not far from the flames.

His boat was 25 miles away, one of the nearest to the scene of the emergency, and he volunteered to find the floating workers.

“We wanted to get to them as fast as we could and make sure we didn’t lose anybody,” said Captain Shaw, 59, one of four workers aboard a 100-foot service vessel, the Crystal Clear.

By the time he arrived around 11 a.m., he said, the men had been floating for two hours and had been swept a mile from the still-flaming platform.

They were wearing protective wet suits and life jackets and linking arms. The Coast Guard said that fortunately the surface temperature was 86 degrees, about 80 miles off the Louisiana coast. The temperature of the ocean water was less of a safety concern than the strong tides and the fire on the platform, according to the Coast Guard, which arrived shortly after the rescue began and provided emergency helicopters for the evacuation.

Tags: Documentary filmmaker | U.S. immigration laws | Vijay Kumar

Indian filmmaker Vijay Kumar will remain behind bars without bail on federal immigration charges until allegations that he was illegally carrying brass knuckles in his checked airport baggage are resolved, a judge has ruled.

The immigration hearing was held on schedule but the judge denied a bond, and ordered voluntary departure under safeguard till he leaves USA.

Mr. Kumar has been asked to leave within 90 days.

Voluntary bond means that his departure as an alien from the United States would be without an order of removal.

Mr. Kumar is allowed to voluntarily depart concedes removability but does not have a bar to seeking admission at a port-of-entry at any time.

However, failure to depart within the time would result in a fine and a 10-year bar to several forms of relief from deportation. And if he does not depart within the 90-day period he will be deported.

Tags: bomb blast | Pakistan | Sucide Bombers

LAHORE, Pakistan — Three suicide bombers struck a procession of Shiite Muslim worshipers on Wednesday here in eastern Pakistan, killing at least 25 people and touching off violent clashes between local police forces and mourners and protesters infuriated by the attack.

Pakistani officials said two attackers detonated explosives as the gathering was dispersing, scattering bodies into the streets and sowing panic and anger among the thousands observing an annual Shiite day of mourning. A third bomber struck about 20 minutes later in a packed city square as many of the worshipers were leaving.

At least 200 people were wounded in the attack, said Sajjad Bhutta, a district administrator, who added that he expected the number of dead and wounded to rise.

As rescuers rushed to reach the wounded, demonstrations broke out in Lahore, Pakistan’s second largest city and the site of regular bombings and other attacks by militant groups. Protesters set fire to police vans and tried to light a police station ablaze. They marched through the streets, chanting slogans that condemned the Taliban, whom demonstrators blamed for the attacks, and the police, who were blamed for failing to prevent it.