SRINAGAR, India: Indian and Pakistani soldiers on Tuesday traded heavy gunfire across a cease-fire line dividing Kashmir between the hostile neighbors, leaving one Indian soldier and one Pakistani civilian dead and several others wounded, officials said.
An Indian army statement said the Indian fatality occurred in Sunderbani sector.
Police said a second cross-firing incident between Indian and Pakistani soldiers in northern Kashmir triggered panic among the villagers.
In Pakistan, the military accused Indian troops of resorting to unprovoked firing of mortars and artillery guns and deliberately targeting the civil population in Kashmir.
It said in a statement that one civilian was killed and nine others, including women and children, were wounded. All of the injured have been evacuated to hospitals.
The statement also said the Pakistani army has reports of three Indian soldiers killed and several others wounded.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry said it summoned a top Indian diplomat and lodged a protest over cease-fire violations by Indian forces.
Both sides frequently exchange gunfire in the region and accuse each other of violating a 2003-cease-fire accord.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars, two over control of Kashmir, since they won independence from British colonialists in 1947. India accuses Pakistan of arming and training insurgents fighting for Kashmir’s independence from India or its merger with Pakistan. Pakistan denies the charge and says it offers only diplomatic and moral support to the rebels.
India and Pakistan trade Kashmir fire, killing 2
India and Pakistan trade Kashmir fire, killing 2
- An exchange of fire left one Indian soldier and one Pakistani civilian dead and several others wounded
- India and Pakistan have fought three wars, two over control of Kashmir, since they won independence from British colonialists in 1947
Germany’s Merz vows to keep out far-right as he warns of a changed world
- “We will not allow these people from the so-called Alternative for Germany to ruin our country,” Merz told party delegates
- He avoided critising his coalition partners in the center-left Social Democrats
STUTTGART, Germany: Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowed on Friday not to let the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “ruin” Germany and told his fellow conservatives to prepare for a raw new climate of great-power competition.
Merz’s message to the Christian Democrat (CDU) party’s conference in Stuttgart reiterated points he made at last weekend’s Munich Security Conference, saying the “rules based order we knew no longer exists.” He also made calls for economic reform, and a rejection of antisemitism and the AfD, which is aiming to win its first state election this year.
“We will not allow these people from the so-called Alternative for Germany to ruin our country,” he told party delegates, who welcomed former chancellor Angela Merkel with a storm of applause on her first visit to the conference since stepping down in 2021.
Merz, trailing badly in the polls ahead of a string of state elections this year, said he accepted criticism that the reforms he announced during last year’s election campaign had been slower than initially communicated.
“I will freely admit that perhaps, after the change of government, we did not make it clear quickly enough that we would not be able to achieve this enormous reform effort overnight,” he said.
He avoided critising his coalition partners in the center-left Social Democrats and promised to push ahead with efforts to cut bureaucracy, bring down energy costs and foster investment, saying that economic prosperity was vital to Germany’s security.
He also pledged further reforms of the welfare state and said new proposals for a reform of the pension system would be presented, following a revolt by younger members of his own party in a bruising parliamentary battle last year.
Merz’s speech was greeted with around 10 minutes of applause as delegates put on a show of unity and he was re-elected as party chairman with 91 percent of the vote, avoiding any potentially embarrassing display of internal dissatisfaction.
Among other business, the party conference is due to discuss a motion to block access to social media platforms for children under the age of 16. However any legislation would take time because under the German system, state governments have the main responsibility for regulating media.
The elections begin next month with the western states of Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate before a further round later in the year, one of them in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, where the AfD hopes to win its first state ballot.
