Middle East

At least 32 killed in Egypt train crash

Published

2 years ago

March 26, 2021

(Asian News Hub) – At least 32 people were killed and 66 others wounded in Egypt’s southern province of Sohag when two trains collided on Friday, according to a government statement that feared the number might rise.

The Egypt Health Ministry statement said at least 36 ambulances were sent to the scene and they transferred the wounded to four public hospitals nearby.

The rear end of a passenger train crashed into another with the air-conditioning system in Tahta city, 467 km from here, causing at least three carriages to be derailed, an official security source told Xinhua news agency on condition of anonymity.

“The accident was horrible, and the people helped the security men find the wounded inside the damaged carriages,” an eyewitness said.

Some bodies were still stuck inside the three carriages, he added.

Middle East

Powerfull Iranian cleric Abbas-Ali Soleimani assassinated

Published

5 months ago

April 26, 2023

Asian News Hub Webdesk

A powerful Iranian cleric, a member of the Assembly of Experts that selects the country’s supreme leader, has been assassinated, state media said Wednesday.

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“Ayatollah Abbas Ali Soleimani was killed this morning in an armed attack… the assailant was also arrested,” IRNA news agency reported, citing an official.

The attack took place in the city of Babolsar in the northern province of Mazandaran, the agency added.

Soleimani, 75, was previously the representative of the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

He had also been the imam who led the weekly Friday prayers in the cities of Kashan, in central Isfahan province, and Zahedan in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan.

Under the constitution, the 88-strong Assembly of Experts is mandated with supervising, dismissing and electing the Supreme Leader.

Last April, a suspected jihadist attack in the northeastern shrine city of Mashhad led to the deaths of two clerics and the injury of another. (AFP)

Middle East

Eid could begin Saturday as Shawwal moon will not be visible Thursday: Astronomers

Published

5 months ago

April 17, 2023

Asian News Hub Webdesk

Eid al-Fitr could begin on Saturday as the Shawwal moon is expected to be visible by the naked eye on Friday evening and not Thursday, according to astronomers in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Al Arabiya reported.

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Technically, the moon will appear in the sky on Thursday evening, but it will not be illuminated by the sun’s rays and will be difficult to see without specialist equipment, Majid Abu Zahra from the Jeddah Astronomical Society said.

The moon will be “very easy to see with the naked eye if the sky is clear,” on Friday night, Abu Zahra added, as reported by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

However, officials could still declare Friday as the start of Eid if eyewitness sightings of the moon on Thursday are accepted.

Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Court had previously called on people in the Kingdom to try to spot the moon signifying the end of Ramadan on Thursday evening.