A suicide bomber targeting a bus of government employees near Kabul’s biggest prison killed at least seven people on Wednesday.
Interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said the attacker detonated explosives near a vehicle of the employees from Pul-e-Charki prison on the outskirts of the Afghan capital.
In the latest Kabul attack, another five people were wounded in the blast.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
The attacker was on foot, Danish said.
The attack comes days after a suicide bomber blew himself up near the entrance of Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission in Kabul, killing at least one person and wounding six.
Afghan civilians continue to be killed in record numbers by anti-government armed groups this year, and the United Nations said the deaths have been the highest since 2014.
Donald Trump has a special Halloween message, and it’s not the frightening things he blurts at rallies and onto Twitter every day.
Jimmy Fallon donned his Trump get-up for The Tonight Show on Tuesday night, dressing the president up in a Dracula costume.
“I’d like to talk about my costume, isn’t it fantastic?” Trump says. “My vampire costume has been a huge success. All day long, people have been yelling at me, ‘You suck!’”
Pakistan’s Supreme Court acquitted a Christian woman accused of blasphemy on Wednesday.
Aasia Bibi, whose case has become iconic of fair-trial concerns in such accusations, was freed in a move the far-right Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) party has said it will respond to with countrywide protests.
“The appeal is allowed… The conviction and the sentence of death [are overturned],” said chief justice Saqib Nisar while announcing the verdict.
Bibi, 53, a native of the central Pakistani village of Ithan Wali, was acquitted by a three-member bench of the Supreme Court after spending nine years on death row for allegedly insulting Prophet Muhammad and the Quran.
Bibi was accused by two Muslim women of having committed blasphemy during an argument sparked by their refusal to drink water from the same vessel as her in 2009.
She was sentenced to death by a trial court in November 2010, with the Lahore High Court upholding the conviction four years later.
Blasphemy against Islam and its Prophet is a sensitive subject in Pakistan, where the crime can carry a compulsory death sentence.
Increasingly, blasphemy accusations have resulted in mob lynchings and extrajudicial murders. At least 74 have been killed in violence related to blasphemy allegations since 1990, according to an Al Jazeera tally.
In 2010, Punjab’s then-governor Salmaan Taseer and then-federal minister Shahbaz Bhatti were both killed for championing Bibi’s cause.
Earlier, the far-right TLP threatened to hold countrywide demonstrations if Bibi was acquitted. Led by firebrand cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi, TLP has a history of organising violent protests on the issue of blasphemy.
“I sent text messages to all my family saying I’m sorry and I love them. I left my phone at the beach and I walked in the water.”
Former Hearts, Raith Rovers and Dumbarton striker Christian Nade tried to take his own life in 2014 after a lengthy battle with depression.
The 34-year-old had “bad feelings” for a very long time but that torment was only diagnosed as depression earlier this year.
“I knew what I was feeling wasn’t normal,” says the striker, who is now playing junior football for Troon. “Now I know I have been suffering from depression for a very, very long time.”
Here, Nade tells BBC Sport Scotland about the day he walked into the sea, how he could not speak about it with the man who saved his life, and how he wanted to be “a small mouse, not a big guy”.
‘It just happened. I didn’t plan it’
Nade was playing for Raith Rovers in December 2014, the day when it all got too much. He had played a Championship game for the Fife club against Dumbarton the previous weekend but found himself alone, at around midnight, on that midweek evening.
On this particular day, I remember I was living with a friend but he wasn’t there . I felt very, very, very low, I wanted to talk but I didn’t want to annoy my family so I just said ‘look, let’s finish it, so I’m not going to be a luggage for anybody anymore’.
It just happened one day, It was not like I was planning it and saying ‘OK, tomorrow’. It just came in my head and it was a very, very strong feeling. I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know where I was. I was just in a dark place and I didn’t know how to come out of it.
I went to the beach near when I was living. I started to send text messages to all my family, saying I couldn’t cope with it, even though I didn’t know what ‘it’ was. I told them I was really sorry, and I love them. I left my phone at the beach and walked into the water. I stayed there for a very very long time, then I heard someone. I thought I felt someone touching my shoulder but there was no-one there. There was someone at the beach, though, and I saw it was my friend. I just walked back and the police and ambulance came. My brother had got my message and phoned them.
When I saw my friend, I remember thinking ‘I’m going to look very weak, I’m going to look a shame’. I didn’t know how to look at him, and I thought he was going to judge me. I was ashamed. He is younger than me and he looks up to me, and when you have someone looking up to you, you don’t want to look weak, you just want to be the man and that’s what I was trying to show him. It happened in 2014 and we never spoke about it until now.
Nade feared feeling weak, so he did not want to tell anyone what he was going through
‘I felt like a stranger with my friends’
Nade left his home on the outskirts of Paris when he was 15 to join Troyes, some 125 miles away. He was lonely. In 2006, he moved to the UK to join Sheffield United, before coming to Scotland a year later. The France under-21 international had three years with Hearts, before stints in Cyprus and Thailand, and returned to Scotland with Dundee in 2014, before bouncing around Raith, Hamilton Academical, Dumbarton and Stranraer.
It’s a dream to be a professional player but it’s also a very lonely world. You play football for two hours a day and then 90 minutes on a Saturday where everybody is chanting your name, but other than that you’re alone. Football keeps your mind busy, but when you go home there’s nothing else, no-one else, no-one to talk to, and that can be hard.
I came to England when I was 21 and couldn’t speak any English other than ‘what’s your name?’ It was really, really difficult. Even when you are with people you are alone. They don’t know how you feel or how you cope with things. You always have to come in with a smile on your face and show you’re fine. You sacrifice holidays, friends, sometimes family, especially when you play abroad. It can be really hard.
Sometimes I would come back home and feel like a stranger with my friends, because they had done stuff together and you weren’t part of it. People that you grew up with would make a joke and would smile and laugh but if you wanted to talk about it, they would say ‘come on, man, it’s nothing, you’re part of the family’. But they don’t know how you feel. You would say it’s fine but it was not.
Now that I’m better, I can see that it started from when I left my family. Sometimes you’re not meeting new nephews until they’re two years old. You miss those moments and you can’t catch up time.
Christian Nade scored 12 goals in two spells at Dumbarton
‘You don’t want to be a small mouse & hide’
Four years on, Nade has been diagnosed with depression. After years of silence, he finally spoke to a Pastor and got the help and support he needed. He wishes he had confided in his sister at the time, but said he did not want to tell his mum because he thought she would move in with him.
A few times, I’ve had the chance to talk but I wasn’t ready. What was scaring me was being judged. Everywhere I would go, people would call me ‘big guy’ and you don’t want to say ‘I just want to be a small mouse and hide behind a wall because I’m scared’. You always have to pretend to be someone you’re not at the time.
Opening up was a really hard thing to do. I am glad I did, though, because now I actually feel free, I feel liberated, I feel like I won’t stop talking about it.
Everybody tries to find an exit door. For me, I managed to talk to a pastor. I opened up to him and he started to talk to me about God and made my faith very strong. Now it doesn’t matter what’s happening to me, I feel very, very strong and never lonely because I’ve got the faith that God is always with me and he loves me no matter what.
As soon as you start to open up that’s when you’re on the way to feel better. Before that, you don’t accept what you’ve got. You don’t even know what it is. But as soon as you say ‘I’m not well’, that’s when you say I’m ready to get help and that’s when you get better.
If you are affected by the issues in this article, help and support is available at the BBC Action Line http://www.bbc.co.uk/actionline
Far-right group Proud Boys and its founder Gavin McInnes have been banned from Facebook and Instagram.
The thinly-veiled white nationalist group used Facebook as a recruiting tool, with numerous groups and pages to organise and attract members.
Business Insider first reported the ban, which comes after violence between the group and anti-fascist protesters in New York City earlier this month, resulting in five arrests of Proud Boys members.
It seems Facebook has finally deemed McInnes and the group to be a hate organization or figure.
“Our team continues to study trends in organized hate and hate speech and works with partners to better understand hate organizations as they evolve,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement to Mashable.
“We ban these organizations and individuals from our platforms and also remove all praise and support when we become aware of it. We will continue to review content, Pages, and people that violate our policies, take action against hate speech and hate organizations to help keep our community safe.”
Facebook’s ban comes after Twitter had done the same back in August. McInnes’ page appears to be inactive, but a search for “Proud Boys” on Facebook still unearths a handful of regional pages.
The Proud Boys was founded in 2016 with VICE co-founder McInnes at the helm, and Trump’s election that year proved to help increase the group’s membership. The Southern Poverty Law Center lists the Proud Boys as a hate group.
Leicester City fan Mark Selby says he wants to win the International Championship in China to dedicate it to Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha.
Foxes owner Srivaddhanaprabha was among five people killed in a helicopter crash outside the King Power Stadium on Saturday.
Selby beat Robert Milkins 6-4 to make it through to the last 16 in Daqing.
“This week was always going to be tough for me, given what has happened,” said world number one Selby.
“I just need to try to deal with it, go out there and try to play as well as I can and maybe bring the trophy back for Vichai.
“People back home have been supporting me and telling me to try to win it. I have to try to stay focused because there is no point in playing if your head is not right.
“If I do lose I’ll be getting home as fast as possible to pay my respects.”
Selby next plays world number 48 Stuart Carrington, who fought back from 5-1 down to beat Ian Burns 6-5.
Northern Ireland’s Mark Allen made a 146 break as he beat Hossein Vafaei 6-3, while Australia’s Neil Robertson came back from 4-2 down to beat Joe Perry 6-5.
Judd Trump, Ding Junhui, Yan Bingtao, Martin Gould and Jack Lisowski also progressed.
Sign up to My Sport to follow snooker news and reports on the BBC app.
California has handed Waymo the first permit to test fully driverless cars in the state.
While Waymo, part of Google’s parent company Alphabet, has been allowed to test autonomous vehicles with a driver since 2014, the new permit allows the company to test cars without drivers.
Waymo will be allowed to test its three dozen driverless cars on public roads, including freeways, highways and streets.
Testing will take place near Waymo headquarters, with permission to drive in Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, and Sunnyvale, in Santa Clara County.
The blue spot is where Waymo is permitted to test driverless cars.
The company can test day or night, in fog and light rain conditions, and will be able to go on roads with a posted speed limit of up to 65 miles per hour (104 kilometers per hour).
“California has been working toward this milestone for several years, and we will continue to keep the public’s safety in mind as this technology evolves,” California Department of Motor Vehicles Director Jean Shiomoto said in a statement.
Waymo will initially only let members of its team ride in its driverless cars, but will eventually allow the public to experience them, as it’s done so in Arizona with the early rider program.
Since April, California has had regulations allowing companies to test cars without drivers on its roads, with the likes of Uber and Tesla set to join the fray.
A DMV spokesperson said one other company has submitted an application for driverless car testing, but it was returned because it was incomplete. There are currently 60 manufacturers allowed to test autonomous vehicles in California with a safety driver.
Driverless cars have been in the works for years, and it’s now just around the corner for Californians.
Chinese intelligence officers conspired with hackers and company insiders to break into private companies’ computer systems and steal information on a turbo fan engine used in commercial jetliners, according to a US indictment.
The 10 people charged conspired to steal sensitive data “that could be used by Chinese entities to build the same or similar engine without incurring substantial research and development expenses” the indictment released by the US Department of Justice said on Tuesday.
More than a dozen companies were targeted, but only Capstone Turbine Corp was identified by name.
Others were listed as a French aerospace manufacturer with an office in Suzhou, China, a United Kingdom aerospace company, and a multinational conglomerate that produces commercial and consumer products and aerospace systems.
The indictment charges Zha Rong and Chai Meng along with other co-conspirators who worked for the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security, a unit of the foreign intelligence arm of the Ministry of State Security.
The indictment detailed efforts to use malware and phishing techniques to hack into target computers and remove data on the engines and parts.
Corporate espionage
Six hackers who worked under the spies were also named, and two men who worked for the French company.
Their efforts to steal sensitive commercial aviation and other data took place from January 2010 through May 2015.
China denounces ‘ridiculous’ US claims of election meddling
The case has added to rising tensions between Beijing and Washington over geopolitics, trade, hacking and corporate espionage.
It marks the third major corporate espionage-related case involving Chinese intelligence officers brought by the Justice Department since last month.
In late September, a Chinese national who also enlisted in the US Army Reserve was arrested in Chicago for working for Chinese intelligence to recruit engineers and scientists, including some who worked for US defence contractors.
Earlier in October, the Justice Department also announced it arrested a spy for China’s Ministry of State Security on charges of economic espionage and attempting to steal trade secrets from several US aviation and aerospace companies.
In that matter, the FBI said the extradition of Chinese operative Xu Yanjun from Belgium was unprecedented, and the case highlighted the Chinese government’s direct control over economic espionage in the United States.
After Xu’s arrest, China said the United States was “making something out of thin air”.
Private data theft
John Demers, the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, highlighted the pattern of the three cases.
“This is just the beginning,” he said in a statement. “Together with our federal partners, we will redouble our efforts to safeguard America’s ingenuity and investment.”
The FBI worked on the case together with France’s General Directorate for Internal Security.
“This action is yet another example of criminal efforts by the [Ministry of State Security] to facilitate the theft of private data for China’s commercial gain,” US Attorney Adam Braverman said in a statement.
“The concerted effort to steal, rather than simply purchase, commercially available products should offend every company that invests talent, energy, and shareholder money into the development of products.”
Scott Fraser (far right) scored and set up another for Burton
Nigel Clough said it is “special” to have guided League One Burton to the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup for the first time after a thrilling victory over Championship opponents Nottingham Forest.
After a goalless first half, Saidy Janko’s own goal and strikes from Scott Fraser and Jake Hesketh secured the win for Burton, who were forced to hold on in injury time after substitute Arvin Appiah added to Lewis Grabban’s effort to give Forest hope of forcing penalties.
“To get to the last eight as a League One club is pretty special,” Clough told Sky Sports. “We can’t wait for the draw. We reached the semi-finals with Sheffield United, so it is possible. You need a bit of luck, like we had tonight.”
It was a deserved win for Burton, who were playing at this stage of the competition for the first time in their history.
They could have gone ahead in the first half but Northern Ireland striker Liam Boyce sent a penalty well over the bar following a rash tackle by Liam Bridcutt on Jamie Allen. Forest also had goalkeeper Luke Steele to thank for a fine stop to deny David Templeton after he had fumbled another Boyce effort.
Burton did eventually go ahead seven minutes into the second half when Fraser’s long-range effort deflected off Forest defender Janko and looped beyond Steele for an own goal. Fraser then doubled Burton’s lead 12 minutes later with a smart finish from Boyce’s pass.
Forest substitute Grabban converted Gil Dias’ through ball to bring the visitors back into the game, only for Hesketh’s fine volley to restore Burton’s two-goal lead. Another Forest substitute, 17-year-old forward Appiah, scored his first goal for the club in stoppage time but could not deny Burton victory.
“If we had finished our chances in the first half the game would have been over, but it showed great character to come out and do it again,” added Clough.
Forest boss Aitor Karanka apologised to the supporters after the game and said he was “embarrassed” by the performance of his side, which showed 10 changes from the team that drew with Leeds at the weekend.
“We had a chance to reach the quarter-finals for the first time in 25 years and it is a real missed opportunity,” said Karanka. “If we were complacent then that should never have been the case because we were playing to reach the quarter-finals.
“I’m really angry because a team from League One, a team which has played four games in 10 days, has looked much better than us. They were much stronger and they wanted everything more than we did.
“I can’t understand why that was the case and I don’t want to say something that I’ll regret tomorrow. I just feel embarrassed and sorry for the supporters who travelled this evening because we all came here thinking we could achieve something good.”
Burton make history – the stats
Burton Albion have won each of their lpast three League Cup games against sides from a higher division – they had lost their previous three such games.
Nottingham Forest have lost on each of the past four occasions they have reached the fourth round of the League Cup (also 1994-95, 1998-99 and 2004-05).
Lewis Grabban has been directly involved in 10 goals (nine goals, one assist) in his past 10 games in all competitions for Forest.
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