Indian Sub-continent

NEW DELHI (AP) — Attempts to reach 41 construction workers stuck in a collapsed tunnel in northern India for two weeks were again stymied Saturday.

The drilling machine broke down late Friday while making its way through the rubble, stones and metal, forcing the rescuers to work by hand to remove debris in hopes of reaching the stranded workers, but the whole operation has ground to a halt.

Arnold Dix, an international expert assisting the rescue team at the site in the mountainous Uttarakhand state, said that it was unclear when the drilling will start again.

NEW DELHI (AP) — Attempts to reach 41 construction workers stuck in a collapsed tunnel in northern India for two weeks were again stymied Saturday.

Rescuers had been working by hand to remove debris after the drilling machine they were using broke down a day earlier while making its way through the debris of rock, stones and metal, but the operation was halted on Saturday.

Arnold Dix, an international expert assisting the rescue team at the accident site in Uttarakhand state, said it is unclear when the drilling will be able to start again.

NEW DELHI, Nov 24 (Reuters) - A tunnel which collapsed, trapping 41 workers in the Indian Himalayas this month, did not have an emergency exit and was built through a geological fault, a member of a panel of experts investigating the disaster said on Friday.

Rescuers are still struggling to reach the construction workers 12 days after the 4.5-km (3-mile) tunnel caved in. The men, from some of India's poorest states, have been getting food, water and medicine through a pipe.

COLOMBO, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's Board of Investment (BOI) has achieved 1.8 billion U.S. dollars in investments by Thursday, the BOI said in its latest press release.

The Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) stands at 1.5 billion dollars, which is a 122 percent increase compared to the same period in 2022, while local investments stand at 258 million dollars, the BOI said.

This is due to large investments in the energy sector, and tourism and manufacturing are the sectors getting more investments, the BOI said.

ISLAMABAD, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- The Pakistani Foreign Ministry said Pakistan has made a formal request to join BRICS, saying it is an important group of developing countries.

"We have taken this decision after having noted the BRICS proclaimed openness to inclusive multilateralism," the ministry's spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch told a weekly media briefing on Thursday.

By joining the group, Pakistan can play an important role in furthering international cooperation and revitalization of inclusive multilateralism, she said.

NEW DELHI (AP) — The Afghan Embassy in New Delhi is permanently closed, it announced Friday, due to challenges from the Indian government and a lack of diplomatic support.

In a press release, it said the decision was already effective from Thursday and follows the embassy’s earlier move to cease operations starting Oct. 1 due to the absence of a recognized government in Kabul. At the time, it had said it would continue to provide emergency consular services to Afghan nationals.

ISLAMABAD, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Pakistan's Supreme Court accepted on Wednesday a bail application from detained former Prime Minister Imran Khan, his lawyer said, a day after another court declared illegal his trial on charges of leaking state secrets.

The former cricket star is fighting various legal battles in the hope of securing release from jail and leading his party in a campaign for a Feb. 8 general election, which his arch rival, another former prime minister, is hoping to win.

ISLAMABAD, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- A soldier and three terrorists were killed in two separate operations against the militants and an attack on security forces in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the Pakistani military said on Tuesday.

One of the operations was conducted in Dera Ismail Khan district, where security forces launched an intelligence-based operation, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the Pakistan Arm, said in a statement.

NEW DELHI, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- India's top health research body, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), said on Tuesday a comprehensive study showed that COVID-19 vaccination was not responsible for unexplained sudden deaths among young adults in the country.

The investigation, titled "Factors associated with unexplained sudden deaths among adults aged 18-45 years in India, a multicentric matched case-control study", was conducted between October 2021 and March 2023.

NEW DELHI (AP) — The 41 construction workers who have been trapped in a collapsed tunnel in northern India for over a week are finally getting hot meals Tuesday, provided through a newly installed steel pipe, as rescuers work on an alternate plan of digging toward them vertically.

The meals, made of rice and lentils, were sent through a 6-inch-(15.24 cm) pipe pushed through the rubble late Monday, said Deepa Gaur, a government spokesperson.