IN BRIEF (Page 8)

AFGHANISTAN

Bomb kills at least 29 men inside mosque

A bomb exploded in a mosque in eastern Afghanistan during Friday prayers, officials said, killing at least 29 men who had gathered for worship. Sohrab Qaderi, a member of the provincial council in Nangarhar, said more than 100 others had been wounded. "The number of casualties may rise as the rescue team and people are working to bring out the bodies from the rubble," Qaderi added. Local government spokesman Attaullah Khogyani said the roof of the mosque had fallen in due to the blast. No militant group has claimed responsibility. Both the Taliban and the Islamic State group are active in the region. The blast came after the United Nations released a new report on Thursday saying that an "unprecedented" number of civilians were killed or wounded in Afghanistan from July to September.

UNITED KINGDOM

10 Labour MPs tipped to back PM's deal

Opposition Labour lawmaker John Mann will vote for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Brexit deal and expects over nine of his fellow Labour MPs to follow suit, he said on Friday. Johnson faces a Brexit showdown with parliament on Saturday after clinching a last-minute divorce deal with the European Union that his Northern Irish allies and opposition parties, including Labour, oppose. "I will be voting in favor of it. It's a deal that's been agreed with the European Union; it's a two-sided deal and that satisfies me," Mann told Irish national broadcaster RTE. Asked how many Labour lawmakers would also support Johnson's deal, he said: "More than nine... I don't know how many because there is different pressures at play but it will be in double figures."

MEXICO

Cartel outguns police to free El Chapo son

Heavily armed fighters surrounded security forces in a Mexican city on Thursday and made them free one of drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's sons, after his capture triggered gunbattles and a prison break that sent civilians scurrying for cover. Security Minister Alfonso Durazo said a patrol by National Guard militarized police first came under attack from within a house in the city of Culiacan, 1,230 kilometers northwest of Mexico City. After entering the house, they found four men, including Ovidio Guzman, who is accused of drug trafficking in the United States. The patrol was quickly outmatched by cartel gunmen, however, and it was withdrawn to prevent lives being lost, the government said. Simultaneously, fighters swarmed through the city, battling police and soldiers in broad daylight. They torched vehicles and left at least one gas station ablaze. The reaction to Guzman's capture was on a scale rarely seen during Mexico's long drug war, even after his more famous father's arrests. The chaos continued into the night.

UNITED STATES

School out for 300,000 as teachers strike

More than 32,500 teachers and other staff walked off the job on Thursday in Chicago, canceling classes for 300,000 students in the nation's third-largest school district. At the heart of the dispute is class sizes and resources rather than pay, with teachers saying they want more social workers, nurses and librarians for their students. And they want a three-year contract instead of being locked into the current offer of a five-year deal. Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she was disappointed the Chicago Teachers Union walked out despite the city's offer of what she called a "historic package". The union had already spent a month negotiating with the mayor's team without an agreement, leading to the first teachers strike in the city since 2012.

Agencies

(China Daily 10/19/2019 page8)