Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
A deadly cholera outbreak linked to contaminated drinking water has infected thousands of people in central Pakistan as the country grapples with a water crisis exacerbated by a brutal heat wave in South Asia.
Temperatures in parts of Pakistan and India have reached record levels in recent weeks, putting the lives of millions at risk as the effects of the climate crisis are felt across the subcontinent.
Cholera cases were first identified in Pir Koh, a remote mountainous town in Balochistan province, on April 17. Since then, more than 2,000 people have been have been infected and six have died, according to Dr. Ahmed Baloch, from the health department of Balochistan.
Residents in Pir Koh say they have no access to clean drinking water. The lack of rain this year has caused nearby ponds to dry up, with their only source of water being a pipeline which had "rusted and contaminated the water supply," said local resident Hassan Bugti.
"Residents are forced to drink dirty water," he said.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has ordered "emergency relief measures" to curb the cholera outbreak in Pir Koh, and the military has been called in to help provide mobile water tanks to ensure clean drinking water gets to the population and set up medical camps to treat the sick.
Cholera is an acute diarrheal illness that kills thousands of people worldwide each year. It is easily transmitted, by consuming food or water contaminated with the fecal bacteria Vibrio cholerae. And scientists have warned of the severe impacts of climate change on human health, with rising temperatures encouraging the spread of dangerous pathogens such as cholera.
The outbreak comes as Pakistan faces a serious water crisis and an early onset heat wave that the Pakistan Meteorological Department said has been persistent across the nation since the start of the month.
Jacobabad, one of the hottest cities in the world, in central Sindh province, hit 51 C (123.8 F) on Sunday, and 50 C (122 F) the day before. Average high temperatures in the city this month have been around 45 C (113 F).
The heat is unlikely to abate soon. While dust storms, gusty winds and scattered showers and thunderstorms brought relief to parts of the country over the past couple of days, temperatures are expected to ramp back up from Wednesday, according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department.
Pakistan's Minister for Climate Change Sherry Rehman on Monday said Pakistan was among the most water-stressed countries in the world and one of the ten most vulnerable to climate stress.
The country's major dams are at a "dead level right now, and sources of water are scarce as well as contested," Rehman told CNN, adding, "this is an all-encompassing existential crisis and must be taken seriously."
In the summer of 2015 a heatwave killed more than a thousand people in Pakistan's largest city, Karachi.
The heat wave has also been felt by Pakistan's neighbour India, where temperatures in the capital region of Delhi surpassed 49 C (120 F) on Sunday.
In recent months India has experienced a severe heat wave that saw average maximum temperatures reach the highest in 122 years in northwest India in April, and countrywide in March.
The scorching heat breached the 49 C mark for the first time this year in Delhi, with temperatures reaching 49.2 C (120.5 F) at Delhi's Mungeshpur weather station and 49.1 C (120.3 F) at Najafgarh weather station on Sunday, according to the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD). New Delhi has suffered through 14 days in May above 40 C (104 F).
Gurgaon, southwest of New Delhi, recorded its highest temperature since May 10, 1966, with 48.1 C (118.5 F) on Sunday, according to the IMD.
The IMD forecasts some relief for Delhi, with cloudy and clear skies for the next couple of days. However, it forecasts high temperatures to return in some parts of the region later in the week.
In some states, the heat has forced schools to close, damaged crops and put pressure on energy supplies, as officials warned residents to remain indoors and keep hydrated. On Saturday, India banned wheat exports -- days after saying it was targeting record shipments this year -- as the heat wave curtailed output and domestic prices hit a record high.
India often experiences heat waves during the summer months of May and June, but this year temperatures started rising in March and April.
India and Pakistan are among the countries expected to be worst affected by the climate crisis, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Experts say climate change is causing more frequent and longer heat waves, affecting more than a billion people across the two countries.
Dr. Chandni Singh, IPCC lead author and senior researcher at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, said this heat wave "is testing the limits of human survivability."
"This heat wave is definitely unprecedented," Singh said earlier this month. "We have seen a change in its intensity, its arrival time, and duration. This is what climate experts predicted and it will have cascading impacts on health."
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.