Lahore, Sep 9: Civilian deaths in US and NATO air strikes in Afghanistan have nearly tripled between 2006 and 2007 with new deadly strikes fuelling a public backlash, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said.

According to AAJ TV, foreign forces were guilty of causing civilian deaths by using civilians as ‘human shields’, by deploying troops in villages, the rights group said in a report.

“Mistakes by the US and NATO have dramatically decreased public support for the Afghan government and the international forces (in the country),” a statement accompanying the report said.

Kabul - An Afghan provincial governor for eastern Nuristan province died along with his two bodyguards when their car swerved off the road and plunged into a ravine en route to Kabul, a provincial official said Saturday.

Governor Hazrat-ul-din Noor, 50, was on his way from the capital of Nuristan for a meeting in Kabul city scheduled on Saturday when the accident took place in Sarobi, some 50 kilometres east of the capital city, Haleem Nuristani, deputy provincial governor said.

Noor, who served as a mujahideen commander against the Soviet invasion in 1980s, replaced Tamim Nuristani in July as governor for the province, which is located close to the border with Pakistan.

Dhaka - Areas in Bangladesh's northern and central region were inundated Saturday, submerging a fourth of the country, as authorities warned of more floods and the displacement of tens of thousands of people.

Officials in the Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre in the capital Dhaka said the major rivers in the country were above danger levels and nearly 20 out of 64 administrative districts were flooded.

Crops were destroyed, enclosures washed away and people rendered homeless as the waters collapsed flood protection embankments at several points.

Islamabad, Sept 6: Amid intense fighting going on between the Pakistan forces and militants in the Bajaur Agency district in north Pakistan, hordes of people have started begun fleeing the area to safer places. So far, nearly two lakh people have fled their villages in the Bajaur Agency, said an official of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Lahore, Sept 6: Even as Pakistan witnesses presidential poll today, there are two startling facts that come to one’s minds, i. e. the country has never had a woman President; and that none of the 10 Presidents was from Balochistan, one of the four provinces in Pakistan.

Of the total 10 Presidents and four governor generals Pakistan has had so far, six were from Punjab, six from Sindh and two from the NWFP, but none from Balochistan, reported the Daily Times.

Kosi Barrage, Sept 5: Engineers working at the Kosi Barrage in Nepal have said that the river would continue to change its course if heavy silt deposits are not removed.

A dam on the river in Nepal breached earlier this month causing the Kosi to change its course, swamping hundreds of villages in Bihar and destroying more than 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of farmland.

Till date, the river has breached its embankment 8 times in a span of just 50 years and government officials as well as the engineers are being blamed for the catastrophe said to largely manmade.

Over the last 250 years, the river has shifted its course over 160 kilometres from east to west.