DAP: The breaking news in Cambodia: “37 insurgents killed, 22 arrested in Afghanistan: gov't” plus 9 more

KABUL, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- Security forces have eliminated 37 insurgents and captured 22 others in different parts of the country over the past 24 hours, the Afghan Interior Ministry said Sunday.

"Over the past 24 hours, the Afghan National Police (ANP), Afghan National Army (ANA), NDS or the intelligence agency and NATO-led Coalition forces have launched 12 joint and independent operations in Kabul, Laghman, Kandahar, Helmand, Wardak, Paktika, Pakiya and Khost provinces, killing 37 armed insurgents and detaining 22 other suspected insurgents," the ministry said in a statement.

A handful of weapons and ammunition were also found and seized by joint forces, it said.

Afghan officials often use the word "insurgents" referring to the Taliban.

The insurgent group, who stepped up their attacks on Afghan troops and about 130,000 NATO-led Coalition troops stationed in the country since a spring rebel offensive was launched in May this year in the country, has yet to make comments.

Separately, a NATO soldier was killed in an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attack in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed in a statement on Sunday.

However, the brief statement did not release the nationality of the victim under ISAF policy.

Over 460 NATO service members, with a majority of them Americans, lost their lives in Afghanistan since the beginning of this year.

BANGKOK, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- A road accident caused by the heavy rain in northern Thailand's Lampang Province killed 7 passengers and injured 20 others Sunday morning, the Bangkok Post reported.

The bus, en route from Lampang to Khon Kaen province, veered off a slippery road in Thoen district of Lampang shortly after setting out.

Two men and five women aboard were killed on the spot, 22 injured were rushed to two local hospitals and two of them died later.

A total of 206 people were confirmed dead in the widespread floods that have harassed the country for more than two months, and over 1.8 million people in 23 provinces are still affected by the flood, according to the figures released by the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department Sunday.

Earlier this week, the Thai government dispatched more than 10, 000 soldiers, 12 mobile medical teams, 500 big land vehicles and 100 boats to the flood-ravaged areas.

NANNING, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- Typhoon Nesat continued to wreak havoc in southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on Sunday, two days after making landfall on the southernmost island province of Hainan.

Water from heavy downpours brought by Nesat has entered major river courses in the region, where more than 2 million people have been affected by the typhoon.

The regional flood control and drought relief headquarters said the water levels of five rivers in the region had exceeded danger marks by Sunday morning.

In the city of Qinzhou, the Qinjiang River edged over an embankment that protects a riverside park, submerging roads and bushes.

The headquarters warned that flooding is expected to crest on Monday morning, putting the water level at 1.2 meters above the danger mark in Qinzhou.

In the city of Beihai, rainfall and lightning over the past two days have severely damaged airport facilities.

Nesat, the strongest typhoon to hit the region since 2005, battered 24 counties in Guangxi, including the regional capital Nanning, forcing the evacuation of 132,200 people, the regional civil affairs department said in a press release.

The regional government has increased its estimate of Nesat-inflicted economic losses to 1.4 billion yuan (219 million U.S. dollars), as thousands of houses were toppled, and 257,900 hectares of farmland were damaged.

BANGKOK, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra' s personal twitter's page was hacked on Sunday morning at around 10.20 a.m. when the unknown hackers posted about 8 messages defaming the government and premier.

A message tweeted by the hacker read "This country is a business. We are doing for our associates, not the Thai people. We are doing for those who support us, not those thinking differently from us."

While other messages mainly blamed the government's policies, the last one challenged the prime minister by saying "Even your own Twitter you could not protect. How could you protect this country?"

In response to the hacking, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Minister Anudith Nakornthap said the ministry had been able to detect the hacker's whereabouts and also ruled out all posted messages as untrue.

"We knew already who did this and from where. But at this moment, we cannot unveil any information,

"The ministry will do its best to fix the problem but Twitter users should be well aware that these messages posted on @ PouYingluck page are untrue," said Anudith.

The ICT ministry planned to officially hold a press conference regarding this matter on Monday.

The Yingluck government came into power since August 10, less than two months but the government had to face with many problems ranging from widespread and long-standing floods to difficulty of implementing its promised campaign policies.

NEW DELHI, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Indian government Sunday started a month-long sanitation campaign to create public awareness for its flagship scheme of Total Sanitation Campaign, reported local daily The Times of India on Sunday.

The Union Rural Development Ministry, along with state governments, decided to launch the campaign after a UNICEF survey said 58 percent of the world's population practicing open defecation live in India.

Indian Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has described the number "a matter of great anguish and shame".

"We must make sanitation a political campaign like Gandhiji ( Mahatma Gandhi) did. Kerala, Sikkim, Maharashtra, Haryana and Himachal are doing well but other states have to pick up significantly," he was quoted as saying.

October 2 is the anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi, founding father of modern India.

SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Indian army Sunday claimed it has killed 4 militants in a gunfight while foiling an infiltration bid on the line-of-control (LoC) in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

The infiltration bid, according to officials, was thwarted Saturday in Keran sector of frontier Kupwara district around 130 km northwest of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian- controlled Kashmir.

"Four militants were killed in a gunfight near the LoC after alert troopers spotted a group of militants in Keran sector," said an army officer in Srinagar. "The gunfight triggered after militants fired on the soldiers deployed there."

Army officials told media they have not suffered any causality in the gunfight. Reports said the army also claimed recovery of some arms and ammunition from the slain militants.

The identity of the slain militants and their group affiliation was not known.

In a recently concluded 4-day gunfight this week nine people including five militants, two policemen and two Indian army troopers were killed near village KarlporaKupwara.

Kashmir is divided between two South Asian neighbors India and Pakistan through a line-of-control (LoC), a de facto border.

Gun fighting between militants and Indian army troopers in Indian-controlled Kashmir takes place intermittently.

BANGKOK, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- Over 200 houses in Thailand's northern Lampang's Ko Kah district were submerged under flood waters early Sunday morning after heavy rains going on generating water runoff from a nearby hill.

Heavy rains starting from around 2.00 a.m. on Sunday morning continued for hours causing high-level flood waters that inundated four villages, a home to over 200 households. Residents in flood- hit areas rushed to evacuate to higher grounds, a Ko Kah chief district officer said.

In a related development, the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department announced on Sunday that the death toll from the nationwide flooding which had begun since July 25 now stood at 206.

The department said a total of 150 districts in 23 provinces in northern, central, eastern and western regions are still under flood waters, affecting more than 1.8 million people.

COTABATO CITY, Philippines. Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- Two suspected militants linked with al-Qaeda were wounded as they clashed Sunday dawn with government security forces in the restive southern Philippines, police said.

Troops were on a patrol mission on the Island of Limaong in Zamboanga City when they encountered an undetermined number of Muslim militants, said regional police commander Chief Superintendent Felkecisimo Khu, adding a firefight ensued, leaving two militants wounded.

Authorities were verifying if the group they encountered are allies of the Abu Sayyaf, said Khu.

The Abu Sayyaf, active in the southern Philippines, was founded in the 1990s and has perpetrated a number of high-profile attacks, including kidnapping, bombing and beheading. The Philippine military estimates the Abu Sayyaf, which has links with external terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda, currently has less than 400 members.

DAVAO CITY, Philippines, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- The military said Sunday it has arrested a top-ranking leftist rebel blamed for several cases of atrocities in the southern Philippines.

Samson Langguban, alias Commander Jag-jag, was apprehended by soldiers from the government army's 39th Infantry Battalion in Astorga village, Sta. Cruz town, in the southern province of Davao del Sur past 2 p.m. Saturday, according to Lieutenant Raul Villegas, civil-military officer of the battalion.

Langguban was nabbed after informant tipped off the military of his presence at a residential area in the village. A revolver was found in his possession and confiscated. Langguban did not resist arrest, Villegas said.

The arrested rebel commander is facing several cases of murder and robbery before a local court, and his unit which is active in the hinterlands of Sta. Cruz and Bansalan towns and Digos City, also in Davao del Sur, has been blamed for attacks against government troops in these areas, according to Villegas.

The NPA, armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, has been waging a guerrilla campaign in the countryside for more than four decades. The Philippine military estimates that there are over 4,000 NPA guerrilla fighters scattered in more than 60 provinces throughout the country.

Peace talks between the Philippine government and the leftists bogged down after the United States included the NPA and its parent body as foreign terrorist organizations in 2002.

The Philippine government has revived the peace process with the leftist rebels. However, talks have been stalled recently again following demands of the leftist rebels to release most of their detained leaders and consultants.

COLOMBO, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- Five policemen were arrested on Saturday over the death of a prisoner in a town in western Sri Lanka, a day after villagers had attacked the police station in the area.

The prisoner had died while he was being transported to the police station in Dompe and the area police had claimed the man died after falling from the police jeep.

However, villagers of the area and relatives of the victim claimed he was killed by the Dompe police and vented their anger by attacking the Dompe police station and police vehicles on Friday and later set fire to other police property.

Sri Lanka police spokesman Maxi Proctor told Xinhua on Sunday that the criminal investigations division of the police had arrested five police officers after initial investigations had been carried out.

Local media reported that investigations had found the prisoner died after being brutally assaulted by the policemen who had been arrested.

Police and military reinforcements had to be deployed to the town to maintain security after the area continued to be tense for two days.

This is not the first instance in which policemen were arrested in Sri Lanka over the death of inmates in police custody.

Two months ago four policemen were sentenced to death over the murder of two youths while they were in police custody.