Afghanistan, 170 factories closed due to electricity shortage

Today's headlines: Death toll in mosque bombing rises to 87; Extremist who recruited militiamen among Rohingya arrested in Bangladesh; In Indonesia, a former leprosy patient builds prosthetics for other lepers; Chinese woman learns 10 dialects to help fellow citizens; Landfills become the only source of livelihood for some Syrian families.

AFGHANISTAN

At least 170 factories in the industrial city of Shorandam, southern Kandahar province, have been forced to close in recent months due to repeated power outages. Several owners have complained about the shortage of electricity, saying they are in danger of closing because production levels are too low.

PAKISTAN

The death toll from yesterday's Peshawar mosque suicide bombing has risen to 87. Official Pakistani Taliban (Ttp) media distanced themselves from the incident after some initial claims by some of the organization's commanders.

The Ttp's code of conduct, they claim, is not to attack mosques but only law enforcement agencies, because their battle is against the Pakistani state. It is estimated that there were between 300 and 400 police officers in the targeted compound.

BANGLADESH - MYANMAR

Dhaka's counterterrorism unit arrested an Afghanistan-trained extremist who was trying to recruit more militiamen in Rohingya refugee camps. In recent days a group of five others were placed under arrest for being part of the al-Qaeda-linked Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami Bangladesh organization.

INDONESIA

Ali Saga, 57, who has recovered from leprosy, has committed himself to making handmade prosthetics for the 500 or so sufferers in Sitanala village. After Brazil and India, Indonesia is the third-largest leprosy country in the world, currently over 15,000 cases. However, infected people are isolated because the disease is considered divine punishment.

CHINA

A Chinese woman has self-taught at least 10 dialects spoken in the country to help people, who for some reason have lost loved ones, find them. These are people who have been kidnapped or trafficked, biological relatives raised in other families or simply elderly people who have lost their way home. Tan Yinghuan, 42, has helped about 300 people in nine years of volunteering.

RUSSIA

In Irkutsk, Siberia, a trial has begun in a major violence scandal against inmates at Angarsk Prison No. 15, where more than 60 incidents of sexual violence and more than 10 victims have been found, for which four "pressers," inmates who cooperate with the administration, a figure that seemed to have disappeared since Stalinist times, are accused.

SYRIA

For some Syrians, the dump at the U.S. military base in Tell Beydar has become their only source of livelihood: here families look for food to eat and plastic items to resell. After more than 10 years of war, some 15.3 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance in Syria, according to the latest United Nations figures. At least four out of five people do not have access to enough food.

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