Icetruck

Kabul Green Zone attacked by suicide bomber

At least four people have been killed and 13 injured in a suicide attack in central Kabul, Afghan officials say.

A spokesman for Kabul police told the BBC the bomber was thought to be as young as 12 or 13.

The so-called Islamic State has said it was behind the attack.

Ambulances have been ferrying victims of the blast in the capital's diplomatic zone to hospital. The number of dead and injured is expected to rise.

A Reuters TV crew counted eight people who appeared dead.

"I was 100 metres away when the explosion happened and as I ran towards the site I saw several people lying in blood – one had been hit in the head and was moving. It was a horrible scene," one witness told Afghanistan's Tolo news.

• The Islamic State group: The full story

Kabul has been targeted by the Taliban and other militants on many occasions in recent months.

In May a huge bomb in the capital's so-called Green Zone – where many diplomatic missions are based – left more than 150 people dead.

It was the deadliest suicide attack by insurgents in Afghanistan since the Taliban were driven from power by US-led forces in 2001.

Security was tightened in response to the May blast, which happened near the German embassy. But the truck scanners, barriers, and checkpoints did not stop the latest attack on Kabul's diplomatic quarter.

Source – bbc.com

Kevin Spacey: Special Emmy award withdrawn after assault allegations

Kevin Spacey has been dropped as the recipient of a special Emmy award he was due to receive next month.

The International TV Academy said in a statement that it was withdrawing the International Emmy Founders Award "in light of recent events".

It comes after actor Anthony Rapp accused Spacey of making a sexual advance 30 years ago.

Responding to the allegations, Spacey said he was "beyond horrified" but did not remember the encounter.

The International Emmy Founders Award, which was due to be presented to Spacey in a ceremony on 20 November, is a special award reserved for those "whose creative accomplishments have contributed in some way to the quality of global television production".

Previous winners include film director Steven Spielberg, Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes and X Factor's Simon Cowell.

• Why are people angry about Kevin Spacey coming out?
• Kevin Spacey responds to sexual abuse claim

The International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which awards International Emmys, honours programmes that have had their initial broadcast outside of the US. It has a separate awards ceremony to the main Emmys, traditionally held each January.

Netflix has also announced it will end its flagship TV series House of Cards, in which Kevin Spacey stars as ruthless politician Francis Underwood.

Filming is currently under way on the sixth series of the political drama but Netflix confirmed it would be the last.

According to a spokeswoman, the decision had been made months ago but in a statement Netflix said it was "deeply troubled" by the allegations made against Spacey.

Variety magazine is reporting that the streaming giant is instead exploring a House of Cards spin-off – with one possibility revolving around the character Doug Stamper, who plays Francis Underwood's chief of staff.

Spacey has been criticised for his statement responding to allegations made by Rapp, who said Spacey attempted to seduce him after a party in 1986, when he was 14 years old.

Rapp said Spacey had laid down on top of him, adding in an interview with BuzzFeed News: "I was aware that he was trying to get with me sexually."

Spacey said if he had behaved in the way Rapp describes then he owes him "the sincerest apology" and that he was "sorry for the feelings [Rapp] describes having carried with him all these years".

He went on to publicly announce he was gay.

Among the latest to criticise the actor's decision to come out are US film star Zachary Quinto and British film and theatre director Sean Mathias.

Star Trek actor Zachary Quinto called Spacey's timing "a calculated manipulation to deflect attention from the very serious accusation" of assault.

Skip Twitter post by @ZacharyQuinto

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— Zachary Quinto (@ZacharyQuinto) October 30, 2017

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Theatre and film director Sean Mathias told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that coming out should be something to "celebrate".

"Kevin Spacey coming out is very untimely," he said. "I don't think coming out when he's been accused of something else is the right thing to do. Because you're gay doesn't mean you want to sleep with children and in some people's minds this will be heightened."

The director of play No Man's Land went on to claim he too had been the victim of sexual harassment, saying he had been "coerced" into a sexual act by a "powerful" man in the industry in the early days of his career.

'Not predatory behaviour'

The Old Vic has also responded to the allegation made against Spacey, who was the artistic director there from 2003 to 2015.

A spokeswoman for the London theatre said: "During Kevin Spacey's tenure as artistic director no complaints were made against him. No complaints have been made since he left."

Meanwhile Kim Richards, the chief executive and chairman of Allied Artists International – a major film and television production company – has defended Spacey.

He tweeted his support of the Usual Suspects actor following the claims of harassment saying: "If true, acting on impulse while inebriated speaks to over-indulgence, not predatory behaviour. You're good & decent, deserving forgiveness."

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Source – bbc.com

'I didn't realise it was going to be part of my entrapment'

Women's charity Refuge is warning about the rise of "tech abuse" – the use of technology to spy on or harass a partner.

Many victims of domestic violence report being either being harassed via online messages or having their activity monitored via their phones.

However, many do not report it to the police, the charity said.

Euleen Hope was a technophobe who escaped the control of her tech-savvy abusive ex-partner after 10 years.

He set up her email and social media accounts for her, which meant he had full access to them.

He also replaced her flip-phone with an iPhone which he then set up to be mirrored on to the pair's iPad so he could monitor her calls and messages, and activated the phone's location-tracker saying it would help her to get the bus.

"You wouldn't think he was doing anything bad, he showed you what he was doing," she said.

"I didn't realise it was going to be part of my entrapment."

When she noticed things such as the iPad ringing when her phone rang, her ex told her he was just testing a new app.

He also installed cameras around the house under the guise of security.

"My twin sister came round one day to visit. Normally if my friends or family came over he would sit in the room with us," she recalled.

"This time he said he would leave us to catch up and said he would use his computer in the kitchen upstairs.

"I moved behind the camera and told my sister to keep talking, I went up the stairs and saw him listening to what he thought was our conversation."

Ms Hope's former partner was also physically and emotionally abusive and eventually served a prison sentence for assault and GBH.

Refuge is teaming up with Google to train its staff to better support victims who contact it as part of a new programme.

"Domestic violence is the biggest issue which impacts on the police," said Dame Vera Baird, police and crime commissioner for Northumbria, speaking at the project launch.

"Every 30 seconds there is a domestic violence call. Two years ago, it was every minute.

"Northumbria's police force gets 32,000 calls a year and that's maybe a fifth or a quarter of what is actually going on."

A 2016 survey by Comic Relief found that four out of five women who experienced abuse said their partner monitored their activity.

Twenty-year-old blogger Beth Ashley said a former boyfriend had no interest in tech until she tried to end their relationship because he was controlling and sexually abusive.

"When I got with him he didn't even have a phone," she said.

"I thought he was a massive technophobe until we broke up. Suddenly he started all these social media accounts and used them as a harassment tool."

She says he also sent her a suicide note via Facebook Messenger along with graphic images of self-harm, which she later discovered he had found online.

"I went round the next day and he was just sitting there on his Xbox," she said.

She says he would regularly turn up where she worked and she would end her shift to find 50 messages from him on her phone.

Ms Ashley was very active on social media because of her work as a blogger and online writer.

"There were times when I wanted to delete the blog, the magazines," she said.

"I have these random moments of wanting to be invisible. Considering my job, that would be awful."

Ms Ashley says that she had to block old friends on social media in case one of them accidentally gave him information about her activities.

After reporting him to the police, the online harassment stopped, she said.

"But the paranoia stayed for a long time," she added.

Sandra Horley, chief executive of Refuge, said the charity had seen a case where a man had hacked the CCTV at the pub where his wife worked so he could monitor her, and another who put a tracker on his partner's car, moved it and then accused her of losing it.

"She thought she was losing her mind," she said.

"Technological abuse is part of a broader pattern of domestic violence.

"This project was born out of our clients' experiences of technology-related abuse, and we will continue to make sure their needs and experiences shape our work in the years ahead."

Source – bbc.com

Catalan independence: Sacked leader Puigdemont not seeking asylum

Catalonia's sacked President Carles Puigdemont says he has not travelled to Belgium to seek asylum.

He has appeared in public in Brussels with several colleagues after declaring independence from Spain last week.

Spain's central government has taken direct control of Catalonia and sacked officials, following the region's banned independence referendum.

Mr Puigdemont said he was not trying to escape justice but wanted to be able to speak freely.

He was speaking at a press conference as Spain's constitutional court suspended the declaration of independence made by the Catalan leader on Friday.

• Catalonia crisis in 300 words
• Madrid's enforcer for Catalonia
• What next for Spain?

Mr Puigdemont also said he would accept the result of snap Catalonia elections on 21 December, which were called by Spain's central government after it invoked Article 155 of the constitution, temporarily suspending the region's autonomy.

The move will see as many as 150 of the region's top officials replaced.

"I want a clear commitment from the state. Will the state respect the results that could give separatist forces a majority?" Mr Puigdemont asked reporters.

The Spanish government has previously said he was welcome to take part in the fresh polls.

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The ousted Catalan leader did not clarify how long he would stay in Belgium, but said he would return once he was given "guarantees" by the Spanish government.

He said moves by the Spanish chief prosecutor to charge him and a number of other cabinet members with offences that carry up to 30 years in prison showed the extent of the central authorities' aggression.

• Puigdemont: The man who wants to break up Spain

Earlier comments from a lawyer hired by Mr Puigdemont in Brussels had fuelled speculation that he was investigating asylum processes there.

When asked on Flemish public radio whether he was seeking asylum, Paul Bekaert said: "We're keeping all options open – nothing has been decided."

Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis has expressed scepticism about an asylum bid.

"It would be surprising if he were granted asylum in the current circumstances," he told Spanish radio.

He emphasised that Mr Puigdemont had yet to be charged and was therefore still "free to move around".

But he added: "We believe that among EU member states, there is a level of reciprocal trust over the fact that we are states governed by the rule of law."

Five of Mr Puigdemont's sacked ministers have joined him in Belgium:

• Meritxell Serret, agriculture minister
• Antoni Comín, health minister
• Dolors Bassa, labour minister
• Meritxell Borrás, governance minister
• Joaquim Forn, interior minister

In a separate development on Tuesday, Spain's Guardia Civil – a paramilitary force charged with police duties – raided the offices of the Catalan police force.

According to media reports, they searched eight offices for communications relating to the referendum on 1 October.

The Catalan police force, the Mossos d'Esquadra, has already been accused of failing to help Guardia Civil officers tackle thousands of pro-independence protesters during the run up to the banned vote.

The crisis began when the Catalan government held an independence referendum, despite a Constitutional Court ruling declaring it illegal.

The Catalan authorities said that of the 43% of potential voters who took part, 90% were in favour of independence. Others boycotted the vote after the court ruling.

Catalonia is one of Spain's richest, most distinctive regions with a high degree of autonomy.

But many Catalans feel they pay more to Madrid than they get back, and there are historical grievances, too, in particular Catalonia's treatment under the dictatorship of General Franco.

Source – bbc.com

Doctor approves of ill inmate sitting up during execution

Allowing a condemned killer with health problems to partially sit up during his execution next month would be a "reasonable" accommodation, according to a doctor working for Ohio's prison system.

Death row inmate Alva Campbell became mildly agitated when officials tried lowering him to a normal execution position in an Oct. 19 test, according to a medical review by Dr. James McWeeney, a contractor for the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

McWeeney noted there were no objective findings such as increased pulse rate or breathing to corroborate Campbell's anxiety.

"Nevertheless, given the events observed at this examination and the patient's underlying pulmonary and mental health disorders, it would be reasonable to make an accommodation for the patient during the execution process that would permit him to lay in a semi-recumbent position," the doctor wrote.

McWeeney also said a prison nurse's exam failed to find veins suitable for inserting an IV on either of Campbell's arms.

In 2009, problems placing an IV in the arms of death row inmate Romell Broom led to the cancellation of the execution after almost two hours and 18 needle sticks. Broom remains on death row, arguing in court the state shouldn't be allowed a second attempt to execute him.

Campbell is scheduled to die Nov. 15 for fatally shooting teenager Charles Dials during a 1997 carjacking.

Campbell, 69, has severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder as the result of a decades-long two-pack-a-day smoking habit that finally stopped nine years ago, the doctor said.

Campbell's attorneys also say he uses a walker, relies on an external colostomy bag, requires four breathing treatments a day and may have lung cancer.

Campbell's health problems "could create a spectacle of a terminally ill man, with tourniquets on his arms and legs, being stabbed repeatedly to no avail," defense attorney David Stebbins said Monday.

The Department of Rehabilitation and Correction said it "has taken Campbell's medical conditions under consideration for planning of possible accommodations for his execution."

Campbell was regularly beaten, sexually abused and tortured as a child, Stebbins and other attorneys argued in court filings and before the Ohio Parole Board.

The board rejected Campbell's request for mercy earlier this month. Republican Gov. John Kasich, who has spared some inmates while rejecting clemency for others, has the final say.

Prosecutors say Campbell's health claims are ironic given he faked paralysis to escape court custody the day he killed Dials.

Campbell was paroled in 1992 after serving 20 years for killing a man in a Cleveland bar. On April 2, 1997, Campbell was in a wheelchair when he overpowered a Franklin County sheriff's deputy on the way to a court hearing on several armed robbery charges, records show.

Campbell took the deputy's gun, carjacked the 18-year-old Dials and drove around with him for several hours before shooting him twice in the head as Dials crouched in the footwell of his own truck, according to court records.

Franklin County prosecutor Ron O'Brien calls Campbell "the poster child for the death penalty."

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Andrew Welsh-Huggins can be reached on Twitter at https://twitter.com/awhcolumbus.

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This story has been corrected to say that a prison nurse, not doctor, found veins suitable for IV insertion.

• Star

Source – abcnews.go.com

Kabul Green Zone: Blast kills many, officials say

At least three people have been killed and 13 injured in a powerful explosion in central Kabul, Afghan officials say.

Ambulances have been ferrying victims of the blast in the capital's diplomatic zone to hospital.

The number of dead and injured is expected to rise. A Reuters TV crew counted eight people who appeared dead.

It is not clear what caused the blast. Kabul has been targeted by the Taliban and other militants on many occasions in recent months.

In May a huge bomb in the capital's so-called Green Zone – where many diplomatic missions are based – left more than 150 people dead.

It was the deadliest suicide attack by insurgents in Afghanistan since the Taliban were driven from power by US-led forces in 2001.

Source – bbc.com

The Latest: No usable veins found in Ohio killer's exam

The Latest on an ill death row inmate fighting his November execution (all times local):

1:05 p.m.

A doctor working for Ohio's prison system says it would be reasonable to allow a condemned killer with health problems to partially sit up during his execution next month.

Dr. James McWeeney said death row inmate Alva Campbell became agitated when officials tried lowering him to a normal execution position in a test.

McWeeney also said a nurse's exam failed to find veins suitable for inserting an IV on either of Campbell's arms.

Campbell is scheduled to die Nov. 15 for fatally shooting teenager Charles Dials during a 1997 carjacking.

The 69-year-old Campbell has cited his poor health and tough upbringing in an attempt to avoid execution.

The Ohio Parole Board has rejected Campbell's request for mercy.

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12:15 a.m.

A doctor working for Ohio's prison system says it would be reasonable to allow a condemned killer with health problems to partially sit up during his execution next month.

Dr. James McWeeney said death row inmate Alva Campbell became agitated when officials tried lowering him to a normal execution position in a test.

McWeeney also said he couldn't find veins suitable for inserting an IV on either of Campbell's arms.

Campbell is scheduled to die Nov. 15 for fatally shooting teenager Charles Dials during a 1997 carjacking.

The 69-year-old Campbell has cited his poor health and tough upbringing in an attempt to avoid execution.

The Ohio Parole Board has rejected Campbell's request for mercy.

• Star

Source – abcnews.go.com

Russia-linked posts 'reached 126m Facebook users in US'

Facebook has said as many as 126 million American users may have seen content uploaded by Russia-based operatives over the past two years.

The social networking site said about 80,000 posts were produced before and after the 2016 presidential election.

Most of the posts focused on divisive social and political messages.

Facebook released the figures ahead of a Senate hearing where it, together with Twitter and Google. will detail Russia's impact on the popular sites.

Russia has repeatedly denied allegations that it attempted to influence the last US presidential election, in which Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton.

In a separate development on Monday, an investigation by independent counsel Robert Mueller into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia produced its first charges against two former aides. It also emerged that a third former aide had pleaded guilty in early October to lying to the FBI.

President Trump has dismissed allegations of collusion with Moscow, and has repeatedly called on Mrs Clinton to be investigated.

• Reality Check: When 126m isn't 126m on Facebook
• Facebook uncovers 'Russian-funded' misinformation campaign
• Twitter's Russia briefings 'inadequate'
• Can US election hack be traced to Russia?
• LISTEN: Russian-backed Facebook post row in a minute

What is Facebook saying?

Facebook says some 80,000 posts were published between June 2015 and August 2017 and were seen by about 29 million Americans directly, according to a draft of prepared remarks seen by US media ahead of Tuesday's Senate judiciary committee hearing.

These posts, which Facebook says were created by a Kremlin-linked company, were amplified through likes, shares and comments and spread to tens of millions more people.

Facebook also said it had deleted 170 Instagram accounts, which posted about 120,000 pieces of content.

"These actions run counter to Facebook's mission of building community and everything we stand for," wrote Facebook's general counsel Colin Stretch.

"And we are determined to do everything we can to address this new threat."

In a blog post from earlier this month, Facebook's Elliot Schrage said that many of the posts did not violate the company's content policies. They were removed, he said, because they were inauthentic – the Russians behind the posts did not identify themselves as such.

What defines reach?

A post counts as reaching someone when it's shown in Facebook News Feeds, so this figure takes no account of the number of people who may or may not have actually read it.

We do not know therefore how many of those 126 million people actually consumed the 80,000 posts and consequently how many of these were influential in terms of affecting voters.

Clearly, a mass targeting of posts can have a subliminal impact on people but it is hard to evaluate with any certainty based on the data we have seen so far.

What did the fake accounts post?

For now, Facebook, Twitter and Google have opted not to make the suspected Russian-backed ads and accounts public.

However, several purported examples have been been identified by others.

One is a Facebook page called Heart of Texas. Many of its early posts were innocuous memes designed to appeal to patriotic locals. But once it had attracted thousands of followers, it began claiming a victory for Hillary Clinton would attract "refugees, mosques, and terrorist attacks".

Another case involved the appropriation of the name of a long-established Muslim group, which then posted false claims about Senator John McCain funding the Islamic State group.

Other examples masqueraded as being from gun-rights campaigners, gay rights supporters, Black Lives Matter activists and dog-lovers.

Even Twitter's chief executive is alleged to have retweeted one account that celebrated Women's History Month before it changed tack after gaining influence to claim Clinton had received money from the Ku Klux Klan.

What about other social media sites?

Google also revealed on Monday that Russian trolls had uploaded more than 1,000 political videos on YouTube on 18 different channels. The company said they had very low view counts and there was no evidence they had been targeting American viewers.

Meanwhile, Twitter found and suspended all 2,752 accounts that it had tracked to the Russia-based Internet Research Agency, Reuters quotes a source as saying.

These accounts, which have now been suspended, posted about 131,000 tweets between September 2016 and November 2016.

All three companies are also due to testify on Wednesday at the Senate and House intelligence committees.

Key recent developments:

• Nov 2016: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg says "the idea that fake news on Facebook influenced the (US) election in any way is a pretty crazy idea"
• Aug 2017: Facebook says it will fight fake news by sending more suspected hoax stories to fact-checkers and publishing their findings online
• Oct 2017: Google finds evidence that Russian agents spent tens of thousands of dollars on ads in a bid to sway the election, reports say
• Oct 2017: Twitter bans Russia's RT and Sputnik media outlets from buying advertising amid fears they attempted to interfere in the election

Getting short shrift

Dave Lee, BBC technology reporter, San Francisco

It's quite staggering how this problem, dismissed just over a year ago by Mark Zuckerberg as "crazy" talk, has exploded into a crisis at the world's biggest social network.

Apparently not learning from that mistake, we understand that the thrust of Facebook's message to various government committees this week will be that just one in 23,000 or so messages shared on the network were from the Russians.

It should not surprise Facebook if such a statement – an engineer's defence, you might say – gets short shrift from a panel already unsatisfied with some of what it's heard from the companies so far.

You won't see Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey or Google's executives answering questions this week. That job will be left up to their lawyers.

You wonder how long tech's great and powerful can get away with not personally standing up for the companies they built.

Follow Dave on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC

What is happening with the Russia inquiry?

Meanwhile, the White House on Monday sought to downplay the arrest of President Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and aide Rick Gates on money-laundering charges unrelated to the 2016 campaign.

Another of Mr Trump's campaign advisers, George Papadopoulos, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI over his contacts with Russia in the first such indictments by Robert Mueller's special counsel investigating alleged links between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Mr Papadopoulos had been working in a "volunteer position" and "no activity was done in an official capacity".

Analysts say Mr Papadopoulos's case has the potential to damage the US leader, and that he may have been helping Mr Mueller's inquiries since his arrest in July – which was not made public until Monday.

• Why Papadopoulo arrest is key to the puzzle
• Manafort: The man who helped Trump win

What are the charges in Mr Mueller's investigation?

• Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and business associate Rick Gates both deny 12 charges, including conspiracy to launder money and conspiracy against the US
• They are alleged to have hidden millions of dollars in earnings acquired from Ukrainian politician Viktor Yanukovych and his pro-Russia party
• Both Mr Manafort and Mr Gates are currently under house arrest, on bail of $10m and $5m respectively
• Former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about the timing of meetings with alleged go-betweens for Russia
• He admitted to falsely claiming he had met two figures, including a London-based professor who was offering "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, before joining the Trump campaign when in fact he met them afterwards

Russia-Trump: Who's who in the drama to end all dramas?

Source – bbc.com

Game studio CCP scales back virtual reality development

Developer CCP Games has significantly cut the time and money it is investing in virtual-reality based games.

The Iceland-based studio is best known for sci-fi title Eve Online but has also created several VR-centred games.

Spaceship dog-fighting simulator Eve Valkyrie helped launch the Oculus Rift headset and CCP also made the Sparc VR ball-tossing game for the PlayStation.

CCP boss Hilmar Petursson said the company would re-invest in VR when market conditions improved.

The move was a "blow to the viability of VR as a major gaming platform", said Adam Smith on the Rock, Paper Shotgun gaming news website, adding that Valkyrie was one of the few games that tempted him to try VR.

The changes come just over a month after CCP overhauled Valkyrie in a bid to get more people playing it.

Niche market

CCP has cut its investment in VR as part of a broader restructuring effort. The structural changes mean more focus on PC and mobile games, it said in a statement.

It is closing its Atlanta, US, office and selling off the development studio it maintains in Newcastle. The VR development work done at both locations will move to London.

About 30 jobs are being lost during the restructure, it added, saying that it had given staff "severance packages" and would help them find other work. A potential buyer had been found for the Newcastle office, said CCP, adding that negotiations over the sale were continuing.

The changes would have no immediate impact on Eve Valkyrie, said CCP, and a planned winter update for the game would be available as expected. Similarly, it said, Sparc development would continue in London.

"Today we have made tough, but important, changes to CCP in response to how we see the gaming market evolving in the coming years," said Mr Petursson.

"We have been front and centre in the second wave of VR and our belief in the long-term transformative power of the technology remains strong," he said, adding that it would not make "material VR investments" until the market grew substantially.

CCP would now concentrate more on Eve Online and the new games emerging from that title, he said.

Games analyst Piers Harding-Rolls from IHS Markit, said CCP took a "calculated risk" with its early VR investment, hoping that the expertise it built up would pay off as VR games became more popular.

"Unfortunately, adoption of high-end headsets – through which most VR games are being bought – has been a mixed bag since launch," he said.

IHS Markit estimates that about 2.4 million PC headsets will have been sold by the end of 2017, said Mr Harding-Rolls.

"Although millions of users is a respectable number to target, when compared to other platforms, most games publishers would consider that level of adoption small and niche," he added.

This explained why CCP had switched to concentrate on the PC and mobile markets which have hundreds of millions of potential players, he said.

Source – bbc.com

Pakistan bride charged over 'poisoned milk' killings

A newlywed woman in Pakistan has been arrested on suspicion of killing her husband and at least 12 of his relatives with poisoned milk.

Police claim Asiya Bibi had intended the deadly substance for her husband, and mixed it with his milk last week – but he failed to drink it.

Instead it was turned into a batch of lassi, a yogurt drink, and served to his extended family.

Police said the woman had been forced into an arranged marriage in September.

Such weddings are not uncommon in poorer and more rural areas of Pakistan, and are often pushed through by family members.

In this case, which took place in central Muzaffargarh, local media say the bride had tried unsuccessfully to flee her marital home and return to her parents.

• Pakistan man 'poisoned brother's sweets'
• Pakistan teenager suffers 'revenge rape'
• A YouTube star and the cleric linked to her death

Senior police official Owais Ahmad confirmed that Asiya Bibi has been charged with murder. A man alleged to be her lover, and his aunt, have also been arrested.

Police said 13 people died and 14 were hospitalised. The Pakistani broadcaster Geo TV put the number of dead at 15, with children among them.

The death toll has been rising since last Thursday, when the tainted drinks were first served and eight people initially died.

Source – bbc.com