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The Afghan government says at least 24 people have been killed and 11 others injured in the past month as a new wave of heavy rains and flooding has swept parts of the country. A statement released Saturday by the Afghan Ministry for Disaster Management and Humanitarian Affairs says flooding has affected six of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, including the capital, Kabul. Around 500 people were rescued in central Bamyan province's Sheber district, according to the ministry. Nationwide, floods have destroyed over 220 homes this month and partially damaged 116 more, it added. Heavy snowfall across Afghanistan this winter had cut off many areas. So far this year, around 150 people have died as heavy rains and flooding swept away homes in different provinces. Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/afghan-officials-say-heavy-flooding-kills-24-people/ar-AABTHHr

Twenty-nine detainees were killed and 19 police officers were wounded in a confrontation in a cellblock in central Venezuela in what a state official called a failed escape attempt, but human rights groups described as a massacre. The incident took place in the town of Acarigua in a municipal police cellblock in the central state of Portuguesa. "There was an attempted escape and a fight broke out among(rival) gangs," Portuguesa Citizen Security Secretary Oscar Valero told reporters. "With police intervention to prevent the escape, well, there were 29 deaths," he said, adding that some 355 people were being held in the cellblock. Detainees detonated three grenades, which wounded 19 police officers, he said. Venezuela's Information Ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Human rights groups questioned the official version of the events. "How is it that there was a confrontation between prisoners and police, but there are only dead prisoners?" Humberto Prado of the Venezuelan Prisons Observatory said in a telephone interview. "And if the prisoners had weapons, how did those weapons get in?" Detainees for several days had been demanding that government ombudsmen help them avoid being transferred to distant prisons where they would not be able to receive visits from relatives, Prado said. Authorities entered the cell block to carry out searches and remove visiting women when violence broke out, Prado said, estimating the facility in fact held some 540 inmates. Police cellblocks in Venezuela are meant to hold citizens for 48 hours while they face formal charges. But detained citizens can spend months or even years in such facilities because prisons are too overcrowded to receive them and because of chronic delays in basic criminal justice proceedings required to indict them. In 2018, a riot that led to a fire in a police cellblock in the central city of Valencia killed 68 people, including two women who were visiting. Carlos Nieto of human rights group A Window to Freedom said the country has around 500 cellblocks with capacity to hold around 7,000 people that currently have nearly 55,000 detainees in custody. Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/twenty-nine-detainees-killed-in-venezuela-police-station-cellblock-riot/ar-AABRQPu

At least 13 people were hurt Friday in an explosion in the French city of Lyon, prompting a national investigation into possible terrorism. The blast occurred in the early evening in the city's central shopping area. Eleven of the 13 injured were taken to hospital, including a 10-year-old child, the Paris Prosecutor's office said Saturday. French police are still looking for the person suspected of carrying out the attack, according to a tweet from the French National Police verified Twitter account. Police also tweeted a photo of the man they believed to be "the author of the attack" and asked the public to call with any information. French President Emmanuel Macron characterized the blast as an attack shortly after it happened, telling an interviewer: "I'm late because there was an attack in Lyon." Investigators believe the explosion may have been caused by a parcel bomb packed with nails, a spokeswoman for the city prosecutor told CNN. The city's second district mayor, Denis Broliquier, said on French television channel BFMTV that overall damage was not severe because "the load of the parcel bomb" did not cause much of an impact. Victims' wounds, he added, were caused by "pieces of metal and glass." An investigation into "terrorist conspiracy" has been opened, French Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet announced hours after the explosion. Hanane Benakkouche, a waitress at the nearby restaurant L'espace Brasserie, told CNN of the moment the blast went off. "We heard an explosion. I was working on the terrace and people started running, leaving Victor Hugo Street," she recalled. "Policemen arrived quickly on the scene. I'm still shocked." The evacuated scene was visible in photos tweeted by the regional police of Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes, which asked the public to avoid the area. Emergency responders were assisting the wounded, a spokesperson for the Police Nationale told CNN, adding that the priority would be assisting victims "regardless of if it was a car crash or a terrorist attack." Later in the day, Macron tweeted, "Tonight I think of the wounded in the explosion in Lyon, their families affected by the violence that has befallen their loved ones in the street, and all of Lyon. We are by your side." Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/lyon-explosion-prompts-terror-investigation-in-france/ar-AABRH25