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Man Accused of Truck Attack on Canadian Muslim Family Appears in Court

People and members of the media are seen at a makeshift memorial at the fatal crime scene where a man driving a pickup truck jumped the curb and ran over a Muslim family in what police say was a deliberately targeted anti-Islamic hate crime, in London, Ontario, Canada June 7, 2021. REUTERS/Carlos Osorio
People and members of the media are seen at a makeshift memorial at the fatal crime scene where a man driving a pickup truck jumped the curb and ran over a Muslim family in what police say was a deliberately targeted anti-Islamic hate crime, in London, Ontario, Canada June 7, 2021. REUTERS/Carlos Osorio
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Man Accused of Truck Attack on Canadian Muslim Family Appears in Court

People and members of the media are seen at a makeshift memorial at the fatal crime scene where a man driving a pickup truck jumped the curb and ran over a Muslim family in what police say was a deliberately targeted anti-Islamic hate crime, in London, Ontario, Canada June 7, 2021. REUTERS/Carlos Osorio
People and members of the media are seen at a makeshift memorial at the fatal crime scene where a man driving a pickup truck jumped the curb and ran over a Muslim family in what police say was a deliberately targeted anti-Islamic hate crime, in London, Ontario, Canada June 7, 2021. REUTERS/Carlos Osorio

A Canadian man accused of slamming his pick-up truck into a Muslim family in London, Ontario, killing four people, made a brief court appearance Thursday.

Nathaniel Veltman, 20, appeared by videoconference at the hearing in orange prison garb with cropped hair, to sort out his legal representation. A new court date was set for June 14.

Veltman, who has never been convicted of a crime and has no known extremist group affiliations, has been charged with four counts of first degree murder and one count of attempted murder. If found guilty he faces life in prison.

A funeral for the victims -- 46-year-old Salman Afzaal, his 44-year-old wife Madiha Salman, their 15-year-old daughter Yumna Salman and her 74-year-old grandmother, Talat Afzaal -- is scheduled for 1:30 pm Saturday.

The couple's son, Fayez, 9, is recovering in hospital.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called the attack on a family out for a Sunday evening stroll a "terrorist attack."

His public safety minister, Bill Blair, told public broadcaster CBC the killings were "clearly racist."

"And I can confirm that this is being actively investigated as a terrorist act by the police authorities," he said, which could lead to additional charges under Canada's anti-terrorism act.

Detective Superintendent Paul Waight, who is leading the investigation, said Monday there was evidence "that this was a planned, premeditated act, motivated by hate."

"It is believed that these victims were targeted because they were Muslim," he told a news conference.

At about 8:40 pm on Sunday (0040 GMT Monday), according to police, the Afzaal family was walking along a sidewalk when a black 2016 Dodge Ram truck "mounted the curb and struck" them.

The suspect fled the scene and was arrested a few miles away, where he came face to face with a taxi driver on a break, said local media.

He stopped behind the yellow taxi and, according to an account by the taxi driver's boss Hasan Savehilaghi, "yelled at our colleague to call police because he had killed somebody."

The taxi driver -- who is also Muslim -- reportedly spotted heavy front-end damage to the suspect's truck as well as blood splatters.

Police arrived quickly and arrested the suspect, who was wearing what Waight described as a vest "like body armor," as well as a military helmet and a T-shirt emblazoned with a swastika, the taxi company president said.

"He was laughing the entire time," Savehilaghi told local media.

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World

UK Bans Pro-Palestinian March Over Alleged Iran Support

A boy stands at the site of an Israeli strike on a tent sheltering displaced people, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip March 9, 2026. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
A boy stands at the site of an Israeli strike on a tent sheltering displaced people, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip March 9, 2026. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
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UK Bans Pro-Palestinian March Over Alleged Iran Support

A boy stands at the site of an Israeli strike on a tent sheltering displaced people, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip March 9, 2026. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
A boy stands at the site of an Israeli strike on a tent sheltering displaced people, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip March 9, 2026. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

The UK government has banned an annual pro-Palestinian march planned for Sunday which London police claim is organized by a group "supportive of the Iranian regime".

Interior minister Shabana Mahmood said late Tuesday she had approved the rare police request to prevent "serious public disorder" if the Al-Quds Day march and counter-protests had gone ahead.

It is the first time a protest march has been banned since 2012 but a static demonstration will be permitted, according to London's Metropolitan police.

Mahmood said she was "satisfied" a ban was "necessary" due to "the scale of the protest and multiple counter-protests, in the context of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East".

The minister added that she expected to see "the full force of the law applied to anyone spreading hatred and division".

The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), an NGO which organizes the annual Al-Quds Day march, said it "strongly condemns" the decision, which it called "politically charged".

"We are seeking legal advice and this decision will not go unchallenged," it added, accusing the Met of having "brazenly abandoned their sworn principle of policing without fear or favor".

It said the London force "unashamedly regurgitate Zionist talking points about the IHRC "without a shred of evidence".

The group describes the day and march as an "international demonstration ... in support of Palestinians and all the oppressed around the world".

Al-Quds day, which takes its name from the Arabic for Jerusalem, originated in Iran in 1979 in support of the Palestinian people, and is now marked annually in various countries, notably in the Muslim world. It aims to protest Israel's occupation of east Jerusalem.

But the Met's Assistant Commissioner Ade Adelekan said it was "uniquely contentious having originated in Iran and in London is organized by the Islamic Human Rights Commission".

He claimed that the organization was "supportive of the Iranian regime".

"The threshold to ban a protest is high and we do not take this decision lightly," AFP quoted Adelekan as saying.

He noted the Met has "a proven track record" of permitting free speech and protest rights at dozens of major pro-Palestinian and other demonstrations in recent years.

"But in our assessment this march raises unique risks and challenges," he said.

"We must consider the likely high numbers of protestors and counter protestors coming together and the extreme tensions between different factions.

"We have taken into consideration the likely impact on protests of the volatile situation in the Middle East, with the Iranian regime attacking British allies and military bases overseas."

The ban on the march and any associated counter-protest marches is valid for a month from Wednesday.

World

Japan Marks 15 Years Since Tsunami Disaster as Takaichi Pushes More Nuclear Energy Use

People observe a moment of silence towards the sea at 2:46 p.m. (05:46 GMT), the time when the 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck off Japan's coast in 2011, with the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant seen in the background in Namie, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, March 11, 2026, to mark the 15-year anniversary of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands and set off a nuclear crisis. (Kyodo/via Reuters)
People observe a moment of silence towards the sea at 2:46 p.m. (05:46 GMT), the time when the 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck off Japan's coast in 2011, with the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant seen in the background in Namie, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, March 11, 2026, to mark the 15-year anniversary of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands and set off a nuclear crisis. (Kyodo/via Reuters)
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Japan Marks 15 Years Since Tsunami Disaster as Takaichi Pushes More Nuclear Energy Use

People observe a moment of silence towards the sea at 2:46 p.m. (05:46 GMT), the time when the 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck off Japan's coast in 2011, with the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant seen in the background in Namie, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, March 11, 2026, to mark the 15-year anniversary of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands and set off a nuclear crisis. (Kyodo/via Reuters)
People observe a moment of silence towards the sea at 2:46 p.m. (05:46 GMT), the time when the 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck off Japan's coast in 2011, with the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant seen in the background in Namie, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, March 11, 2026, to mark the 15-year anniversary of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands and set off a nuclear crisis. (Kyodo/via Reuters)

Japan marked the 15th anniversary of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster on its northeastern coast Wednesday as the government pushes for more use of atomic energy.

The magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, ravaged parts of the region, caused more than 22,000 deaths and forced nearly half a million people to flee their homes, most of them due to tsunami damage.

Some 160,000 people fled their homes in Fukushima because of the radiation spewed from the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. About 26,000 of them haven't returned because they resettled elsewhere, their hometowns remain off-limits or they have lingering concerns about radiation.

Japan observed a moment of silence at 2:46 p.m., the moment the quake occurred 15 years earlier.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, at a ceremony in Fukushima, pledged to do the utmost to accelerate the region's recovery within the next five years and reinforce “the valuable lessons we learned from the huge sacrifice of the disaster.”

Takaichi has pushed to accelerate reactor restarts and sought to bolster nuclear power as a stable energy source, in line with the major reversal of policy in 2022 that ended a decade-long nuclear phase-out plan.

Some residents in the tsunami-ravaged areas walked down to the coast early morning to pray for their loved ones and others whose remains are still missing.

More than 1 million homes, offices and schools were damaged or destroyed in the quake and tsunami in Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima and other coastal areas. Key infrastructure has been rebuilt, but communities and local economies have been slow to recover.

The Fukushima Daiichi plant lost its power and cooling functions, causing meltdowns in three of its six reactors. The three reactors contain at least 880 tons of melted fuel debris, but details of the state inside them are little known due to the still-dangerous radiation levels.

Fuller-scale removal of melted fuel debris has been delayed until 2037 or later. At Unit 1 which just got a new roof, workers will shortly start taking out top-floor debris ahead of the planned spent fuel removal from its cooling pool, which will begin around 2027-2028.

There's also a massive amount of slightly radioactive soil, enough to fill 11 baseball stadiums, from the decontamination efforts across the area.

The government has pledged to move the soil and has sought to use some for road construction and other public works projects but has faced public resistance.

World

‘No Good Choice’: The Afghans Forced to Return from Iran

An Afghan national arrives with his belongings at the Islam Qala border crossing between Afghanistan and Iran in Herat province on March 10, 2026, upon his arrival from Iran amid the Middle East war. (AFP)
An Afghan national arrives with his belongings at the Islam Qala border crossing between Afghanistan and Iran in Herat province on March 10, 2026, upon his arrival from Iran amid the Middle East war. (AFP)
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‘No Good Choice’: The Afghans Forced to Return from Iran

An Afghan national arrives with his belongings at the Islam Qala border crossing between Afghanistan and Iran in Herat province on March 10, 2026, upon his arrival from Iran amid the Middle East war. (AFP)
An Afghan national arrives with his belongings at the Islam Qala border crossing between Afghanistan and Iran in Herat province on March 10, 2026, upon his arrival from Iran amid the Middle East war. (AFP)

Exhausted Afghans cross the border from Iran in a sandstorm, leaving behind a country in the grip of war to return to a homeland that is battered by conflict and humanitarian crisis.

At the Islam Qala crossing point in Herat province, western Afghanistan, Talibshah, who did not to give his family name, said he had been working in agriculture northwest of Tehran.

He was cheated by money changers at the border and was trying to figure out how to get back to Sar-e-Pol province in the north, hundreds of kilometers away on difficult, mountainous roads.

Talibshah's work in Qazvin in northern Iran helped support seven people -- his mother, father, brothers and sisters -- at a time when drought had made farming difficult, if not impossible, back home.

"I don't know whether I will be able to find a job or not. We are left without prospects," he told AFP.

"If I don't find a job here, I'll have to emigrate again. We have no choice. We can't starve," he added.

- Funding shortfall -

The United Nations has warned that nearly half of Afghanistan -- 21.9 million people -- will need humanitarian aid this year.

Since February 26, the country has been hit by fresh clashes with neighboring Pakistan to the east, which have killed at least 56 civilians and forced about 115,000 from their homes.

The UN refugee agency's representative in Afghanistan, Arafat Jamal, said there was "no good choice" for those coming back.

"They're fleeing war in Iran and coming to a country that is also itself at war," he said. "In other words, these people are coming into a country that is wracked by drought, that has unemployment, and that now has conflict inside it."

Since the war began in the Middle East on February 28, about 1,700 people have returned every day. But the UNHCR is expecting bigger numbers in the future if there is no let-up in the conflict.

The agency is ready in terms of staff and infrastructure to receive those leaving Iran but funding was lacking for the relief effort, said Jamal.

- '50 times greater' -

At the Islam Qala border post, more people arrived on Tuesday than the previous week, said an AFP correspondent on the ground.

Families crossed quickly, their faces expressionless, with one or two suitcases holding their meager belongings.

Mohammad Kabir Nazari, 48, had been working for the last 11 months as a security guard in Tehran, and was in the country during the 12-day war last June.

He described the latest strikes as "50 times greater".

"Missiles were coming from all sides, every day," he said. "For Afghans, there was no shelter. The situation was very bad."

Nazari, originally from Ghazni province in eastern Afghanistan, said he had been travelling to Iran for the last 32 years.

Then, the markets were busy around the Persian new year, Nowruz, and for the end of Ramadan but were currently empty, he added.

The slowdown in Iran's economy has consequences for the many Afghan migrant workers: one friend of Nazari told him he had been sacked with other Afghans and forced to return.

- 'Waves and waves' -

Naeemullah Rahimi, 24, was also working as a security guard at a factory in the Tehran suburbs. He said he was forced to shelter from air strikes in the basement.

"When we saw that the situation was very bad, we had to come back to Afghanistan," he said.

Jobs are scarce in his home province of Wardak in central Afghanistan.

"I don't know what to do," said Rahimi. "But if I find a job, I'll work."

The UNHCR's Jamal said "waves and waves" of people have been deported to Afghanistan from Iran and Pakistan since September 2023. Last year alone, 2.8 million Afghans returned.

"That was the largest such movement in the world," he added.

"If we start to experience similar numbers this year, will Afghanistan really be able to cope? Perhaps, but it needs international support.

"We cannot afford to let Afghanistan fail," he said, warning that forgetting the region will had an even more destabilizing effect in the world.