Train attack kills three, wounds 16 near Quetta

Men armed with assault rifles attacked the passenger train in Mach town, some 50 kilometres southeast of Quetta, the capital of the insurgency-hit southwestern province of Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.

“Three people have been killed and 16 were injured in the attack,” Naseeb-Ullah, provincial home secretary told AFP by telephone.

“We have imposed an emergency in the hospitals while the seriously injured have been taken to Quetta’s main hospital,” he added.

Police said about two dozens attackers fired on the train when it reached Mach, which lies deep in the mountains.

A railway official confirmed the incident.

One Intelligence official in Quetta blamed the attack on Baloch militants who are fighting for more political rights and a greater share of profits from the region’s natural resources.

Hundreds of people have died in violence in the province since the insurgency flared in late 2004. Despite having some of the lowest living standards in Pakistan, the region has the richest supply of natural resources.

Maid files civil suit against Frenchman

The New York hotel cleaning woman who accuses the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund of sexual assault is suing him, her lawyer says.

The lawsuit, filed Monday by Nafissatou Diallo, a Sofitel hotel housekeeper originally of Guinea, in state Supreme Court in the Bronx, comes at an unusual time, as the criminal proceedings against Dominique Strauss-Kahn of France, have yet to be settled, The New York Times reported.

"Ms. Diallo has filed her lawsuit now because she wants to vindicate her rights and hold Dominique Strauss-Kahn accountable for the violent and deplorable acts that he committed against her," said her attorney, Kenneth Thompson.

Strauss-Kahn, who had been considered a top contender for president of France prior to his arrest, is due back in court Aug. 23, which is when Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance is expects to announce whether or not he will pursue the criminal case, the New York Daily News reported.

Strauss-Kahn, accused of attacking Diallo in a suite at the Sofitel in Times Square, has pleaded not guilty.

"With violence and depravity in his heart, and having the confidence of sexually assaulting other women in the past who did not immediately come forward, defendant Strauss-Kahn forced Ms. Diallo all the way to the back of the suite and down on her knees," the suit alleges.