India

Four killed, 54 wounded in spate of attacks

Two bus bombings and a series of other blasts Thursday killed four people and wounded 54 in a surge of violence police blamed on separatist rebels in India’s insurgency-wracked Assam state.

Bombs ripped through a passenger bus and another carrying paramilitary soldiers and their families in separate attacks that killed four and wounded 39. The bus bombings came within hours of each other in the neighboring districts of Kokrajhar and Goalpara in western Assam.

In a third attack, suspected ULFA rebels hurled a grenade at a crowded market in Tangla town near the capital Gauhati, wounding seven civilians, two seriously, Inspector General of Police Khagen Sharma said.

Two explosions later rocked the capital city of Gauhati. Police reported no casualties in the first, but eight people were injured in the second blast.

GENEVA

U.N.: World slips behind on sanitation goals

Countries are improving access to clean drinking water but falling behind on sanitation goals fixed at a summit four years ago, the United Nations said Thursday.

About 2.4 billion people will likely face the risk of needless disease and death by the target date of 2015 because of bad sanitation, the World Health Organization and UNICEF said in a joint report.

Most countries appear on track to cut by half the number of people without access to safe drinking water, but that still will leave 800 million people, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, with polluted supplies.

Bad sanitation fuels the spread of disease like cholera and basic illness like diarrhea, which kills a child every 21 seconds.

“That’s an unnecessary and stupid waste of human life,” Philip O’Brien, head of UNICEF’s Geneva office, said.