Hostages have been killed after separatist militants hijacked a train carrying hundreds of passengers in Pakistan, authorities have said.

The Pakistan military (ISPR) said 21 hostages were killed, as well as four security force soldiers, on the train that was carrying more than 400 people.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for the attack and said they had killed 50 people.

A Pakistani government spokesman described the attack as “an act of terrorism,” and passengers who had been freed described how gunfire was “coming from everywhere”.

ISPR director general Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry added in a statement: “Today we freed a large number of people, including women and children. The final operation was carried out with great care.”

The train was hijacked on Tuesday as it entered a tunnel in Bolan, a district in the southwestern province of Balochistan.

The Jaffar Express was packed with 440 people, including women and children, Mr Chaudhry told local broadcaster Dunya TV.

He added that “militants were in touch with their handlers and masterminds in Afghanistan via satellite phones” during the incident.

The train was on a 1,000-mile journey from Quetta to the city of Peshawar.

Militants blew up the railway tracks before firing at the train, killing the driver and trapping it inside a tunnel at Mashkaf.

Security forces exchanged gunfire with the militants who were wearing vests loaded with explosives.

‘God saved us’

Noor Muhammad, who was travelling with his wife, said: “First, they hit the engine with an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade).

“After that, gunfire started and explosions were heard, RPGs were used. God saved us.

“They made us get off (the train) and told us to get down or they would shoot. We got down and then they said ‘leave’.”

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Bashir Yousaf, who was with his family, said: “Everyone was crying and passengers were shouting, everyone was lying on the floor trying to save their lives.

“The sound of gunfire was coming from everywhere, then they (insurgents) told us to get down.

“After getting off we were told not to look back. I just kept walking without looking back to save my family’s lives.”

Mr Chaudhry added to Dunya TV that security forces “first took out some of the militants and then began clearing compartment by compartment killing the militants”.

He said the total number of militants was 33, and added that no passenger was hurt or killed during rescue operations.

However, he added that before “the final clearance,” 21 people were killed by the militants. Four Frontier Corps soldiers were also killed.

“Perpetrators will be hunted down and will be brought to justice,” he said. “This incident of the Jaffar Express changes the rules of the game.”

Earlier in the day, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack and said security officials were “repelling” the militants, while interior minister Mohsin Naqvi called the attackers “enemies” of the country.

The BLA – designated a terrorist organisation by the UK – had demanded the release of Baloch political prisoners, activists, and missing persons within 48 hours.

It had threatened to start executing the hostages if the government did not fulfil its demands.

The group often targets infrastructure and security forces in Balochistan but has also struck in other areas, including the southern port city Karachi and the strategic port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea.

Donald Trump has launched a fresh attack on the EU during a meeting with Irish premier Micheal Martin in the Oval Office.

The US president said he did not want “to do anything to hurt Ireland” but added that the trade relationship between the countries should be focused on “fairness”.

It comes after the president imposed 25% tariffs on global steel and aluminium imports to the US – prompting Canada to announce retaliatory tariffs on US goods worth $29.8bn (£16bn) from tomorrow and the EU to impose counter tariffs on €26bn (£22bn) of US goods from 1 April.

Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer said he was “disappointed” to see the president impose global tariffs on steel and aluminium and promised to “keep all options on the table” in how the UK would respond.

During Mr Trump’s meeting with Mr Martin, the president raised the “massive” trade imbalance between the two countries and said Ireland was “of course” taking advantage of the US.

He said the EU was “set up in order to take advantage of the United States”.

Asked by Sky News’ Ireland correspondent Stephen Murphy if Ireland was also taking advantage, Mr Trump replied: “Of course they are.”

He added: “I have great respect for Ireland, for what they did and they should have done just what they did. But the United States shouldn’t have let that happen. We had stupid leaders, we had leaders who didn’t have a clue.

“All of a sudden Ireland has our pharmaceutical companies, this beautiful island of five million people has got the entire US pharmaceutical industry in its grasp.”

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Mr Trump said he loves Ireland, where he has a golf course – but said he wishes the US had “not been so stupid for so many years, not just with Ireland, with everybody”.

Many US pharmaceutical companies have set up their manufacturing facilities in Ireland due to its low 12.5% corporate tax rate.

Irish firms then pay a royalty fee to US parent companies so they can use formulas to make products – meaning Ireland could be the hardest hit EU member by Mr Trump’s 25% tariffs.

‘I would have imposed 200% tariffs’

Mr Trump said if he had been president when those companies started to move to Ireland, he would have imposed a 200% tariff on them so they could not sell anything into the US and they would have “stayed here”.

The president said he would like to see American pharmaceutical companies returning to the US, but expected Mr Martin to “fight on that issue”.

He also told Sky News he would “absolutely” place tariffs on cars from the EU.

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Mr Trump accused previous presidents of having “lost big segments” of the US economy and said the EU “treats us very badly”, referencing a recent ruling against Apple.

“They have not been fair. They sue our companies and win massive amounts of money. They sued Apple, won 17 billion US dollars and they use that for other reasons, I guess, to run the European Union,” he said.

“So I’m not knocking it. They’re doing what they should be doing, perhaps for the European Union, but it does create ill will – and as you know, we’re going to be doing reciprocal tariffs so whatever they charge us with, we’re charging them. Nobody can complain about that.”

‘Great honour’ to meet Irish Taoiseach

Despite his criticism of Ireland, Mr Trump said it was a “great honour” to have the taoiseach at the White House.

He said the US has “tremendous” business relationships in Ireland “and that will only get stronger”.

The US leader said his personal relationship with Mr Martin was “very, very strong and very, very good” as he thanked him for coming to Washington DC to celebrate St Patrick’s Day.

He added that Mr Martin did not “look nervous” about the subject of tariffs during their meeting.

Taoiseach reminds Trump of Irish investment in US

The taoiseach praised Mr Trump’s work on “peace initiatives” and said the two countries have a “very good relationship, a historic one”.

But, hinting at the tariffs imposed by Mr Trump, Mr Martin said: “It’s a two-way street. We are investing a lot more in America.”

He said he understands where Mr Trump is coming from, but added that Irish companies Ryanair and aircraft leasing firm Aercap “buy more Boeing” planes than anybody else outside the US.

Lee Zeldin, titular head of the Environmental “Protection” Agency, officially announced several efforts to harm Americans’ health, increase their fuel costs by tens of billions of dollars per year, and to ensure that US manufacturing be less competitive into the future.

Zeldin called his actions today, mostly in the form of press releases declaring rollbacks of money-saving and pollution reducing measures, “the greatest day of deregulation in US history.”

Between the Obama and Biden administrations, the US saw significant progress on the environmental front, with federal rules cleaning up air and water pollution from power plants and vehicles, encouraging the onshoring of clean manufacturing, and increasing efficiency thus saving Americans money on energy costs.

All in all, the Biden-Harris administration’s policy improvements would save over $250 billion per year and 200k lives, all while making US industry more prepared for the global green transition that is happening now whether you like it or not.

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However, that’s all bad news for the enemies of America, and so today, one of them started efforts to reverse all of those positive moves.

Unfortunately for America and the world, the current occupier of the White House is convicted felon Donald Trump, who finally received more votes than his opponent on his third attempt (despite committing treason in 2021, for which there is a clear legal remedy).

And, in what is a common trend, his appointee to the position of Chief Saboteur at the Environmental Destruction Agency is one of the worst people possible for the job: Lee Zeldin, a man who has taken $269,608 in lifetime political bribes from the oil industry and, in return for those bribes, says he wants to protect clean air by making the air dirtier.

Today Zeldin put that claim into action… er, well, into more talk… by releasing a swath of unspecific press releases declaring his intent to increase harm and costs for Americans in all sorts of realms.

Most of these press releases focus on the same platitudes and Orwellian doublespeak that we have come to expect from a bought-and-paid oil stooge, claiming that the efforts will reduce costs when they in fact will raise costs, and that they will somehow clean up the environment while they dirty it.

A few specific efforts are pointed out, such as trying to reverse an electric vehicle mandate that doesn’t exist, showing that Zeldin is not just hostile to Americans, but also ignorant of the policy that he’s supposed to be administering. And, flying in the face of science, an effort to remove the EPA’s endangerment finding – a scientific finding which correctly acknowledges the danger of greenhouse gas emissions.

Zeldin also uses some questionable language, such as acknowledging that he’s putting a “dagger straight into the heart” of efforts to lower your costs and rid your life of the poisons that he has been paid to spread.

However, the true effects of these initiatives has not yet been seen, and is even hard to predict given the unspecific nature of the claims made and the long timelines for US rulemaking.

US rulemaking is a long and deliberate process that requires consensus and for rulemaking to have a scientific basis. Rules cannot be “arbitrary and capricious” – which makes it hard for a group of people who embody those terms more than almost anyone on Earth to push anything through.

This is also why Biden’s EPA rules took years to implement and went through many rounds of modification and hundreds of pages of well-considered scientific backing (I read it, and doing so gave me a lot of faith in the way government thinks through things. You should try the same, in a field you have expertise in). And why some rules didn’t make it in under the deadline before the saboteurs took over. In the same way, you can’t just blow everything up overnight – there’s a process involved here.

Further compounding Zeldin’s attempted sabotage of American interests is a recent court opinion overturning the Chevron rule. The effect of this would be that administrative agencies like the EPA have less authority to make changes on their own without going to courts or Congress first, which means that any changes made by Zeldin can potentially be challenged even moreso by the actual environmental protectors of this country – nonprofits like the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund and others.

These groups had significant success in challenging moves made by corrupt oil stooge Scott Pruitt and ignorant coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler to sabotage American health during Mr. Trump’s first occupation of the White House. The NRDC, for example, won over 90% of the cases they brought during that time frame.

And the groups are all lining up to oppose these harmful actions today.

“The Trump administration’s plans, as announced by executive order, would gut the bedrock national and state clean air standards that have been reducing air pollution and protecting communities across the country. They would also undermine investments, jobs and affordability for clean vehicles. The public has a right to know what the Trump administration is doing and why they are pursuing this harmful agenda. We are going to court to ensure they do.”

-Alice Henderson, Director and Lead Counsel for Transportation and Clean Air, Environmental Defense Fund

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin today announced plans for the greatest increase in pollution in decades. The result will be more toxic chemicals, more cancers, more asthma attacks, and more dangers for pregnant women and their children. Rather than helping our economy, it will create chaos.

-Amanda Leland, Executive Director, Environmental Defense Fund

Donald Trump’s actions will cause thousands of Americans to die each year. It will send thousands of children to the hospital and force even more to miss school. It will pollute the air and water in communities across the country. And it will cause our energy bills to go up even more than they already are because of his disastrous policies. But as they put all of us at risk, Trump and his administration are celebrating because it will help corporate polluters pad their profit margin. 

The American people should be furious. The EPA exists to protect us from serious pollution that endangers our lives and wellbeing, but Trump and Lee Zeldin are attempting to turn it into corporate polluters’ best friend. 

Make no mistake about it: we will fight these outrageous rollbacks tooth and nail, and we will use all resources at our disposal to continue protecting the health and safety of all Americans.

-Ben Jealous, Executive Director, Sierra Club

Breaking faith with the American people and breaking 50 years of laws of the land, the Environmental Protection Agency today abandoned protecting human health and the environment. Repealing or weakening these important safeguards on pollution from cars, power plants, and oil producers would mean higher energy bills, more asthma and heart attacks, more toxins in drinking water, and more extreme weather. 

At a time when millions of Americans are trying to rebuild after horrific wildfires and climate-fueled hurricanes, it’s nonsensical to try to deny that climate change harms our health and welfare. 

Still, today’s announcement is only the start of the process – not the end. Before finalizing any of these actions, the law says EPA must propose its changes, justify them with science and the law, and listen to the public and respond to its concerns. NRDC’s scientists and lawyers will be there to fight back at every step of the way.

Jackie Wong, senior vice president for climate and energy, Natural Resources Defense Council

Finally, it should be noted that, while the US is attempting policy suicide by saddling it’s people with more harm and higher costs, the rest of the world is not doing the same. While the US is actively backing away from clean manufacturing, China and Europe aren’t.

China is producing more clean vehicles, and increasing exports of them every year, and Europe recently saw an opening to “declare independence from the United States” while investing over $100 billion into onshoring clean manufacturing.

Other countries are making the transition and ready to lead the world into the present, while American republicans kick and scream the country into obscurity. This is what a slim plurality of voters wanted, and it’s what you’re getting.

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