Pakistan 'suicide bombers' kill 45 in Lahore

 Two suicide bombers have killed at least 45 people in the Pakistani city of Lahore, officials say.

The attacks occurred within seconds of each other and targeted military vehicles as they passed through a crowded area.
At least nine soldiers were killed and some 100 people were wounded.
There have been several attacks on Lahore in the past year. On Monday

the Taliban destroyed a building used by intelligence services, killing 13.
The explosions took place near the RA Bazaar, in a busy residential and
 shopping area where army and security agencies have facilities.
No group has said it carried out the bombings.
'Smoke rising everywhere'
Officials said the blasts took place within 15 to 20 seconds of each other.

There are conflicting reports about whether the two bombers rode motorcycles or were on foot.
Police official Chaudhry Mohammad Shafiq said the severed heads of both attackers had been found. Suicide bombers often strap explosives to their bodies and are decapitated when they detonate.
An eyewitness, Mohammad Nadeem, said he had been praying in a mosque when he heard the first blast and rushed out only to hear a second.
"The second blast took place very near a military vehicle," Mr Nadeem, his clothes stained with blood, told AFP news agency.
"I sensed real danger and started running. There were scenes of destruction in nearby restaurants and shops.
"There were broken chairs and tables and other items lying everywhere on the ground."
Another eyewitness, Afzal Awan, said he had seen wounded people with limbs missing lying in pools of blood.
"I saw smoke rising everywhere," he told reporters. "A lot of people were crying."
Taliban threat
After Monday's attack, the Pakistani Taliban promised to unleash up to 3,000 suicide bombers across the country unless Pakistan's army stopped its operations against the militant group and US drone strikes ended.

Pakistan has been fighting insurgents in the volatile tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
The military recently stepped up operations against the Taliban leadership, arresting the military commander of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was hiding in the southern city of Karachi.
A number of other top figures in the Afghan Taliban are also reported to have been arrested across Pakistan over the last few weeks.
In the last six months, hundreds of civilians have been killed in militant attacks across the country. The BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad says there are no signs the violence is coming to an end.
Last October simultaneous assaults on three security buildings across Lahore killed 38 people.
In December, two bomb blasts at a market in the city killed 48 and injured more than 100.

At least 45 dead in western Europe storms

 At least 45 people have been killed in storms that have lashed parts of Spain, Portugal and France, officials say.

Forty people have died in France and three in Spain, one in Germany as well as a 10-year-old boy in Portugal.

Winds of up to 140km/h (87mph) caused chaos as they moved from Portugal up through the Bay of Biscay.
The storm system is moving north-eastwards and is expected to reach Denmark by the evening, French meteorological authorities said.

At least 23 of those deaths came in France, local media reported, where the extra-tropical cyclone whipped the country's coastal regions and moved inland, bringing sometimes heavy flooding with it.

"At 3 o'clock in the morning, we heard the toilets backing up. We got up to look and then we saw 80 cm (about 31 inches) of water in the garage," a resident of Aiguillon-Sur-Mer, in the department of Vendee.

"It was rushing in, it broke down the walls around the garden and the gate."
At least one million households were without power Sunday afternoon, Bernard Lassus of Electricite de France told BFM.

The high winds -- at times spiking to 200 km/h (124 mph) -- reached inland as far as Paris, where as many as 100 flights were canceled at the Paris-Charles de Gaulle International Airport, BFM reported.

In Spain, three people were killed in the storm, Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said in a news conference Sunday. Two children died in a car accident and another person was killed in northwestern Spain, the minister said in a news conference.

At least 17 provinces were on high alert due to the strong winds, and some flights and train services were canceled.

A 10-year-old child was killed by a falling tree in the high winds in Portugal, Patricia Gaspar, National Operations Assistant with the Portuguese National Authority for Civil Protection.

There are also some power outages in the country, Gaspar said. Some residents have reported roofs blown off and smaller houses collapsing, she added.

One man was killed in southwestern Germany when a tree fell on his car, local police said. The man's wife was seriously injured.

The storm also reached England, where one woman was reported dead when the vehicle she was driving became submerged and washed down a swollen creek in the northeastern part of the country.

The body of the 53-year-old woman was recovered downstream, North Yorkshire Police said in a recorded phone message to the media.