More than 400 people dead in Pakistan flooding

Flooding caused by monsoon rain has killed more than 400 people across Pakistan, a provincial government official said Friday.

Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province information minister, said the death toll is now 408 people in that province and 25 in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir.

Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, the head of the Pakistan meteorological department, told CNN the 300 mm, or 11.8 inches, of rain recorded in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the most ever in Pakistan.

Many of the victims died when floodwaters swept away hundreds of mud houses in parts of Swat Valley and the districts of Shangla and Tank, according to Bashir Ahmed Bilour, a provincial minister in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Rushing water also has washed away thousands of acres of crops and dozens of government buildings, local businesses and schools, Bilour said.

Hussain said floodwater has cut off the Swat Valley and the districts of Shangla and Peshawar. There is no way to get to these areas by road, he said.

Earlier Friday the head of Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority said flooding had killed at least 150 people and injured 90 since Wednesday. Retired Lt. Gen. Nadeem Ahmed said 90 people were still missing.

The Pakistani Air Force is helping with rescue efforts, spokesman Tariq Yazdanie said in an interview on Pakistani TV.

The recent torrential rains have broken all previous records of rainfall in the country, he said.

The U.N. refugee agency dispatched the first shipment of aid for flood victims in the region Thursday, the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan reported.

APP said the supplies include 585 tents, 2,700 plastic sheets, 1,760 kitchen sets and 4,000 plastic mats.

At the same time, a top official in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province pressed Pakistan's president for help, according to APP.

The news agency said Assembly Speaker Karamatullah Khan told legislators he had asked President Asif Ali Zardari for a supply of emergency boats.

Photographs from Getty Images showed flood victims struggling to cross a swollen river in the town of Nowshera. The pictures showed children being ferried across the water in overcrowded boats, and more able-bodied people helping the elderly to higher ground.

Supplies from the U.N. agency will go first to the two hard-hit villages of Talli and Sultan Kot in Sibi district, APP said.

The U.S.-based group Save the Children said it will distribute plastic sheeting for shelters, household supplies and hygiene kits to about 1,000 families over the next two days.

Earthquake hits northeastern Iran, injuring more than 100

A 5.6-magnitude earthquake struck northeastern Iran on Friday, injuring at least 110 people, according to state-run media.

The quake hit 715 kilometers (445 miles) east of Tehran and was centered 26.1 kilometers (16.2 miles) deep, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The city of Torbat-e Heydarieh, at the epicenter, was rocked for about 10 seconds, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Torbat-e Heydarieh Gov. Mojtaba Sadeqian said 110 people were injured and at least one person was in critical condition, according to the official Press TV.

"There were no immediate reports of any mortalities in the earthquake. However, it is widely believed that a large number of people are trapped under the rubble, and the casualties are expected to be high," he said.

Iran lies on a series of seismic fault lines and has experienced devastating earthquakes -- most notably in December 2003, when a 6.6-magnitude quake devastated the ancient city of Bam in southeast Iran, killing at least 30,000 people.

Last year, an earthquake struck Hormozgan province in southern Iran, injuring about 700 people in the port city of Bandar Abbas, state-run media reported.

In 2008, a strong earthquake measuring 6.1 in magnitude struck in Hormozgan, demolishing nearly 200 villages and killing at least six people.

Senate Republicans say memo seeks 'amnesty'

Senate Republicans have an internal memo from the Department of Homeland Security that they say shows the Obama administration "conspiring" and "scheming" to allow millions of illegal immigrants to stay and work in the United States.

At issue is an 11-page memo prepared for the head of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services entitled, "Administrative Alternatives to Comprehensive Immigration Reform." It was obtained by Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, who said the intent of the memo is "to find very secret creative ways to unilaterally circumvent the law and have a backdoor to amnesty."

The memo says, "The following options ... used alone or in combination ... have the potential to result in meaningful immigration reform absent legislative action."

It lays out how to reduce the threat of removal for many illegal immigrants through administrative and regulatory changes, characterizing one as "a non-legislative version of amnesty."

Citizenship and Immigration Services says it was merely a brainstorming memo. In a statement, the department said, "Internal memos do not and should not be equated with official action of policy of the Department. ... DHS will not grant deferred action or humanitarian parole to the nation's entire illegal immigrant population."

Grassley says it is "ridiculous" to think a memo containing this kind of detail was drawn up without specific direction from someone in the administration. "Bureaucrats don't write memos like that for the fun of it," he said.

Grassley and 11 other senators are asking Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to disclose how many times the agency has used its "discretionary authority to let people who are illegally in the country to stay."

A news release from Grassley's office stated, "This authority is meant to be used only in unusual, emergent or humanitarian circumstances. The administration has yet to answer our letter about reports that it may be planning a large-scale, defacto amnesty program through deferred action and parole."

The letter was signed by Republican Sens. Grassley, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, Johnny Isakson of Georgia, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, James Inhofe of Oklahoma, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, David Vitter of Louisiana, Orrin Hatch of Utah, Jim Bunning of Kentucky, Pat Roberts of Kansas and Jeff Sessions of Alabama.

Obama calls on Iran to release 3 American hikers

President Barack Obama is calling for the immediate release of three American hikers seized by Iranian forces along the Iraqi border who will have been in custody for exactly a year on Saturday.

"Their unjust detention has nothing to do with the issues that continue to divide the United States and the international community from the Iranian government," Obama said in a statement Friday. "This is a humanitarian imperative, as these three young people are innocent of any crime."

The three Americans -- Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer, and Josh Fattal -- were detained after they allegedly strayed across an unmarked border while hiking in Iraq's Kurdistan region. The Nation magazine reported last month that two witnesses have said they saw members of Iran's national police force cross into Iraq to apprehend the three.

Tehran has claimed the three hikers are spies. Iran's intelligence minister has hinted the country may consider releasing them in exchange for the release of Iranian prisoners, according to state media.

"I want to be perfectly clear: Sarah, Shane and Josh have never worked for the United States government," Obama said. "They are simply open-minded and adventurous young people who represent the best of America, and of the human spirit. They are teachers, artists, and advocates for social and environmental justice. They have never had any quarrel with the government of Iran, and have great respect for the Iranian people."

The president said he spoke with the hikers' mothers this week and noted that the Iranian government allowed the women to visit their children earlier this year. But "I cannot imagine how painful it was for these three courageous women to return home without their children. I told these three mothers that Sarah, Shane and Josh are in my thoughts and prayers, and that the U.S. government would continue to do all that it could to secure their release."

Meanwhile, the mothers continue to grow increasingly angry and exasperated as they press the Iranian government to free their children.

"This is unbelievable to us at this point," Nora Shourd told CNN's American Morning earlier Friday. "I mean, it is outrageous that they are still there."

Shourd, the mother of hiker Sarah Shourd, said at first they thought the ordeal would be "over fairly quickly." She said it has gone on "long enough."

Obama also recently spoke with the wife of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who went missing in Iran over three years ago.

"We continue to have no information about his welfare, and reiterate our call for the government of Iran to provide any information that it has about his whereabouts," the president said. "It is time to facilitate Robert Levinson's return to the family and friends who have suffered so greatly in his absence."