Category: World

KABUL: Afghan authorities prepared Saturday to retake a key border crossing seized by the Taliban in a sweeping offensive that the insurgents claim has helped capture a vast swath of the violence-wracked nation. As US troops continued their withdrawal, the Taliban said its fighters had seized two crossings in western Afghanistan — completing an arc of territory from the Iranian border to the frontier with China. It now held 85 percent of the country, a Taliban official said Friday, controlling about 250 of Afghanistan”s nearly 400 districts — a claim impossible to independently verify, and disputed by the government. Beijing, meanwhile, which has criticized Washington for its hasty withdrawal, urged its citizens to leave the country “as soon as possible” after evacuating 210 nationals. The “complex and severe domestic security situation” prompted the evacuation warning, the foreign ministry said, adding that 22 of those flown out tested positive for coronavirus on arrival in China.

ISLAMABAD: The World Population Day will be marked on July 11 (Sunday) across the globe including Pakistan which aimed to increase people’s awareness about various population issues like importance of family planning, gender equality, poverty, maternal health, and human rights. The day is celebrated worldwide by business groups, community organizations, and individuals in many ways. Activities include seminar discussions, educational information sessions, and essay competitions. World Population Day was instituted in 1989 as an outgrowth of the Day of Five Billion, marked on July 11, 1987. The UN authorized the event as a vehicle to build an awareness of population issues and the impact they have on development and the environment.

NEW YORK: Amid the rapidly deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, U. S. officials in Kabul are developing plans to reduce the large contingent of contractors and other personnel at the massive U. S. Embassy complex, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Saturday. Citing embassy officials and contractors, the newspaper said in a dispatch from Kabul that State Department officials are undertaking an intensive look at the number of staffers at the embassy, which houses roughly 4,000 diplomats, contractors and other staff, including about 1,400 Americans. The review is expected to result in a significant reduction of the thousands of Afghan and American contractors as well as those from other countries, the newspaper said, citing officials. Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s top spokesperson Friday acknowledged a “deteriorating security situation” in Afghanistan amid claims from the Taliban that the insurgent group now controls a large majority of the country. “What we have seen is a deteriorating security situation on the ground, no question about that, that the Taliban continues to take district centers,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said in an interview with CNN. “We are seeing them continue to advance on district centers around the country, and it is concerning. ” Kirby’s comment came after the Taliban claimed to now control 85 percent of Afghanistan. The assertion was made by a Taliban negotiator during a news conference in Moscow, where a senior Taliban delegation was visiting this week to offer reassurances the insurgents’ recent gains will not threaten Russia or its Central Asian allies. Kirby told CNN he was “not in a position to quantify or to validate” the Taliban’s claims on how much territory it controls. According to WSJ report, U. S. diplomatic officials also were weighing whether some of jobs at the embassy could be sent to the U. S. and whether others could be reduced or trimmed altogether, the report said. The security situation, it said, in Afghanistan has put U. S. Embassy officials in a difficult position as Washington has tried to signal to Afghan officials that it would continue to support the government, while also preparing to respond to security concerns. “We don’t want to draw down the mission so much so

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden on Friday nominated Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, an ambitious star in his Democratic Party, to be ambassador to India, with which the United States has an increasingly close relationship. Garcetti, who has led country”s second-largest city since 2013 with a focus on improving transportation and sustainability, declined to run for president last year but has been widely seen as seeking to burnish his credentials with a new job. A Rhodes scholar who spent 12 years as an intelligence officer in the US Navy Reserves and plays jazz piano on the side, Garcetti said in a statement that he had “committed my life to service. ” “And should I be confirmed, I”ll bring this same energy, commitment and love for this city to my new role and will forge partnerships and connections that will help Los Angeles,” Garcetti said. If confirmed by the Democratic-run Senate, which appears likely, the 50-year-old Garcetti would take up an ambassadorship with a storied history. Previous tenants of Roosevelt House, as the official residence in New Delhi is known, include the celebrated economist John Kenneth Galbraith and the policy intellectual Daniel Moynihan, who went on to become a senator. Garcetti would head to New Delhi at a time that the United States is seeking to flesh out a burgeoning relationship with India in the face of an increasingly assertive China, the only other nation of a billion-plus people. Biden has stepped up the “Quad” partnership of the United States, India, Japan and Australia — four democracies that largely share common cause on China”s rising military and economic might. But Garcetti, the first Jewish mayor of Los Angeles, would also head to India amid growing concern in the United States, especially among Democrats, over the treatment of minorities under Prime Minister Narendra Modi”s Hindu nationalist government.

WASHINGTON: The US and French defense chiefs signed a new “roadmap” for cooperation between their Special Operations Forces as both seek to build international efforts to counter non-state threats like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group. French Defense Minister Florence Parly signed the pact at the Pentagon with her counterpart Lloyd Austin, on a visit that came as the US pulls out of Afghanistan and France cuts its counter-terror operations in Africa”s Sahel region. “In the face of terrorism, our special forces have developed a true brotherhood of arms. This convention will deepen the exceptional ties that they have forged,” Parly said in a tweet after the two met. Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Anton Semelroth called the roadmap “a statement of intent to broaden cooperation in all areas of special operations. ” He said there was no specific regional focus of the agreement. But both countries are said to be looking for ways for allies to continue working together to battle Islamic jihadist groups even as they reduce the presence of their troops in Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan. President Joe Biden announced Thursday that the near two-decade US military involvement in Afghanistan would end by August 31. Earlier Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron announced his country would start closing military bases in northern Mali by year-end, as the jihadist threat in the Sahel begins to shift south and exposes more countries in the region to Islamist attacks.

DIYARBAKIR: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday said Turkey and the US agreed on the “scope” of how to secure Kabul airport under the control of Turkish forces after Washington´s withdrawal from Afghanistan. Turkey promised to provide security for the airport once the troops leave next month, in a move hailed as an example of improved relations between Ankara and Washington. Erdogan said the issue was discussed between Turkish and American defence ministers on Thursday, adding: “During discussions with America and NATO, we decided on what would be the scope of the mission, what we would accept and not accept.”

Turkey´s move comes after Erdogan held talks with US President Joe Biden in Brussels on the sidelines of a NATO summit in June. Washington hailed Ankara´s “clear commitment” to playing a lead role on securing the Hamid Karzai International Airport after the leaders´ discussions. The dialogue between the NATO allies continued to cement the details of the future Turkish mission with a visit to Turkey by a US delegation last month and multiple phone calls between Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin. Kabul Airport is the main exit route for Western diplomats and aid workers. The concern is that following the US withdrawal, the airport will fall into the hands of the Taliban, so NATO is keen to quickly find a solution. Turkey has been an important actor in Afghanistan since 2001 and deployed hundreds of Turkish military forces.

WASHINGTON: The era of space tourism is set to soar, with highly symbolic flights by rivals Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin scheduled just days apart. Virgin Galactic — founded by flamboyant British billionaire Richard Branson — is planning for a July 11 space flight. Blue Origin — started by Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame — is set to blast off on July 20. The two companies will serve the nascent market for suborbital flights lasting just a few minutes, long enough for passengers to experience weightlessness and view the contour of the planet. But that”s where their similarity ends. Branson, who heads the Virgin Group conglomerate that includes everything from entertainment to financial services to telecoms, founded Virgin Galactic in 2004. The 70-year-old”s previous daredevil exploits include crossing the Pacific in a hot-air balloon and navigating the English Channel in an amphibious vehicle. Bezos is 57 years old and the world”s richest man. A science fiction fan, he founded Blue Origin in 2000 and recently stepped down as Amazon CEO to focus on space projects and other endeavors. The spacecraft developed by the two companies could not be more different. Virgin Galactic”s spacecraft is not a classic rocket. It”s attached to the belly of a large carrier airplane that takes off from a runway. After an hour it reaches an altitude high enough to release the smaller spacecraft, the VSS Unity, that in turn fires its engines and reaches suborbital space — where passengers float weightlessly for a few minutes — then glides back to earth. The spacecraft can accommodate two pilots and up to six passengers. The cabin has 12 large windows and 16 cameras. Blue Origin in contrast is more of a classic rocket experience, with a vertical blast-off that accelerates to more than Mach 3, or three times the force of Earth”s gravity. Once it reaches the proper altitude, a capsule separates from the booster and then spends four minutes at an altitude exceeding 60 miles (100 kilometers), during which time those on board experience weightlessness and can observe the curvature of Earth.

PARIS: World hunger rose steeply in 2020, with six times more people living in “famine-like conditions” than in 2019, rights group Oxfam said Friday. The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated existing crises sparked by conflict and climate change — the “three lethal Cs” — according to the group. “Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, vulnerable communities around the world have been sending a clear, urgent and repeated message: ”Hunger may kill us before coronavirus”. Today, deaths from hunger are outpacing the virus,” it said in a statement. Oxfam calculates that 11 people a minute are likely dying from acute hunger, compared to seven people a minute from Covid-19. The group identified places including Yemen, the Central African Republic, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Venezuela and Syria as countries where existing food crises had been worsened by the onset of the pandemic and its economic consequences. “Mass unemployment and severely disrupted food production have led to a 40 percent rise in global food prices, the largest increase in more than a decade,” Oxfam said. In total, it said over half a million people are living in “famine-like conditions” around the world, while 155 million live with “extreme hunger” — the equivalent of the combined populations of France and Germany. Of the 155 million, two out of three live in a country with ongoing war or conflict. “Conflict remained the biggest driver of hunger around the globe for three consecutive years, including during the pandemic,” the group said. “We are currently seeing the superimposition of crises: unceasing conflicts, the economic consequences of Covid-19 and a spiralling climate crisis,” said Helene Botreau, Agriculture and Food Security Advocacy Officer at Oxfam France. Oxfam”s analysis comes ahead of the United Nations” Food and Agriculture Organization”s own report on global food security, due to be published on Monday.

RupgAnj, Bangladesh: A massive blaze tore through a Bangladesh factory killing at least 52 people trapped by flames that forced workers to leap for their lives from upper floors, emergency services said on Friday. About 30 people were injured in the fire, and hundreds of distraught relatives and other workers waited anxiously outside the food factory as it continued to rage. The inferno was the latest to tarnish Bangladesh”s safety record marred by a series of disasters in industrial complexes and apartment buildings. The country has pledged reforms since the Rana Plaza disaster in 2013 when a nine-storey complex collapsed killing more than 1,100 people. But critics say safety standards are still lax. In February 2019 at least 70 people died when an inferno ripped through Dhaka apartments where chemicals were illegally stored. The latest fire broke out at Hashem Food and Beverage factory in Rupganj, an industrial town outside Dhaka, on Thursday afternoon and was still raging almost 24 hours later.

CAIRO: Jihan al-Sadat, the second wife of assassinated Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, has died at the age of 87, the presidency said on Friday. “The presidency. . weeps with immense sadness for Jihan al-Sadat, the wife of president Anwar Sadat, a hero of war and peace,” an official statement said. She was “a model for Egyptian women”, the statement added. She had been in hospital for several weeks after returning from treatment in the United States, her son Mohamed said. She was born in Cairo to an English mother and Egyptian father in 1933 and married Sadat in 1949. The former president was assassinated by militants in 1981.