26/11 trial: LeT operations commander Lakhvi gets bail

December 18, 2014

Islamabad, Dec 18: In a decision that caused outrage in India, a Pakistani court today gave bail to LeT operations commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, a key planner of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, just a day after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said there is no 'good' and 'bad' Taliban.lakhvi

"Anti-Terrorism Court Islamabad Judge Kausar Abbas Zaidi today granted bail to Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi," prosecution chief Chaudhry Azhar told reporters.

54-year-old Lakhvi and six others had filed bail applications yesterday in the midst of a lawyers strike to condemn the Peshawar school massacre that left 148 people, mostly children, dead.

Azhar said the prosecution had to produce more witnesses before this decision had come which they were not expecting.

"We were not expecting this decision as we have to produce a good number of witnesses in the case. We are awaiting the court's detailed order before giving further comment on the decision," he said.

Lakhvi's counsel advocate Raja Rizwan Abbasi told media persons that the court had granted bail as "evidence against Lakhvi was deficient".

The decision triggered quite an uproar in Indian political parties across the board as they accused Pakistan of sheltering terrorists. It also came under attack from the prosecutor in the Ajmal Kasab case, Ujwal Nikam.

The Indian mission here is also preparing a strong response against the grant of bail to Lakhvi.

Abbasi said the defence would soon file bail applications of the other six accused. The in-camera hearing of the case was held at Adiala Jail Rawalpindi due to security concerns.

The judge adjourned the hearing till January 7.

The seven accused - Lakhvi, Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hamad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Younis Anjum - are facing trial at the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi.

His release from jail comes a day after Pakistan Prime Minister Sharif pledged to announce a "national plan" to tackle terrorism within a week, saying "this entire region" should be cleaned of terrorism.

"We announce that there will be no differentiation between 'good' and 'bad' Taliban and have resolved to continue the war against terrorism till the last terrorist is eliminated," Sharif had said after an all party meeting to discuss counter terrorism measures in the wake of the Peshawar massacre.

The trial of the seven suspects has progressed at a snail's pace due to repeated adjournments and various technical delays.

Lakhvi, the operational head of the banned Laskhar-e- Taiba, was one of the key planners of the Mumbai attack that killed 166 people.

Nine of the terrorists involved in the attack were killed by Indian security forces.

The only surviving attacker, Ajmal Kasab, was hanged after conviction by a trial court that was confirmed and upheld by higher courts in India.

In February 2009 Rehman Malik, the then adviser to the prime minister on the interior, had announced that Lakhvi was in custody and under investigation as the foremost mastermind behind the Mumbai attacks.

In November the same year, the anti-terrorism court formally charged seven suspects, including Lakhvi, with planning and helping execute the Mumbai attacks.

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Agencies
April 17,2020

Washington, Apr 17: A record number of 4,591 Americans have died in the last 24 hours due to the deadly novel coronavirus in the US, which has the highest number of COVID-19 casualties in the world.

According to the Johns Hopkins University data, by 8 pm on Thursday, as many as 4,591 Americans have died in the last 24 hours, The Wall Street Journal said.

The previous highest was 2,569 on Wednesday.

By Thursday, more than 662,000 Americans tested positive with the coronavirus.

The dreaded disease, which originated in Wuhan city in China in December last year, has so far claimed more than 144,000 lives and infected over 2.1 million people.

The virus has infected over 671,000 people and claimed more than 33,000 lives, the highest for any country in the world.

New York City and its adjoining areas, including New Jersey and Connecticut have emerged as the epicenter of the virus in the US.

New York alone accounts for 226,000 cases of infections and 16,106 deaths.

In New Jersey, as many as 3,518 people have died of the disease and 75,317 have tested positive.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, till April 14, four per cent of the Americans infected with COVID-19 were of Asian origin and nearly one-third (30 per cent) were African Americans.

US President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that experts and scientists report that his strategy to slow the spread of the virus has saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

Models predicted between 1.5 million and 2.2 million US deaths. If there was no mitigation, it could have even been higher than that and between 100,000 and 240,000 deaths with mitigation. It is looking like we will come far under even these lowest numbers, he said.

Noting that experts say the curve of the virus has flattened, and the peak in the new cases has passed, Trump said that nationwide, more than 850 counties or nearly 30 per cent of the country have reported no new cases in the last seven days.

Because of our early and aggressive action, we have avoided the tragedy of health care rationing and deadly shortfalls that have befallen in many other nations, nations which wherever possible we are helping, he said.

According to Trump, at least 35 clinical trials are already underway, including antiviral therapies, immune therapies, and blood therapies in the form of convalescent plasma. So far, more than 3.5 million tests have been carried out.

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Agencies
May 19,2020

Washington DC, May 19: US President Donald Trump has threatened to permanently halt funding for the World Health Organisation (WHO) if it did not commit to improvements within 30 days, and to reconsider the membership of the United States in the global health body.

On Monday, Trump wrote a letter to WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus that read, "If WHO doesn't commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days, I will make my temporary freeze of US funding to WHO permanent and reconsider our membership in the organisation."

Trump had temporarily suspended US' contribution to the WHO last month, accusing it of promoting China's "disinformation" about the coronavirus outbreak, although WHO officials denied the accusation and Beijing said that it was transparent and open.

"The only way forward for the WHO is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China. My administration has already started discussions with you on how to reform the organisation. But action is needed quickly. 

We do not have time to waste," Trump said in the letter.

"I cannot allow American taxpayer dollars to continue to finance an organisation that, in its present state, is so clearly not serving America's interests," he added.

On Monday, the WHO said that an independent review of the global coronavirus response would begin at the earliest and it received backing from China, where the virus was first discovered.

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Agencies
February 23,2020

Wuhan, Feb 23: Ninety-seven more people died in China due to coronavirus, taking the death toll to 2,442, officials said on Sunday, as a team of WHO experts visited the worst-affected Wuhan city in Hubei province.

By the end of Saturday, a total of 2,442 people had died of the disease and 76,936 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection had been reported in 31 provincial-level regions, China's National Health Commission (NHC) said in its daily update on Sunday.

Ninety-six deaths were reported from Hubei province and one from Guangdong province on Saturday besides 648 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infections, it said.

Hubei province, where the virus first emerged in December last, reported 630 new confirmed cases, taking the total confirmed cases in the hard-hit province to 64,084, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The NHC also said China's daily number of newly cured and discharged novel coronavirus patients has surpassed that of new confirmed infections for the fifth consecutive day, indicating that cases of infections are coming down.

Saturday saw 2,230 people walk out of hospital after recovery, much higher than the number of the same day's new confirmed infections, which was 648, Xinhua reported.

A total of 22,888 patients infected with the novel coronavirus had been discharged from hospital after recovery by the end of Saturday, NHC said.

Meanwhile, a team of public health experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO) visited Wuhan on Saturday to conduct a detailed probe about the virus which reportedly originated from a seafood market in the city in December last year.

The NHC said WHO experts along with their Chinese counterparts who formed a joint investigation team have held talks with the local health authority in Wuhan and visited relevant healthcare institutions.

The UN team comprises specialists from the United States, Germany, Japan, Nigeria, Russia, Singapore and South Korea, Hong-Kong based South China Morning Post reported.

The 12-member team, which arrived in China on Monday, was initially designated to visit only Beijing, Guangdong and Sichuan provinces, while the worst-affected Hubei province and its capital Wuhan were missing from the list.

However, the team was finally given permission to visit Wuhan by the Chinese government.

Besides controlling the spread of the virus, a major task for the WHO team along with their Chinese counterparts was to come up with standard medicine to cure the disease.

The NHC said on Saturday that the team had met top Chinese respiratory disease expert Zhong Nanshan in Guangdong, and visited the centre for disease control and prevention in Guangdong and the city of Shenzhen, and Sichuan.

The specialists also discussed quarantine measures, the wild animal trade and community prevention measures with their Chinese counterparts, it said.

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