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Ahead of Modi's visit, US official says Trump realises India has been 'force for good'

Agencies
June 24, 2017

Washington, Jun 24: Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's much-awaited United States of America visit, the Trump administration has rejected reports that it has been ignoring India.21modi-trump

Talking to reporters, a senior administration official said: "I think that it would be wrong to say that this administration has been ignoring or not focused on India."

"I think that the US really appreciates India, and I think that President Trump realises that India has been a force for good in the world and that it's a relationship that's important. And I think that will come through in the visit on Monday," the official added.

The PM arrives in the US on Sunday and is scheduled to meet President Donald Trump face-to-face for the first time at the White House on Monday.

The senior administration official made the remarks while responding to questions on whether the US-India relationship has drifted under the new government, in part, because of President Trump and the administration's support to China.

"I think it's a bit unfair. I mean, we're only six months into the administration. But there have been two very good phone calls between President Trump and Prime Minister Modi that you can point to as showing both countries' interest in the relationship," the White House official argued.

"Yes, this will be the first opportunity for them to sit down and have a conversation, but I think that this is still fairly early on in the administration," the official said.

Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said President Trump and Prime Minister Modi would have a very robust discussion when they meet at the White House.

"During the meeting, the President and the Prime Minister will discuss ongoing cooperation, including counter-terrorism, defence partnership in the Indo-Pacific region, global cooperation, burden-sharing, trade, law enforcement, and energy," Spicer said in response to a question.

Senator Mark Warner, Co-Chair of the Senate India Caucus hoped that Trump, in his meeting with Prime Minister Modi, shows enthusiastic support for deepening the US-India relationship, which enjoys strong bipartisan support.

"The relationship is ripe for additional cooperation in areas such as the development of aircraft carrier technology, space surveillance, unmanned aerial vehicles, cyber and increased defense manufacturing," Warner said.

"As we venture further into the Asian Century, there is little doubt of the increasing significance of India on the world stage. Our cooperation helps increase global security and advance economic opportunity in both countries," Warner said in response to a question.

On whether the contentious H-1B visa issue would come up for discussion during the meeting, a senior administration official said it was unlikely to be raised from the US side but if raised by the Indian side, the Americans were ready for it.

Ahead of the visit, Indian Ambassador to the US Navtej Sarna said the first face-to-face meeting between Prime Minister Modi and President Trump will give them an opportunity to look at the entire gamut of Indo-US engagement and to exchange views on issues of global interest.

At the invitation of Trump, the Prime Minister would spend several hours with the US President at the White House on Monday afternoon, which would end with a dinner later that night.

This would be the first working dinner being hosted by Trump for a foreign leader at the White House.

"I think that just shows the amount of care that has gone in on the part of the White House to welcome our Prime Minister and the kind of planning that has gone into make this a very special visit," Sarna said.

"This (dinner) is a special gesture and it is appreciated," he said.

On the agenda of the meeting, a senior administration official told reporters that the civil nuclear deal would be part of the discussions between Prime Minister Modi and President Trump.

The White House also emphasised that the US was looking forward to its nuclear reactors contributing to India's energy security.

It said the US is interested in providing India with the kind of defence technology it normally reserves for its closest allies, signalling the Trump administration's resolve to strengthen the bilateral defence relationship.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar here and told him that Prime Minister Modi's Washington visit would strengthen the Indo-US relationship and help advance the common interest in fighting terrorism and promoting economic growth.

The two agreed that the two countries have a deep and growing strategic partnership and hope to work more closely on regional and global issues.

Jaishankar also met other senior officials at the State Department.

Ahead of his visit, Prime Minister Modi on Friday said he will hold in-depth discussions with President Trump during his visit to Washington and hoped to build a forward-looking vision for a partnership with the new administration.

The Prime Minister said the visits were aimed at enhancing bilateral engagement in various areas.

He said India's partnership with the United States is multi-layered and diverse, supported by not just governments but all the stakeholders on both sides.

"I look forward to building a forward-looking vision for our partnership with the new administration in the United States under President Trump," Modi said.

"I look forward to this opportunity to have an in-depth exchange of views on further consolidating the robust and wide-ranging partnership between India and the United States," he said.

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News Network
April 5,2020

New York, Apr 5: New York State, the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic in the US, continued to record the highest count of daily deaths from COVID-19 as a staggering number of 630 people died in a 24-hour period and Governor Andrew Cuomo said the outbreak in the state could peak in about seven days.

The state had recorded the highest single increase in the number of deaths from novel coronavirus in a single day between April 2 and 3 when 562 people had died, one person dying from the viral infection almost every two-and-a-half minutes.

In the 24 hours since April 4, the death toll grew to 630, "all-time increase" up to a total of 3,565, up from 2,935 on Friday morning, Cuomo said.

The daily death toll in New York continues to grow at record numbers as the state remains the most impacted in the US from coronavirus.

Coronavirus cases in New York State now stand at 113,704, out of the country's total number of 312,146. New Jersey, the second most impacted state in the US, has about 30,000 COVID-19 cases.

New York City alone has 63,306 coronavirus patients, up from 57,169 the previous 24 hours, and 2,624 deaths.

Cuomo said the apex in the state, the point where the number of infections on a daily basis hits the high point, is still about 4-8 days away.

"We have been talking about hitting that apex, the high point of the curve. I call it the battle of the mountaintop. That's going to be the number one point of engagement of the enemy," he said.

"But our reading of the projections is we're somewhere in the seven-day range, four, five, six seven, eight day range. Nobody can give you a specific number, which makes it very frustrating to plan when they can't give you a specific number or a specific date, but we're in that range," Cuomo said.

"We are not yet at the apex. Part of me would like to be at the apex and just let's do it. But there's part of me that says it's good that we're not at the apex because we're not yet ready for the apex either, still working on the capacity of the (healthcare) system," the governor said.

Cuomo has expressed anger over the short supply of essential medical equipment for healthcare professionals to help them deal with the surge in coronavirus cases across the state and the country.

He said personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks, gowns and face shields are in short supply in New York as they are across the country and there is need for companies to make these materials.

"It is unbelievable to me that in the New York State, in the United States of America, we can't make these materials and that we are all shopping China to try to get these materials and we're all competing against each other," he had said earlier.

Cuomo said on Saturday that the state has 85,000 volunteers, including 22,000 from outside the state, and he will also be signing an executive order to allow medical students who were slated to graduate to begin practising, supplementing the state's healthcare professional capacity.

On ventilators, he said the state had ordered 17,000 but there was not enough supply in the federal stockpile to meet this growing demand across the state.    

"China is remarkably the repository for all of these orders - ventilators, PPE, it all goes back to China, which long term we have to figure out why we wound up in this situation where we don't have the manufacturing capacity in this country," he said, adding, "New York has been shopping in China."

The Chinese government helped facilitate a donation of 1,000 ventilators that will arrive at the JFK Airport in the city, he said, as he thanked the Chinese government, Alibaba head Jack Ma, the Jack Ma Foundation, Alibaba co-founder co-founder Joe Tsai and China's Consul General Huang Ping.
In addition, the state of Oregon would deliver 140 ventilators to New York.    

Cuomo has signed an executive order allowing the state to redistribute ventilators and personal protective equipment from hospitals, private sector companies and institutions that don't currently need them and redeploy the equipment to other hospitals with the highest need.
Those institutions will either get their ventilator back or they will be reimbursed and paid for their ventilator so they can buy a new ventilator.
The 2,500-bed facility at the Javits Convention Centre, which was supposed to be used for non-COVID patients, will now be used as COVID-positive facility.

"The federal government will staff that and the federal government with equip that. That is a big deal because that 2,500-bed facility will relieve a lot of pressure on the downstate system as a significant number of beds and that facility has to make that transition quickly and that's what we're focused on," Cuomo said.

Cuomo emphasised that he wants the pandemic to end as soon as possible as it is taking an unprecedented strain on life.

"I want this to be all over. It's only gone on for 30 days since our first case. It feels like an entire lifetime. I think we all feel the same. This stresses this country, this state, in a way that nothing else has frankly, in my lifetime. It stresses us on every level.

The economy is stressed, the social fabric is stressed, the social systems are stressed, transportation is stressed," he said.

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Agencies
August 7,2020

Colombo, Aug 7: Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's party and its allies won an overwhelming two-thirds majority in a parliament election, results showed on Friday, giving him the power to enact sweeping changes to the constitution.

The governing Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna and its allies had won 150 seats in the 225-member parliament, according to the tally published by the election commission from Wednesday's vote.

Rajapaksa had sought a two-thirds majority in parliament to be able to restore full executive powers to the presidency, which he says are necessary to implement his agenda to make the tiny island economically and militarily secure.

He is likely to install his older brother and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa as the next prime minister. The brothers are best known for crushing the Tamil Tiger rebels fighting for a separate homeland for minority Tamils during the elder Rajapaksa's presidency in 2009.

On a congratulatory phone call from Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, which is keen to check Chinese influence on its southern neighbour, Mahinda Rajapaksa vowed to deepen ties between the two countries.

"With the strong support of the people of Sri Lanka, I look forward to working with you closely to further enhance the long-standing cooperation between our two countries," he told Modi. "Sri Lanka and India are friends and relations."

The tourism-dependent nation of 21 million people has been struggling economically since deadly Islamist militant attacks on hotels and churches last year followed by lockdowns to slow the spread of the coronavirus. 

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News Network
May 2,2020
Seoul, May 2: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has made his first public appearance since speculation about his health began last month, cutting the ribbon at the opening of a fertilizer factory, KCNA reported Saturday.
 
Kim attended the event on Friday in Sunchon, near the capital Pyongyang, after nearly three weeks of swirling rumours that the leader of the nuclear-armed nation was seriously ill or possibly dead.
 
The North Korean leader had not made a public appearance since presiding over a Workers' Party politburo meeting on April 11, and the following day state media reported that he had inspected fighter jets.
 
At Friday's event, "all the participants broke into thunderous cheers of 'hurrah!'" when Kim appeared, the Korean Central news agency reported.
 
He inspected the facility and was "briefed about the production processes," the report said.
 
Kim "said with deep emotion" that his grandfather Kim Il Sung and father Kim Jong Il "would be greatly pleased if they heard the news that the modern phosphatic fertilizer factory has been built," it added.
 
Also in attendance were other senior officials, including his sister and close adviser, Kim Yo Jong. Photos from the ceremony were not immediately released.
 
Conjecture over Kim's health had grown since his conspicuous no-show at April 15 celebrations for the birthday of his grandfather, the North's founder -- the most important day in the country's political calendar.
 
His absence unleashed a series of unconfirmed reports over his condition, triggering global fears over the North's nuclear arsenal -- and who would succeed Kim were he unable to lead.
 
A top security advisor to South Korea's President Moon Jae-in said less than a week ago that Kim was "alive and well," downplaying rumors that he was ill or incapacitated.
 
The advisor, Moon Chung-in, told CNN that Kim had been staying in Wonsan -- a resort town in the east of North Korea -- since April 13, adding: "No suspicious movements have so far been detected."
 
South Korea Reports Kim Jong Un Is 'Alive and Well' Amid Rumours of His Death
 
South Korea has told CNN that the rumours of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's death are untrue.
 
Rumours of ill health
 
Daily NK, an online media outlet run mostly by North Korean defectors, reported that Kim was undergoing treatment after a cardiovascular procedure last month.
 
Citing an unidentified source inside the country, it said Kim -- who is in his mid-30s -- had needed urgent treatment due to heavy smoking, obesity and fatigue.
 
Soon afterwards, CNN reported that Washington was "monitoring intelligence" that Kim was in "grave danger" after undergoing surgery, quoting an anonymous US official.
 
US President Donald Trump appeared to confirm that Kim was alive earlier this week.
 
On Friday, Trump refused to comment on Kim's reported re-emergence.
 
Previous absences from the public eye on Kim's part have prompted speculation about his health.
 
The North is extremely secretive, and doubly so about its leadership.
 
Kim's father and predecessor had been dead for two days before anyone outside the innermost circles of North Korean leadership was any the wiser.
 
In 2014, Kim Jong Un dropped out of sight for nearly six weeks before reappearing with a cane.
 
Days later, the South's spy agency said he had undergone surgery to remove a cyst from his ankle.

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