Car bomber kills 18 in east Afghan on 1st day of Ramadan

May 27, 2017

Khost (Afghanistan), May 27: A suicide car bomber killed 18 people in the eastern Afghan city of Khost today, officials said, in the first major insurgent attack at the start of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

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No group has so far claimed responsibility for the bombing, which provincial authorities said targeted Afghan security forces working with American troops in Khost province.

The attack is the latest in a series of assaults on Western-backed forces as the Taliban step up their annual spring offensive and the insurgency expands more than 15 years after they were toppled from power in a US-led invasion.

"A suicide car bomb in Khost province has killed 18 people and wounded six others, including two children," said interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish.

"The target was a public bus station which was hit by the bombing. The victims were in civilian clothes and it is difficult to verify their identities at this stage."

But provincial police chief Faizullah Ghairat said the victims were civilians and members of the elite Khost Provincial Force (KPF) working with US troops.

"The bombing took place early morning when KPF members were heading to work," Ghairat told AFP.

The brazen attack comes just a day after at least 15 Afghan soldiers were killed when Taliban fighters attacked their base in Kandahar, in the third major insurgent assault this week on the military in the southern province.

The assault in Shah Wali Kot district followed insurgent raids earlier this week on military bases in the same area and Maiwand district, bringing the death toll among Western-backed troops to around 60.

The battlefield losses mark a stinging blow for NATO- backed Afghan forces and have raised concerns about their capacity to beat back the resurgent Taliban.

Afghan forces are beset by unprecedented casualties and blamed for corruption, desertion and "ghost soldiers" who exist on the payroll but whose salaries are usurped by fraudulent commanders.

During another deadly Taliban attack on security outposts in southern Zabul province on Sunday, local officials made desperate calls to Afghan television stations to seek attention because they were unable to contact senior authorities for help.

The pleas for attention, a major embarrassment for the Western-backed government, highlighted the disarray in security ranks.

The Taliban launched their annual spring offensive in late April, heralding a surge in fighting as the US tries to craft a new Afghan strategy.

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis last month warned of "another tough year" for security forces in Afghanistan.
The United States and several NATO allies are considering sending thousands more troops to break the stalemate against the resurgent militants.

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Agencies
July 9,2020

The new visa regulations requiring international students in the US with an F-1 visa to take at least one in-person course or face the prospect of deportation is likely to "cause uncertainties and difficulties" for some students, the Indian Embassy has said.

"These new modifications at a time when many of the US universities and colleges are yet to announce their plans for the new academic year are likely to cause uncertainties and difficulties for some Indian students wishing to pursue their studies in the US," said a spokesperson of the Indian Embassy.

Responding to media queries, the spokesperson said the Indian government has taken up the matter with concerned US officials.

At the India US Foreign Office Consultations held on July 7, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla conveyed India's concerns on the matter to Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale.

According to a recent report of Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP), there were 1,94,556 Indian students enrolled in various academic institutions of the US in January this year. Of these 1,26,132 were males and 68,405 were females.

Noting that partnership in higher education is a key component of the strong people-to-people ties between India and the US, the spokesperson said in the last two decades Indian students in American universities and colleges have been the harbingers of a strong partnership between technology and innovation sectors between the two countries.

The spokesperson hoped that the US authorities would provide adequate flexibility in their visa rule, keeping in mind the extraordinary circumstances created by the COVID-19 pandemic for the Indian students community.

We continue to engage all the stakeholders in the matters, including the US administration officials, Congressional leaders, universities and colleges as well as the Indian students community in the US as we move forward towards the 2020-21 academic year to further strengthen our bilateral partnership in higher education, the spokesperson said.

Announced by the SEVP on July 6, the new rules provide temporary exemptions for nonimmigrant students on F-1 and M-1 visas taking online classes due to the COVID-19 pandemic for the fall semester of the 2020 academic year.

While these modifications do provide some flexibility for US universities and colleges to adopt a hybrid model -- that is a mixture of online and in person classes -- they also restrict international students on F-1 and M-1 visas from taking courses entirely online, the spokesperson said.

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News Network
March 16,2020

Manila, Mar 16: The Philippines has detected an outbreak of avian flu in a northern province after tests showed presence of the highly infectious H5N6 subtype of the influenza A virus in a quail farm, the country's farm minister said on Monday.

Agriculture Secretary William Dar said the bird flu virus, the same strain that hit some local poultry farms in 2017, was detected in Jaen municipality in Nueva Ecija province, where about 1,500 quails had died on one farm alone.

A total of 12,000 quails have been destroyed and buried to prevent further infections, Dar said, citing field reports.

"We are on top of the situation," he said. "Surveillance around the 1-km and 7-km radius will be carried out immediately to ensure that the disease has not progressed around the said perimeter."

Animal quarantine checkpoints have also been set up to restrict the movement of all live domestic birds to and from the quarantine area, he said.

"We would like to emphasise that this is a single case affecting one quail farm only," Dar said.

Dr. Arlene Vytiaco, technical spokeswoman for avian flu at the agriculture department, said that while there is a possibility of transmission to humans through excretion and secretion, "the chances are very slim".

"There is also zero mortality rate," she said.

Dar said his department and the local government were jointly conducting an investigation and contact-tracing to determine the source of infection.

To ensure steady domestic supply of poultry, he said the transport of day-old chicks, hatching eggs and chicken meat will be allowed provided the source farms have tested negative for bird flu.

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Agencies
March 6,2020

Up to 2,241 new cases of COVID-19 have been reported across the globe as of Thursday, bringing the total count to 95,333, according to the latest official data by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Five countries, territories and areas reported COVID-19 cases for the first time in the past 24 hours, the Xinhua news agency reported.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus emphasised the importance of implementing a comprehensive approach to mitigate the impact of the virus in a briefing on Wednesday.

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