Beirut, Dec 21: A "soldier" of the Islamic State group carried out a truck attack that killed 12 people at a Berlin Christmas market, a news agency linked to the jihadists said today.
"A soldier of the Islamic State carried out the Berlin operation in response to appeals to target citizens of coalition countries," the IS-linked Amaq news agency said in a statement posted online.
Islamabad, Apr 16: The number of coronavirus cases in Pakistan topped 6000 while the death toll due to the virus has reached 117, Dawn reported citing official data on Wednesday.
Over 1,446 people have recovered in the country from the deadly virus that has killed over 1.3 lakh people worldwide.
The total number of cases in the country has reached 6297 with Punjab being the worst affected province with 3,016 cases. Meanwhile, Sindh has 1,688 cases of the deadly virus.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has reported 47 new cases of the coronavirus, taking the provincial total to 912. Most of the new cases are of Tableeghi Jamaat members who have travel history.
Balochistan has reported four new cases of COVID-19, taking the provincial total to 281 according to provincial government spokesperson Liaquat Shahwani.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Imran Khan had announced the extension of the nationwide lockdown with relaxation to some sectors.
Addressing the media in Islamabad on Tuesday, Khan said, "We made the hard decision of imposing lockdown in the country which was very well implemented due to cooperation of the people."
The countrywide lockdown was imposed last month in a bid to stem the spread of coronavirus. Later, a two-week extension was announced in the restrictions until April 14.
Washington, Feb 25: Democratic presidential front-runner Senator Bernie Sanders on Monday slammed President Donald Trump for selling weapons to India, saying that the US should instead partner with New Delhi to fight climate change to save the planet.
Sanders, who has won the Nevada and New Hampshire primaries and tied in Iowa, made the comments after Trump, who is on a two-day visit to India, on Monday announced that the US will sign defence trade deals worth USD 3 billion with India.
In an address at a massive "Namaste Trump" rally at Motera stadium in Ahmedabad, Trump announced that deals to sell state-of-the-art military helicopters and other equipment worth over USD 3 billion will be sealed with India on Tuesday.
“Instead of selling USD 3 billion in weapons to enrich Raytheon, Boeing and Lockheed, the United States should be partnering with India to fight climate change,” Sanders said in a tweet, the first by a Democratic presidential candidate on Trump's India visit.
“We can work together to cut air pollution, create good renewable energy jobs, and save our planet,” he said.
However, a former White House official defended the US' decision to sell arms and weapons to India.
“I'm proud of my service in the White House, in which we poured enormous energy into deepening climate and green tech cooperation w/ India... and also advancing security cooperation and defense sales. I'd like to think both can be part of a strong, values-based partnership,” Joshua White said.
According to the US State Department, India plays a vital role in the US vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific.
In 2016, the US designated India as a Major Defence Partner. Commensurate with this designation, India in 2018 was granted Strategic Trade Authorization tier 1 status, which allows New Delhi to receive license-free access to a wide range of military and dual-use technologies that are regulated by the Department of Commerce.
Bilateral defence trade with India in a little over a decade has increased from near zero in 2008 to USD20 billion.
Among some of the key foreign military sales notified to Congress include MH-60R Seahawk helicopters (USD2.6 billion), Apache helicopters (USD2.3 billion), P-8I maritime patrol aircraft (USD3 billion), and M777 howitzers (USD737 million).
India was the first non-treaty partner to be offered a Missile Technology Control Regime Category-1 Unmanned Aerial System – the Sea Guardian UAS manufactured by General Atomics.
The State Department is also advocating for the Lockheed Martin F-21 and Boeing F/A-18 – two state of the art fighter aircraft that India is currently evaluating.
These platforms provide critical opportunities to enhance India's military capabilities and protect shared security interests in the Indo-Pacific region, it argued.
The top categories of DCS to India include aircraft, electronics and gas turbine engines.
Washington, Jul 7: The US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee will grill the CEOs of US tech giants Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon during an antitrust hearing on July 27.
Apple's Tim Cook, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Alphabet's Sundar Pichai and Amazon's Jeff Bezos will testify before the antitrust panel that is working on proposals to reform and regulate the digital market.
The hearing would mark the first time all four top executives testify together in front of Congress, virtually or in-person depending on the panel's call in the COVID-19 pandemic times.
"Since last June, the Subcommittee has been investigating the dominance of a small number of digital platforms and the adequacy of existing antitrust laws and enforcement," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline (D-RI) said in a statement on Monday.
"Given the central role these corporations play in the lives of the American people, it is critical that their CEOs are forthcoming. As we have said from the start, their testimony is essential for us to complete this investigation.”
The House Judiciary Committee announced its antitrust probe into the four tech giants in June last year.
Last month, the committee sent letters to technology giants Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Alphabet (Google's parent company), asking them to confirm if their chief executives will testify as part of the committee's tech competition investigation.
Committee chair David Cicilline said the documents that the investigators sought were "essential" to the probe and that requests like this were part of the "appropriate process" to obtain them.
"The only CEO who has expressed reservation about appearing, through a representative, has been Amazon," Cicilline said. "No one in this country is above the law ... nobody is above answering a congressional subpoena".
The lawmakers want the tech giants to furnish documents that have been produced in relation to other competition probes and internal communications.
The letters that the committee sent also posed questions related to possible harms to competition in the market.
In addition to the antitrust probe, Apple's App Store policies are also facing scrutiny from the US Department of Justice.
Comments
Very hard to believe. However, this is highly regretted and condemned in strong words. If some one did it, he might be a fool or mentally disturbed.
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