Donald Trump lifts Turkey sanctions, quits ‘blood-stained’ Syria

Agencies
October 24, 2019

Washington, Oct 24: President Donald Trump ended sanctions against Turkey on Wednesday, drawing a line under American involvement in "blood-stained" Syria, as Turkish and Russian troops seized territory previously held by US troops and their beleaguered Kurdish allies.

"Let someone else fight over this long blood-stained sand," Trump said in a White House speech that formalized the ceding of power in northern Syria to Ankara and increasingly influential Moscow.

Trump said he was lifting the sanctions because a ceasefire was holding in the area, which Turkey invaded to drive Kurdish military groups from their strongholds.

Trump called the ceasefire, which allowed the Turkish takeover to proceed largely unopposed, a "major breakthrough." Rejecting accusations that he betrayed the Syrian Kurds -- who suffered thousands of casualties fighting alongside US troops against the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group -- Trump said they were happy.

The president said the Kurdish commander in the country, Mazloum Abdi, had just told him he was "extremely thankful." Ankara ordered a cross-border operation into Syria on October 9 because it said it wanted to create a security cordon free of Kurdish armed groups that it considers to be terrorists, linked to Kurdish rebels inside Turkey.

The long-planned operation started after Trump announced the exit of the small, but politically significant US military force which had until then been closely allied with the Kurds.

Trump said he didn't want the US troops caught in the middle of a Turkish-Kurdish war.

Accused both by Republicans and Democrats of abandoning the Kurds, Trump imposed sanctions on Turkey on October 14 and sent a delegation to persuade Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to order a brief ceasefire.

In a tweet from a spokesman on Wednesday, Abdi thanked Trump "for his tireless efforts that stopped the brutal Turkish attack and jihadist groups on our people." A group of US senators called in a Wednesday letter for US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to expedite a visa for Abdi so the government could "hear directly... about the situation on the ground and the fight" against IS.

As US soldiers and the Kurds exited areas near Turkey's border, Turkish troops and Russian troops, who have propped up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad through his country's multi-sided civil war, moved in.

The first Russian patrol in northern Syria got underway on Wednesday, the defense ministry in Moscow announced.

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu talked with Abdi and reassured him that civilians would not have to leave their homes, a spokesman said -- apparently addressing allegations that Turkey will seek ethnic cleansing in the region.

Critics of Trump say he has caved in to Turkey and been outplayed by Russia. "It is unthinkable that Turkey would not suffer consequences for malevolent behaviour which was contrary to the interests of the United States and our friends," tweeted Republican Senator Mitt Romney.

But Trump insisted that the power shift is a win for Washington, because he is fulfilling a campaign promise to step away from "ancient sectarian and tribal conflicts." Trump said there was no risk that the turmoil in the area could lead to a reconstitution of the Islamic State, which has lost its once sizeable territories and has thousands of members and their relatives kept in camps controlled by the Kurds.

With concerns that the Kurds may no longer be able to monitor Islamic State prisoners, Trump said he expects Turkey to "abide by its commitment" to act as a "back-up to the Kurds." "Should something happen, Turkey is there to grab them," he said.

He was speaking shortly after a US State Department official, James Jeffrey, testified in Congress that "over 100" Islamic State prisoners had escaped so far and "we do not know where they are." Trump said that a "small number" of US soldiers would remain nearby, but purely to guard oil facilities.

His central message was clear: that the United States has no business in Syria and that there was never any question of trying to stop NATO member Turkey from carrying out its invasion.

"We have spent USD 8 trillion on wars in the Middle East, never really wanting to win those wars," Trump said.

However, the isolationist policy grates on many Republicans, whom he is depending upon to save him from a Democratic push to impeach and remove him from office over allegations that he abused his office.

Immediately after the speech, powerful Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said the United States had to stay engaged.

The US air power must "continue to control the skies over Syria" he said, adding that the military should "have a small -- but capable -- military partnership" with the Kurds to prevent Islamic State from reemerging.

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Agencies
January 20,2020

Wuhan, Jan 20: A 45-year-old Indian woman has become the first foreigner in China to have contracted a mysterious virus, which is suspected to be Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)-like corona virus.

In 2002-2003, the SARS corona virus killed around 650 people in China and Hong Kong. This time, a new strain of virus with 62 cases have been reported in Wuhan and two in Shenzhen so far. 19 patients have been already cured and discharged, as per the Chinese media.

Official sources in Beijing said that the patient, Preeti Maheshwari, a school teacher at an international school, is undergoing treatment for the new strain of pneumonia outbreak, which has been spreading in two major cities of China - Wuhan and Shenzen. She has been on a ventilator in the intensive care unit.

Maheshwari was admitted to a local hospital after she seriously fell ill last Friday. Her husband, a businessman from Delhi, is allowed to visit her daily.

Following a second death due to the outbreak of the virus in Wuhan, India on Friday issued an advisory to its nationals travelling to China. Over 500 Indian medical students are studying in Wuhan.

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News Network
March 28,2020

Washington, Mar 27: The United States has seen a record 18,000 new confirmed coronavirus cases and 345 deaths over the past 24 hours, according to a Johns Hopkins University tracker.

There are now 97,028 declared virus cases in the country and there have been 1,475 deaths, Johns Hopkins said.

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Agencies
March 15,2020

Houston, Mar 15: Researchers, studying the novel coronavirus, have found that the time between cases in a chain of transmission is less than a week, and over 10 per cent of patients are infected by someone who has the virus, but does not show symptoms yet, a finding that may help public health officials contain the pandemic.

The study, published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, estimated what's called the serial interval of the coronavirus by measuring the time it takes for symptoms to appear in two people with the virus -- the person who infects another, and the infected second person.

According to the researchers, including those from the University of Texas at Austin, the average serial interval for the novel coronavirus in China was approximately four days.

They said the speed of an epidemic depends on two things -- how many people each case infects, and how long it takes cases to spread.

The first quantity, the scientists said, is called the reproduction number, and the second is the serial interval.

Due to the short serial interval of the disease caused by the coronavirus -- COVID-19 -- they said, emerging outbreaks will grow quickly, and could be difficult to stop.

“Ebola, with a serial interval of several weeks, is much easier to contain than influenza, with a serial interval of only a few days,” said Lauren Ancel Meyers, study co-author from UT Austin.

Meyers explained that public health responders to Ebola outbreaks have much more time to identify and isolate cases before they infect others.

“The data suggest that this coronavirus may spread like the flu. That means we need to move quickly and aggressively to curb the emerging threat,” Meyers added.

In the study, the scientists examined more than 450 infection case reports from 93 cities in China, and found the strongest evidence yet that people without symptoms must be transmitting the virus -- known as pre-symptomatic transmission.

More than one in ten infections were from people who had the virus but did not yet feel sick, the scientists said.

While researchers across the globe had some uncertainty until now about asymptomatic transmission with the coronavirus, the new evidence could provide guidance to public health officials on how to contain the spread of the disease.

“This provides evidence that extensive control measures including isolation, quarantine, school closures, travel restrictions and cancellation of mass gatherings may be warranted,” Meyers said.

The researchers cautioned that asymptomatic transmission makes containment more difficult.

With hundreds of new cases emerging around the world every day, the scientists said, the data may offer a different picture over time.

They said infection case reports are based on people's memories of where they went and whom they had contact with, and if health officials move quickly to isolate patients, that may also skew the data.

“Our findings are corroborated by instances of silent transmission and rising case counts in hundreds of cities worldwide. This tells us that COVID-19 outbreaks can be elusive and require extreme measures,” Meyers said.

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