No talks with Afghan’s Taliban, will 'finish' it: Donald Trump

Agencies
January 30, 2018

Washington, Jan 30: President Donald Trump told visiting members of the UN Security Council today the US would no longer talk with the Taliban following a recent string of deadly attacks in Afghanistan.

Trump railed against a series of "atrocities" in Afghanistan and said as a result the US would not engage in any future talks with the Taliban as the administration seeks to end a stalemate in America's longest war."Innocent people are being killed left and right. Bombing, in the middle of children, in the middle of families, bombing, killing all over Afghanistan," Trump said. "So we don't want to talk with the Taliban. There may be a time but it's going to be a long time."The president's comments followed a deadly car bombing attack in Kabul, the Afghan capital, that killed at least 95 people and wounded 158 more. Earlier this month, Americans were killed and injured in the Taliban's 13-hour siege of a hotel in Kabul.

Trump's remarks at the diplomatic luncheon marked a shift in tone on Afghanistan. The US has said previously that any peace talks with the Taliban need to be part of an Afghan-led process, but the US has never precluded talking to the Taliban.Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who sat next to the president at the luncheon, has said previously that after an effective military effort, a political settlement including some Taliban might be possible, echoing language from former President Barack Obama's administration.

 Tillerson had said the US would support peace talks with the Taliban "without preconditions."Earlier in the month, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, who helped organize today's luncheon, said the US policy on Afghanistan was working and the parties were "closer to talks with the Taliban and the peace process than we've seen before."Several attempts to hold peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban have failed.

In 2013, hopes were raised when the Taliban opened an office in Qatar aimed at facilitating those talks, but a controversy over the Taliban's move to hoist the flag it used in Afghanistan during its five-year rule ultimately derailed the talks. Since then, efforts to lure the Taliban into talks have yielded little progress.

Trump has sought to change the course of the long-running conflict, sending thousands more US troops to Afghanistan and moving away from a "time-based" approach to one that more explicitly links US assistance to concrete results from the Afghan government.

There are now about 14,000 US forces there, and more trainers and advisers are scheduled to deploy in the coming months.Defence Secretary Jim Mattis earlier this month said this will make it possible for US advisers to serve with more of the Afghan units, strengthening them in the fight against the insurgents. The US-led coalition has also increased targeting of Taliban opium operations, including narcotic processing facilities in Helmand Province in the south.

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News Network
March 2,2020

Mathura, Mar 2: Union Minister of state Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti on Sunday said after the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), the Centre might bring a population control law.

Jyoti claimed that she has already spoken to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in this regard.

She said she believes that this issue is under the prime minister's consideration and he himself has discussed the importance of bringing this law.

Jyoti arrived here on Sunday to attend a tribute meeting held at Swami Vamdev Jyotirmath in Chaitanya Vihar. Unnao MP Sakshi Maharaj was also present at the event.

"There was a time when abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir was impossible. It was feared that if such thing happens, there will be bloodbath. No one will be hold the national flag in Kashmir. But this government can bring any law in favour of the nation," Jyoti said.

"Now, everyone believes that if Article 370 can be removed...Prime Minister Narendra Modi can bring any law which is important for the country," she added.

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expat
 - 
Monday, 2 Mar 2020

already people are childless. struggling for IVF treatment. no need of population control. it is automatically getting control byu nature.

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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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News Network
February 22,2020

Johannesburg, Feb 22: To meet shortage of skilled nursing staff, private hospitals in South Africa are recruiting senior Indian nurses for their good work ethics and ability to become efficient trainers for the local staff, according to a media report.

A report at a 2018 jobs summit indicated that the country had a shortage of more than 47,000 nurses.

The shortage of the skilled nursing staff has been attributed to several factors, including preference of highly qualified nurses to emigrate or take up contract employment in countries such as the UK, the United Aarb Emirates, Saudi Arabia or New Zealand for want of higher salaries, a report in the weekly Business Times said.

Mediclinic, one of South Africa's largest private hospital groups, confirmed that it is recruiting 150 nurses from India this year.

“To supplement our training, as an internal strategy, we will continue to recruit senior registered nurses from India,” a Mediclinic spokesperson told the Business Times.

Mediclinic started recruiting nurses from India in 2005 but could not provide details about how many among the more than 8,800 nurses it employs at its hospitals are from India.

Another company, Life Healthcare SA, said it employed 135 Indian nurses between 2008 and 2014.

Top managements at the hospital groups lauded senior Indian nurses as being very efficient trainers for local staff.

“But we find that many of them prefer coming here on short-term contracts due to family commitments," a hospital executive said on the basis of anonymity.

The official said that the few who apply for long-term positions are usually young newly-qualified nurses, which is not the group in demand.

“They work hard, with a patient-oriented work ethic, and do not have the nine-to-five approach of many local nurses, especially those who are unionised," the official said.

“We would be very happy to take in more nursing staff from India," the official added.

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