Kabul, Aug 13: At least 100 security forces have been killed in the ongoing fight to push the Taliban from the embattled Afghan city of Ghazni, a government minister said on Monday, four days after the fighting began.
"About 100 security forces have lost their lives and between 20 and 30 civilians have been killed," said defence minister Tariq Shah Bahrami during a press conference in Kabul.
Washington, May 6: The Chinese Army is indulging in aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea and the Chinese Communist Party has ramped up its disinformation campaign to try to shift the blame on coronavirus and burnish its image, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Tuesday.
"While the Chinese Communist Party ramps up its disinformation campaign to try to shift blame and burnish its image, we continue to see aggressive behaviour by the PLA in the South China Sea, from threatening a Philippine Navy ship to sinking a Vietnamese fishing boat and intimidating other nations from engaging in offshore oil and gas development," Esper told reporters at a Pentagon news conference.
Last week, two US Navy ships conducted freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea to send a clear message to Beijing that America will continue to protect the freedom of navigation and commerce for all nations large and small, he said.
Many countries, Esper said, have turned inward to recover from the pandemic and in the meantime, America's strategic competitors are attempting to exploit this crisis to their benefit at the expense of others.
Responding to a question, he said the Chinese have not been transparent from the beginning on the coronavirus pandemic.
"If they had been more transparent, more open, upfront in terms of giving us access, the reporting, giving us access not to the people on the ground but to the virus they had so we could understand it, we would probably be in a far different place right now. But where we are now is this," Esper said.
China needs to allow the United States in to talk to early patients, Chinese researchers and scientists, and to have access, he added.
Instead, Esper alleged that the Chinese are trying to capitalise on this by promoting their own image that somehow, China is the good guy here.
"Despite everything they did or, more importantly, failed to do, now they want to go out and say well, here's masks. We will give you masks, provide this, or provide that, we will provide you funding. Look at all the good things we are doing," he said.
"Yet, what we know is that they provide masks, they provide supplies. In many cases, it is not good. It does not do what it is supposed to do. It is broken equipment. Also, the strings attached are enormous in many cases. So, they are telling a country you can take these masks, but please, put out publicly how good China is, how great we are doing, et cetera, et cetera," Esper said.
"So there is a number of things they are doing to try and burnish their image. That is just two of them right there," he said.
The Chinese are also doing a lot of strong-arming behind the scenes, Esper said and referred to the war of words between China and Australia. He said he plans to talk to his Australian counterpart later in the day.
"All these activities are going on. It is straight from the Chinese playbook. Once again, it is just a little bit more obvious this time with what they are doing and how they are using a combination of compelling and coercion and everything else to try and shape the narrative and burnish the image of the Chinese Communist Party," Esper said.
Islamabad, Feb 17: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday warned that Pakistan may face another refugee crisis if the international community failed to take notice of the current situation in India.
Speaking at the two-day refugee summit in Islamabad on 40 years of hosting Afghan refugees in Pakistan, he said India’s "ultranationalist ideology going unchecked could lead to destruction and the region could become a flashpoint", The Express Tribune quoted him as saying.
Khan said if the international community does not take notice of this situation, it will create another refugee crisis for Pakistan as Muslims of India will move to Pakistan.
"This is not the India of Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi. The United Nations (UN) must play its role otherwise it will become a very big problem in the future," Duniya News quoted Khan as saying.
He said said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement that India can destroy Pakistan in 11 days is not a responsible statement by a premier of a nuclear state with a huge population, the paper reported.
Khan made the statement in the presence of visiting UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who was also attending the summit.
He said because of the "Hindutva" ideology, Kashmiris have been lockdown for over 200 days. He alleged under the same ideology, the BJP-led government passed two discriminatory nationalistic legislations, targeting 200 million Muslims in India.
Khan was referring to India's Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the revocation of the special status to Jammu and Kashmir.
The new citizenship law passed by the Indian Parliament in December 2019 offers citizenship to non-Muslim persecuted religious minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
The Indian government has maintained that the CAA is an internal matter of the country and stressed that the goal is to protect the oppressed minorities of neighbouring countries.
India revoked Jammu and Kashmir's special status on August 5. Reacting to India's move, Pakistan downgraded diplomatic ties with New Delhi and expelled the Indian High Commissioner.
India has always maintained that Jammu and Kashmir is its integral part and ruled out any third party mediation, including either from the UN or the US, saying it is a bilateral issue with Pakistan.
Hubei, Feb 10: The death toll in the deadly coronavirus outbreak in China and other parts of the world has reached 904, CNN reported citing Chinese authorities on Monday.
The number of infected people globally has now hit the 40,000 mark.
According to the country's health officials, the number of people, who died from coronavirus in the Hubei Province, has risen to 871.
"As of 24:00 on February 9, Hubei Province reported a total of 29,631 cases of new coronavirus pneumonia, including 16,902 cases in Wuhan. 22,160 patients are still being treated in hospitals. 73,127 people remain under medical observation," read the statement from the Chinese Regional Health Committee.
The novel coronavirus was first detected in China's Wuhan city in late December and has since spread to more than 25 countries.
On Sunday, the new coronavirus even surpassed the fatalities caused by the SARS epidemic in 2003.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared a global health emergency in the wake of the outbreak.
Meanwhile, WHO's international expert mission led by Dr Bruce Aylward embarked for China.
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