Pentagon gets authority to set troop levels in Afghanistan

Agencies
June 14, 2017

Washington, Jun 14: US President Donald Trump has given Defence Secretary Jim Mattis the authority to determine troop levels in Afghanistan, media reports said today, paving the way for sending more American forces to the war-torn country.

Pentagon

Such an authorisation was granted to Mattis by Trump yesterday.

Mattis, according to The New York Times, is believed to favour sending several thousands more troops to Afghanistan, but has not taken a final decision in this regard.

Neither the White House nor the Pentagon confirmed the news.

"I don't have anything I can comment on that right now. I would refer you to Secretary Mattis at this point," White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters.

The US currently has some 8,400 troops in Afghanistan. Army General John Nicholson, the top US commander in Afghanistan, told Congress that he could use an infusion of US and allied troops to bolster support for the Afghan army.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon was considering a request for roughly 3,000 more troops, mainly for training and advising. That decision, however, has been stalled by the broader administration review of Afghan policy and a push for NATO to contribute more troops.

This sets the stage for US commanders to begin sending more forces to Afghanistan, after years of reductions made in the hope that Kabul could handle internal threats on its own.

Mattis, the former commander of all Middle East wars, said yesterday that the US is not winning the war in Afghanistan.

"We're not winning in Afghanistan right now," Mattis said, adding: "We'll correct this as soon as possible".

Mattis later described winning in Afghanistan as forming a central government that, with international help, "will be able to handle the violence."

The new admission from the retired Marine Corps four-star general comes as Congress grows increasingly impatient for a new strategy from the Trump administration for America's longest war as Taliban insurgents continue to regain ground and increase power, including launching coordinated attacks on American troops and journalists in recent weeks.

The Afghanistan war has been dragging on since October 2001 and the US-led coalition ended their combat mission against the Taliban in 2014 but they are increasingly involved in backing up Afghan forces on the battlefield.

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News Network
February 4,2020

Kuala Lumpur, Feb 4: Malaysia said on Tuesday that India's move to cut back on palm oil purchases is "temporary" and will be resolved amicably between the two nations.

Last month, India restricted imports of refined palm oil and asked importers to avoid purchases from Malaysia after its criticism of actions in Kashmir and a new citizenship law.

"Having long-standing bilateral ties, the two nations will overcome the current challenges, and prevail towards mutual and beneficial outcomes," the Malaysian Palm Oil Council said in a statement, citing Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok.

Malaysia's push to implement B20 biodiesel starting this month will also help sustain high crude palm oil prices, the statement read.

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News Network
January 3,2020

Washington, Jan 3: US President Donald Trump ordered the killing of Iran Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani, who died in Baghdad "in a decisive defensive action to protect US personnel abroad," the Pentagon said Thursday.

"General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region. General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more," the Department of Defense said.

Following Soleimani's death, Trump tweeted an image of the US flag without any further explanation.

"US' act of international terrorism, assassinating General Soleimani—the most effective force fighting Daesh (ISIS), Al Nusrah,Al Qaeda, is extremely dangerous & foolish escalation. US bears responsibility for all consequences of rogue adventurism." said Iran Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.

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News Network
May 5,2020

May 5: Global coronavirus deaths reached 250,000 on Monday after recorded infections topped 3.5 million, a news agency tally of official government data showed, although the rate of fatalities has slowed.

North America and European countries accounted for most of the new deaths and cases reported in recent days, but numbers were rising from smaller bases in Latin America, Africa and Russia.

Globally, there were 3,062 new deaths and 61,923 new cases over the past 24 hours, taking total cases to 3.58 million.

That easily exceeds the estimated 140,000 deaths worldwide in 2018 caused by measles, and compares with around 3 million to 5 million cases of severe illness caused annually by seasonal influenza, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

While the current trajectory of COVID-19 falls far short of the 1918 Spanish flu, which infected an estimated 500 million people, killing at least 10% of patients, experts worry the available data is underplaying the true impact of the pandemic.

The concerns come as several countries begin to ease strict lockdowns that have been credited with helping contain the spread of the virus.

"We could easily have a second or a third wave because a lot of places aren't immune," Peter Collignon, an infectious diseases physician and microbiologist at Canberra Hospital, told Reuters. He noted the world was well short of herd immunity, which requires around 60% of the population to have recovered from the disease.

The first death linked to COVID-19 was reported on Jan. 10 in Wuhan, China after the coronavirus first emerged there in December. Global fatalities grew at a rate of 1-2% in recent days, down from 14% on March 21, according to the Reuters data.

DEATH RATE ANOMALIES

Mortality rates from recorded infections vary greatly from country to country.

Collignon said any country with a mortality rate of more than 2% almost certainly had underreported case numbers. Health experts fear those ratios could worsen in regions and countries less prepared to deal with the health crisis.

"If your mortality rate is higher than 2%, you've missed a lot of cases," he said, noting that countries overwhelmed by the outbreak were less likely to conduct testing in the community and record deaths outside of hospitals.

In the United States, around half the country's state governors partially reopened their economies over the weekend, while others, including New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, declared the move was premature.

In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who battled COVID-19 last month, has said the country was over the peak but it was still too early to relax lockdown measures.

Even in countries where the suppression of the disease has been considered successful, such as Australia and New Zealand which have recorded low daily rates of new infections for weeks, officials have been cautious.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has predicated a full lifting of curbs on widespread public adoption of a mobile phone tracking app and increased testing levels.

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