Suicide bombers went to Kashmir, Kerala to train: Sri Lanka Army chief

Agencies
May 4, 2019

Colombo, May 4: Sri Lanka Army's chief has said that some of the suicide bombers who carried out the country's worst terror attack on Easter Sunday visited Kashmir and Kerala for "some sorts of training" or to "make some more links" with other foreign outfits.

It is the first time that a top Sri Lankan security official has confirmed the militants' visit to India which had shared intelligence inputs with Colombo ahead of the attack.

Nine suicide bombers, including a woman, carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through three churches and three luxury hotels on April 21, killing 253 people and injuring over 500 others.

In an interview to BBC, Lieutenant General Mahesh Senanayake, Commander of the Army, divulged some details on the movements of the suspects in the region and also international links.

"They (the suspects) have gone to India, they've gone to Kashmir, Bangalore, they've travelled to Kerala state. Those are the information available with us," he said.

Asked what activities they were doing in Kashmir and Kerala, the Army chief said: "Not exactly, but definitely in some sorts of training or to make some more links towards the other organisations outside the country".

The Islamic State terror group claimed the attacks, but the government blamed local Islamist extremist group National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ).

Sri Lanka banned the NTJ and arrested over 100 people in connection with the blasts.

About the possibility of an involvement of a foreign group, the Commander said that by looking at the pattern of operation and the places that the suspects travelled, there has to be some outside involvement of some leadership or instructions.

Asked why the threats were not taken more seriously after receiving information from India, Senanayake said: "We had some information and intelligence-sharing, situations and military intelligence on a different direction and the others were different and there was a gap that everybody could see today".

He said that as the Chief of the Army, he believes that everybody who is responsible for intelligence-gathering and the national security is to be blamed, including the political hierarchies.

Asked why Sri Lanka was targeted, the Commander said: "Too much of freedom, too much of peace for the last 10 years. People forget what happened for 30 years. People are enjoying peace and they neglected security".

He was referring to the three-decade civil war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) which ended in 2009 after claiming at least 100,000 lives.

"We are deployed on the ground to give confidence to the public and ensure there is no violence or escalation of communal riots in this country. Have trust on the armed forces and the Police of this country who will bring normalcy as soon as possible," the Army chief added.

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News Network
January 20,2020

Langkawi, Jan 20: Malaysia will not take retaliatory trade action against India over its boycott of palm oil purchases amid a political row between the two countries, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Monday.

India, the world’s largest edible oil buyer, this month effectively halted imports from its largest supplier and the world’s second-biggest producer in response to comments from Mahathir attacking India’s domestic policies.

“We are too small to take retaliatory action,” Mahathir told reporters in Langkawi, a resort island off the western coast of Malaysia. “We have to find ways and means to overcome that,” he added.

The 94-year-old premier of Muslim-majority Malaysia has criticised New Delhi’s new religion-based citizenship law and also accused India of invading the disputed region of Kashmir.

Mahathir again criticised India’s citizenship law on Monday, saying he believed it was “grossly unfair”.

India has been Malaysia’s largest palm oil market for the past five years, presenting the Southeast Asian country with a major challenge in finding new buyers for its palm oil.

Benchmark Malaysian palm futures fell nearly 10% last week, their biggest weekly decline in more than 11 years.

New Delhi is also unhappy with Malaysia’s refusal to revoke permanent resident status for controversial Indian Islamic preacher Zakir Naik, who has lived in Malaysia for about three years and faces charges of money laundering and hate speech in India.

Mahathir said even if the Indian government guarantees a fair trial, Naik faces the real threat of vigilante action and that Malaysia will only relocate the preacher if it can find a third country where he would be safe.

“If we can find a place for him, we will send him out.”

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News Network
January 13,2020

New Delhi, Jan 13: Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, has fired around 50 of its India executives as part of its restructuring in the country, three sources with direct knowledge said.

The move underscores the struggles Walmart has faced in expanding its wholesale business in India. The Bentonville, Arkansas based company currently operates 28 wholesale stores where it sells goods to small shopkeepers, and not to retail consumers.

The firings mostly affected executives in the company’s real estate division because the growth in the wholesale model has not been that robust, two of the sources said.

“It’s happening because focus is shifting to e-commerce rather than physical (stores),” said one source, who declined to be identified as the decision is not public.

Walmart did not respond to a request for comment.

Walmart has placed bold bets on India’s e-commerce sector. In 2018, it paid $16 billion to acquire a majority stake in India’s online marketplace Flipkart, in its biggest global acquisition.

The second source added that while Walmart could slow down the pace of opening new wholesale stores, the focus will increasingly be on boosting sales through business-to-business and retail e-commerce.

Some of the executives were sacked last week and more could be let go on Monday, two sources said.

In a statement to India’s Economic Times newspaper, which first reported the news, Walmart said it was always looking for ways to operate more effectively and that “this requires us to review our corporate structure to ensure that we are organized in the right way to best meet the needs of our members.”

Walmart has around 600 staff in its India head office out of a total of around 5,300 nationally, one of the sources said.

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News Network
April 16,2020

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.

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