Pak plane crashes with 127 on board, no survivors found

Doha, Feb 29: The United States signed a landmark deal with the Taliban on Saturday, laying out a timetable for a full troop withdrawal from Afghanistan within 14 months as it seeks an exit from its longest-ever war.

President Donald Trump urged the Afghan people to embrace the chance for a new future, saying the deal held out the possibility of ending the 18-year conflict.

"If the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan live up to these commitments, we will have a powerful path forward to end the war in Afghanistan and bring our troops home," he said on the eve of the event in Doha.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in the Qatari capital to witness the signing of the accord, while Defence Secretary Mark Esper was in Kabul for a separate joint declaration with the Afghan government.

The agreement is expected to lead to a dialogue between the Kabul government and the Taliban that, if successful, could ultimately see the Afghan war wind down.

But the position of the Afghan government, which has been excluded from direct US-Taliban talks, remains unclear and the country is gripped by a fresh political crisis amid contested election results.

The United States and its allies will withdraw all their forces from Afghanistan within 14 months if the Taliban abide by the Doha agreement, Washington and Kabul said in a joint statement.

After an initial reduction of troops to 8,600 within 135 days of Saturday's signing, the US and its partners "will complete the withdrawal of their remaining forces from Afghanistan within 14 months... and will withdraw all their forces from remaining bases", the declaration stated.

The Doha accord was drafted over a tempestuous year of dialogue marked by the abrupt cancellation of the effort by Trump in September.

The signing comes after a week-long, partial truce that has mostly held across Afghanistan, aimed at building confidence between the warring parties and showing the Taliban can control their forces.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg heralded the agreement as a "first step to lasting peace".

"The way to peace is long and hard. We have to be prepared for setbacks, spoilers, there is no easy way to peace but this is an important first step," the Norwegian former prime minister told reporters in Kabul.

Since the US-led invasion that ousted the Taliban after the September 11, 2001 attacks, America has spent more than $1 trillion in fighting and rebuilding in Afghanistan.

About 2,400 US soldiers have been killed, along with unknown tens of thousands of Afghan troops, Taliban fighters and Afghan civilians.

The insurgents said they had halted all hostilities Saturday in honour of the agreement.

"Since the deal is being signed today, and our people are happy and celebrating it, we have halted all our military operations across the country," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP.

Close to 30 nations were represented at Saturday's signing in the Qatari capital.

While Kabul will not be represented at the Doha ceremony, set for 1245 GMT, it will send a six-person taskforce to the Qatari capital to make initial contact with the Taliban political office, established in 2013.

Any insurgent pledge to guarantee Afghanistan is never again used by jihadist movements such as Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group to plot attacks abroad will be key to the deal's viability.

The Taliban's sheltering of Al-Qaeda was the main reason for the US invasion following the 9/11 attacks.

The group, which had risen to power in the 1990s in the chaos of civil war, suffered a swift defeat at the hands of the US and its allies. They retreated before re-emerging to lead a deadly insurgency against the new government in Kabul.

After the NATO combat mission ended in December 2014, the bulk of Western forces withdrew from the country, leaving it in an increasingly precarious position.

While Afghans are eager to see an end to the violence, experts say any prospective peace will depend on the outcome of talks between the Taliban and the Kabul government.

But with President Ashraf Ghani and rival Abdullah Abdullah at loggerheads over contested election results, few expect the pair to present a united front, unlike the Taliban, who would then be in a position to take the upper hand in negotiations.

Washington, Apr 12: The US has overtaken Italy as the country with the highest number of deaths due to COVID-19 pandemic with the fatalities crossing 20,000, according to Johns Hopkins University data, as the novel coronavirus continues to wreak havoc across the globe.

The deadly coronavirus, that originated in China in December last year, has so far killed more than one lakh people across the globe. The United States on Saturday became the country with the highest number of deaths at 20,597, surpassing Italy's 19,468 fatalities.

More than 5.3 lakh Americans have tested positive for coronavirus, which is about the same for the next four countries put together: Spain (163,027), Italy (152,271), Germany (125,452) and France (93,790). In terms of fatalities, the US and Italy are followed by Spain (16,606), France (13832) and United Kingdom (9,875), the varsity data showed.

New York City, the financial capital of the world, has emerged as the epicenter of coronavirus in the world. A city of 8.3 million, which is one of the most densely populated cities in the US, by Saturday night had as many as 8,627 deaths and more than 180,000 people had tested positive for COVID-19.

President Donald Trump has declared a national emergency and all the 50 States have been notified with major disaster declaration. More than 95 per cent of the country's 330 million population are under stay-at-home order. Trump has deployed more than 50,000 personnel from the armed forces in fight against COVID-19.

After an initial two-week social mitigation measures, that includes social distancing, the measures have been extended till April 30. Initially, members of the White House Task Force on Coronavirus had projected between one and two lakhs deaths. Now, they have dropped the projection to 60,000 deaths, mainly due to the successful implementation of these measures.

"The people of our country have gone through a lot. But we did it the right way. And we look like we'll be coming in on the very, very low side, really below the lowest, the lowest side of the curve of death," Trump told Fox News on Saturday night.

Trump asserted that situation was improving in places like New York, where there is a drop in new patients. Responding to a question, he said he wanted the country to open up as soon as possible.

However, he has not taken a decision so far, even as some media reports said that he the President was looking for early May.

"I think it's going to be the toughest decision that I've ever made. I really, hopefully that I ever will have to make. But it's certainly the toughest decision that I've ever made. I hope that I'm going to make the right decision," Trump said, adding that he will be making a decision reasonably soon.

"We're setting up a council now of some of the most distinguished leaders in virtually every field including politics and business and medical. We'll be making that decision fairly soon," Trump said.

Meanwhile, The New York Times reported that its investigations have revealed that the president was warned about a potential pandemic but that internal divisions, lack of planning and his faith in his own instincts led to a halting response.

According to The Washington Post, coronavirus is killing about one in 10 hospitalised middle-aged patients and four in 10 older than 85 in the United States. It is particularly lethal to men even when taking into account common chronic diseases that exacerbate risk.

Globally, the novel coronavirus has killed 108,862 people and infected over 1.7 million people globally. The US has the highest number of infections at 529,887, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

London, Feb 9: A US court has rejected a Turkish attempt to dismiss civil cases brought by protesters who were violently attacked in Washington by Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s security officers.

The incident took place in May 2017 during a visit to the US by the Turkish president. About a dozen bodyguards beat-up a group demonstrating outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence in Washington.

The attack, which was caught on video, left nine people injured and further strained US relations with Turkey.

While criminal charges against the security guards were dropped within a year, around the same time Turkey released a US pastor, the victims pressed ahead with a civil case.

On Thursday, a federal court denied Turkey’s request to have the two cases thrown out on the grounds that it should have sovereign immunity from legal proceedings.

US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said the protesters had not posed a threat and were merely gathered on a sidewalk outside the residence at Sheridan Circle when Erdogan’s security burst through a police line and attacked them.

“The Turkish security forces did not have the discretion to violently physically attack the protesters, with the degree and nature of force which was used, when the protesters were standing, protesting on a public sidewalk,” she said. “And, Turkish security forces did not have the discretion to continue violently physically attacking the protesters after the protesters had fallen to the ground or otherwise attempted to flee.”

The judge said Turkey “has not met its burden of persuasion to show that it is immune from suit in these cases.”

The ruling was welcomed by the victims of the attack, which Erdogan stopped to watch as he made his way from his car to inside the residence.