India pledges commitment to rebuild Afghanistan: Condemns terrorist violence

Tel Aviv, Jan 4: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday came out in the support of Trump administration for carrying out the strike near Baghdad's international airport which led to the killing of Iran's elite IRGC Qassem Soleimani, saying that "The US has the right of self-defence."

"Just as Israel has the right of self-defence, the United States has exactly the same right. Qassem Soleimani is responsible for the death of American citizens and many other innocent people. He was planning more such attacks," PM Benjamin Netanyahu wrote on Twitter.

In another tweet, Netanyahu also credited US President Donald Trump for acting decisively in the operation of Iraq that led to the killing of Qassem Soleimani -- a US-designated terrorist, along with six others.

"President Donald Trump deserves all the credit for acting swiftly, forcefully and decisively. Israel stands with the United States in its just struggle for peace, security and self-defence," he added.

Meanwhile, Iran on Friday vowed to take a "vigorous revenge" over the killing of General Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran's elite IRGC.

The US had accused Soleimani of orchestrating several attacks on coalition bases in Iraq including the December 27 attack in which American and Iraqi personnel were killed. 

Jun 2: Pakistan's COVID-19 cases reached 76,398 on Tuesday after 3,938 new infections were reported across the country, while the death toll due to the coronavirus has gone up to 1,621, according to the health ministry.

The Ministry of National Health Services said that 78 COVID-19 deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of fatalities in Pakistan to 1,621.

A total of 27, 110 people have recovered, it said.

Sindh has 29,647 patients, Punjab 27,850, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 10,485, Balochistan 4,514, Islamabad 2,893, Gilgit-Baltistan 738 and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir 271, it added.

The authorities have conducted 577,974 tests, including 16,548 in the last 24 hours.

The jump in the number of cases comes a day after Prime Minister Imran Khan said that people should learn to live with COVID-19 until a vaccine is developed.

Khan addressed the media after chairing the meeting of National Coordination Committee, the highest body to tackle the pandemic.

"Coronavirus will not go away until the vaccine is discovered. We need to learn to live with it and we can live with it if we follow precautions," he said.

He said the one million volunteers of the government's coronavirus force will raise awareness of the need to follow guidelines.

The government also said that all sectors will be opened slowly after deciding the negative list of businesses which will not be allowed.

Up to 2,241 new cases of COVID-19 have been reported across the globe as of Thursday, bringing the total count to 95,333, according to the latest official data by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Five countries, territories and areas reported COVID-19 cases for the first time in the past 24 hours, the Xinhua news agency reported.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus emphasised the importance of implementing a comprehensive approach to mitigate the impact of the virus in a briefing on Wednesday.