Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered his army to strengthen the training of its troops and “prepare for war”, foreign media outlets reported.
The Chinese president said that it was important to “comprehensively strengthen the training of troops and prepare for war”, “resolutely safeguard national sovereignty” and “safeguard the overall strategic stability of the country”.
Xi’s speech comes amid rising tensions with the United States (US) and escalating clashes with the Indian army at the Ladakh border. Both armies are said to have deployed additional troops in sensitive areas along the boundary with experts predicting a lengthy standoff.
As per a report by ThePrint, Beijing has also increased up security on its side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) by locating an estimated 1,200 to 1,300 troops near the Pangong Lake.
Xi, who chairs China’s powerful Central Military Commission (CMC), made the comments at a meeting of the delegation of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and People’s Armed Police Force (PAPF) on the sidelines of the annual session of the National People’s Congress (NPC), the country’s parliament.
He emphasised on preparing for a military struggle “…to flexibly carry out actual combat military training, and to comprehensively improve our military’s ability to carry out military missions”.
“This epidemic prevention and control struggle is a practical test for national defence and military reform, fully embodies the effectiveness of the reform, and also puts forward new requirements for reform,” he added.
Two days back, Chinese diplomat Wang Yi, criticised the efforts of some US politicians to fabricate “rumours” and “stigmatise” China to blame it for the pandemic.
A Syrian man has made a “laughing game” for his baby daughter so she doesn’t get scared every time a bomb drops in Idlib city near the Turkish border in north-west Syria, which has been the target of continuous bombing for the past few weeks.
With at least 21 civilians being killed so far in Idlib by the strikes carried out by the Syrian Air Force and its Russian allies, the man has taught his four-year-old daughter to laugh every time a bomb is dropped, as though it were a game, News18 reported.
“What a sad world,” wrote journalist Ali Mustafa as he tweeted a video of the father-daughter duo.
what a sad world,
To distract 4-year old Selva, her father Abdullah has made up a game.
Each time a bomb drops in Idlib #Syria, they laugh, so she doesn’t get scared.
People on the internet are heartbroken after watching the video.
Oh my God !!! How terrible is it that children have to play such games to manage genuine appropriate emotion .what kind of a world are we giving them !?
The Syrian civil war is an ongoing multi-sided civil war in Syria fought between the Ba’athist Syrian Arab Republic led by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, along with domestic and foreign allies, and various domestic and foreign forces opposing both the Syrian government and each other in varying combinations.
The unrest in Syria, part of a wider wave of the 2011 Arab Spring protests, grew out of discontent with the Syrian government and escalated to an armed conflict after protests calling for Assad’s removal were violently suppressed.
British Conservative Party leader of Pakistani origin, Sajid Javid, has resigned as chancellor of the exchequer as Prime Minister (PM) Boris Johnson carries out a post-Brexit cabinet reshuffle.
According to BBC, Javid rejected an order to fire his team of aides, saying “no self-respecting minister” could accept such a condition.
He had been due to deliver his first budget in four weeks’ time.
The former home secretary was appointed chancellor by Johnson when he became PM in July.
His resignation follows rumours of tensions between Javid and the British premier’s senior adviser Dominic Cummings. “He has turned down the job of chancellor of the Exchequer,” the report quoted a source close to Javid as saying.
“The PM said he had to fire all his special advisers and replace them with Number 10 [10 Downing Street, the headquarters of the UK government] special advisers to make it one team. The chancellor said no self-respecting minister would accept those terms.”
Sunka may enact a looser monetary policy, in line with Johnson’s promises to spend on infrastructure. That would allow the Bank of England to step back with monetary easing, thus supporting the pound.
As anti-Citizens Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) protests against Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi’s government continue across India, Uttar Pradesh (UP) police have disrupted a wedding after mistaking it for a sit-in.
According to India Times, UP police on Saturday uprooted a tent meant for a wedding in the Mohalla Mirdagan area of Bijnor city. The wedding was scheduled for February 4 and the bride’s father had set up the tent in a vacant land.
All gifts and other items for the bride were kept in the tent. Police arrived on the spot and assuming that the tent was set up for anti-CAA/NRC protest without permission, started uprooting it. However, after realising the truth, they asked the family to reinstall the tent, reportedly not even helping them.
The anti-CAA and NRC protests are ongoing protests taking place across India and overseas against the CAA that was enacted into law on December 12, 2019, and the proposals to enact a nationwide NRC. The protests began in Assam,Delhi, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura on December 4, and within a few days, spread across India, though the concerns of the protesters vary.
Israel had officially given its citizens the right to travel to Saudi Arabia for religious and business visits but the Saudi foreign minister, in response, said that Israelis are not welcome to Saudi Arabia “at the moment”.
The Israeli interior ministry announced the decision saying that they approve the travel to Saudi Arabia for Hajj or Umrah and also that business travellers must have an invitation and arranged visitation approval.
Although Israel has made the decision, the gesture was seen as a warming of ties between the two countries since Saudi Arabia does not recognise the State of Israel.
Travelers to Middle Eastern countries would use this border crossing into Jordan to go to other countries
Israelis travel to Saudi Arabia through countries like Jordan and Egypt, which have peaceful ties with Israel. The visits were never official but nonetheless, they take place.
Israel has had difficult ties with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries due to its illegal occupation of Palestine and the atrocities it has committed against the Palestinian people.
Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday ordered the Defence Ministry to immediately release lawyer Col (r) Inamur Rahim, reportedly terming his arrest “illegal” and “unconstitutional”.
A representative of the Ministry of Defence had last week informed the LHC that Rahim was in the custody of law enforcement agencies and was currently being interrogated. The revelation had come during the hearing of a case related to Rahim’s abduction from his home in Rawalpindi on the night of December 16.
Rahim, who has fought court cases on behalf of the families of several missing persons, had been picked up by unidentified men from his home in Rawalpindi’s Askari 14. According to his son Husnain Inam, around eight to 10 persons had “picked up” his father.
“Detention of lawyer Colonel Retd Inam ur Rahim is illegal” Finally Lahore High Court Rawalpindi Bench rejected the claim of Defence Ministry that Inam ur Rahim is in the custody of an intelligence agency because he violated official secret act he was abducted from his home
The case was heard by Mirza Waqas of the LHC’s Rawalpindi bench.
According to The News, in a monthly progress report last year, the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (CIED) had reported that 6,051 cases had been registered before the CIED since March 2011.
Out of these, 3,793 cases had been “disposed”, while 2,258 cases were still pending. Significantly, out of the 3,793 cases “disposed” by the CIED, 743 “missing people” were traced to different internment centers.
Some 468 people were located in prisons; and 189 people were found to have passed away. The commission provided no information on steps taken to establish the circumstances behind these detentions or deaths.
As tensions continue to soar between Iran and the United States (US) over the past week, and both Tehran and Washington issuing threats against each other, Prime Minister (PM) Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel should not be dragged into the conflict.
According to Anadolu Agency, Netanyahu, while chairing a security cabinet meeting Monday, said the killing of top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani was carried out by the US, stressing his country was “not involved”.
Soleimani, commander of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Quds Forces, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, vice president of the Hashd al-Shaabi group, were assassinated in a US drone strike on Friday outside Baghdad International Airport.
With the dramatic escalation making headlines and Iran issuing threats of severe consequence, Netanyahu has urged his ministers to reiterate Israel’s support for America’s right to defend itself when speaking to the media.
During the meeting, top Israeli intelligence officials reassured the ministers that the likelihood of a retaliatory attack by Iran against Israel was low, since “Israel stayed at a distance from the incident”, according to Channel 13.
Soleimani’s slaying marked a new high in tensions between the US and Iran, which have often been at a fever pitch since President Donald Trump chose in 2018 to unilaterally withdraw Washington from a nuclear pact world powers struck with Tehran.
Iran has now promised to avenge Soleimani’s killing and announced that it would stop complying with the 2015 nuclear deal. Trump has since threatened to target cultural sites in Iran.
Tensions between the United States (US) and Iran have escalated to an all-time high after top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani was killed on Friday in a US strike on Baghdad’s international airport.
The development has been confirmed by both Tehran and Washington, and the Pentagon has said that President Donald Trump “ordered Soleimani’s killing”, after a pro-Iran mob this week laid siege to the US embassy.
Following Soleimani’s death, Trump tweeted an image of the US flag without any further explanation.
The pre-dawn developments mark the most major escalation yet in a feared proxy war between Iran and the US on Iraqi soil.
Here’s everything you need to know about the dramatic escalation:
WHO WAS QASSEM SOLEIMANI?
Head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force Soleimani acquired celebrity status at home and abroad as leader of the foreign arm of the Revolutionary Guards and for his key role in fighting in Syria and Iraq.
He was instrumental in the spread of Iranian influence in the Middle East, which the US and Tehran’s regional foes Saudi Arabia and Israel have struggled to keep in check, Al Jazeera reported.
Soleimani survived several assassination attempts against him by Western, Israeli and Arab agencies over the past 20 years.
Under Soleimani’s leadership, the IRGC vastly expanded its capabilities, becoming a significant influence in intelligence, financial, and political spheres beyond Iran’s borders.
WHY WAS HE KILLED?
It all started on Sunday with US military airstrikes in Iraq and Syria that killed 25 fighters and left militias vowing revenge.
SUNDAY (DEC 29)
According to a report, the US military carried out airstrikes on five sites in Iraq and Syria against the Iranian-backed Kataeb Hezbollah militia, calling it retaliation for last week’s killing of an American contractor in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base that it blamed on the group.
At least 25 fighters were killed and dozens wounded. The targeted group, which is a separate force from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, operates under the umbrella of the state-sanctioned militias known collectively as the Popular Mobilization Forces, or PMF. Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of the PMF and a founder of Kataeb Hezbollah, was also killed in the strikes Thursday that killed Soleimani in Baghdad.
The two were scheduled to meet and were leaving Soleimani’s plane at the airport when Friday’s attack occurred.
MONDAY (DEC 30)
The Iranian-backed Iraqi militia vowed to retaliate while a spokesperson for Kataeb Hezbollah denied the group was behind last week’s rocket attacks, including the one that killed the American contractor, saying Washington was using them as a pretext to attack his group.
“These forces must leave,” he said of American troops in Iraq, calling Sunday’s attack a “crime” and a “massacre”.
The Iraqi government said it would reconsider its relationship with the US-led coalition — the first time it has said it will do so since an agreement was struck to keep some US troops in the country. It called the attack a “flagrant violation’’ of its sovereignty.
TUESDAY (DEC 31)
Hundreds of Iraqi militiamen and their supporters broke into the American Embassy compound in Baghdad, smashing a main door and setting fire to a reception area.
The marchers, many of them in militia uniforms, shouted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” outside the compound, hurling water and stones over its walls. The group set up a tent camp overnight in front of the embassy and sprayed graffiti on its walls.
Some commanders of militia factions loyal to Iran joined the protesters outside the embassy in a strikingly bold move. Among them was Qais al-Khizali, the head of one of the most powerful Iranian-backed group in Iraq, who is on a US terror list, and Hadi al-Amiri, the head of the PMF, the umbrella group for the Iran-backed militias.
President Trump blamed Iran for the breach of the embassy compound in Baghdad and called on Iraq to protect the embassy.
Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many. We strongly responded, and always will. Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. They will be held fully responsible. In addition, we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified!
There were no reports of casualties. The State Department said all American personnel were safe and that there were no plans to evacuate the embassy. Following the storming of the compound, Defence Secretary Mark Esper ordered roughly 750 additional American troops to deploy to the region, with another 3,000 placed on standby.
The political influence of the PMF has risen in recent years, and their allies dominate the parliament and the government. That has made them the target of the anti-government protesters, who set up a sprawling protest camp in central Baghdad, and who for weeks have been trying to enter the Green Zone. Iraqi security forces have beaten them back with tear gas and live ammunition, killing hundreds.
The militiamen and their supporters, however, were able to quickly enter the Green Zone on Tuesday and mass in front of the embassy, with little if any resistance from authorities. Iraqi security forces made no effort to stop the protesters as they marched to the heavily fortified Green Zone after a funeral for those killed in the airstrikes.
WEDNESDAY (JAN 1)
The Iran-backed militiamen withdrew from the American Embassy compound after two days of clashes with American security forces.
US Marines had fired tear gas in response to stones thrown by protesters but no one was reported killed and the tent camp dispersed after the PMF called on its supporters to depart, suggesting their message had “been received.”
“We rubbed America’s nose in the dirt,” said Fadhil al-Gezzi, a militia supporter.
Embassy workers and diplomats were ultimately holed up for more than 24 hours during the situation at the embassy. Ambassador Matt Tueller, the American ambassador to Iraq, was traveling at the time of the attack but State Department officials told The Hill that he would return to the embassy amid the tensions.
FRIDAY (JAN 3)
General Qassem Soleimani, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and five others were killed in the early-morning airstrike at Baghdad International Airport, Iraqi officials said.
A senior Iraqi security official said the airstrike, conducted by an American drone, took place on an access road near the cargo area of the airport after Soleimani left his plane to be greeted by al-Muhandis and others. The official said the plane had arrived from either Lebanon or Syria.
A university in Indian state of Uttar Pradesh has set up a panel to investigate if Pakistani Marxist, poet, and author Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s iconic poem “Hum Dekhenge”is “anti-Hindu”, Scroll.in reported.
According to reports, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Kanpur has set up the panel after the poem was recited by students on campus on December 17 during a solidarity march held for their counterparts at Delhi’s Jamia Milia University.
A police crackdown on the Jamia Milia Islamia campus on December 15 triggered nationwide protests as part of the campaign against passing of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the ongoing National Population Register (NPR) update exercise and the proposed pan-India National Register of Citizenship (NRC).
During one such protest, about 300 students of the institute were not allowed to go out of the campus as large gatherings under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure were banned, the institute’s deputy director, Manindra Agarwal, was quoted as saying.
A complaint was filed by temporary faculty member Vashimant Sharma and 16 others against the poem. “The written complaint filed by them with the IIT director states that the poem had some wordings that could hurt the sentiments of Hindus,” Agarwal said.
“A committee of six members was established, headed by me, to investigate the matter. Some students have been questioned, while the others will be questioned after they return to the institution after the holidays.”
The probe committee will investigate three areas – whether the students defied prohibitory orders, the social media posts they shared ahead of the solidarity march and if the poem of Faiz Ahmad Faiz is “anti-Hindu”.
‘HUM DEKHEINGE’:
The popular revolutionary poem was written by Faiz in 1979 when he was in Honolulu for a writers’ conference.The poem was included in Faiz’s seventh poetry book titled “Mere Dil Mere Musafir” in 1981 and is known for its rendition by singer Iqbal Bano.
The poem’s beginning deals with conventional themes such as injustice and oppression, then gives way to more overtly religious symbolism. Faiz writes that the idols will be lifted from the Kabah and goes on to describe a revolutionary inversion of power, where the pure-hearted, who were outlawed, or cast out, will be honoured.
The crowns (of those in power) will be thrown up in the air (alluding to a celebration) and their thrones will be cast low. The final stanza of the poem is the most religious in tone, declaring that the only name (essentially on people’s lips) will that be of Allah and a great revolutionary cry of “I am Truth” will go up and people of faith will rule again.
In recent times, the poem has become an anthem for rights activitsts taking to streets across the Indian subcontinent.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) lawmaker Rana Sanaullah, who was granted bail in the narcotics case against him earlier this week, has sworn his innocence over the Holy Quran, cursing the ones who lodged the “false case against him”.
According to The News, demanding a judicial inquiry into the drug smuggling allegations against him, Sanaullah on Thursday told a private media outlet that his vehicle was stopped at Ravi Toll Plaza and his gunman was made to leave the vehicle.
“My vehicle was taken to the ANF [Anti-Narcotics Force] headquarters and no conversation took place during that time,” he said.
“I asked, what is the matter? I was told that ‘it’s an order from high-ups’,” Sanaullah said. “The next day, I was produced before a court and the court was informed that I was found in possession of drugs.”
Meanwhile, addressing a press conference in Faisalabad, hours after his release from prison, on Thursday he said, “Almighty Allah is my witness, I have never used heroin.”
He questioned where the drugs seized from his vehicle were. He said a false and baseless case was lodged against him. “May I suffer the wrath of God, if I ever favoured a drug smuggler,” he added.
The PML-N leader also cursed the ones who lodged a false case against him. He also said he would repeat the same statements in the National Assembly, holding a copy of the Holy Quran in his hands. “You can’t stop us through such cheap tactics, [I] will not back off. It has become a tradition that a person tells lies and then says he has to return to Almighty Allah,” he said.
WATCH VIDEO:
قرآن ہاتھ میں اُٹھا کر کہتا ہوں کہ میرا ہیروئن سمیت کسی منشیات فروش یا کاروبار سے تعلق ہو تو اللہ مجھ پر اپنا قہر نازل کرے ۔ رانا ثناء اللہ pic.twitter.com/hfEydu2ktk
The PML-N leader said even the prime minister knew the case against him was fake. “All this is being done to subdue the opposition. Before my arrest I was 100 per cent with my party but today be with the 1000 per cent,” he added.
Sanaullah demanded the chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) and the government order a judicial inquiry into the allegations of drug smuggling against him.
Referring to the trauma that he suffered due to incarceration, he demanded relevant authorities take action against the injustice he was meted out.
He said that the ANF had secured 15kg heroin from a godown and produced false witnesses to back up their claims against him. “If it was such a large network, why weren’t others [involved in drug trafficking] arrested?” he asked.
On his arrival at Faisalabad after release on bail, the party workers warmly welcomed him. The workers raised slogans in favour of him and expressed happiness on his presence. “I am also thankful to party leaders for supporting me in a difficult time,” Sanaullah said.
