Tag: United States

  • ‘Chinese president orders army to prepare for war’

    ‘Chinese president orders army to prepare for war’

    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.

  • Johnson & Johnson to stop selling baby powder in the US

    Johnson & Johnson to stop selling baby powder in the US

    Healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson will stop selling its talc-based Johnson’s Baby Powder in the US and Canada. The firm faces many thousands of lawsuits from consumers who claim that its talc products caused their cancer.

    The move comes after years of trial where Johnson & Johnson has been ordered to pay out billions of dollars in compensation. The company has constantly defended the safety of its talc products.

    Johnson & Johnson said it would wind down sales of the product, which makes up about 0.5% of its US consumer health business, in the coming months, but that retailers would continue to sell existing inventory.

    The firm faces more than 16,000 consumer charges alleging that its talc products were contaminated with asbestos, a known carcinogen (a substance capable of causing cancer).

    The firm said that demand for Johnson’s Baby Powder had been declining in North America “due in large part to changes in consumer habits and fuelled by misinformation around the safety of the product”. It said it had faced “a constant barrage” of lawyers advertising for clients to sue the firm.

    “We remain steadfastly confident in the safety of talc-based Johnson’s Baby Powder. Decades of independent scientific studies by medical experts around the world support the safety of our product,” it said.

    The firm added that the move was part of a reconsideration of its consumer products prompted by the coronavirus pandemic. It said in October that its testing had found no asbestos in its Baby Powder after tests conducted by the US Food and Drug Administration discovered trace amounts.

    The firm is appealing against a 2018 order to pay $4.7bn in damages to 22 women who alleged that its talc products caused them to develop ovarian cancer.

  • Ultimatum for Saudi Arabia: Trump tells MBS to cut oil supply if Kingdom wants US military support

    Ultimatum for Saudi Arabia: Trump tells MBS to cut oil supply if Kingdom wants US military support

    With the United States (US) continuing to press Saudi Arabia to end its oil price war with Russia, President Donald Trump has given the Kingdom an ultimatum.

    According to Reuters, in an April 2 phone call, Trump told Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that unless the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) started cutting oil production, he would be powerless to stop lawmakers from passing legislation to withdraw US troops from the Kingdom.

    The threat to upend a 75-year strategic alliance, which has not been previously reported, was central to the US pressure campaign that led to a landmark global deal to slash oil supply as demand collapsed in the coronavirus pandemic — scoring a diplomatic victory for the White House.

    Trump delivered the message to the crown prince 10 days before the announcement of production cuts. The kingdom’s de facto leader was so taken aback by the threat that he ordered his aides out of the room so he could continue the discussion in private, according to a US source who was briefed on the discussion by senior administration officials.

    The effort illustrated Trump’s strong desire to protect the US oil industry from a historic price meltdown as governments shut down economies worldwide to fight the virus. It also reflected a telling reversal of Trump’s longstanding criticism of the oil cartel, which he has blasted for raising energy costs for Americans with supply cuts that usually lead to higher gasoline prices.

    Now, Trump was asking OPEC to slash output.

    A senior US official told Reuters that the administration notified Saudi leaders that, without production cuts, “there would be no way to stop the US Congress from imposing restrictions that could lead to a withdrawal of US forces”. The official summed up the argument, made through various diplomatic channels, as telling Saudi leaders: “We are defending your industry while you’re destroying ours.”

  • White House unfollows Modi on Twitter amid concerns over India’s treatment of minorities

    White House unfollows Modi on Twitter amid concerns over India’s treatment of minorities

    The White House has unfollowed Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi on Twitter, leaving Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi ‘dismayed’ at the American administration’s decision.

    Indian media reported on Wednesday that The White House, which has 22 million followers on Twitter, followed the Indian premier till April 11, unfollowed him recently.

    “The official Twitter account of White House, the residence and workplace of the president of the US, doesn’t follow Indian PM Narendra Modi anymore on the micro-blogging site,” reported Outlook India.

    Modi was the only world leader followed by The White House on Twitter till April 11. Other Indian Twitter accounts unfollowed were those of the president of India, the Indian PM’s Office and the Indian Embassy in Washington D.C.

    The move ‘dismayed’ Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi, who urged India’s External Affairs Ministry to take note of the incident.

    “I’m dismayed by the “unfollowing” of our President & PM by the White House. I urge the Ministry of External Affairs to take note,” tweeted Gandhi.

    The development took place as a US commission recommended India be placed on a list of countries that violate religious freedom.

    The US Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended that India be re-designated as a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ because of the Modi government’s policies and treatment towards the Muslim population.

    “Perhaps the steepest, and most alarming deterioration in religious freedom conditions is in India,” the vice-chair of the USCIRF vice had said after the release of the Commission’s annual report.

    The report also recommended 13 other countries to the State Department for designation as “countries of particular concern” because their governments engage in or tolerate “systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom”.

    These include nine that the State Department designated as CPCs in December last year, which were Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. The five others include India, Nigeria, Russia, Syria, and Vietnam.

    WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

    According to reports, the White House has explained that its Twitter handle typically follows the accounts of officials from host countries for a brief period during a presidential trip to retweet their messages in support of the visit.

    “The White House Twitter account normally follows senior US government Twitter accounts, and others as appropriate. For example, during the time of a presidential visit, the account typically follows for a short time, the host country’s officials to retweet their messages in support of the visit,” a senior administration official told the Press Trust of India.

  • Three UFO videos by US Navy pilots released officially

    Three UFO videos by US Navy pilots released officially

    The Pentagon — headquarters of the United States (US) Department of Defense — has released three declassified videos that show US Navy pilots encountering what appear to be unidentified flying objects, The Guardian reported.

    The grainy videos, which the Pentagon says depict “unexplained aerial phenomena”, were previously leaked, with some believing they show alien UFOs.

    The Pentagon said it released the footage to “to clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real or whether or not there is more to the videos,” a statement on the Department of Defense website said.

    “After a thorough review, the department has determined that the authorized release of these unclassified videos does not reveal any sensitive capabilities or systems, and does not impinge on any subsequent investigations of military air space incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena,” the statement said.

    The videos had been “circulating in the public domain after unauthorized releases in 2007 and 2017”, the statement said, adding that “the aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterized as ‘unidentified’”.

    The three videos show what the pilots saw during training flights in 2004 and 2015. Two of the videos were published by the New York Times in 2017. The other video was released by the To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science group, a media and private science organisation.

    WATCH VIDEO:

    The 2004 video shows an incident that happened 100 miles out over the Pacific, according to the New York Times. Two Navy fighter pilots found an oblong object hovering above the water. It then flew quickly away. “It accelerated like nothing I’ve ever seen,” one of the pilots, Commander David Fravor, told the NYT.

    The 2015 videos show objects moving quickly through the sky, one of them seeming to spin in the air. “Look at that thing, dude!” a pilot says. “It’s rotating!”

    The release of the videos by the Pentagon adds to the legitimacy of the videos and will spur more speculation that humans have recently interacted with extraterrestrials.

  • Coronavirus: Pakistan reports 1,378 recoveries as fatalities fall down to 7pc

    As the number of coronavirus deaths in Pakistan hit 100 on Tuesday, the country also reported what was its 1,378th recovery — maintaining recoveries’ triumph over fatalities like also seen even in the worst-hit parts of the world, including the United States (US), Italy and Spain among other countries.

    As per the details, Pakistan jumped from 1,026 recoveries on Sunday to 1,378 two days later while the total number of infections stood at 5,782 by the time this report was filed.

    On April 12, the country had reported that a bit over a thousand patients had recovered from the novel coronavirus — COVID-19.

    According to reports, the development had put the number of fatalities in Pakistan at a mere 8 per cent against 92 per cent recoveries out of the total number of closed cases.

    At the same time, the US had reported 40 per cent fatalities while those in Italy and Spain stood at 37 per cent and 21 per cent, respectively.

    The death to recovery ratio on Tuesday, however, improved further not only in Pakistan but also in the worst-hit US.

    According to the details of closed cases by Worldometers, Pakistan now has 93 per cent recovered patients while the US has 61 per cent with a slight improvement against Sunday’s 60 per cent.

    In additional good news, the two hardest-hit European countries have maintained their number of recoveries as even two days later, the percentage of recoveries in Italy and Spain still stands at 63 and 79, respectively — with no surge in the percentage of fatalities among closed cases.

    While the improvements still aren’t good enough, they come following a sudden spike in coronavirus infections and fatalities across the globe, which has led to countries being forced to make efforts aimed at dealing with the global pandemic.

  • US imposes strict visa rules for pregnant women to control ‘birth tourism’

    US imposes strict visa rules for pregnant women to control ‘birth tourism’

    The Trump administration on Thursday announced new visa rules to restrict birth tourism, in which women travel to the United States to give birth so their children can get US citizenship.

    According to the rules in the Federal Register, applicants will not be given tourist visas if they are determined by consular officers to be coming to the US only to give birth.

    It is a bigger hurdle to overcome, proving they are travelling to the US because they have a medical need and not just because they want to give birth here. Those with medical needs will be treated like other foreigners coming to the US for medical treatment and must prove they have the money to pay for it including transportation and living expenses.

    “Closing this glaring immigration loophole will combat these endemic abuses and ultimately protect the United States from the national security risks created by this practice,” White House press secretary Step­hanie Grisham said in a statement.

    While the new rules deal specifically with birth tourism, the Trump administration also has turned away pregnant women coming over the U.S.-Mexico border as part of a broader immigration crackdown. Those women were initially part of a vulnerable group that included others like small children who were allowed in, while tens of thousands of other asylum seekers have been returned to Mexico to wait out their cases.

    While President Trump’s administration has been confining all forms of immigration, Trump has been particularly worried by the issue of birthright citizenship anyone born in the US is considered a citizen, under the Constitution.

    The Republican president has criticized the practice and threatened to end it, but scholars and members of his administration have said it’s not so easy to do.

    Regulating tourist visas for pregnant women is one way to get at the issue, but it raises questions about how officers would determine whether a woman is pregnant, to begin with and whether a woman could get turned away by border officers who suspect she maybe just by looking at her. Critics of the new policy say it could put pregnant women at risk.

  • Chitral citizens booked over disrupting US hunter

    Chitral citizens booked over disrupting US hunter

    A case was registered against three people in Chitral for meddling into the hunt of a United States (US) citizen, who was hunting Markhor in the area. 

    As per reports, the district forest
    officer (DFO) in the area said that an American hunter visited the Toshi-II
    game reserve in Chitral to hunt Markhor.

    “He obtained a permit for trophy hunting after paying a fee of US$150,000.”

    As soon as the US citizen set up his
    prey and was ready to shoot it a citizen fired a warning shot that made the
    animal run away.

    “The fire caused the hunter to change
    his location,” DFO said adding that three people were booked in the case over
    the violation.

    On December 12, an Italian citizen hunted the first Markhor of the season. According to the Gilgit – Baltistan wildlife department, Carlo Pasco successfully hunted a markhor from the conservation area.

    The hunter paid $85,000 as permit fee for hunting the rare wildlife species. The Wildlife department claims that 80% of the amount paid by hunters is given to the local community to invest in themselves and the conversation of these animals.

    The markhor is a large Capra species in
    Central Asia, Karakoram and the Himalayas. It is listed as one of the
    endangered species since 2015.

  • Iran’s threat to US: Israel steps back, says ‘has nothing to do with what Trump did’

    Iran’s threat to US: Israel steps back, says ‘has nothing to do with what Trump did’

    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.

  • ‘You messed up,’ Gen Bajwa told US secretary of state: ISPR chief

    ‘You messed up,’ Gen Bajwa told US secretary of state: ISPR chief

    Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Major General Asif Ghafoor has quoted Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa as telling United States (US) Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that White House’s misadventure in Baghdad was detrimental to efforts aimed at regional peace.

    “The region is making progress towards peace from a very bad situation and the Baghdad incident is detrimental to the peace efforts in the region,” the ISPR chief quoted the COAS as telling Pompeo as US-Iran tensions soar following the killing of top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani and other officials in a US President Donald Trump-ordered drone strike on Friday in Baghdad.

    Speaking to a private media outlet, Maj Gen Ghafoor also said that Pakistan will only play the role of a peacemaker and not take sides in the ongoing conflict between the two countries.

    “Pakistan has defeated terrorism on its territory and will not allow its soil to be used against any other country.”

    According to Geo News, to a question regarding claims made in Indian media that Pakistan’s policy towards Iran has changed in the light of US resumption of military training program for Pakistan Army, the ISPR chief deemed it “Indian propaganda” and “fake news”.

    “Islamabad and Washington were in talks for the last four or five months over the issue and linking it as Pakistan aligning with US is Indian propaganda,” he said. “Pakistan Army is a responsible and professional force and has exercised restraint despite provocative statements from Indian leadership.”

    The military spokesperson also said that Gen Bajwa had an important role to play in regional security and Afghan peace process, and Pakistan didn’t want to see another conflict in the region.

    “Pakistan would oppose any thing that is affecting Afghan reconciliation process as it needs focus from all parties. We are of the view that dialogue is the way forward to achieve lasting peace,” he said.