ISLAMABAD, 29 December 2020, (TON): Adviser to the Prime Minister on Commerce and Investment Abdul Razak Dawood has said that a boost in trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan will maximise the chances of regional economic integration and enhance connectivity among neighbouring countries.

“In recent trade dialogue, Pakistan and Afghanistan mainly focused on transit, bilateral and informal trade issues through the agenda of shared prosperity and peace,” Mr Dawood said during opening session of the 8th round of three-day Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA) with Afghan Minister for Commerce and Industry Nisar Ahmad Faizi Ghoryani on Monday.

He said smooth transit trade for enhancing the connectivity with Central Asian states, connecting regional trade with Gwadar Port and finalisation of APTTA and Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) with Afghanistan in February 2021 were the main agenda of negotiations between the two countries.

“We have already allowed Afghanistan to use Gwadar for their transit trade as the same was demanded by Central Asian states to connect them with Gwadar Port in near future” the adviser said, adding that Pakistan had agreed to facilitate Afghan trade through Gwadar and Bin Qasim ports as a goodwill gesture to enhance economic ties with Afghanistan.

Afghan minister says Kabul committed to providing all facilities to Islamabad for increasing investment opportunities

Mr Dawood further said that he would lead a delegation next month for talks on the 9th round of APTTA with Afghanistan and all issues would be resolved through the common agenda of peace and prosperity.

SANAA, 29 December, 2020, (TON): Yemen's Houthi militia said on Tuesday that the Saudi-led coalition launched an airstrike on Houthi military site in the capital Sanaa.

The Houthi-run al-Masirah TV reported the airstrike in the morning on the area of al-Kasarat in Hamdan district in western Sanaa, saying residents across Sanaa heard a powerful explosion.

The coalition has made no comment yet.

The Houthis have recently intensified cross-border drone and missile attacks on Saudi cities. All Houthi attacks had been intercepted, according to the coalition's statements.

Bombings in Sanaa city have been rare since September 2019 when Saudi Arabia launched indirect talks with the Iran-aligned Houthi movement, which controls Sanaa and most of northern Yemen.

The Houthis took over the Yemeni capital Sanaa and most other cities in 2014 after ousting the Saudi-backed internationally-recognized government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The Western-backed coalition that Saudi Arabia leads intervened to try to restore Hadi to power.

The Saudi-led coalition has been fighting the Iran-backed Houthi rebels since March 2015.

The conflict has killed 100,000 people and led to what the United Nations describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The UN estimates that twenty-two million Yemenis remain in need of assistance, eight million are at risk of famine, and a cholera outbreak has affected over one million people. All sides of the conflict are reported to have violated human rights and international humanitarian law.

TEHRAN, 29 December 2020, (TON):  US-based philanthropists plan to send 150,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine to Iran in the coming weeks to control COVIS-19.  It has been reported by chief of the country’s Red Crescent Society that they expect the vaccine created by American drug maker Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech to be imported by 19 January 2020.  The vaccines are likely to create some problems for Tehran as it is stored at minus 70 degrees Celsius (minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit).

It is on record that the US State Department, has extended more than $100 million in medical assistance to foreign countries including Iran. However, the social media trends show that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene publicly rejected any aid or assistance from Washington. In this regard, Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamene said on 22 March 2020, “You might give us a medicine that would spread the disease even more or make it last longer.”

Meanwhile, Iran has signed up for COVAX, an international program designed to distribute coronavirus vaccines to participating countries regardless of their wealth. It’s run in part by Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance. which says the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control has already issued a license for Iran to take part. The US Treasury has not reacted to Iran’s participation.

The chief of Iran’s central bank, Abdolnasser Hemmati, told state TV that a “third country” to obtain nearly 17 million doses of vaccines from COVAX. He did not provide further details, such as which vaccine or how the money would be sent. Under COVAX rules, Iran could at a maximum order enough doses to vaccinate half of its 82 million people.

President Hassan Rouhani said Saturday that Iran would refuse to make the COVAX payment through US financial institutions for fear of confiscation.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard have rejected the use of foreign-made vaccines The Deputy chief of the Revolutionary Guard, General Mohammad Reza Naghdi has been quoted to have said the Guard “does not recommend the injection of any foreign vaccine” candidates based on genetic material known as messenger RNA, which carries the instructions for cells to make proteins.

ANKARA, 29 December, 2020, (TON): Turkey and the UK are set to sign a landmark free trade agreement on Tuesday after a new round of technical talks, the first since Prime Minister Boris Johnson secured a new trade agreement with the European Union.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced the deal after a Cabinet meeting saying, "A new era begins starting in 2021, one in which both Turkey and the UK will win."

The deal replicates the existing trading terms between Ankara and London.

Erdogan said it will be Turkey’s "most important trade deal" since its 1995 Customs Union with the EU.

The two nations will sign a deal that replicates the existing trading terms between Ankara and London, but British trade minister Liz Truss said that she was hopeful a bespoke deal between the countries could be struck soon.

“The deal we expect to sign this week locks in tariff free trading arrangements and will help support our trading relationship. It will provide certainty for thousands of jobs across the UK in the manufacturing, automotive and steel industries,” Truss said in a statement.

“We now look forward to working with Turkey towards an ambitious tailor-made UK-Turkey trade agreement in the near future.”

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who visited London for a series of talks earlier this month, told The Financial Times (FT) that negotiations between the two countries on a trade deal covering manufactured goods, agriculture, and services are “going very well" and that they were "close to finalizing it.”

The trading relationship was worth 18.6 billion pounds ($25.25bn) in 2019, and Britain said it was the fifth biggest trade deal the trade ministry had negotiated after agreements with Japan, Canada, Switzerland and Norway.

Britain has now signed trade agreements with 62 countries ahead of the end of the Brexit transition period on January 1, when it leaves the EU’s trading arrangements. It clinched its narrow trade deal with the EU, its biggest trading partner, last week.

In 2018, Turkey exported £10.6 billion of goods and services to the UK, its second most important export market after Germany. Turkey and the UK, free trade agreement will remove tariffs and quotas on industrial goods. A UK-Turkey trade deal is important for both countries commercially and politically. Bilateral relations have strengthened in recent years just as both countries’ relationships with the EU have deteriorated.

MALI, 29 December 2020, (TON): Three French soldiers were killed when their armoured vehicle hit an IED in the Hombori area of Mali’s central Mopti province. The soldiers were deployed in Mali to carryout operations against armed groups in Africa”s Sahel region.

French defence minister Florence Parly said the soldiers were working “in an area where terrorist groups are attacking civilians and threatening the regional stability”.

French soldiers are deployed in Mali since France intervention in January 2013 to expel armed group which overrun parts of the West African country. The total number of the French soldier killed so far has risen to 47.

The locals of Mali are resisting French military intervention since launching of French Operation Barkhane.

No group has claimed responsibility for planting the IED, however, the locals claim that it is the handiwork of foreign agencies to remain employed on the United Nations duties and compel foreign forces to remain deployed in the area of northern and central Mali to allow minority communities flourish.

MOSCOW. 29 December 2020, (TON): Russia’s prison service has given ultimatum to Alexei Navalny to immediately fly back from Germany and report at a Moscow or be jailed if he returns after that deadline of 29 December.

Navalny was one of the strongest critic of President Vladimir Putin and was being airlifted to Germany for treatment in August, when he collapsed. The Western nations alleged that it was an attempt to murder him with a Novichok nerve agent. However, Russia has denied any involvement in the incident.

Navalny is serving out a suspended three-and-a-half-year prison term over a theft case he says was politically motivated. His probation period expires on 30 December.

The prison service said in a statement late on Monday that it had summoned Navalny to report to the inspection authority and that his suspended sentence could be changed to a real jail term if his suspected violations of the terms of the suspended sentence were proven to be true. However, it seems that it was impossible for Navalny to return in time.

NEW YORK, 29 December, 2020, (TON): United Nations Security Council on Monday condemned Friday's attacks against the Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA).

In a statement, the members of the Security Council condemned "in the strongest terms" the attacks against the UN mission in the Central African Republic (CAR), which resulted in three peacekeepers from Burundi killed and two others injured.

Unidentified "armed combatants" launched the attacks in Dekoa and near Sibut, both in Kemo prefecture, hours after a rebel coalition fighting the government called off a unilateral truce and reiterated calls for the suspension of a general election scheduled to take place on Sunday.

The members of the Security Council expressed their deepest condolences and sympathy to the families of the peacekeepers killed, as well as to Burundi and to MINUSCA. They wished the injured a speedy recovery.

They also condemned "in the strongest terms" all attacks, provocations and incitement to violence against MINUSCA by armed groups and other perpetrators.

The members of the Security Council reiterated their full support for MINUSCA and expressed their deep appreciation to MINUSCA's troop- and police-contributing countries.

The attacks came as voters in CAR geared up for presidential and legislative elections, deemed a key test for the country’s ability to recover stability after decades of political turmoil and armed conflict.

NEW DELHI, 29 December, 2020, (TON): a man was beaten to death by two men in broad daylight on a busy street in India Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad Street on Monday, showed a gruesome video that went viral.

A gruesome video shows a man lying bloodied and motionless on a busy street as two men batter him to death with sticks.

The victim, Ajay a 21-year-old florist was allegedly beaten over a professional rivalry. According to an Indian Express report, police said that the two accused, Govind and Amit started assaulting Ajay while he was travelling in an auto in Loni area.

The cars, motorcycles and vehicles pass by, someone even shoots a video of the horrific crime committed in the broad daylight in UP’s Ghaziabad city, but no one stops the men or takes the victim to the hospital. The man succumbed to the injuries.

The video shows blood splattered on the road as the accused keep on hitting the victim before they flee the spot.

The reality of caste-based violence in Indian cities confirm the grim reality of secular India. India is in the shackles of prejudice, discrimination and violence that keep more than one-quarter of India’s population at the bottom of socio-economic hierarchy and targets of hate crimes.

LONDON, 29 December 2020, (TON): Britain on Saturday published the text of its narrow trade agreement with the European Union just five days before it exits one of the world’s biggest trading blocs.

The text includes a 1,246-page trade document, as well as accords on nuclear energy, exchanging classified information, civil nuclear energy and a series of joint declarations.

The “Draft EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement” means that from 2300 GMT on December 31, when Britain finally leaves the European Union’s single market and customs union, there will be no tariffs or quotas on the movement of goods originating in either place between the United Kingdom and the EU.

Michael Gove, a senior British minister who campaigned alongside Johnson to leave the EU, said, “Friendships have been strained, families were divided and our politics has been rancorous and, at times, ugly,” Gove wrote in The Times. “We can develop a new pattern of friendly cooperation with the EU, a special relationship if you will, between sovereign equals,” Gove said.

WASHINGTON, 29 December, 2020, (TON): The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Monday to override President Donald Trump's veto of a $740 billion defense policy bill, in a rebuke to the president that underscored deep divisions in the Republican Party during his final weeks in office.

The 322-87 House vote, in which 109 Republicans voted to override Trump's veto, leaves the measure's fate to the Republican-led Senate, where a final vote is expected this week. If the Senate seconds the House action, it would be the first veto override of Trump's presidency.

The Democrat-controlled chamber voted 322-87 to override the veto of the bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The NDAA defines the policy for the US Department of Defense and has passed every year in the last five decades.

Trump said he blocked the legislation, because he wanted it to overturn liability protections for social media companies unrelated to national security, and opposed a provision to rename military bases named after generals who fought for the pro-slavery Confederacy during the Civil War.

The defense bill also has provisions that could impede Trump's plans to pull back thousands of troops from places like Afghanistan and Germany.

Trump said during his veto that the bill restricts his ability to conduct foreign policy, "particularly my efforts to bring our troops home.''

The legislation, which addresses a host of defence policy issues and includes a pay raise for U.S. troops, has been passed by Congress every year since 1961.

The bill passed both chambers of Congress with margins greater than the two-thirds majorities needed to override the president's veto.

So far, Congress has not been able to override a Trump veto but the defense bill has garnered extensive support from US lawmakers.