KABUL, 12 November 2021, (TON): The Turkish Humanitarian Aid Foundation (IHH) donated 100 metric tons of improved wheat seeds to the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock to BNA, Mawlavi Abdul Rahman Rashed, Acting Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock, thanked the friendly Turkish country for handing over the aid.

He said “we thank the Turkish government for helping the people of Afghanistan in these difficult times.”

Security is now restored throughout Afghanistan, and we call on countries and international organizations to work more closely with the Afghan peasants to solve the people’s problems.

Rashid assured that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has established a government free of corruption.

He added “about 70% of the people of Afghanistan are farmers and we assure the countries and charities that help the Afghan peasants that their aid will not be wasted and will be transparently People in need are distributed.”

WARSAW, 11 November 2021, (TON): Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of orchestrating a wave of migrants trying to illegally enter Poland from Belarus, saying the attack threatens to destabilise the European Union.

The accusation came as thousands of desperate migrants were trapped in freezing weather on the Belarus-Poland border, where the presence of troops from both sides has raised fears of a confrontation.

Western critics have for months said Belarus’s strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko is luring migrants from the Middle East to his country and then sending them across the border in retaliation for EU sanctions.

Morawiecki visited guards, troops and police at the border on Tuesday before turning his sights on Russia, Belarus’s main international backer.

Morawiecki told the Polish parliament “this attack which Lukashenko is conducting has its mastermind in Moscow, the mastermind is President Putin.”

He said “migrants were being used as “human shields to destabilise the situation in Poland and the EU.”

Germany, which accused Lukashenko of unscrupulously exploiting migrants by sending them to the Polish border, called Wednesday for new EU sanctions against Belarus.

DAMASCUS, 11 November 2021, (TON): The Kurdish administration in northeastern Syria said that a Turkish drone strike targeting a car in the border city of Qamishli killed three civilians.

The strike, which was carried out “killed three members of a single family”, including an 82-year-old man, a statement released by the autonomous administration said.

Nuri Mahmoud, a spokesman for the Kurdish security forces, named the dead as “national figure Yusuf Kello and his two grandsons Mazloum and Muhammad.”

The spokesman said on Twitter “the treacherous targeting of the patriots of northeastern Syria by the Turkish occupation will not discourage us.”

Turkey, which considers the Kurdish movement that dominates the administration to be a terrorist organisation, has thousands of troops deployed across northern Syria.

The army and its Syrian rebel proxies have seized swathes of territory in successive military operations since 2016, most of them targeting Kurdish forces.

Last month, Erdogan said “Turkey was preparing to step up operations in Syria, where its troops have clashed with Kurdish forces supported by the United States in the fight against the Islamic State group.

Qamishli residents are expected to hold a protest later on Wednesday against the latest drone strike.

KABUL, 11 November 2021, (TON): By the time the Taliban took over Afghanistan in mid-August, at the main hospital in Maidan Shar, a city of 35,000 in the centre of the country, most of the staff had not been paid in months. Essential supplies such as medicine and food were scarce, and disappearing fast.

Almost all international support came to a halt, and it seemed certain that for health workers in lifesaving facilities throughout the crisis-wracked nation, and the millions they serve, things would only get worse.

But then, as one midwife recalled, in testimony exclusively supplied to UN News, the support started coming, thanks to a groundbreaking new agreement led by the UN’s development agency.

In the past few weeks, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), under an agreement with the Global Fund, has quietly extended a lifeline to Afghanistan’s health system and all the families that depend on it, providing $15 million to avoid the collapse of the entire sector.

She said “we were able to save the lives of most critical patients, and we were able to support inpatient services, for more than 500 women and children.”

With the weather turning from autumn warmth, to a freezing winter, she used some of the salary she had finally begun to receive, to get some blankets and other materials to keep her family safe.

The midwife is just one of the over 23,000 health workers, in nearly 2,200 health facilities in 31 provinces, that have received wages since the scheme got underway. UNDP has also paid for medicines and health supplies.

BEIJING, 11 November 2021, (TON): Chinese military forces are holding exercises near Taiwan in response to a visit by a US congressional delegation to the island.

The drills in the area of the Taiwan Strait are a necessary measure to safeguard national sovereignty China’s Defense Ministry said in the announcement that gave no details on the timing, participants and location of the exercises.

It said the joint war preparedness patrol by the Eastern Theater Command was prompted by the “seriously incorrect words and actions of relevant countries over the issue of Taiwan” and the actions of those advocating the self-governing island’s independence.

The US has strong but informal relations with Taiwan, and tensions have been rising between the US and China over several issues including Hong Kong, the South China Sea, the coronavirus pandemic and trade.

Details on the US delegation that reportedly arrived in Taiwan were not immediately available.

A Chinese Defense Ministry statement from an unidentified spokesperson strongly condemned the visit, saying “no one should underestimate the firm determination of the People’s Liberation Army to safeguard the Chinese people’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

China regards Taiwan as its own territory to be annexed by military force if necessary. The sides split amid civil war in 1949 and, following a brief period of rapprochement, relations have grown increasingly tense under Taiwan’s independence-leaning President Tsai Ing-wen.

NEW YORK, 11 November 2021, (TON): UN human rights experts on Wednesday condemned the record-high levels of violence carried out by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories this year.

They also criticized the Israeli government for its lack of action to curb the attacks and protect Palestinians. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel, as an occupying power, has an obligation to protect the population under occupation.

The experts said “instead of intervening to halt the violence, however, Israeli security forces and private security companies respond to settler-related violence by ordering Palestinians to leave the area, including Palestinian-owned land, or even actively support the settlers.”

According to the UN, 410 attacks by settlers have been recorded so far this year, during which four Palestinians were killed. This compares with 358 recorded attacks last year and 335 in 2019.

The independent experts said “these settler attacks are primarily directed against rural Palestinian families living on small farms or in villages and towns in the occupied West Bank, located in close proximity to Israeli settlements.”

“Many of these Palestinians reside in the so-called ‘Area C’ of the West Bank, which is under complete Israeli security and civil control, and where Israel’s de facto annexation stratagem is most evident.”

MOSCOW, 11 November 2021, (TON): Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said “Russian and US envoys for Afghanistan will hold a meeting in Moscow on November 15.”

She said in response to a question about the meeting “yes, I can confirm this.”

She said that Russian presidential representative for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov, who’s also director of the Foreign Ministry’s Second Department for Asia, will discuss the current situation in the country and compare notes on the key issues of the Afghan agenda with Thomas West, the US State Department’s special representative for Afghanistan.”

West told reporters during a phone conference that the US needs to cooperate with Russia, Iran, China and other countries to stabilize the situation in Afghanistan. Zakharova described the statement as a positive signal.

MOSCOW, 11 November 2021, (TON): The reconnaissance aircraft of the NATO countries have significantly increased the number of flights near the borders of the Russian Federation in the Black Sea region over the past day.

This was reported to reporters at the Russian Ministry of Defense.

The Russian Defense Ministry said “over the past day, the reconnaissance aircraft of the NATO countries have significantly increased the intensity of flights near the borders of the Russian Federation in the Black Sea region.”

The ministry recalled that on November 9, over the Black Sea, the US Air Force’s E-8C airborne reconnaissance aircraft was accompanied by the radio-technical means of the anti-aircraft missile forces of the Russian Aerospace Forces.

The ministry said “also in the past day, Russian anti-aircraft missile forces over the Black Sea were accompanied by three reconnaissance aircraft of NATO member states.”

RIYADH, 11 November 2021, (TON): The general supervisor of the King Salman Humanitarian Aid And Relief Center, Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, met Iraq’s Defense Minister Juma Inad Al-Jubouri at the center’s headquarters in Riyadh.

During the meeting, Al-Rabeeah reviewed the work and achievements of KSrelief and the programs it has implemented since its establishment in various countries, including Iraq.

Topics related to humanitarian and relief affairs between the two countries and ways to enhance them were also discussed.

Also, Al-Rabeeah met the Saudi ambassador to Mauritania, Mohammed bin Ayed Al-Balawi. During the meeting, they discussed issues of common interest related to humanitarian and relief affairs and the latest projects implemented by KSrelief in Mauritania.

Al-Balawi expressed his appreciation for the humanitarian work provided by the center.

Meanwhile, a KS relief team inspected a project to train and support the professional and business skills of young people in the districts of Yemen’s Lahj governorate, in cooperation with the UN Development Program, on Wednesday.

The project provides technical support, in the form of training courses and advisory services in the field of business development and management, and financial support for the purchase of equipment.

BERLIN, 11 November 2021, (TON): The spokesman for the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany Steve Alter said “Germany is ready to provide humanitarian support to migrants who are on the border of Belarus with Poland.”

He recalled that Germany also offered Poland its assistance in the fight against the crisis, “this offer remains in force,” since Warsaw has not yet requested this support.

He also explained that humanitarian support should be organized by the European Commission, and not by individual countries.

Alter said at a briefing “Germany is ready to contribute to the provision of humanitarian assistance to people who are on the border with Poland.”

In turn, the official representative of the German Cabinet of Ministers Steffen Seibert recalled that Brussels is already dealing with this topic, including initiating contacts with the UN on this issue.

He also pointed out that such assistance is urgent, because “winter is coming, it gets colder, and the nights are even colder, they (migrants) need to be helped with clothes and food.”

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that you cannot shift the blame for the migration crisis to Belarus, it was caused by the military incursions of the West in the Middle East.