COLOMBO, 01 August 2021, (TON): The Catholic Bishops Conference in Sri Lanka has requested the teachers who are keeping away from online classes to consider resuming Zoom classes.

The Bishops Conference said in its release said “think of your duty of producing able children who would take over the future of the nation and consider resuming Zoom classes.”

The Catholic Bishops Conference said “at the same time we request the government to think of children and rectify the salary anomalies of teachers as it is the teachers which matter the most in moulding children into useful citizens of the future.”

The statement stressed “The schools and other institutions of learning were closed because of the pandemic for the safety of children and youth. Nevertheless, we wish to state that situation of children causes us great concern. Therefore we call upon the government to reopen schools as soon as possible as children require emotional and psychological growth, interaction with others and extracurricular activities in addition to sciences.”

THIMPHU, 01 August 2021, (TON): The Centenary Famers’ Market (CFM) in Thimphu was handed over from the Bhutan Agriculture and Food Regulatory Authority (BAFRA) to the Department of Agricultural Marketing and Cooperatives (DAMC) under the agriculture ministry on July 28.

The facility was under Thimphu Thromde after its establishment in 2007. It was managed by BAFRA from 2008 till the end of July this year.

DAMC’s director Kinlay Tshering said that the facility was handedover to the department to segregate the marketing and the regulation aspects under two different agencies.

DAMC was established in 2009 to better equip and prepare the agriculture ministry to cater for the needs of the rapid transition of the agriculture sector from a primarily subsistence to a major market economy.

BAFRA, established in 2000, functions as the national authority to ensure quality and safety of food and feed.

Kinlay Tshering said that the department’s aim was to focus on local produce and make CFM a transit for marketing agriculture produce.

She said “it is not our intention to replace all the imported produce with local ones.”

She added that with new ideas DAMC will look at how it can promote local produce in such kind of market facility.

Kinlay Tshering said “what farm produce is in deficit will be imported, what we have in excess during on-season, we could export.”

RIYADH, 01 August 2021, (TON): A super cruise ship has departed Saudi Arabia for the first time, setting sail for regional waters as the Kingdom seeks to expand its tourism industry and diversify its oil-dependant economy.

The MSC Bellissima, a vessel longer than three football fields, departed for the first in a series of voyages from Jeddah Islamic Port to Aqaba in Jordan and Safaga in Egypt.

The launch of the service on Friday comes two days after Saudi Arabia opened its first cruise ship terminal at the port in Jeddah, on the Kingdom's west coast.

Cruise Saudi managing director Fawaz Farooqi said, quoted by Saudi Press Agency “the inauguration of the first cruise ship port represents an important step ... to support the growth of the tourism sector in the Kingdom.”

Developing the tourism and leisure sector is one of the foundations of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's “Vision 2030” plan to prepare the Arab world's largest economy for the post-oil era.

The Gulf country enacted a landmark decision in 2019 to offer tourist visas, relaxing rules that had largely restricted visits to business travellers and Muslim pilgrims.

Citizens from 49 countries, mostly European had become eligible to apply to visit the Kingdom, which has a population of around 35 million.

NAYPYITAW, 01 August 2021, (TON): Myanmar's army seized power on February 1 from the civilian government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi after her ruling party won elections that the military argued were tainted by fraud.

Small groups of students protested against Myanmar's military junta on Saturday in Mandalay and a human rights group accused the armed forces of crimes against humanity ahead of the six-month anniversary of the army's takeover.

Bands of university students rode motorbikes around Mandalay waving red and green flags, saying they rejected any possibility of talks with the military to negotiate a return to civilian rule.

"There's no negotiating in a blood feud" read one sign.

Myanmar's army seized power on February 1 from the civilian government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi after her ruling party won elections that the military argued were tainted by fraud.

DHAKA, 01 August 2021, (TON): Oficials said “monsoon floods and landslides have cut off more than 300,000 people in villages across southeast Bangladesh and killed at least 20 people, including six Rohingya refugees.”

The region along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border where nearly one million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar are in camps has been battered by torrential rain since Monday.

Mamunur Rashid, the district administrator, said “the floods have stranded some 306,000 people in Cox’s Bazar district. At least 70 villages have been submerged by floods.”

He added “at least 20 people have died in floods and landslides including six Rohingya refugees,” he added.”

Officials said that about 36,000 people have been moved into schools and cyclone shelters.

“Many homes are waterlogged. Thousands of people have not been able to get out for the last three days. The roads are all blocked,” Tipu Sultan, a councillor in remote Jhilwanja Union, said.

Earlier this week Bangladesh evacuated 10,000 Rohingya from around refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar because of the storms.

ISLAMABAD, 01 August 2021, (TON): The Foreign Office has lauded European Parliament members for penning a letter to the president and vice-president of the European Commission in which they have highlighted Indian atrocities in occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJK).

Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri, responding to media queries, said “the letter was yet another demonstration of the continuing global censure of the ongoing human rights violations and humanitarian crisis in the occupied region.”

Chaudhri said “despite India continuously peddling false propaganda in futile attempts to push the "sham narrative" of so-called "normalcy" in occupied Kashmir, the global censure and condemnation of Indian atrocities in the region continue.”

The spokesperson said “the condemnations have increased in the wake of the egregious violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms in occupied Kashmir after India’s illegal and unilateral actions of August 5, 2019.”

The spokesperson highlighted that the United Nations Security Council has discussed the issue of Jammu and Kashmir at least three times since 5 August 2019.

He said “the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has issued two reports in 2018 and 2019, making specific recommendations including the institution of an Independent Commission of Inquiry to investigate the gross and systematic human rights violations by India in the occupied territory."

He further said “global parliaments have debated the issue of Jammu and Kashmir; the international human rights and humanitarian organisations, as well as global media, have consistently raised the issue of human rights violations in occupied Kashmir”

WASHINGTON, 01 August 2021, (TON): According to a statement released from the White House “US President Joe Biden has appointed Pakistani-American lawyer Khizr Khan, also a critic of ex-president Donald Trump and the father of a soldier slain in Baghdad, as the commissioner for the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.”

The announcement is one of four such appointments and nominations, with the White House website saying that it "underscores the President’s commitment to build an Administration that looks like America and reflects people of all faiths."

Apart from Khan, Sharon Kleinbaum was appointed the commissioner of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, whereas Deborah Lipstadt was nominated for the post of special envoy to monitor and combat anti-semitism and Rashad Hussain as ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom.

The Office of International Religious Freedom said it welcomed the appointment. "We look forward to collaborating with them to advance religious freedom for all."

Khan, 71, is a Pakistan-born lawyer who criticised Trump for his disparaging remarks against American Muslims during the 2016 Democratic National Convention (DNC).

Khan’s son, Humayun Khan, was a US Army captain killed in 2004 while serving in Iraq. He is buried at Arlington cemetery, Virginia and was posthumously awarded top military medals, Bronze Star and Purple Heart.

Khan gave a passionate speech at the 2016 convention, along with his wife, Ghazala, in which he questioned whether Trump, then the Republican presidential nominee, had ever read the US Constitution. He pulled his own copy out of his pocket for emphasis and said Trump had “sacrificed nothing and no one”.

KABUL, 01 August 2021, (TON): Some lawmakers from the defense committees of the two houses of the parliament said that the poor management in the Ministry of Defense (MoD) in the span of one year under its former leadership is behind the deteriorating security situation in the country during which over 200 districts have fallen to the Taliban.

The absence of the former defense minister Asadullah Khalid for seven months last year was one of the major issues that led to challenges in the Ministry of Defense and affected battlefields, said Hashem Alokozay, the head of the Senate’s Defense Committee.

Alokozay said “the entire challenges emancipated from the seven months’ absence of (former) minister of defense during a difficult time. We saw that many districts fell to the Taliban without resistance.”

Ali Akbar Jamshidi, member of the Afghan Parliament’s Defense Committee, said that former US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Scott Miller often opposed the dismissal of Assadullah Khalid as the defense minister. This led to challenges in the Ministry of Defense, he said.

In Khalid’s absence, Gen. Yasin Zia was appointed as acting minister of defense while he was also the chief of army staff.

ISLAMABAD, 01 August 2021, (TON): Senior officials from Pakistan, the United States, Russia and China will meet in Doha on August 11 as part of efforts to prevent Afghanistan from slipping into another civil war.

The meeting of the extended Troika comes against the backdrop of the Afghan Taliban making rapid inroads in the war-ravaged country since the start of the US and Nato forces’ withdrawal and the lack of any headway in the intra-Afghan talks.

The special representatives of these four key players last met in April in Doha, Qatar, and previously also held unannounced sessions in what appeared to be an effort to develop regional consensus on the Afghan endgame.

Although the US has serious differences with China and Russia on many issues, Washington is now keen to take Beijing and Moscow onboard on the current Afghan situation.

Both Russia and China have criticized the US for hasty withdrawal and declared that Washington has failed to bring about peace in the war-torn country.

Pakistan also expressed similar views as Prime Minister Imran Khan recently blamed the US for leaving behind a mess in Afghanistan. Pakistan, Russia and China are increasingly worried that the renewed unrest in Afghanistan will be destabilizing for these three countries.

An Afghan Taliban delegation, which earlier this week visited China, was told by Beijing to make a clear break from the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a UN designated terrorist outfit seeking an independent state for Chinese Muslims in Xinxiang.

KABUL, 01 August 2021, (TON): More than 180 people were unaccounted after raging flash floods in Nuristan province left more than 60 people dead and homes devastated with rescue teams struggling amid Taliban threat.

In Nuristan, over 60 people were killed after heavy rains pounded parts of Kamdish district and caused torrential rivers to reduce hundreds of houses to rubble.

Governor of Nuristan Hafiz Abdul Qayyum told media that about 180 people had disappeared due to floods in Kamdish district, 60 of whom had been found dead. He said Red Crescent teams had arrived in the district for rescue operation.

Roads have been destroyed, making it difficult to deliver aid, and an investigation is underway into how to help flood victims. The aid, he said, includes tents, clothing, cooking utensils, cash and non-cash aid, and will be sent to flood victims as soon as the situation improves.

According to the governor “the bodies of some of the victims were found from the Kunar River in Nari, Asmar and Sarkano areas of Kunar province in the vicinity of Nuristan, and efforts are underway to find the other missing and return their bodies to their families. The floods have also damaged hundreds of hectares of agricultural land.”

Saeedullah Nuristani, chairman of the Nuristan Provincial Council, and another councilmember said that 80 houses in the area had been destroyed and flooded. Nuristan Governor said the area was under Taliban control and that relief forces would arrive if the group did not obstruct aid workers. The floods in Mirdish village, 6km from Kamdish district center, started after heavy rains.