NEW DELHI, 27 December 2020, (TON):  The farmers of Punjab decided to continue with their demand of repealing three laws as their key demand decided on Sunday to hold 6^th Round of talks with government on Tuesday.

As the farmers’ protests entered 32st day on Sunday while office of the Union Agriculture Ministry confirming resumption four-point agenda meeting with a group of 40-farmer leaders at 11 am at Vigyan Bhavan on 29 December 2020.

Meanwhile, the farmer leaders said that they farmers have planned to negotiate repeal of three farm laws plus and the Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2020 while other demand will followed as talks resume on Tuesday.

Sources in the Government said, “neither  Government has given any assurance of repealing the three farm laws nor hopes are there of any possibility, but there are certain terms which Agriculture Ministry has agreed in principle which will be extended to the farmers”.

SRINAGAR, 26 December, 2020, (TON): In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), Indian troops in their fresh act of state terrorism martyred two Kashmiri youth in Shopian district, today.

According to Kashmir Media Service (KMS), the troops martyred the youth during a cordon and search operation in Kanigam area of the district. Earlier, two Indian troops were injured in an attack in the same area. The operation continued till the last reports came in.

Senior Hurriyat leader, Ghulam Muhammad Khan Sopori, in a statement issued in Srinagar paid glowing tributes to the martyred youth. He deplored that Indian troops were killing innocent Kashmiri youth on daily basis.

He added that India would not be able to prolong its illegal occupation of Jammu and Kashmir through its brutalities on the people of the territory.

Meanwhile, two Indian soldiers were killed and another was seriously injured after a barrack they were putting up collapsed at Machedi in Kathua district.

The Muslim majority population in the Kashmir Valley suffers from the repressive tactics of the security forces. Indian act of state terrorism appears to be the massive effort to alter demographic facts of the region.

ANKARA, 26 December, 2020, (TON): President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Turkey would like to have better ties with Israel, but criticised Israeli policy toward Palestinians as “unacceptable” and a “red line” for Ankara.

Turkey and Israel, once allies, have had a bitter falling out in recent years. Ankara has repeatedly condemned Israel’s occupation in the West Bank and its treatment of Palestinians. It has also criticised recent U.S.-brokered rapprochements between Israel and four Muslim countries.

Speaking to reporters after Friday prayers in Istanbul, Erdogan said “The Palestine policy is our red line. It is impossible for us to accept Israel’s Palestine policies. Their merciless acts there are unacceptable.”

“If there were no issues at the top level (in Israel), our ties could have been very different,” he said, adding that the two countries continued to share intelligence. “We would have liked to bring our ties to a better point.”

Over the past decade Israel-Turkey relations have been strained. Turkey and Israel expelled each other’s ambassadors in 2018 after Israeli forces killed dozens of Palestinians in clashes on the Gaza border. In August this year, Israel accused Turkey of giving passports to a dozen Hamas members in Istanbul, describing the move as “a very unfriendly step”.

Turkey has changed greatly over the past two decades, becoming richer and more self-confident, no longer dependent on Washington or Brussels.

KABUL, 26 December, 2020, (TON): The Taliban announced the release of 30 imprisoned Afghan security personnel on Thursday in the southern Kandahar province's Panjwai district.

Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the group, did not provide further details about the freed prisoners, but it appeared the decision was based on an order from the Taliban's leadership.

Earlier this year, the Afghan government has released 5,000 Taliban prisoners in exchange for the Taliban releasing around 1,000 Afghan security forces under a deal agreed that allowed US troops to return home and was meant to set the stage for negotiations between the Afghan parties on a new political settlement.

The prisoner swap was part of the terms of a separate US-Taliban deal signed in February.

TOKYO, 26 December 2020, (TON): Japan aims to eliminate gasoline-powered vehicles in about 15 years, the government said Friday in a plan to achieve Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s ambitious pledge to go carbon free by 2050 and generate nearly $2 trillion growth in green business and investment.

The “green growth strategy” urges utilities to bolster renewables and hydrogen while calling for auto industries to go carbon free by the mid-2030s.

Suga, in a policy speech in October, pledged to achieve net zero carbon emissions in 30 years. As the world faces an environmental challenge, green investment is an opportunity for growth not a burden, he said.

The strategy, which provides a roadmap to achieving the goals in different sectors, projected 30-50% increase in electricity demand and called for a push to triple renewables in the country’s energy mix to about 50-60% from the current level, while also maximizing use of nuclear power as a stable, clean source of energy.

The strategy shows an installation target for offshore wind power of up to 45 gigawatts by 2040.

Under the strategy, the government is also to provide tax incentives and other support to encourage investment into green technology, and projected an annual growth of 90 trillion yen ($870 billion) by 2030 and 190 trillion yen ($1.8 trillion) by 2050.

The government will offer tax incentives and other financial support to companies, such as a 2 trillion yen ($19 billion) green fund.

ADDIS ABABA, 26 December, 2020, (TON): Ethiopia will hold a parliamentary election on June 5, the electoral board said on Friday, as Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed seeks to quell political and ethnic violence in several regions.

Ethiopia will hold its parliamentary election on June 5 next year, the National Electoral Board said Friday, after polls scheduled for August 2020 were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's Prosperity Party, a pan-Ethiopian movement he established a year ago, faces opposition from increasingly strident ethnically-based parties seeking more sovereignty for the regions they represent.

Africa's second most populous nation with some 110 million citizens, Ethiopia has a federal system and 10 regional governments, many of whom have border disputes or are experiencing unrest.

The National Electoral Board said next year’s calendar for polls did not include an election in Tigray. It said the date for a Tigray vote would be set once an interim government, which was established during the conflict, opened election offices.

The tenure of both the parliament and Abiy was due to expire in October but was extended because the national vote was postponed from August this year due to the coronavirus crisis. The delayed ballot was a factor that provoked tensions between Abiy and the dissident area of Tigray, which ultimately saw the prime minister dispatch troops to the region last month in a military offensive that left thousands dead and led to tens of thousands of others seeking refuge.

In the northern Tigray region, thousands of people are believed to have died and 950,000 have fled their homes since fighting erupted on November 4.

Tigray held its own elections in September in defiance of the federal government, which declared the polls illegal.

BEIJING, 26 December, 2020, (TON): China’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has cleared its path to become the world’s largest economy before the end of the decade, according to a new report by a UK think-tank.

The annual report released on Saturday by Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) said that coronavirus pandemic and its economic fallout will help China rise past the US to become the world’s largest economy, a new report shows. Beijing is now expected to overtake the US by 2028, as opposed to 2033.

"We expect the United States’ share of global GDP to decline from 2021 onwards, and for the country to eventually be overtaken by China as the world’s largest economy," the CEBR said in its latest annual report.

"We now expect this to happen in 2028, five years sooner than in the previous edition of the WELT," referring to the think tank’s World Economic League Table, which measures countries’ economic performance.

The quickened pace has been attributed to the difference in Beijing and Washington’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and the recovery that followed. The report hailed China’s "skillful management of the pandemic", where an early lockdown kept the numbers under control.

The report added that the US would also see a strong post-pandemic rebound in the coming year, but its growth would slow down to 1.9% and 1.6% over the years that follow.

China, on the other hand, is headed for an average growth rate of 5.7% a year from 2021 till 2025. Between 2026 and 2030, it is expected to slow down to 4.5% a year. Japan is expected to remain the third-largest economy until the early 2030s.

ISLAMABAD, 26 December, 2020, (TON): The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has issued notices to Google Inc and Wikipedia for "disseminating sacrilegious content" through the two platforms, it emerged on Friday.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) called for the immediate removal of "unlawful content" from Google. The regulators pointed to pages that show "misleading search results associated with 'present khalifa of Islam' and an unauthentic version of the Holy Quran uploaded by the Ahmedi community on Google Play Store".

"Complaints were also received regarding hosting of caricatures and dissemination of misleading, wrong, deceptive and deceitful information through articles published on Wikipedia portraying Mirza Masroor Ahmad as a Muslim," the PTA said in a statement.

"The platform has been issued the notice under the Removal and Blocking of Unlawful Online Content (Procedure, Oversight and Safeguard) Rules 2020 to remove sacrilegious content to avoid any legal action by the regulator."

"After extensive communication on the matter, Wikipedia has been finally served with the notice to remove the sacrilegious content to avoid any legal action," the statement said.

"In case the platforms remain non-compliant, PTA shall be constrained to initiate further action under Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016 (PECA) and Rules 2020," the Pakistani regulator added.

In recent months, the government of Pakistan has sought to exercise greater control over the digital sphere by approving a draft policy on objectionable content.

NEW YORK, 26 December, 2020, (TON): United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday strongly condemned the attacks by unidentified armed combatants on UN peacekeepers in the Central African Republic (CAR), said his spokesman.

Friday's attacks on the national defense and security forces of the CAR and the UN peacekeeping force in the country left three peacekeepers from Burundi killed and two others wounded, said Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman, in a statement.

The Secretary-General offered his deepest condolences to the family of the deceased as well as to the Government of Burundi, and wished a swift recovery to the injured.

The Secretary-General “urges the Central African Republic authorities to spare no effort in investigating and identifying the perpetrators so that they can be swiftly brought to justice,” Mr. Dujarric said, recalling that attacks against UN peacekeepers may constitute a war crime and that sanctions can be applied against perpetrators who are brought to justice.

The secretary-general reaffirmed the continued commitment of the UN to supporting efforts to advance peace and stability in the CAR, it said.

On 3 June, an attack by armed insurgents killed a UN peacekeeper from Tanzania and injured seven others while they were patrolling in the country’s west.

BAGHDAD, 26 December, 2020, (TON): Iraqi prominent Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Friday warned Iran and the United States not to involve Iraq in their conflict.

"Iraq has become a victim to the U.S.-Iranian conflict and has been greatly affected as if it is an arena for their conflicts," al-Sadr said on his official Twitter account.

"Therefore, I call on Iran to distance Iraq from its conflict, and I warn the (U.S.) occupier against continuing its conflict ... Iraq and the Iraqis are not a party to the conflict," he added.

With tensions between Iran and the U.S. already simmering, the January 3 U.S. airstrike that killed powerful Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani is sure to have ripple effects across the region. Maj. Gen. Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, coordinated Iran’s military operations and proxies across the Middle East.

The Iraq-U.S. relations have been strained since January 3, when a U.S. drone struck a convoy at the Baghdad airport, killing Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy chief of Iraq's paramilitary Hashd Shaabi forces.

Iraq worries that any sort of action against Iran more broadly could result in an open confrontation between Washington and Tehran on Iraqi soil.

Two days after the US drone attack, Iraqi parliamentarians voted to expel foreign troops from the country but this resolution is nonbinding and it remains to be seen if it will be implemented.