By Afshain Afzal

Yesterday was 26 November, I was watching patiently Indian media and official statements about attack on Indian Mumbai on 26 November. If we recall, the moment Indian authorities came to know through media that Mumbai has been attacked at different locations on 26 November, New Delhi did not waste any time in leveling allegations that all attackers were Pakistanis. Later all attacker were killed leaving lone attacker Ajmal Amir Kasab, whose parents were Indian national who migrated to Pakistan decades after partition, to dance on the tune of Indian Intelligence agencies. Without giving any regard to the country’s law and court procedure, those statements of Kasab which he reportedly furnished to unidentified Intelligence officers during interrogation sessions, even before his case was admitted in the court, were regarded as evidence against groups living in other countries, thousands of miles away. Isn’t it the height of stupidly on the part of world powers and the United Nations to over react on the Mumbai attacks by banning a Muslim organization namely Jamaat-ud-Daawa without even looking at on ground evidences against this unfortunate organization? Ironically, when the case of Ajmal Kasab was pending before Mumbai court and there were possibilities that he may come out as an innocent but India executed him only to justify its own Intelligence plot. One wonders that if this is the criteria of the world governments and organizations like United Nations, there is very dark future of this world.

It is on record that Ajmal Amir Kasab denied all charges before the Mumbai court as well as his alleged links with Lashkar-e-Tayyiaba or Pakistan. One cannot say with confidence if Kasab is guilty in Mumbai attacks or otherwise but who would undo the United Nations Security Council Resolutions which banned Lashkar-e-Tayyiaba and Jamaat-ud-Dawah. If we recall, Jonathan Evans, the Director General of British MI 5 said that his organization had investigated Mumbai attackers communications and uncovered connections between the Mumbai attackers and Britain. MI 5 analysts, who claim to be experts at picking clues from phrases and communications, feel that there could be connection of the militant group which carried out Mumbai attacks with Indian Hyderabad. It reminds that a similar incident which happened five years back in India when four Muslim terrorists linked with Lashkar-e-Tayyiaba as claimed by Indian agencies, who had planned to launch a massive terrorist attack on the Indian Military Academy (IMA), Dehradun were arrested in 2005. The terrorist included Maulana Dilawar Khan of Imdad-ul-Uloom Madrassa in Delhi's Welcome area and Imam Masood Ahmed, an Imam at the Baghwali Masjid in the same area, Haroon Rashid, a former mechanical engineer at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and Muhammad Iftikhar Ahsan Malik, a second year student of Biotechnology at Dehradun's Dolphin Institute of Biomedical & Natural Sciences. Police was quick enough to put recovery of a grenade and a Chinese pistol with 24 bullets on them. Ironically, all the four so called terrorists were acquitted and released in the light of Patiala House Court judgment of 8 January 2010, which set them free for want of evidence. So everyone despite Indian media’s hype would have not been surprised if the case of Ajmal Amir Kasab and his links with Laskar-e-Tayyiaba also turned out to be fake story.

If we recall, the Mumbai Police Crime Branch arrested 36 Indian nationals who were behind Mumbai attacks. In the same regard, a remand application was submitted by Joint Commissioner of Mumbai Police (Crime) Rakesh Maria before the MCOCA court on 15 December 2008 to allow investigate if the Indian Mujahideen (IM) militants had any links with those behind the Mumbai attacks. Assistant Commissioner of Police, Ashok Duraphe who had drafted the remand application confirmed that they filed an application to verify if the 20 alleged members of Indian Mujahideen in their custody had links with Mumbai attacks. Mumbai Police filed a second remand application for additional suspects before the same MCOCA court on 2 January 2009 but under the pressure of Indian Intelligence agencies they filed a corrigendum next day, requesting the court to delete that point from the application. Donald Van Duyn, Chief Intelligence Officer, Directorate of Intelligence, National Security Branch of FBI disclosed that his organization is conducting an independent probe of Mumbai attacks and has sought permission from New Delhi to interrogate more suspects locked up with Indian Police. The FBI interviewed suspects in Indian custody and collected critical information on attack planning and group leadership of militants involved in Mumbai attacks. The concluded western link as well as Indian home grown terrorism.

Our memories are still sharp to recall that Kavita, wife of slain ATS (Anti Terrorist Squad) Chief Hemant Karkare and their daughter had asked the Indian government pardon Ajmal Amir Kasab on humanitarian grounds. What made Kavita and her daughter to make such an unusual request indicate that Ajmal Amir Kasab had nothing to do with killing of Hemant Karkare. Kasab himself in a statement immediately after his arrest disclosed that he did not open fire on any Police officer as he was twice hit by Police bullets on his hand before he could do anything. Probably Hemant Karkare had discussed with his wife about his extinction plans by RAW and Mossad, before leaving for operation on 26 November. It is on record that Hemant Karkare, soon after receiving the word of warning from the RAW, personally called the managers of the Taj and Oberoi-Trident Hotels, which were later attacked and asked them to scale up the security at their hotels. He specifically told the managers that he had received a warning that the militants had been planning an attack on the hotels. Indian renowned industrialists Ratan Tata told reporters after Mumbai attacks that Karkare had asked hotel management two days before the attacks to scale up security at hotels. Hemant Karkare’s wife stance of letting off Ajmal Kasab is not shared by many Hindus on the plea that it would be insulting to their martyr Hemant Karkare, if he is let off on humanitarian grounds without any punishment. Whatever the case may be, any sane person can make out that Mumabi attacks were an attempt to cover up Indian Military Intelligence (MI) terrorists, who were caught red-handed in terrorist activities like Malegaon, Nanded and Samjhaota Express blasts, Pathankot attack.

SRINGAR, 19 November, 2020, (TON): Indian troops in their fresh act of state terrorism in illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, martyred four Kashmiri youth in Jammu district, today.

According to police officials in the district said, on Thursday morning during an encounter near Nagrota in Jammu district four people travelling in a truck were killed.

Indian troops along with CRPF and army opened fire on a vehicle in which they were travelling at Ban Toll Plaza near Nagrota on Jammu-Srinagar Highway.

They were travelling from Jammu to Srinagar in a truck when they were shot to death in a fake encounter by Indian troops at Ban Toll Plaza in Jammu early today.

Without any evidence Indian Army as usual claimed that youth were members of Jaish-e-Mohammed group. The area was cordoned off and additional forces were rushed to the spot.

Indian military offensive had been continued in valley to crush the Kashmiris’ freedom struggle. Killing Kashmiri youth has become a regular feature for Indian security forces to bring about demographic change and to wipe out Muslim majority, by a slow trickle of youth.

JAKARTA, 18 November 2020, (TON): Finland’s Minister of Economic Affairs Mika Lintilä will meet Indonesia’s Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Arifin Tasrif today on 18 November 2020 as part of a virtual Team Finland visit. The main themes of the meeting will be energy and Indonesia’s new intelligent energy projects.

The aim of the ministerial meeting is to improve the operating conditions of Finnish companies in the Indonesian energy markets and to promote business partnerships between Finland and Indonesia. 

Indonesia’s growing economy offers a wide range of opportunities for Finnish companies in the Southeast Asia region. In particular, the expertise of Finnish companies in renewable energy, electrification of society, bioeconomy and circular economy can be utilised for Indonesia’s economic development.

The International Renewable Energy Agency IRENA estimates that the demand for energy in Indonesia could increase by one quarter and the demand for electricity could triple between 2015 and 2030. Although the country’s dependence on domestic coal and imported oil products has grown, it is also increasingly using renewable energy sources. Indonesia aims to increase the share of renewable energy to 23% of energy consumption by 2025 and to 31% by 2050.

WASHINGTON, 16 November 2020, (TON): Violence erupted on the streets of downtown Washington on Saturday night, after thousands of protesters supporting US President Donald Trump held a protest rally to back claims of massive voter fraud and electoral malpractices during the presidential elections 2020.

The “Million MAGA March”, held a week after Democrat Joe Biden was declared by media as the winner of the November 3 election. The rally was peaceful and the only objective was to show to the authorities, the judiciary and international community the fraud election that took place in the US to declare Joe Biden as winner.  

Clashes erupted between Trump’s and Biden’s supporters on late night when peaceful Trump supported were attacked and manhandled to disrupt “Million MAGA March”.

A mass brawl broke out later at night just in the vicinity only some blocks away from the White House to fail the march to compel American judiciary to take action over fraud election 2020.          

KABUL, 16 November 2020, (TON): The Afghan Ambassador to the United States, Roya Rehmani visited US Air Force Base at Moody to have firsthand experience of A-29 aircraft. Washington is delivering remaining A-29 Super Tucano light attack to Afghanistan to strengthen the Afghan Air Force.

A-29 attack aircraft will replace the fleet of Mi-35 aircrafts in Afghan Air Force. The Afghan Air Force has made major strides in its ability to plan and conduct operations, especially on its A-29 Super Tucano fleet. The US has provided 18 A-29s to the Afghan Air Force.

As per the report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) Afghan Air Force has 154 aircrafts. It has three flight wings and 18 detachments, flying A-29s, C-208s, AC-208s, C-130s, Mi-17s, and MD-530s. The A-29 light attack aircraft is the backbone of strike operations against the insurgents.

After receiving training from the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission and other allied forces, the AAF now independently conducts 70% of the operations in Afghanistan.

PARIS, 14 November 2020 (TON): US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is on visit to France at the start of a seven-country tour of Europe and the Middle East. On Saturday, he discussed “global challenges” with a handful of members of a Paris think tank.

Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and French President Emmanuel Macron are due to meet Pompeo on Monday in Paris. In a statement French Foreign Ministry said, France will make clear to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a visit to Paris next week that it opposes a unilateral American withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq given the fight against Islamist militancy. Le Drian, French Foreign Minister said in a television interview, "We don't think that should happen

For Afghans, the ongoing peace talk followed by complete withdrawal of foreign troops is the only hope. The bitter realities of this two decades old war have led us to think that there is no military solution to this conflict and peace talks must be successful. US is facing substantial human as well as financial losses which led her to opt for withdrawal. In case if the US remains in Afghanistan, there will be more financial losses as well as increase in American causalities.   

By Afshain Afzal

WASHINGTON, 14 November 2020, (TON): Republican Party, also known as Grand Old Party (GOP) led by President Donald Trump has rightly announced that he would not leave White House and Oval Office till Election results are properly investigated for the frauds. It is, of course, not a big demand from the American tax payers to exactly know what happened to their votes casted in favour of Republican leader, President Trump. So far in some of the State election results have been challenged in courts, where some successes and some procedural set aside has been witnessed.

Usability laboratory study in the past for electronic voting systems and audit systems found differences among their evaluations and traces of relevance mistakes and casting vote which changes result of vote due to automatic advancing, mechanical navigation and a full-face ballot. Systems also differed in the automatic corrections. Although generally voters properly casted their votes and results were satisfactory but several types of errors were found, including automatic voting for an opposing candidate. More so, digital divide had an impact on their voting experiences and certain numbers of votes were not accepted or became invalid.  COVID-19 was another factor that hindered the transparency of the voting and ultimately affecting the overall results.  

As per an authentic report, there are five areas which are doubtful. Firstly, the Postal ballots which has quite a small percentage if compared to overall votes needs testing for the system to check genuinity of the signatures, has become important to detect fraud. There are reports certain organizations are involved in casting Postal ballots of the persons who never participated in the voting and have no knowledge of their vote casted. More so, machine created signatures for frauds are usually undetectable to a naked eye and even can defeat many checking systems.

The second area is double voting while third is voting against un-casted votes.  Certain electronic voting machines were programmed to act as instructed in the software by the vendors or the hackers to cast automatically the non-casted votes during the last minutes of the election 2020.

Another dangerous area is that certain people are in possession of personal voting machines. Would someone believe that American voters used their personal voting machines which they purchased from commercial websites?  This has seriously put security vulnerabilities to at high risk-level. It is open secret that hackers were successful in carrying out cyber interference in Election-2020 to make changes that resulted in someone win or lose.

What is now required that full investigation into US Election-2020 as internal and foreign hackers as well as institutions had access to election database which can be proved from the fact that media announcing the election results even before the votes counting was completed. Despite media and institutional propaganda, the fact cannot be denied that popular American leader like US President Donald Trump cannot lose and is still the US President.

ANKARA, 12 November 2020, (TON): Turkey took offense at a U.S. statement that said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would promote religious freedom during an upcoming visit to Istanbul and called Wednesday on Washington to focus on racism and hate crimes in the United States instead.

The State Department said in a statement Tuesday that Pompeo would travel to Istanbul to meet with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world’s Greek Orthodox Christians. The top U.S. diplomat plans to discuss religious issues in Turkey and to promote “our strong stance on religious freedom around the world,” the statement read.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry rebuked the statement “as extremely inappropriate,” insisting that the country protects the rights of citizens of various faiths to freely practice their religions.

“It would be more advisable for the United States to look in the mirror first and to show the necessary sensitivity to human rights violations such as racism, Islamophobia and hate crimes in its own country,” the Turkish ministry said in a statement.

“Our reaction on this matter was conveyed to the U.S. side, and it was suggested that (Washington) focus on increasing cooperation between our countries on regional and global issues,” the Foreign Ministry said.

In July, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan converted Istanbul’s landmark Haghia Sophia into a mosque, ignoring calls for the former cathedral to be kept as a museum in recognition of the city’s multicultural past. The move led to accusations that the Turkish leader was trying to erase Orthodox Christians' cultural heritage.

The structure, a United Nations world heritage site, served as one of Christendom’s most important cathedrals before being turned into a mosque with the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople and then into a museum 86 years ago.

Erdogan later also announced a decision to transform the Church of the Holy Saviour in Chora, another Byzantine-era church in Istanbul, into a mosque as well.

Turkey is also under pressure to reopen a Greek Orthodox theological school that was shut down in 1971.

Pompeo was not scheduled to meet with Turkish officials during a tour that will also take him to France, Georgia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia during Nov. 13 – 23.

WASHINGTON, 9 November 2020, (TON): The world leaders are actively waiting for the US’ election results and have so far restrained from officially congratulating the Joe Biden. Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, 56, launched a transition website, BuildBackBetter.com, and a Twitter feed, @Transition46.

 President Trump has refused to honour forged results and has used his constitutional right to request for recounts of votes. It is feared that American taxpayers will witness forgeries in this election which appears to a normal voter fair and transparent.

20^th January 2021, is the date when the winner of election-2020 will be sworn in as the 46th President of the United States but an atmosphere of uncertainty prevails. Republican lawmakers are waiting for the moment to emerge so that they may unfold their strategy.

First Lady Melania Trump also chipped in, tweeting: "The American people deserve fair elections. Every legal - not illegal - vote should be counted."

President Trump’s supporters have asked the American nation including opponents to remain united for the truth about fairness to be made public and wait for the official announcement of election 2020.

VIENNA, 3 November 2020, (TON): Austrian authorities confirmed several suspects armed with rifles opened fire at six locations in the Austrian capital near Vienna’s main synagogue; Army has been authorized to take the control and guard the buildings.

Jewish community leader Oskar Deutsch confirmed that it was not target on synagogue and adjoining offices as they were all closed at the time of shooting. Several deaths have occurred.

As per the details the people in Vienna refused to obey the orders for complete lockdown which was due to come into effect at midnight local time. The shooting began at a time when bars and restaurants were packed with customers and people refused to care for coronavirus lockdown. There are claims that Austrian themselves created the mess, which caused deaths and injuries.

In a sort of repulsive attack against a harsh police cum military operation, shootings by several terrorists armed with rifles in in Seitenstettengasse, central Vienna resulted at least one person dead and several others wounded.  A large armed operation by police operation was still in progress when last reports came in. Warning by the authorities  urged residents to stay away from the city centre, and public places and not to use public transport.

In a statement, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said, “It was repulsive terrorist attack but we will never be intimidated by terrorism and we will fight this attack with all means”. Austria’s Interior Minister, Karl Nehammer, called the incident “an apparent terror attack” in which several deaths might have occurred.