CUCUTA, Colombia: A U.S. military transport plane with humanitarian aid meant for Venezuelans landed in the Colombian border city of Cucuta. The food and medicine is being stored, according to Reuters, remains uncertain over how and where it will be distributed.
Reports said the shipment is the second arrival of large-scale U.S. and international aid for Venezuelans. (Agencies)
NEW DELHI: India is holding the general election in May this year. Hundreds of millions of Indians prepare to cast their votes to decide who will govern the world’s largest democracy for the next five years.
Here are the key numbers to know:
875 million: The number of voters. Earlier in 2014, there were 830 million voters. Out of them, only 550 million cast their votes.
545: The number of seats in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament of India.
1 million: The number of polling stations
10 million: 10 million election officials will be deployed for the elections.
464: The total number of political parties that took part in the 2014 general election.
8,251: The total number of candidates in 2014 general election.
282: BJP won 282 seats in the Lok Sabha in 2014. This is the largest majority win by a single party in 30 years in India. (Agencies)
PARIS: French police fired tear gas to disperse ‘yellow vest’ protesters protestors throwing projectiles and set bins on fire in Paris as protests took a violent turn.
In Rouen, four people were injured when a driver forced his way through a crowd of protesters, reports said.
Protestors also gathered peacefully earlier on Saturday at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris before marching toward the Eiffel Tower.
In the afternoon, police and protesters clashed at the Esplanade des Invalides in central Paris where some skirmishes were reported, according to Reuters. (Agencies)
Here’s a chronological timetable of events that occurred on this day in history. Let’s find out what happened today in history.
February 17
1720 Spain signs the Treaty of the Hague
1919 Germany signs an armistice giving up territory in Poland.
1925 The first issue of Harold Ross’ magazine, The New Yorker.
1933 The League of Nations censures Japan in a worldwide broadcast.
1935 Thirty-one prisoners escape an Oklahoma prison after murdering a guard.
1938 The first color television is demonstrated at the Dominion Theatre in London.
1944 U.S forces land on Eniewetok Atoll in the South Pacific.
1945 Gen. MacArthur’s troops land on Corregidor in the Philippines.
1951 Packard introduces its “250” Chassis Convertible.
1955 Britain announces its ability to make hydrogen bombs.
1959 The United States launches its first weather station in space, Vanguard II.
1960 Martin Luther King Jr. is arrested in the Alabama bus boycott.
1963 Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev visits the Berlin Wall.
1969 Russia and Peru sign their first trade accord.
1973 President Richard Nixon names Patrick Gray director of the FBI.
1979 China begins a “pedagogical” war against Vietnam. It will last until March.
1985 Murray Haydon becomes the third person to receive an artificial heart.
Born on February 17
1774 Raphaelle Peale, U.S. painter
1864 A(ndrew) B(arton) “Banjo” Paterson, Australian poet and journalist.
1874 Thomas J. Watson Sr., U.S. industrialist.
1902 Marian Anderson, American singer.
1929 Chaim Potok, novelist (The Chosen, The Promise).
1963 Michael Jordan, basketball player for the Chicago Bulls.
Source: History Net
Terrorist attack on a convey of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) of India in Jammu and Kashmir yesterday afternoon claiming 40 CRPF members has sparked tensions in Indo-Pak relation. The attack was claimed by Jaish-e-Mohammad, a Pakistan based terrorist group linked with inter service intelligence (ISI). This is a major terrorist attack India witnessed since 1989 given the number of casualty.
The incident occurred as a suicide bomber drove a SUV loaded with powerful explosives and rammed it on a convey bus.
Pakistan condemned the incident denying its involvement on it. However, that does nothing to placate an angry India. The attack has ramifications not just over India and Pakistan but drags in super powers; USA and China for their nexus with these nations.
Mounting pressure on Modi
The incident has put the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi into a very difficult situation. Modi is vying to be re-elected during the election to be held in May. That means he needs to garner popular votes. The incident has raised mass anger among Indian citizens against Pakistan. Modi is bound to take some concrete steps to impress the public that he is a committed patriot. But launching an aggressive attack against Pakistan is not as easy since just like India, Pakistan too boasts of nuclear power.
What does the incident hold to the USA?
The incident stimulated an immediate response from the USA that has been spearheading the war against terrorism. It has condemned the attack assuring full support to India to fight against terrorism. Secretary of the State, Mike Pompeo has assured India by expressing the commitment on part of the USA to combat terrorism of all types. US cordial response to India is understandable for the fact that it considers Pakistan as an “unreliable ally” on the war against terrorism. USA is supportive of India since India is an important partner of the Indo Pacific Strategy it has pushed forth. Besides, USA sees Pakistan with the lens of India in terms of terrorism. It too thinks that Pakistan has been providing safe heaven to terrorist groups like, Jaish-e-Mahommad, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Taliban.
China’s stake
India has already started consultation with the heads of diplomatic missions in New Dehli in order to Isolate Pakistan. With the USA backing India, the incident inevitably drags in China since it is now China’s duty to protect Pakistan from being isolated in the international arena. China’s involvement is obvious for two reasons, one China sees Pakistan as close a neighbor against India. Most importantly, China has been investing billions of dollars for infrastructure development in Pakistan as part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) project.
It should not be forgotten that China, acting as per the request of Pakistan had intervened India’s attempt to declare Maulana Masood Azhar, Jaish-e-Mohammad chief a global terrorist. Following the attack by Jaish-e-Mahommad on the Indian Air Force base at Pathankot on January, 2016, India had proposed the UN Security Council to declare Azhar a terrorist. However, China had foiled the Indian attempts twice using its veto power.
What will be India’s action against Pakistan?
As mentioned earlier, India is bound to take some action against Pakistan. As part of the punitive measures it has already withdrawn Pakistan from the Most Favored Nation (MFN) status. That is likely to cause negative trade impacts in Pakistan. India, can further lobby with international communities including the USA to impose economic blockade to Pakistan.
As part of military action India may launch surgical strikes against Pakistan as it had done in 2016 following Uri incident where 20 soldiers were killed in an attack by Lashkar militants.
(Agencies)
CAIRO: Contradicting a statement by a Libyan official recently, the U.S. military has denied taking part in a raid on an al Qaeda site in the Libyan city of Ubari.
The spokesperson for Fayez al-Sarraj, had on Wednesday said in a statement that a site with a number of al Qaeda members in Ubari was raided by joint U.S.-Libyan forces.
The U.S. Africa Command, responsible for American troops in the area, said that although the US supports counterterrorism efforts of the U.N.-recognized Libyan government, U.S. forces were not involved in the raid.
WARSAW: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said the United States aims to “get as far down the road as we can” ahead of a summit with North Korea, reports said.
US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are meeting in Vietnam on February 27 and 28 this month.
Pompeo said he was sending a team to Asia soon to hold further discussions around all issues. The two leaders had in last June met and discussed at a groundbreaking Singapore summit, according to Reuters.
Speaking at a press conference in Warsaw that Trump and Kim would be talking about “denuclearization pillar they agreed to” at their first summit, reports said.
He said that the US aims to get this “as far down the road as we can”. (Agencies)
CARACAS: The U.S. special envoy for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, recently met secretly with the Foreign Minister of Venezuela, according to reports.
Citing President Nicolas Maduro and a senior Venezuelan official, the Associated Press said Venezuela’s Foreign Minister, Jorge Arreaza, met twice with Abrams in New York for hours and invited him to come to Venezuela “privately or publicly,” Maduro said in an interview.
The US has backed opposition leader Juan Guaido, who last month assumed the presidency on promises to end a humanitarian crisis in the country. ()Agencies)
Heres’s a chronological timetable of events that occurred on this day in history. Let’s find out what happened today in history.
February 15
1798 The first serious fist fight occurs in Congress.
1804 New Jersey becomes the last northern state to abolish slavery.
1862 Union General Ulysses S. Grant launches a major assault on Fort Donelson, TN.
1900 The British threaten to use natives in the Boer War.
1934 The U.S. Congress passes the Civil Works Emergency Relief Act.
1940 Hitler orders that all British merchant ships will be considered warships.
1942 British forces in Singapore surrender to Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita.
1943 The Germans break the American Army’s lines at the Fanid-Sened Sector in Tunisia, North Africa.
1946 The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrest 22 as Soviet spies.
1950 Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung sign a mutual defense treaty in Moscow.
1957 Andrei Gromyko replaces Dmitri T. Shepilov as the Soviet Foreign Minister.
1961 Eighteen members of the U.S. figure skating team are lost in an airplane crash in Belgium.
1965 Canada’s maple leaf flag is raised for the first time.
Born on February 15
1564 Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer and mathematician.
1710 Louis XV, King of France.
1726 Abraham Clark, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
1797 Henry Steinway, a piano maker.
1954 Matt Groening, cartoonist (The Simpsons).
Source: History Net
Terrorists attacked a convoy of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) killing at least 44 of them in Awantipora in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district Thursday evening, agencies said.
Reports said Pakistan-based terror outfit, the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), claimed responsibility for the terror attack. Security forces said the terrorists used an improvised explosive device (IED) in the attack.
A total of 2,500 CRPF personnel were going in a convoy of 78 vehicles from Jammu to Srinagar when they were attacked by terrorists, reports said.