MUMBAI: China’s foreign ministry on Saturday has condemned Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh, saying it “resolutely opposes” activities by Indian leaders in the region.
Despite recent efforts to improve bilateral ties in both countries, disputes over the mountainous Indo-China border – which triggered a war in 1962 – and the region that China claims as southern Tibet have remained a sensitive issue.
Modi’s visit was part of a series of public meetings in the region aimed at garnering support for his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of elections due by May.
Despite recent efforts to improve bilateral ties in both countries, disputes over the mountainous Indo-China border – which triggered a war in 1962 – and the region that China claims as southern Tibet have remained a sensitive issue.
“China urges the Indian side to proceed from the overall situation of bilateral relations, respect China’s interests and concerns, cherish the momentum of improving relations between the two countries, and refrain from any actions that intensify disputes and complicate the border issue,” its foreign ministry said in a statement.
In response, the official spokesperson at India’s foreign ministry said in a statement that Arunachal Pradesh was “an integral and inalienable part of India”.
“Indian leaders visit Arunachal Pradesh from time to time, as they visit other parts of India. This consistent position has been conveyed to the Chinese side on several occasions.”
Reuters
BANGKOK: The Thai princess, whose stunning announcement that she was running for prime minister, thanked her supporters on Saturday, saying she wants Thailand to be “moving forward”, but she did not comment on her candidacy. The king, her brother, however, opposed her candidacy.
Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya Sirivadhana Barnavadi, 67, shocked the country on Friday when she announced she would be the prime ministerial candidate for a populist party loyal to ousted ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, in a March 24 election.
King Vajiralongkorn, 66, issued his message late on Friday, said his elder sister’s candidacy was “inappropriate” and it was against the spirit of the constitution for royalty to be involved in politics.
But her foray into politics – breaking with royal tradition – looked to be short-lived after her younger brother, King Maha Vajiralongkorn, quickly signaled he opposed it, which is likely to lead to her disqualification.
The Election Commission, which is overseeing the first polls since a 2014 military coup that overthrew a pro-Thaksin government, said it would issue a ruling on the issue on Monday.
The nomination of a royal family member by pro-Thaksin forces was an audacious gambit, potentially undercutting Thaksin’s ardently royalist foes, and setting up an election showdown with Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who led the 2014 coup and heads the military government.
But, King Vajiralongkorn’s swift rebuke of his sister’s bid could backfire on pro-Thaksin forces, who could face retribution if judged by election authorities to have tried to illegitimately use a royal connection.
The Thai Raksa Chart party, which nominated Ubolratana as its candidate for prime minister, said it “graciously accepts” the king’s statement and would abide by election regulations and royal tradition.
King Vajiralongkorn, 66, issued his message late on Friday, saying his elder sister’s candidacy was “inappropriate” and it was against the spirit of the constitution for royalty to be involved in politics.
While the Election Commission has the final say on approval of candidates, it seems unlikely its members would ignore the powerful influence of the king in making its decision.
Reuters
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump says U.S. diplomats had a “very productive meeting” with North Korean officials. He also announced his meeting later this month with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi.
Trump, earlier this week, announced the dates for the second summit with Kim.
US President Trump tweeted: “My representatives have just left North Korea after a very productive meeting and an agreed upon time and date for the second Summit with Kim Jong Un. It will take place in Hanoi, Vietnam, on February 27 & 28”.
Trump said he looked forward to seeing Chairman Kim and advancing the cause of peace!”
Trump, earlier this week, announced the dates for the second summit with Kim.
As part of the preparation for the summit, Stephen Biegun, the U.S. special representative for North Korea, held three days of talks in Pyongyang, according to the State Department, according to Reuters.
RICHMOND: Virginia’s state government seemed to come unglued Friday as an embattled Gov. Ralph Northam made it clear he won’t resign and the man in line to succeed him was hit with another sexual assault accusation and barraged with demands that he step down, too.
Top Democrats, including a number of presidential hopefuls and most of Virginia’s congressional delegation, swiftly and decisively turned against Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, who stands to become the state’s second black governor if Northam quits.
“Fairfax can no longer fulfill his duties,” the Democratic caucuses of both the state House and Senate said in a joint statement calling on him to resign.
The twin developments came at the end of an astonishing week that saw all three of Virginia’s top elected officials — all Democrats — embroiled in potentially career-ending scandals fraught with questions of race, sex and power.
Northam, who is a year into his four-year term, announced his intention to stay during an afternoon Cabinet meeting, according to a senior official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
In so doing, Northam defied practically the entire Democratic Party, which rose up against him after a racist photo on his 1984 medical school yearbook surfaced and he acknowledged wearing blackface in the 1980s.
Later in the day, the governor issued a statement to government employees, saying, “You have placed your trust in me to lead Virginia forward — and I plan to do that.” In a sign that he intended to return to business as usual, he also announced more than a dozen appointments to state boards.
Meanwhile, a woman came forward with a statement accusing Fairfax of attacking her when they were students at Duke University in North Carolina in 2000. The Associated Press is not reporting the details because the allegation has not been corroborated.
Fairfax emphatically denied the new allegation, as he did the first one, leveled earlier this week by Vanessa Tyson, a California college professor who said Fairfax forced her to perform oral sex on him at a Boston hotel in 2004.
“It is obvious that a vicious and coordinated smear campaign is being orchestrated against me,” Fairfax said.
Duke campus police have no criminal reports naming Fairfax, university spokesman Michael Schoenfeld said. Durham police spokesman Wil Glenn also said he couldn’t find a report in the department’s system on the 2000 allegation.
Many Democrats who had carefully withheld judgment after the first accusation against Fairfax, saying the matter needed to be investigated, immediately condemned him.
Top Democrats running for president in 2020 called for Fairfax’s resignation, including Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Booker cited “multiple detailed allegations” that he found “deeply troubling.” Gillibrand called the details “sickening and horrendous.”
A Democratic member of the state House, Del. Patrick Hope, said he intends to introduce articles of impeachment against Fairfax on Monday if Fairfax hasn’t resigned by then.
The tumult in Virginia began late last week, with the discovery of the photo on Northam’s yearbook profile page that showed someone in blackface standing next to another person in a Ku Klux Klan hood and robe.
Northam at first admitted he was in the picture, then denied it a day later, but acknowledged he once put shoe polish on his face to look like Michael Jackson for a dance contest in 1984.
Virginia slid deeper into crisis on Wednesday, when Attorney General Mark Herring acknowledged wearing blackface at a college party in 1980, and Fairfax was publicly accused of sexual assault for the first time.
Although the Democratic Party has taken almost a zero-tolerance approach to misconduct among its members in this #MeToo era, a housecleaning in Virginia could be costly to them: If all three Democrats resigned, Republican House Speaker Kirk Cox would become governor.
As the crisis widened in the middle of the week, Democratic leaders and black members of the Virginia legislature appeared willing to give both Fairfax and Herring the benefit of the doubt for the time being — in Herring’s case, because he apologized personally for wearing blackface.
At the start of the week, Cox said there was little appetite among lawmakers to remove Northam through impeachment, saying resignation “would obviously be less pain for everyone.”
WASHINGTON, DC: U.S. lawmakers are pushing for stronger aviation security with a bipartisan bill that would require passenger airlines to install secondary security doors between cabins and the cockpit on current aircraft to prevent another Sept. 11-style attack.
Hijackings remain a threat despite improvements in global aviation safety since Sept. 11, 2001, when hijacked planes flew into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon, four U.S. representatives – Democrats Andre Carson and Josh Gottheimer and Republicans Brian Fitzpatrick and Peter King – said in a statement.
Congress last year imposed a requirement for secondary barriers, aimed at preventing would-be hijackers from rushing the cockpit when pilots take bathroom breaks or meals, for future, newly manufactured commercial airplanes. But that legislation did not address existing aircraft.
The new bill, introduced last week, would extend the requirement to all passenger jets. Secondary barriers would allow a pilot to close the cockpit door before opening another door to the rest of the plane. Current measures to protect the flight deck include stationing a flight attendant or food cart in front of the cockpit.
A study by the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees aviation security, concluded that cockpits are vulnerable when pilots step out and cited secondary doors as the most efficient, cost-effective form of protection, according to the news release issued on Wednesday. The lightweight, wire-mesh barriers would cost $5,000 to $12,000 per aircraft, the lawmakers said.
Airlines for America – an industry trade group representing large commercial carriers like American Airlines Group Inc, Southwest Airlines Co and United – said individual airlines should be the ones to decide whether to install such systems.
Association spokesman Vaughn Jennings said the airline industry has worked closely with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to implement a multilayered security system following 9/11 and noted that some U.S. airlines have determined that secondary cockpit barriers are appropriate on some aircraft.
The pilots’ union, The Air Line Pilots Association, said it supported the legislation and called on the FAA to immediately implement the language required by Congress last year on new passenger aircraft “to help ensure the security of our cockpits.”
Following the 9/11 attacks, airlines reinforced cockpit doors and the TSA rolled out advanced airport screening equipment. The TSA also oversees the Federal Air Marshal Service, which deploys armed U.S. air marshals on flights across the world. But critics have questioned the effectiveness of passenger screening and the air marshal program.
The new bill for secondary barriers is called the Saracini Enhanced Aviation Safety Act after pilot Victor Saracini, who was killed when his plane was hijacked during the 9/11 attacks. His widow, Ellen, has been an advocate of legislation for aviation safety. Reuters
ISTANBUL: The Turkish fiancee of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi said Friday she hoped pressure from the US Congress would encourage the Trump adminstration to take a tougher stance on the killing. Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor, was killed on October 2 by Saudi agents during a visit to his country’s consulate in Istanbul to obtain paperwork ahead of his wedding to Hatice Cengiz. During a press conference in Istanbul for a book on Khashoggi’s life, Cengiz left the door open to a meeting with US President Donald Trump if certain conditions were met.
The book, titled “Jamal Khashoggi: his life, his fight, his secrets”, was written by Turkish journalists Mehmet Akif Ersoy and Sinan Onus with testimony from Cengiz. An English version will be published next week.
In the book, Cengiz shares her memories and papers detailing the life of former Saudi insider turned critic Khashoggi “who was a journalist for you, but a man for me”. In December, Cengiz rejected an invitation from Trump.
But on Friday, she said “a visit to the United States could take place in March”. She hoped the US leader would have a change of “attitude” and “follow the case closely”.
“I have hope, not necessarily regarding Trump, but about the fact that the new Congress will follow this case more closely,” she said, struggling with tears as she spoke.
Special UN rapporteur, Agnes Callamard, said Thursday after a visit to Turkey that Khashoggi’s killing had been “planned and perpetrated” by Saudi officials. Khashoggi had written critical pieces on the Riyadh administration in the Post.
Trump faces a Friday deadline set by Congress to determine if Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination of Khashoggi.
His murder was met with international outrage and considerably hurt the image of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is accused of having ordered the killing.
While Riyadh denies any involvement of Prince Mohammed, the crown prince has been implicated in the murder by American senators based on the CIA’s conclusions.
But the Trump administration has said there is no irrefutable evidence of Prince Mohammed’s involvement, and has stressed the importance of the strategic partnership between Washington and Riyadh.
Cengiz refused to comment on the accusations against the crown prince, saying only that she awaited the completion of Turkey’s investigation.
However she denounced the fact that Khashoggi’s remains still had not been found.
A chronological timetable of historical events that occurred on this day in history. Historical facts of the day in the areas of military, politics, science, music, sports, arts, entertainment and more. Discover what happened today in history.
1567 Lord Darnley, the second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, is murdered in his sick-bed
in a house in Edinburgh when the house blows up.
1799 The USS Constellation captures the French frigate Insurgente off the West Indies.
1825 The House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams as the sixth U.S. President.
1861 Jefferson F. Davis is elected president of the Confederate States of America.
1864 Union General George Armstrong Custer marries Elizabeth Bacon in their hometown of
Monroe, MI.
1904 Japanese troops land near Seoul, Korea, after disabling two Russian cruisers.
1909 France agrees to recognize German economic interests in Morocco in exchange for
political supremacy.
1916 Conscription begins in Great Britain as the Military Service Act becomes effective.
1922 The U.S. Congress establishes the World War Foreign Debt Commission.
1942 Chiang Kai-shek meets with Sir Stafford Cripps, the British viceroy in India.
1943 The Red Army takes back Kursk 15 months after it fell to the Germans.
1943 Allied authorities declare Guadalcanal secure after Imperial Japan evacuates its
remaining forces from the island, ending the Battle of Guadalcanal. [From MHQ—The
Quarterly Journal of Military History]
1946 Stalin announces the new five-year plan for the Soviet Union, calling for production
boosts of 50 percent.
1951 Actress Greta Garbo gets U.S. citizenship.
1953 The French destroy six Viet Minh war factories hidden in the jungles of Vietnam.
1964 The U.S. embassy in Moscow is stoned by Chinese and Vietnamese students.
1978 Canada expels 11 Soviets in a spying case.
1994 Nelson Mandela becomes the first black president of South Africa.
Born on February 9
1773 William Henry Harrison, ninth U.S. President and the first to die in office.
1814 Samuel Tilden, philanthropist.
1819 Lydia E. Pinkham, patent-medicine maker and entrepeneur.
1846 William Maybach, German engineer; he designed the first Mercedes automobile.
1871 Howard T. Ricketts, pathologist.
1874 Amy Lowell, poet.
1880 James Stephens, Irish writer (The Charwoman’s Daughter, The Crock of Gold).
1909 Dean Rusk, Secretary of State under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
1923 Brendan Behan, Irish playwright and poet (The Hostage, The Quare Fellow).
1944 Alice Walker, Pulitzer prize-winning author (The Color Purple).
Source: History Net
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) details cases of 95 journalists and media professionals who lost their lives in targeted killings, bomb attacks or crossfire incidents.
Releasing its 29th report on journalists and media staff killed in the course of their duties in 2018, IFJ the number represents an increase of thirteen killings more than in 2017.
Likewise, the report has also pointed at the pervasive level of impunity that prevails across the globe where 90 percent journalists’ killings remain unresolved as the authorities all too often fail to conduct credible investigations into these crimes.
The report, In the Shadow of violence; journaloists and media killed in 2018, stated that Yemen, India, Mexico, Afghanistan and Syria recorded the most devastating tolls while South Asia becomes the world’s most dangerous region for journalists, the IFJ report said.
The report further added that the increase in killings takes place in the context of an increasing polarization of views across the world with the rise of dangerous nationalist and populist forces in many countries and the stigmatization of journalists and media by politicians and the enemies of media freedom.
Likewise, the report has also pointed at the pervasive level of impunity that prevails across the globe where 90 percent journalists’ killings remain unresolved as the authorities all too often fail to conduct credible investigations into these crimes.
Releasing the report, FJ President Philippe Leruth said, “Those tragic figures remind us of our duty to act and hold governments responsible for the lack of investigation for journalists’ crimes.”
He emphasized on an international instrument to force all states to act to halt the killing of journalists and bring the killers to justice. (Agencies)
BANGKOK: In what can be dubbed as an unprecedented move, Princess Ubolratana Mahidol, 67, has joined the race to be Thailand’s next prime minister, reports said.
The sister of Thailand’s king is said to stand for a party allied to divisive ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, according to agency reports. Thailand is holding the election on 24 March.
Observers have said that this decision ‘breaks with the tradition of the Thai royal family’, which has stayed away from politics. (Agencies)
A chronological timetable of historical events that occurred on this day in history. Historical facts of the day in the areas of military, politics, science, music, sports, arts, entertainment and more. Discover what happened today in history.
1926 – Walt Disney Studios is formed.
1943 – Japanese troops evacuate Guadalcanal, leaving the island in Allied possession after a prolonged campaign.
1952 – Princess Elizabeth proclaims herself Queen at a ceremony in St James’s Palace, London.
1971: The National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations holds its first trading day. It was the world’s first electronic stock exchange.
1960: The first 8 stars are added to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. More than 2400 five-pointed stars have since been embedded in the sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street to honor stars of the entertainment industry.
1950: The Stasi, East Germany’s notorious secret police, is established. The “Staatssicherheit”, which was dissolved in 1990, is considered one of the most repressive intelligence agencies in the world.
1910: The Boy Souts of America is founded. 3 years earlier, British General Robert Baden-Powell had founded the Scout movement in England.
1879: Sandford Fleming proposes the use of time zones. The later introduction of Universal Standard Time, which is based on time zones, revolutionized time keeping.
Births on this day
1941: Nick Nolte, American actor
1932: John Williams, American pianist, composer, conductor
1931: James Dean, American actor
1925: Jack Lemmon, American actor, singer, director
1828: Jules Verne, French author
2002 – The opening ceremonies for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah takes place
Births on this day
1941: Nick Nolte, American actor
1932: John Williams, American pianist, composer, conductor
1931: James Dean, American actor
1925: Jack Lemmon, American actor, singer, director
1828: Jules Verne, French author
(Agencies)