AFGHANISTAN
Prisoner release backed
The government and the Taliban are “on the verge of peace talks” after thousands of prominent tribal leaders and other prominent people taking part in a three-day loya jirga approved the release of about 400 Taliban prisoners, the head of Kabul’s peace council said yesterday. The prisoners’ fate has been a crucial hurdle in launching peace talks between the two sides, which had committed to completing a prisoner exchange before negotiations can start. “In order to remove the hurdles for the start of peace talks, stopping bloodshed, and for the good of the public, the jirga approves the release of 400 prisoners as demanded by the Taliban,” jirga member Atefa Tayeb said. According to an official list seen by reporters, many of the inmates are accused of serious offences, including many involved in attacks that killed scores of Afghans and foreigners, with more than 150 of them on death row. The jirga urged the government to give assurances that the released prisoners would be monitored and would not be allowed to return to the battlefield. It also demanded a “serious, immediate and lasting ceasefire.”
UNITED STATES
Esper affirms Afghan cutback
Washington plans to cut its troop levels in Afghanistan to “a number less than 5,000” by the end of November, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said in an interview broadcast on Saturday. It has about 8,600 troops in the nation. President Donald Trump said in an interview on Monday last week that the plan was to lower that number to about 4,000.
CHINA
Airplane drama ends safely
A Shenzhen Airlines Co flight that plunged more than 5,500m inside two minutes landed safely yesterday morning, China Central Television reported. The plane dived to from 9,297m to 3,733m about 25 minutes after taking off from Shenzhen on a flight to Xian. The Airbus SE A330 suffered an “abnormal pressure increase” when it climbed to 9,200m, and the pilots followed procedure and descended to a safe height, the airline said in a statement. The plane returned to Shenzhen and all the passengers and crew left the aircraft safely, it said.
SOUTH KOREA
At least 30 dead after deluge
More than a week of torrential rain has left at least 30 dead and 12 missing in landslides, floods and other incidents, the government said yesterday while warning of further downpour. The causalities include 13 dead and two missing from the past two days, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety said in a report. Rain on Friday and Saturday also left more than 3,700 displaced as it flooded residential areas, roads and farming fields in the south. Weather official Woo Jin-kyu said most places received three to four times more rainfall last week than the average precipitation recorded in the same period in the past 30 years.
INDIA
Pilot error mooted in crash
An Air India Express jet that overshot the runway at Calicut International Airport near Kozhikode on Friday, killing at least 18 people, touched down too far down the airstrip, Ministry of Civil Aviation Director-General Arun Kumar said amid ongoing investigations. He told CNN-News18 on Saturday that the plane landed about 914m into a 2,743m runway, causing it to breach a further 240m safety area at high speed and crash into a valley beyond. “Looks like,” Kumar said when asked by the TV channel if the incident seemed to be the result of bad judgement.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in