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.
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
‘MOBILIZED’: While protesters countered ICE agents, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz activated the state’s National Guard to ‘support the rights of Minnesotans’ to assemble Hundreds of counterprotesters drowned out a far-right activist’s attempt to hold a small rally in support of US President Donald Trump’s latest immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Saturday, as the governor’s office announced that National Guard troops were mobilized and ready to assist law enforcement, although not yet deployed to city streets. There have been protests every day since the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ramped up immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul by bringing in more than 2,000 federal officers. Conservative influencer Jake Lang organized an anti-Islam, anti-Somali and pro-US Immigration and Customs Enforcement
NASA on Saturday rolled out its towering Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft as it began preparations for its first crewed mission to the Moon in more than 50 years. The maneuver, which takes up to 12 hours, would allow the US space agency to begin a string of tests for the Artemis 2 mission, which could blast off as early as Feb. 6. The immense orange and white SLS rocket, and the Orion vessel were slowly wheeled out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and painstakingly moved 6.5km to Launch Pad 39B. If the
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