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The Indian Express July 22, 20198 Today’s talks between US President Donald Trump and a Pakistani delegation at the White House could mark an important inflexion point in the evolution of India’s north-western frontiers. As Trump seeks to end America’s longest war ever in Afghanistan, Pakistan has an opportunity to reset its troubled relationship with the US, rearrange its regional policy and seek reconciliation with Kabul and Delhi. Although Pakistan’s leadership has given verbal support to these goals for some time now, Washington, Kabul and Delhi have all been sceptical about Islamabad’s willingness to match words with deeds. In the recent past, Pakistan has certainly teased the US and the South Asian neighbours with some steps — like facilitating talks between Washington and the Taliban and detaining Hafiz Saeed of the LeT. Briefing the press before the talks, senior US officials said Pakistan will have to “change its policies” towards terrorism and militancy if it

The Washington Post  July 20, 2019 AT A SESSION of the U.N. Human Rights Council this month, 22 mostly Western ambassadors joined in a letter expressing concern about China’s mass detentions in the Xinjiang region and calling for “meaningful access” for “independent international observers.” It was another tepid gesture in what has been a weak international effort to respond to Beijing’s campaign of cultural genocide against the Uighur ethnic group and other Muslim minorities. What was remarkable was what came next. Four days later, countries recruited by Beijing delivered their own letter to the council, signed by 37 ambassadors, which endorsed what it whitewashed as a “counter-terrorism and de-radicalization” operation and claimed that “the fundamental human rights of people of all ethnic groups there are safeguarded.” The signatories included the usual global rogue’s gallery — Cuba, Russia, North Korea, Venezuela. But a dozen Muslim governments also joined in — thereby s

The Express Tribune July 20, 2019 WASHINGTON: The Pakistani embassy in Washington has hired the services of a leading lobbying firm, Holland & Knight, to ensure effective representation of Islamabad’s interests in the United States. A contract was signed by embassy representatives and Tom Reynolds, a former Republican congressman from New York who represented the top lobbying firm. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi witnessed the contract signing and held discussion with Reynolds and his team members. Govt seeks details of payment to lobbyists, lawyers abroad FM Qureshi said he was confident that Holland & Knight would be able to work efficiently with the Pakistani embassy to advance Pakistan’s interests in the US. Reynolds thanked the foreign minister for reposing confidence in Holland & Knight and assured him of their full support in efforts to forge stronger Pakistan-US bilateral relations based on mutual respect and interests. The lobb

The Indian Express July 23, 2019 Written by Sushant Singh | With no experience to fall back upon, it was in the heat of the conflict that India conjured up a ‘primitive’ air delivery system for nuclear weapons on Mirage-2000 fighter jets of the Indian Air Force (IAF). 20 years after Kargil: Holding on to memories, a martyr’s family on a long journey to rebuild their lives 20 years after Kargil: ‘Even today when soldiers die in Kashmir, I feel same anger and pain when I lost Vikram’ 20 years after Kargil War: Pakistani Commanding Officer urged Indian Brigadier for bodies – ‘for paltan’s izzat’ Kargil War, Kargil war india pakistan, india pakistan Kargil war, Kargil war anniversary, IAF Kargil war, IAF pakistan war, indian air force pakistan, 20 years after Kargil, indian express A casing of nuclear weapon was concocted and fitted on the centre line of fuselage of Mirage-2000 aircraft, where the central ventral fuel tank is fitted, according to officials who wer

The Economic Times July 22, 2019 BHUBANESWAR: Global financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank should consult developing economies before taking decisions on them, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Executive Director Rabi Mishra said on Sunday.  Instead of imposing their decisions on member states, the IMF and the World Bank should consider the realities of the developing economies, he said while speaking at the conclusion of the three-day Kalinga Literary Festival here.  Mishra said the top-down approach hardly produces any result as countries such as China does not even attend the meetings of IMF.  Decisions of the global financial institutions would be more inclusive if they adopt a bottom-up approach instead of just conveying the desires of the US and UK, he said.  The RBI official further said financial regulations in India insulated the economy from the global economic crisis in 2008.  On his recently published

Dawn  July 20, 2019 JERUSALEM: An Israeli spyware firm thought to have hacked WhatsApp in the past has told clients it can scoop user data from the world’s top social media, the Financial Times reported on Friday. The London paper wrote that NSO group had “told buyers its technology can surreptitiously scrape all of an individual’s data from the servers of Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft, according to people familiar with its sales pitch”. An NSO spokesperson, responding in a written statement to request for comment, denied the allegation. “There is a fundamental misunderstanding of NSO, its services and technology,” it said. “NSO’s products do not provide the type of collection capabilities and access to cloud applications, services, or infrastructure as listed and suggested in today’s FT article.” In May, Facebook-owned WhatsApp said it had released an update to plug a security hole in its messaging app that allowed insertion of sophisticated spy

The Economic Times July 22, 2019 Iran has captured 17 spies working for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and some have been sentenced to death, Iranian media reported on Monday.  State television quoted the Intelligence Ministry as saying it had broken up a CIA spying ring and captured 17 suspects. A ministry official said some of those arrested had been sentenced to death, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.  The announcement comes after three months of spiralling confrontation with the West that began when new tighter U.S. sanctions took effect at the start of May. Last week Iran captured a British tanker in the Strait of Hormuz after Britain's Royal Marines seized an Iranian tanker off the coast of Gibraltar in July 4.  "The identified spies were employed in sensitive and vital private sector centres in the economic, nuclear, infrastructural, military and cyber areas... where they collected classified information," said a ministry

The Hindu  July 21,2019 By Atul Aneja Langfang, the furniture capital of northern China, is facing a hard time. A 25% tariff hike on furniture imported from China by the Trump administration is chipping away at the already shrinking margins and jobs in the city. Visitors to Langfang’s vast showrooms say the crowds of shoppers are thinning out. Pressure on order books has been mounting, especially after May, when the U.S. levied a 25% duty on $200 billion worth of Chinese products. “There has been an unmistakable impact ever since the U.S. raised tariffs,” the Asian Nikkei Review quoted Wang, a sales associate in one of the city firms, as saying. Exporters in Langfang say European and South Korean clients had already elbowed out American furniture buyers. But the U.S. numbers have further dropped after the tariff hike. Some analysts say higher labour and other costs in China had already pushed out some of the manufacturers from Langfang to Vietnam, where production

The Hindu July 22, 2019 Beijing China reacted furiously on Monday to anti-government protesters vandalising the walls of its representative’s office in Hong Kong and defacing the national emblem, branding their actions “absolutely intolerable”. Thousands of masked pro-democracy demonstrators briefly occupied the road outside the office in the semi-autonomous city on Sunday night and targeted the building with eggs, projectiles, laser lights and graffiti in a stark rebuke to Beijing’s rule. Hong Kong has been shaken by massive, sometimes violent, protests initially organised to oppose a now-suspended bill that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China. They have now morphed into a wider movement for democratic reforms. “Actions by some radical demonstrators have affected the bottom line of the ‘one country, two systems’ principle, and that is absolutely intolerable,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in Beijing. He added that Beijing oppose

Zero Hedge July 19, 2019 By- Tyler Durden Ever since the unexpected failure of China's Baoshang Bank in late May, which caused a freeze in the interbank market among smaller, less credible (and government backstopped) banks, and which sent rates on Negotiable Certificates of Deposit (NCDs), various bank bonds and assorted report rates sharply higher investors have fretted that China appears on the verge of a "Lehman moment", where wholesale interbank liquidity and overnight funding markets suddenly lock up. The reason for this, as we explained last month, is that China’s short-term lending market for banks and other financial institutions has for years operated under the assumption that Beijing wouldn’t allow big losses in the event of defaults or insolvencies (hence the reason why Baoshang's failure was a shock). That confidence has been shaken by regulators’ unusual public takeover of the troubled Chinese bank near Mongolia last month, and the even more st

The Hindu July 22, 2019 Washington The Embassy of Pakistan here has hired the services of a former American lawmaker as a lobbyist, who had resigned from the House of Representatives amid a scandal. On Saturday, Pakistan’s U.S. Ambassador Majeed Khan signed a contract with former Republican Congressman Tom Reynolds, representing Holland and Knight lobbying firm, to advance Pakistan’s interests in the U.S. “Joining former Congressman Reynolds will be a team comprising other former members of Congress, former senior administration officials, capitol Hill veterans and other professional experts,” the Embassy said in a media release. Mr. Reynolds represented New York’s 26th Congressional District for about a decade from 1999 to 2009. Amid a raging controversy surrounding a paedophile ring, and financial scandal involving National Republican Congressional Committee, he announced on March 20, 2008 that he would not run for a sixth term. At that time, he was the fou

Nation  July 19, 2019 On 16th July 2019 the Bombay High Court blocked the Coastal Road (CR) Project, asking for new environmental clearances for the Rs14,000-crore 29.2 km long coastal road joining South Mumbai to Borivali in the North. It also quashed the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) clearances granted to it.  The Court said that there is “serious lacuna” in the decision-making process and noted that the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) should have obtained environmental clearance under Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) notification issued by the Centre. The Court lamented that “…a proper scientific study has been overlooked by Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (MCZMA), the EIA and the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF).” Here are the major issues with the way the government went about planning the coastal road. 1. Shoddy Planning: A lot of concerned citizens who have had a look at the project concluded that the entire pl

The Hindu July 20, 20198 By Atul Aneja Ahead of the next informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, China has flagged its interest in partnering India for building a united front of emerging economies and developing countries to counter trade headwinds. Amid a spiralling trade war with the U.S., Chinese ambassador-designate to India, Sun Weidong, told resident Indian journalists on Friday that “the ugly path of unilateralism and protectionism has now affected the growth and stability of the world economy.” “This will surely have an impact on the emerging markets and the developing countries because it also based on the international order that they rely on,” he observed. Seeking a bigger partnership with India on a global scale, Mr. Sun said on the eve of his departure to New Delhi that China and India had a “historical” duty to become frontrunners in protecting multilateralism and globalisation. He pointed out that the