Photo Credits: WORLD MATTER
New Delhi
PTI
The Obama administration has recently delivered a “very tough” message to Pakistan asking it to dismantle safe havens of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e- Mohammed and Haqqani network operating from its soil, outgoing US envoy to New Delhi Richard Verma said today.
Holding that India faces a “daunting challenge” from these Pakistan-based terror groups and hailing New Delhi''s efforts to deal with the menace, the envoy said the world needs India''s leadership in countering terrorism.
Verma, who demits office ahead of Donald Trump''s inauguration on Friday, said the US also told the Pakistani leadership to come down hard on perpetrators of cross-border terrorism including in Afghanistan.
Talking about Indo-US cooperation in counter-terror efforts, he said intelligence sharing between the two strategic partners has reached “unprecedented level” which helped Indian secutrity agencies thwart various threats.
Asked about what exactly the Obama administration told Pakistan recently regarding Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Haqqani network, Verma told an event organised by a think tank, “We have taken a very tough line on these terrorist groups operating from Pakistani soil.” He said the message to the Pakistani leadership has been a “very tough and concerted” one, adding Islamabad has been told to eliminate the safe havens of the terrorist groups, shut down their cross border activities and take action against the perpetrators of terror.
Talking about threat of terror India was facing, he said, “On the Western front, India faces a daunting challenge of terrorist groups operating from inside Pakistan. Some of these groups including LeT and Haqqani network, and JeM also targeted the US and Afghan security forces in Afghanistan.” He said the US continued to press Pakistan at the “highest level” to take effective action against these groups and cited extension of terrorist designation to two more LeT leaders.
The envoy said India and the US must expand cooperation further in dealing with terror, radicalisation and violent extremism. “The US India partnership stands as a global example of what is possible.” He said concrete efforts were needed to understand how young people are being radicalised using digital technology by terror outfits like ISIS and come out with solution to the problem.
Complimenting India for its efforts to contain insurgency in the northeastern states, particularly Mizoram, he said it can be a lesson in dealing with broader challenge of violent extremism in various parts of the globe.
Noting that social media has become a key platform for ISIS to lure young people into terrorism, he said efforts and resources must be mobilised locally and globally in fight against terror and violent extremism. He said ISIS had recruited a around 40,000 people over the last 4 years.
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Ukraine files 'terrorism' case against Russia at world court
The Hague PTI Jan 17 Ukraine has filed a case at the UN''s top court accusing Russia of sponsoring “terrorism” and demanding Moscow pay damages for the shelling of civilians and the downing of flight MH17, officials said today.
Kiev has asked the International Court of Justice to “declare that the Russian Federation bears international responsibility, by virtue of its sponsorship of terrorism ...
for the acts of terrorism committed by its proxies in Ukraine,” the court said in a statement.
Ukraine also asked the court to order “full reparation” for the 2014 downing of flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine and “for the shelling of civilians” in certain towns in eastern Ukraine.
“Russia must pay its price for the aggression,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Monday just after Kiev launched the proceedings with the court based in The Hague.
“The Russian Federation has been brutally violating international law for three years,” he added in a statement.
“For three years, Russia has been committing the illegal annexation of Crimea, illegal occupation of the east of our country in the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, implementing the policy of elimination and discrimination in Crimea.” The International Court of Justice, the UN''s highest court, was founded in 1945 to rule on border and territorial disputes between nations.
Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, accuses its neighbour Russia of triggering unrest by separatist pro-Russian rebels in retaliation for the ousting of Kiev''s Moscow-backed president in February 2014.
Fierce fighting flared in eastern Ukraine and Russia annexed Ukraine''s southern peninsula of Crimea in March 2014.
There had been hopes the war was winding down after nearly the deaths of nearly 10,000 people after several ceasefire accords.
Poroshenko said the filing of the case at the ICJ had resulted from “a long and meticulous work.” Kiev has asked the tribunal to declare that Moscow has violated its obligations under the Terrorism Financing Convention and an international treaty against racial discrimination.
It urges the tribunal to order Moscow to “immediately and unconditionally cease and desist from all support, including the provision of money, weapons, and training, to illegal armed groups that engage in acts of terrorism in Ukraine.” A Dutch-led international investigation found that Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by a Russian-made missile in July 2014 over eastern Ukraine, launched from a field in rebel-held territory.
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King Day parade turns violent, eight shot in Miami
AGENCIES
Miami: A national holiday celebrating nonviolence and Martin Luther King Jr erupted into mayhem when eight people were shot at a park named after the slain civil rights leader.
Hundreds of people had gathered in the park after the annual MLK Day parade in the Liberty City neighborhood, and the shooting sent people running in all directions Monday afternoon. Police said they were not sure what started the shooting.
The wounded ranged in age from 11 to 30. Only one of those shot was in critical condition Monday.
Miami-Dade Police Director Juan Perez tweeted that it was a "shameful closing" to the parade.
"Certainly not what the followers of Dr King Jr want out of our community," he wrote.
Miami-Dade Detective Daniel Ferrin said two suspects were questioned and two guns had been recovered.
The parade has been a tradition since the 1970s. People gather on the streets to barbecue, listen to music and celebrate King's life.
The shots rang out around 3:40 pm as bikers and ATV riders roared past in celebration. Their motto: "Bikes up, Guns down," The Miami Herald reported.
Police evacuated and closed the park after the shootings. Terrell Dandy, who was in the park, said it was peaceful until he heard three gunshots. Then the crowd began to stampede out of the park.
"It was good until you had these idiots out there shooting," Dandy told the newspaper. "It was just a bunch of commotion."
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Gene Cernan, last astronaut to walk on the moon, dies at 82
Houston PTI Jan 17 Former astronaut Gene Cernan, who as the last person to walk on the moon returned to Earth with a message of “peace and hope for all mankind,” has died, his family said. He was 82.
Cernan was with his relatives when he died yesterday at a Houston hospital following ongoing heath issues, family spokeswoman Melissa Wren told The Associated Press. His family said his devotion to lunar exploration never waned.
“Even at the age of 82, Gene was passionate about sharing his desire to see the continued human exploration of space and encouraged our nation''s leaders and young people to not let him remain the last man to walk on the Moon,” his family said in a statement released by NASA.
Cernan was commander of NASA''s Apollo 17 mission and on his third space flight when he set foot on the lunar surface.
On December 14, 1972, he became the last of only a dozen men to walk on the moon and he traced his only child''s initials in the dust before climbing the ladder of the lunar module the last time. It was a moment that forever defined him in both the public eye and his own.
“Those steps up that ladder, they were tough to make,” Cernan recalled in a 2007 oral history. “I didn''t want to go up. I wanted to stay a while.” Cernan called it “perhaps the brightest moment of my life.
... It''s like you would want to freeze that moment and take it home with you. But you can''t.” Decades later, Cernan tried to ensure he wasn''t the last person to walk on the moon, testifying before Congress to push for a return. But as the years went by he realised he wouldn''t live to witness someone follow in his footsteps still visible on the moon more than 40 years later.
“Neil (Armstrong, who died in 2012) and I aren''t going to see those next young Americans who walk on the moon. And God help us if they''re not Americans,” Cernan testified before Congress in 2011. “When I leave this planet, I want to know where we are headed as a nation. That''s my big goal.” Cernan died less than six weeks after another American space hero, John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962. Their flights weren''t the first or last of the Mercury and Apollo eras. Yet to the public they were the bookends of America''s space age glory.
On December 11, 1972, Cernan guided the lander, named Challenger, into a lunar valley called Taurus-Littrow, with Harrison “Jack” Schmitt at his side. He recalled the silence after the lunar lander''s engine shut down.
“That''s where you experience the most quiet moment a human being can experience in his lifetime,” Cernan said in 2007.
“There''s no vibration. There''s no noise. The ground quit talking. Your partner is mesmerized. He can''t say anything.
“The dust is gone. It''s a realisation, a reality, all of a sudden you have just landed in another world on another body out there (somewhere in the) universe, and what you are seeing is being seen by human beings, human eyes, for the first time.”
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