Moscow: Russia rebuffed as a baseless smear on Thursday a U.S. allegation that Moscow may be conducting low-level nuclear tests in violation of a moratorium.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Russia was in full compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which Moscow ratified in 2000.
It called for the United States itself to ratify the treaty.
“Such accusations are absolutely groundless and aimed at trying again to smear our country,” the ministry statement said.
“We again call on the United States to show a responsible approach and to ratify the CTBT, without which its entry into force is not possible,” Russia’s statement said.
China accused the United States of “naked economic terrorism” on Thursday as Beijing ramps up the rhetoric in their trade war.
The world’s top two economies are at loggerheads as trade talks have apparently stalled, with US President Donald Trump hiking tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods earlier this month and blacklisting telecoms giant Huawei.
“We are against the trade war, but we are not afraid of it,” vice foreign minister Zhang Hanhui said at a press briefing to preview President Xi Jinping’s trip to Russia next week.
“This premeditated instigation of a trade conflict is naked economic terrorism, economic chauvinism, and economic bullying,” Zhang said, stressing that China opposes the systematic use of sanctions, tariffs and protectionism.
“There is no winner in a trade war,” he warned.
China has hit back with its own tariff increase on $60 billion in US products that will take effect Saturday, while state media has suggested that Beijing could stop exports of rare earths to the United States, depriving Washington of a key resource used to make hi-tech products.
Meanwhile, state media and officials have stepped up the rhetoric as the Communist Party digs in for what could be a long fight with the United States.
Muzaffarnagar (Uttar Pradesh) May 30: 11 accused were acquitted here on Wednesday by a local court in connection with the 2013 communal riots in Muzaffarnagar district.
Public Prosecutor Dushyant Tyagi, while speaking to media, said, “The local court acquitted 11 accused in a case related to the 2013 Muzaffarnagar communal riots. The acquittal was done due to lack of evidence.”
“Three witnesses in this case, who were present on behalf of the prosecution, turned away from their statements,” he added.
According to Tyagi, the case against the 11 accused was registered in relation to robbery and arson during the time of riots.
The clashes that broke out in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts of Uttar Pradesh between the Hindu and Muslim communities claimed 62 lives while injuring 93 others and rendering more than 50,000 homeless.
The riots took place over a minor altercation between Hindu and Muslim youths at Kawal village in Muzaffarnagar district.
France must stop the “inhumane treatment” of children of jihadists stranded in Syria who are not being allowed to come to the country, its rights ombudsman said Wednesday, warning that Paris was flouting its UN obligations.
The statement by France’s Human Rights Defender Jacques Toubon came as controversy intensifies over the reluctance of French authorities to take in the children of French citizens affiliated with Islamic State (IS) jihadists in Syria and Iraq.
“The French state needs to adopt effective measures allowing the halt to the inhumane and degrading treatment of children and their mothers and put an end to the violations of the rights of the child,” Toubon said.
He alleged violations of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which France is a signatory.
The human rights defender leads an independent state institution set up in 2011 and enshrined in the constitution to defend people whose rights have been violated.
Toubon had been asked to give an opinion on the issue by the lawyers of several families with French citizens held in Syria and Iraq.
According to the French foreign ministry, some 450 French citizens linked to IS are either detained by Kurdish forces in northern Syria or being held in refugee camps.
But France is reluctant to bring back foreign fighters or their families after suffering a wave of deadly jihadist attacks that have killed more than 250 people since 2015.
It has said it would consider requests for their return, but only on a case-by-case basis. Since March it has repatriated five orphans and a three-year-old girl whose mother was sentenced to life in prison in Iraq.
In April, France’s State Council, which rules on the constitutionality of policies and laws, rejected several requests to intervene, saying it was a French diplomatic matter outside the council’s jurisdiction.
“Finally a national authority has condemned France and urged it to respect its international and European obligations,” said lawyer Marie Dose, who represents several of the affected families, after Toubon’s statement.
Lawyers William Bourdon and Vincent Brengarth, who represented families who sought the opinion, welcomed the recognition “of the extreme seriousness of the violation of fundamental rights”.
“We expect that the French authorities will organise the repatriation (of the children) as soon as possible,” they said in a statement.
The grandparents of two children stranded with their French jihadist mother at a camp in Kurdish-held Syria filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights earlier this month over France’s refusal to allow them home.
New Delhi [India], May 29: GST Network (GSTN) on Tuesday said it has partnered with eight billing and accounting software vendors for providing software to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), with an annual turnover of up to Rs 1.5 crore.
“GSTN has partnered with eight billing and accounting software vendors for providing software to the micro, small and medium enterprises, with annual turnover under Rs 1.5 crore, in a financial year without any cost to such taxpayers,” read a statement issued by GSTN.
The software would help create invoices, manage inventory, create account statements and prepare GST returns. It contains basic feature such as sale/purchase/cash ledger, inventory management, supplier/customer masters, generation of invoices, preparation of GST returns for free, while for services like bank reconciliation, account receivable would be chargeable.
“This is a step towards providing help to MSMEs to move towards digital system so that their efficiency can be improved and their compliance burden can be reduced. Such taxpayers are nearly 80 per cent in number under GST regime and thus this step is going to benefit a large number of taxpayers,” GSTN Chief Executive Prakash Kumar said.
“GSTN on directions of GST Council has identified eight vendors to provide the Accounting and Billing Software without any cost to such taxpayers,” he added.
In January, the GST Council had passed a proposal of providing free accounting and billing software to small assessees up to Rs 1.5 crore turnover.
Tehran [Iran], May 29 : Iran is ready to engage in a dialogue with the Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), to address the issue of escalating tensions with the United States in the Arabian Gulf, authorities said on Tuesday.
The remarks by Abbas Araqchi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister came on his visit to Qatar where he met foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Doha.
Qatar’s foreign ministry, in a statement cited by Al Jazeera, said both sides “expressed their concern about escalations and problems in the region.”
Tensions have risen between Iran, on one side, along with the US and its Gulf allies, on the other. Washington, earlier this month, deployed a carrier strike group and bombers in the Arabian Gulf and announced plans to deploy additional 1,500 troops to the region, prompting fears of a conflict.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton arrived in the UAE on Tuesday before talks scheduled for Wednesday.
“Just landed in the UAE. Looking forward to meeting with our Emirati allies tomorrow to discuss important and timely regional security matters,” Bolton tweeted.
A war of words between Iran and the US escalated after Tehran-backed Houthis of Yemen launched armed drone attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf region this month. Washington blamed the attacks on Iran, which, however, denied the accusations.
Last week, Bolton said that the US had “deep and serious” intelligence on threats posed by Iran, but did not provide details.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif earlier hit out at the US after Trump said Washington was not looking for regime change in Iran but was only interested in preventing it from obtaining nuclear weapons.
LONDON/BRUSSELS : The European Union will not renegotiate the Brexit deal that Prime Minister Theresa May agreed, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said on Tuesday, as concerns grew that a successor to May could trigger a confrontation with the bloc.
Brexit is up in the air after May announced plans to step down, triggering a leadership contest in the ruling Conservative Party that could bring a new prime minister to power who wants a much more decisive break with the EU.
One of the candidates, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, said it would be “political suicide” to pursue a no-deal Brexit, a reprimand to frontrunner Boris Johnson who said last week that Britain should leave with or without a deal by the end of October.
Hunt, who voted to stay in the EU in the 2016 referendum but now accepts Brexit, said he would try for a new agreement that would take Britain out of the EU customs union while “respecting legitimate concerns” around the Irish border.
The EU, though, said there would be no renegotiation.
“I will have a short meeting with Theresa May, but I was crystal clear: There will be no renegotiation,” Juncker said before a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels.
“Well I think there is a growing risk of a no deal. There’s a possibility that the new British prime minister may try to repudiate the withdrawal agreement,” he told reporters.
Any successor to May will have to accept that the Brexit divorce deal she agreed will not be ratified by the current British parliament so they will have to find a solution to the Irish border issue that upset many lawmakers.
Many Brexit supporters opposed her deal because of a “backstop” that requires Britain to adopt some EU rules indefinitely unless a future arrangement is found to keep open the land border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.
Under laws now in effect, Britain will automatically leave the EU on Oct. 31 without an agreement unless parliament approves one first, the EU grants an extension, or the government revokes its decision to leave.
The US State Department said Tuesday that North Korea’s overall program of weapons of mass destruction violated UN resolutions, after President Donald Trump brushed off recent missile launches.
Choosing words carefully after Trump’s latest warm words for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus declined to say if North Korea’s launches were of ballistic missiles or constituted weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
“I think the entire North Korean WMD program, it’s in conflict with the UN Security (Council) resolutions,” Ortagus told reporters.
She said the United States wanted a favorable relationship between Trump and Kim with a goal to “negotiate a peaceful end to the North Korean WMD program.”
“We have said many times and we will continue to reiterate that the economic sanctions will remain in place until we’re there,” she said.
When he arrived in Japan for a weekend state visit, Trump tweeted that North Korea had tested “some small weapons” that had “disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me.”
He appeared to be referring to his National Security Advisor John Bolton, who said Saturday there was “no doubt” that North Korea’s launches had contravened United Nations Security Council resolutions.
North Korea wasted no time piling onto Bolton, who has long promoted a hawkish foreign policy, calling him a “human defect” and “war maniac.”
North Korea has previously called for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to be excluded from negotiations after he apparently pressed Trump at his February summit with Kim in Hanoi not to accept sanctions relief without further action by Pyongyang in ending its nuclear program.
Talks between Venezuela’s government and opposition on ending months of crisis were under way in Norway, sources said Tuesday, but Washington insisted that the only item for discussion should be President Nicolas Maduro’s removal.
US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido, who more than 50 countries recognize as interim president, had been leading a push to oust leftist firebrand Maduro, who presides over a crumbling economy.
But the opposition agreed to come to the table under Norwegian auspices after an army uprising coupled with street protests, which Guaido hoped would deal decisive blow, instead fizzled out a month ago.
Norwegian diplomats had said that the two sides would meet this week in Norway in their first face-to-face meeting since Guaido claimed power in January, without specifying a date or venue.
Sources close to the process told AFP that the talks were taking place in Oslo. The Norwegian foreign ministry declined to comment.
Maduro, while describing the opposition as “extremist” and working on behalf of the United States, promised to make an effort to resolve the crisis.
“We are going to be showing our very best good faith… to be able to find, based on the platform the parties agreed on, peaceful, democratic solutions to help overcome Venezuela’s conflict,” Maduro said in a televised address Monday.
The United States has refused to speak to Maduro on anything but logistical matters, calling his leadership illegitimate. While not rejecting the talks in Oslo, the United States stood firm in its stance.
“We note the talks in Norway. As we have repeatedly stated, the United States believes the only thing to negotiate with Nicolas Maduro is the conditions of his departure,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus told reporters in Washington.
“While previous efforts to negotiate have failed because the regime has used them to divide the opposition and gain time, we hope that the talks in Oslo will focus on the departure of Maduro as a precondition for progress.”
In a symbolic rejection of Maduro, whose government is still recognized by the United Nations, the United States walked out of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva as Venezuela assumed the UN body’s rotating presidency.