Washington, Apr 8,2021: The United States is ready to lift sanctions imposed on Iran so as to resume mutual compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement, said State Department spokesman Ned Price.
In a press briefing on Wednesday Price said
“We are prepared to lift sanctions that are inconsistent with the JCPOA [the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action],”
Price made it clear that there will be no unilateral gestures from the US side as it favors a “compliance for compliance” formula.
Currently a US delegation is attending an in-person meeting by the JCPOA members in Austria to discuss steps needed to fully restore the nuclear agreement.
The US representatives had meetings with counterparts from France, Germany, Russia, China and the United Kingdom, but are not expected to engage in direct talks with Iran’s team.
In 2015, Iran signed the JCPOA with the P5+1 group of countries. The agreement required Iran to scale back its nuclear program and downgrade its uranium reserves in exchange for sanctions relief. In 2018, the US withdrew from the JCPOA and started imposing sanctions on Iran.
Itanagar, Apr 8,2021: As many as eight people, including two security personnel, have tested positive for Covid-19 in Arunachal Pradesh in the last 24 hours, taking the state’s caseload to 16,861.
According to the bulletin issued by the state Directorate of Health Services, of the new cases, two each were reported from Itanagar Capital Complex, Namsai, Lower Dibang Valley (LDV), and one each from West Kameng and Lohit. Six patients are asymptomatic and two symptomatic.
On the other hand, two patients were discharged from LDV, taking the total recoveries to 16,788. The recovery rate is over 90 per cent.
Active cases stood at 17. Death toll at 56.
Jakarta, Apr 5,2021: Flash floods and landslides killed more than 50 people in Indonesia and Timor Leste, reports said on Sunday.
Torrential rain lead to widespread destruction, with flood water from overflowing dams inundating thousands of homes on the islands, the BBC reported.
The affected area stretched from Flores island in eastern Indonesia to the neighbouring nation of Timor Leste.
Rescue efforts are still going on to find survivors, even as officials warned that the death toll could rise further.
“Four sub-districts and seven villages have been impacted,” Indonesian Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesperson Raditya Jati told reporters.
“After verifying the data with our team in the field, we found that there are 41 people dead. 27 people are still missing and nine people are injured.”
However East Flores deputy regent Agustinus Payong Boli estimated that as many as 60 people in his municipality had died in the floods, but this has not been confirmed by Indonesian national authorities.
Paris, Apr 4,2021: France on Saturday entered its third national lockdown as the rise in the number of COVID cases threatens to overwhelm the country’s medical system.
Under the lockdown all schools and non-essential shops will be shut for four weeks, and a curfew will be in place from 19:00 to 06:00, while from Tuesday onward people will also need a valid reason to travel more than 10 km (six miles) from their homes, the BBC reported.
On Friday, France reported that the number of seriously ill COVID patients in intensive care units (ICU) increased by 145, which is the biggest jump in five months.
At present France has about 5,000 COVID patients in ICUs across the country. On Friday, the country recorded 46,677 new cases and 304 deaths.
President Emmanuel Macron has promised more hospital beds for COVID patients.
Washington, Apr 3,2021: A police officer was killed and another injured after a man rammed his car into them at a security barricade outside the US Capitol on Friday.
The suspect was shot dead by the authorities.
The deceased officer has been identified as William “Billy” Evans who had joined the force in March 2003 and was a member of the First Responder’s Unit.
Following the shooting, the Capitol was put on lockdown for sometime as a precautionary measure.
“Whether the attack was at law enforcement, or whoever, we have a responsibility to get to the bottom of it and we’ll do that,” Robert Contee, BBC quoted the acting chief of Washington DC’s Metropolitan Police Department as saying at a news conference.
Acting Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman said it was “with a very, very heavy heart that I announce one of our officers has succumbed to his injuries”.
Law enforcement officials identified the suspect as 25-year-old Noah Green. An investigation into his background and mental health was underway.
Two law enforcement sources involved in the investigation told BBC partner CBS News that Noah Green was from Indiana.
They said that no prior information about him had been found on any police databases.
In a post from mid-March on a now-deleted Facebook page, Green wrote that he had recently left his job, “partly due to afflictions, but ultimately, in search of a spiritual journey”. He added he had been suffering the “side effects of drugs I was intaking unknowingly” and wrote extensively of his interest in the black nationalist religious organisation, Nation of Islam.
The attack comes at a time when the home department is still grappling to come to terms with the January 6 violence when former President Donald Trump’s loyalists stormed the Capitol when voting was in progress to certify Biden’s presidential win. Six lives, including that of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, were lost in the incident.
Mourning the officer’s demise, President Joe Biden said in a statement that he and his wife were heartbroken to learn of the attack and expressed condolences to Evans’ family. He directed flags at the White House to be lowered to half staff.