FBI MOST WANTED: TALIBAN ACCUSES U.S. OF VIOLATING PACT
The Taliban accused the U.S. of violating last year’s peace deal signed in Doha, calling on the President Joe Biden administration to immediately lift sanctions against senior members of the Taliban’s new cabinet, says Bloomberg News.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is on the FBI’s Most Wanted list for terrorism, and his family are “part of the Islamic Emirate,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed said in a statement Thursday. “Similarly, in the Doha Agreement, all officials of the Islamic Emirate without any exception were part of the interaction with the U.S and should have been removed from the UN and U.S. blacklists, a demand which still remains valid.”
Haqqani, who was named Afghanistan’s new acting interior minister, is among two-thirds of the newly unveiled cabinet members on UN or U.S. sanctions lists. That’s likely to complicate any moves by the U.S. to cooperate with the Taliban, particularly as President Joe Biden has urged the militants to cut all ties with terrorist groups.
“We urge that these incorrect policies be immediately reversed through diplomatic interactions,” Mujahed added.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the Biden administration is watching the new government, and “any legitimacy, any support, will have to be earned.”
New Taliban Prime Minister Mullah Mohammad Hassan is also sanctioned by the UN along with his deputies, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and
Mullah Abdul Salam Hanafi. Baradar has long been the public face of the Taliban.
In February last year, he oversaw and signed the peace deal with the Trump administration in Doha, Qatar, that paved the way for the exit of American and NATO troops from Afghanistan. According to the terms of that deal, the US should have removed any sanctions on the Taliban by August 27, 2020.
A South African court pushed back to September 21 and 22 a hearing scheduled for Thursday in a corruption trial of former president Jacob Zuma linked to a 1990s arms deal.
The 12-day postponement was agreed between Zuma’s lawyers and prosecutors and granted by Judge Piet Koen at the Pietermaritzburg High Court.
It is the latest in a series of delays in the long-running case, in which 79-year-old Zuma faces multiple charges, including corruption, racketeering and money laundering over the weapons contract over which he allegedly received kickbacks.
In July, Zuma was jailed for 15 months for defying a constitutional court order to appear at a separate inquiry into corruption during his scandal-plagued time in office.
However, he is currently in hospital after the government said on Sunday he had been placed on medical parole for an undisclosed condition.
In power from 2009 until 2018, Zuma denies wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.
NORTH KOREA HOLDS MIDNIGHT PARADE FOR 73RD ANNIVERSARY
SOUTH AFRICAN EXPRESIDENT ZUMA TRIAL MOVED TO SEPTEMBER 21
North Korea has held a military parade to mark the communist state’s 73rd founding anniversary but did not display any major ballistic missiles.
State media photos of the night-time parade showed marching soldiers and workers in hazmat suits instead.
Leader Kim Jong-un, who looked visibly slimmer, was seen among the unmasked crowds hugging children.
North Korea is suffering from food shortages and a deepening economic crisis due to the pandemic. On Thursday, state media released images of fire trucks, tractors, and fireworks at the parade.
According to the BBC, one section of the parade marched in what appeared to be bright red hazmat suits and gas masks, which may signify that a special force has been created to help prevent the spread of Covid-19.
As of August 19, North Korea had recorded no cases of Covid-19, the World Health Organization (WHO) says - though critics say this is unlikely.
But its nuclear plans have not been curtailed. Last month the UN atomic agency said that the country appeared to have restarted a reactor that could produce plutonium for nuclear weapons, calling it a “deeply troubling” development.