Former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani and his family, who fled the country after Taliban insurgents swept Kabul on Sunday, are in the UAE, say media reports.

According to CNN, the UAE ministry of foreign affairs confirmed this. "The UAE ministry of foreign affairs and international cooperation can confirm that the UAE has welcomed President Ashraf Ghani and his family into the country on humanitarian grounds," CNN quoted a UAE foreign ministry statement as saying.

Ghani, in a Facebook post on Sunday, said he was faced with a "hard choice" between the "armed Taliban" who wanted to enter the Presidential Palace or "leaving the dear country that I dedicated my life to protecting the past 20 years".

"If there were still countless countrymen martyred and they would face the destruction and destruction of Kabul city, the result would have been a big human disaster in this six million city. The Taliban have made it to remove me, they are here to attack all Kabul and the people of Kabul. In order to avoid the bleeding flood, I thought it was best to get out," he said.

"Taliban have won the judgement of sword and guns and now they are responsible for protecting the countrymen's honour, wealth and self-esteem. Didn't they win the legitimacy of hearts? Never in history has dry power given legitimacy to anyone and won't give it to them," Ghani said.

Heavily armed Taliban insurgents swept Kabul on Sunday after a sudden and unprecedented collapse of the US-backed Ghani government.

An academic and economist, Ghani (72) was the 14th president of Afghanistan. He was first elected on September 20, 2014 and was re-elected in the September 28, 2019 presidential election.

—With agency inputs

Two people have been killed and several others injured during a protest in Jalalabad after residents came out to the streets against the Taliban decision to replace Afghanistan’s national flag with their banner.

The insurgents had raised their own flag — a white banner with Islamic inscriptions — in the territories they seized.

According to Al Jazeera, hundreds of people hit the streets in protest against the move to replace the national flag in the city. The protesting crowd had removed the Taliban flag and waved the Afghanistan flag, in Jalalabad city. A video that has gone viral showed the protesters waving the flag on the road.

Taliban fighters fired at the protesters, leading to the death of two people.

The Taliban had, on Tuesday, promised to respect women's rights, forgive those who fought them and ensure Afghanistan does not become a haven for terrorists. However, many in the country remain skeptical of their offer for peace, as evinced by the desperate effort to get out of the country. Many are hiding inside their homes, fearful after prisons and armories were emptied during the insurgents' blitz across the country.

On Wednesday, groups of fighters carrying guns patrolled a well-to-do neighborhood of the capital, Kabul, that is home to many embassies as well as mansions of the Afghan elite.

Meanwhile, 17 people were, reportedly, injured in a stampede at the gate of Kabul airport. Hundreds of Afghans rushed to the tarmac of Kabul's international airport in a desperate attempt to flee the country in the wake of the Taliban takeover. 

—With agency inputs

The Taliban are holding discussions with Afghan leaders and officials to form a government in the war-torn land. On Wednesday, a senior leader of a powerful Taliban faction, who was once jailed and whose group has been listed by the US as a terrorist network, met former Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai. 

Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, a senior official in the ousted government, met Anas Haqqani as part of preliminary meetings that a spokesman for Karzai said would facilitate eventual negotiations with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the top Taliban political leader.

The US branded the Haqqani network a terrorist group in 2012, and its involvement in a future government could trigger international sanctions. The Haqqani Network is an important faction of the Taliban, who captured the capital, Kabul, on Sunday. 

The Taliban have pledged to form an inclusive, Islamic government, although skeptics point to its past record of intolerance for those not adhering to its extreme interpretations of Islam.

(With inputs from agencies)

Co-founder and supreme leader of the Taliban Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, has returned to Afghanistan after 20 long years. The Taliban is gearing up to officially take control of Afghanistan. While leadership has promised amnesty and encouraged women to return to their workplaces, people are terrified. Several Afghan citizens, especially those who helped the US and its allies—for they might be hunted down by the Taliban as an act of revenge. So, now the big question remains as to what happens to those who have been forced to flee their homes over the years—where will the refugees go?

The US has said that it might issue up to 80,000 special immigrant visas to those who helped US personnel and troops on the ground. 

Around 30,000 Afghans will soon be relocated to the United States, with some being temporarily housed at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. Around 324 will be settled through Refugee Services of Texas’ offices in Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston.

At least 6,000 people have already managed to flee the country—most of them have flown out to middle-eastern countries before they can continue their journeys to western nations. 

On Monday, about 640 Afghans were crammed into a C-17 jet, which is designed to carry 150 soldiers but can take 171,000lbs of cargo. Pilots were lauded for not forcing them off the planes, but taking them to Qatar. 

The UK said that it would resettle up to 20,000 Afghans in the long term. Britain, a staunch ally of the US, sent 900 troops to bring back thousands of UK nationals including embassy staff.

The African nation of Uganda said that it would take in 2,000 refugees. Uganda is already home to the largest refugee population in Africa.

Canada said they would accept 20,000 refugees from Afghanistan including women, activists, government workers and anyone else who might be threatened. They will accept journalists, persecuted religious minorities, LGBTI individuals, and family members of previously resettled interpreters. 

Albania said they would take in hundreds of refugees, whose ultimate destination is western nations and Tajikistan has said that it will accept 100,000 refugees. Iran said three provinces bordering Afghanistan to provide temporary refuge to those entering the country. Qatar has said that it would take in at least 8,000 refugees. The Indian  government is considering to grant refuge to religious minorities in Afghanistan like Hindus and Sikhs, while Macedonia said it would take around 450 civilians. 

French President Emmanuel Macron said that France, Germany and other EU nations would put together a robust response to prevent irregular migration. 

Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar has returned to Afghanistan after almost 20 years as the insurgents became the undisputed winners in the two-decade-long battle with the US and NATO forces. The top Taliban leader arrived in Kandahar on Tuesday night from Qatar.

According to reports, Baradar, the most public face of the Taliban and ousted from Afghanistan in 2001, is likely to become the new president of the war-ravaged country. Though Haibatullah Akhundzada is the overall leader of the outfit, Abdul Ghani Baradar has remained the face of the Taliban and his return to the country with the fall of Kabul indicates mobilisation to form the new government.

Baradar heads the political office of the insurgent group and is part of the negotiating team that the group has in Doha. Baradar, reported to have been one of the trusted commanders of Taliban founder Mullah Omar, was captured in 2010 by security forces in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi and released in 2018.

Baradar was raised in Kandahar — the birthplace of the Taliban movement. Like most Afghans, Baradar’s life was forever altered by the Soviet invasion of the country in the late 1970s, transforming him into an insurgent. He was believed to have fought side-by-side with the one-eyed cleric Mullah Omar. The two men reportedly became brothers-in-law after Baradar married Mullah Omar's sister.

Later, the duo founded the Taliban movement in the early 1990s amid the unrest following the Soviet withdrawal in 1992. He was the deputy minister of defence during the last regime of the Taliban

Following the Taliban’s collapse in 2001, Baradar is believed to have been among a small group of insurgents who approached interim leader Hamid Karzai with a letter outlining a potential deal that would have seen the militants recognise the new administration.

Arrested in Pakistan in 2010, Baradar was kept in custody until pressure from the United States saw him freed in 2018 and relocated to Qatar. This is where he was appointed head of the Taliban’s political office and oversaw the signing of the withdrawal agreement with the Americans.

Iran has accelerated its enrichment of uranium to near weapons-grade in violation of the restrictions imposed by the 2015 nuclear deal, says Reuters.

Quoting a report by IAEA, Reuters said that Iran has raised its enrichment of uranium to 60 percent fissile purity from 20 percent in April, which is  a major step towards nuclear weapons-grade. Weapons-grade is around 90 percent purity. The move will  raise tensions with the West as both sides seek to resume talks on reviving Tehran’s  the 2015 nuclear deal, which capped the purity to which Tehran can refine uranium at 3.67 percent.

Tehran has done this shift in purty in response to an explosion and power cut at its Natanz site that damaged output at the main underground enrichment plant there. Iran has blamed the attack on Israel. 

In May, the UN atomic watchdog reported that Iran was using one cascade, or cluster, of advanced centrifuges to enrich to up to 60 percent  at its above-ground pilot enrichment plant at Natanz. The IAEA informed member states on Tuesday that Iran was now using a second cascade for that purpose, too.

The United States and its European allies have warned such moves threaten talks on reviving the deal, which are currently suspended.

Following Reuters’ report, Iran reiterated that its nuclear programme is peaceful and said it had informed the IAEA about its enrichment activities. It added that its moves away from the 2015 deal would be reversed if the United States returned to the accord and lifted sanctions, Iranian state media reported.

“If the other parties return to their obligations under the nuclear accord and Washington fully and verifiably lifts its unilateral and illegal sanctions ... all of Iran’s mitigation and countermeasures will be reversible,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh was quoted as saying by state media.

The IAEA said on Monday that Iran had made progress in its work on enriched uranium metal despite objections by Western powers that there is no credible civilian use for such work.

Uranium metal can be used to make the core of a nuclear bomb, but Iran says its aims are peaceful and it is developing reactor fuel.

Remains of Afghan man were found in the wheel well of a US military aircraft that departed Kabul on Monday—it was the same plane featured in videos that showed hundreds of Afghans scrambling to get on board. The remains were discovered by the Air Force and have prompted an investigation to better understand how this happened. The review of the matter is being done by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.

The viral video of Afghans clamouring beside the aircraft taxied fuelled some sharp criticism of the chaotic evacuation of US troops and personnel. 

Human rights activists and analysts have expressed concerns regarding an impending humanitarian crisis in the country. 

The C-17 Globemaster aircraft landed at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul to deliver equipment to support evacuation efforts. The aircraft was surrounded by several Afghan civilians even before the equipment could be unloaded. The crew decided to depart as soon as possible. The remains were found after the aircraft landed at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. The plane is being impounded and will be inspected. The review being led by US Air Force's Air Mobility Command will investigate the matter and ensure that something like this doesn’t happen again.

Veteran US senator John Cornyn, a Republican, on Tuesday deleted a tweet that had provoked outrage in China.

Cornyn had tweeted on Monday that the US had 30,000 troops in Taiwan. Cornyn had included the claim about Taiwan in a post on US troop numbers in multiple countries. The US had deployed troops in Taiwan for several years until withdrawing them in 1979, when Washington established diplomatic ties with China.

China's Global Times had lashed out at Cornyn over the tweet. "The tweet saying U.S. is stationing '30,000 troops' in China's Taiwan island could be a jaw-dropping mistake or hype from a 'dotard' senator, but it is shocking enough to see how irresponsible American politicians are on crucial issue of Taiwan Straits," Global Times reported.

The article demanded an explanation from Taiwan and noted China would “immediately launch a war to eliminate and expel U.S. Soldiers”. Cornyn had been an votary of the US boosting ties with Taiwan and had introduced legislation to establish a partnership between Taiwan's military and the US National Guard.

US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson have agreed to hold a virtual meeting of G-7 countries next week on the fast-unfolding developments in Afghanistan.

Biden and Johnson spoke over phone regarding the developments in Afghanistan, the White House said on Tuesday, adding that the two leaders commended the bravery and professionalism of their military and civilian personnel, who are working together in Kabul on the evacuation of their citizens and Afghan nationals who assisted in the war effort.

"They also discussed the need for continued close coordination among allies and democratic partners on Afghanistan policy going forward, including ways the global community can provide further humanitarian assistance and support for refugees and other vulnerable Afghans," the White House said in a readout of the phone call.

"They agreed to hold a virtual G7 leaders' meeting next week to discuss a common strategy and approach (to the Afghan situation)," it said.

G7 is an inter-governmental political forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken continued with his global outreach on the issue of Afghanistan.

"Just today he spoke with Qatari Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammed Abdulrahman Al-Thani and Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Ahmad Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah, thanking them for assistance in facilitating the transit of US citizens and Embassy Kabul personnel through Doha and Kuwait City," State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters at his daily news conference.

"He has also continued to be in close and regular contact with the President and the broader national security and foreign policy team," Price said.

Taliban insurgents seized Kabul on Sunday after a sudden and unprecedented collapse of the US-backed Ashraf Ghani government, prompting the embattled president to flee the country.

The Alpha and Beta strains of COVID-19, first identified in the United Kingdom and South Africa respectively, have spread across the world. While the Delta variant first found in India is increasingly becoming the dominant strain in many countries, Alpha and Beta still remain. Now, a 90-year-old woman in Belgium has died after she contracted an infection from both strains.

According to an AFP report, the woman, who was unvaccinated, was admitted to the OLV Hospital in the Belgian city of Aalst after testing positive for COVID-19. She had been admitted after suffering multiple falls and showed good initial oxygen levels. However, her condition deteriorated rapidly and she died five days after being admitted.

When doctors tested her to see which variant she has, they found traces of both the Alpha and Beta variants .

"Both these variants were circulating in Belgium at the time, so it is likely that the lady was co-infected with different viruses from two different people," said molecular biologist Anne Vankeerberghen from the OLV Hospital who led the research.

Vankeeberghen told AFP they did not know how she was infected. The woman lived alone and received at-home nursing care.

This is not the first instance of someone being infected by two strains at once. In January, Brazilian scientists reported evidence of SARS-CoV-2 co-infection in two cases in Rio.

Australia, on Sunday, reported its first coronavirus-related death of 2021. Authorities reported 77 new cases of the virus-- most of the cases were known to of the infectious Delta Variant. 

Myanmar Health Ministry on Saturday reported a record 4,377 new confirmed cases for a total of 188,752, as well as a record 71 deaths, bringing the toll to 3,756. 

Consumed by a bitter and violent political struggle since the military seized power in February, Myanmar has been slow to wake up to a devastating surge in cases since mid-May. Military hospitals continued operating but were shunned by many, while doctors and nurses who boycotted the state system ran makeshift clinics, for which they faced arrest. The pace of vaccinations slowed to a crawl, threatening an explosion in infections.

Min Aung Hlaing, in a Friday meeting on COVID-19 response, ordered oxygen plants to work at full capacity, including converting industrial oxygen for the needs of patients.

Investment and Foreign Trade Minister Aung Naing Oo followed up on Saturday with an announcement that the government is dropping all duties and licensing requirements for the import of oxygen concentrators devices that generate oxygen.

Finland

A new amendment to the Finnish infectious diseases act concerning border security imposes a fine to a tourist who enters Finland and resists a required COVID-19 test, starting July 12. The law is valid until October 15.

It already was possible for the police to fine those refusing COVID-19 tests, but authorities say the amendment will remarkably clarify the situation in judicial terms.

Finland has a population of 5.5 million and one of the lowest coronavirus figures in Europe. The Nordic country has maintained tight border control during the pandemic. The country so far has reported 97,994 cases of the coronavirus and 976 COVID-19 deaths.

South Korea

South Korea, on Saturday, reported 1,324 new coronavirus cases, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. The number is a drop from 1,378 cases reported on Friday. Authorities have attributed the dip to fewer tests over the weekend and warned that cases may continue to rise.

The new wave in South Korea, however, sees far fewer serious infections than in previous waves. So far, about 11 per cent of South Korea's 52 million population have received both doses of the vaccination and around 30 per cent of the population have received one dose. More cases in the current wave are being reported among the younger, non-vaccinated segment of the population. Local authorities are imposing strict social distancing mandates. So far, South Korea has reported a total of 168,046 COVID-19 infections and 2,043 virus-related deaths.

Brazil

Brazil, on Saturday, registered 1,205 deaths and 48,504 new cases, the nation's Health Ministry. So far, Brazil has registered a total of 532,893 coronavirus deaths and 19,069,003 cases.

Mexico, on Saturday, reported new cases of COVID-19 and 232 more deaths. The country's total COVID-19 toll is at 2,586,721. The government has suggested that the actual death toll could be 60 per cent higher than the official count.

Bulgarians are voting in a snap poll on Sunday after a previous election in April produced a fragmented parliament that failed to form a viable coalition government.

Latest opinion polls suggest that the rerun could produce similar results but also a further drop in support for former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov's GERB party, after the current caretaker government made public allegations of widespread corruption during his rule.

NATO and EU member Bulgaria has been repeatedly criticized for not tackling corruption and for deficiencies in the rule of law and media freedom.

The anti-corruption campaign of Borissov's opponents was additionally boosted by the sanctions the US Treasury imposed last month against several Bulgarian public officials and business leaders for corruption.

Polls suggest a tight race between Borissov's party, which came first in April with over 26 per cent of the vote, and its main rival, the anti-elite. There is Such a People, led by popular TV entertainer Slavi Trifonov.

The opposition Socialist Party is tipped to rank third, followed by the liberal anti-corruption group Democratic Bulgaria and the ethnic Turkish MRF party.

The new centre-left alliance Stand Up! Mafia Out!, which emerged after last year's anti-government protests, is projected to pass the 4 per cent hurdle to enter parliament.

According to political analyst Dimitar Ganev, there are little chances for Borissov to return to office for a fourth term regardless of whether the GERB finishes first in the election because most political groups have rejected the idea of cooperating with the ex-ruling party.

The 12,000 polling stations close at 8 pm. There are 6.7 million eligible voters who are electing 240 lawmakers. Preliminary results are expected around midnight Sunday.  

The Taliban has said it sees China as a "friend" of Afghanistan and assured Beijing that it would not host Uyghur Islamic militants from the volatile Xinjiang province, which is a major worry for the Chinese government, according to a media report.

The comments came as the Taliban made territorial gains in the war-torn country amid the withdrawal of the US forces. China has already evacuated 210 of its nationals from Afghanistan by a chartered flight this week.

Beijing is concerned that under Taliban rule, Afghanistan will become a hub for the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a separatist outfit aligned to Al-Qaeda which is waging an insurgency in Xinjiang. 

The resource-rich Xinjiang shares about 80-km-long border with Afghanistan. 

Playing down China's concerns, the Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen said they see China as a friend to Afghanistan and is hoping to talk to Beijing about investing in reconstruction work as soon as possible.

Suhail also said the Taliban would no longer allow China's Uyghur separatist fighters from Xinjiang, some of whom had previously sought refuge in Afghanistan, to enter the country.

The Taliban would also prevent al-Qaeda or any other terrorist group from operating there, he said.

We have been to China many times and we have good relations with them, Suhail told Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post, recalling the few meetings hosted by China in the past for Taliban delegations. "China is a friendly country and we welcome it for reconstruction and developing Afghanistan," he said adding that "If [the Chinese] have investments, of course, we will ensure their safety," Shaheen said.

Sharply critical of the US move to pull out its troops without stabilising the peace process in Afghanistan, China this week has asked its close ally Pakistan to step up cooperation to contain the security risks in the war-torn country following the withdrawal of the foreign forces.

"(China and Pakistan) need to defend regional peace together. Problems in Afghanistan are practical challenges that China and Pakistan both face," especially the expansion of both international and regional terrorism, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Tuesday addressing a meeting of the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations with Pakistan.

While the American troops' withdrawal and resurgence of the Taliban should strategically benefit China as the Taliban shares close ties with Pakistan, both Islamabad and Beijing are concerned as they faced threats from the Islamic militant groups which were part of Al-Qaeda and Taliban. 

China has been eying big scale investments in Afghanistan as the country has the world's largest unexploited reserves of copper, coal, iron, gas, cobalt, mercury, gold, lithium and thorium, valued at over USD one trillion.

In 2011, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) won a USD 400 million bid to drill three oil fields for 25 years, containing roughly 87 million barrels of oil.

Chinese firms have also gained rights to mine copper at Mes Aynak in Logar province, according to the Post report.

But observers say China will remain very cautious and concerned about the Taliban delivering on its promises.

Whatever benign language the Taliban use, China remains highly concerned about the security situation there, Andrew Small, a senior transatlantic fellow with the German Marshall Fund's Asia Programme told the Post.

He said China's biggest concern in its dealings with the Taliban had always been whether it was sheltering Uyghur separatists.

China's crackdown in Xinjiang, observers say, has exasperated the resentment among native Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. The US, the EU and international human rights organisations have accused Beijing of committing genocide in the province. 

The 12th report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team of the UN last month confirmed the presence of ETIM militants in Afghanistan.

The Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) consists of several hundred members, located primarily in Badakhshan and neighbouring Afghan provinces," the report submitted to the UN Security Council said.

The report said that large numbers of Al-Qaeda fighters and other foreign extremist elements aligned with the Taliban are located in various parts of Afghanistan. 

Haiti's interim government said Friday that it asked the US to deploy troops to protect key infrastructure as it tries to stabilize the country and prepare the way for elections in the aftermath of the assassination of President Jovenel Mose.

“We definitely need assistance and we've asked our international partners for help,” Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph told The Associated Press in an interview, declining to provide further details. “We believe our partners can assist the national police in resolving the situation.”

Joseph said that he was dismayed by opponents who've tried to take advantage of Moïse's murder to seize political power — an indirect reference to a group of lawmakers have declared their loyalty and recognized Joseph Lambert, the head of Haiti's dismantled senate, as provisional president and Ariel Henry, whom Moïse designated as prime minister a day before he was killed, as prime minister.

"I'm not interested in a power struggle,” Joseph said in the brief phone interview, without mentioning Lambert by name. “There's only one way people can become president in Haiti. And that's through elections.”

Joseph spoke just hours after the head of Colombia's police said that the Colombians implicated in Moïse's assassination were recruited by four companies and traveled to the Caribbean nation in two groups via the Dominican Republic. Meanwhile, the U.S. said it would send senior FBI and Homeland Security officials to help in the investigation.

Haitian National Police Chief Léon Charles said 17 suspects have been detained in the brazen killing of Moïse that stunned a nation already reeling from poverty, widespread violence and political instability.

As the investigation moved forward, the killing took on the air of a complicated international conspiracy. Besides the Colombians, among those detained by police were two Haitian Americans, who have been described as translators for the attackers. Some of the suspects were seized in a raid on Taiwan's Embassy where they are believed to have sought refuge.

At a news conference in Colombia's capital of Bogota, Gen. Jorge Luis Vargas Valencia said four companies had been involved in the “recruitment, the gathering of these people” implicated in the assassination, although he did not identify the companies because their names were still being verified.

Two of the suspects traveled to Haiti via Panama and the Dominican Republic, Vargas said, while a second group of 11 arrived in Haiti on July 4 from the Dominican Republic.

In Washington, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said senior FBI and Department of Homeland Security officials will be sent to Haiti “as soon as possible to assess the situation and how we may be able to assist.”

“The United States remains engaged and in close consultations with our Haitian and international partners to support the Haitian people in the aftermath of the assassination of the president,” Psaki said.

Following Haiti's request for U.S. troops, a senior administration official reiterated Psaki's earlier comments that the administration is sending officials to assess how it can be most helpful, but added there are no plans to provide military assistance at this time.

The U.S. sent troops to Haiti following the last presidential assassination in the country, the murder of President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam in 1915 at the hands of an angry mob that had raided the French Embassy where he had sought refuge.

In Haiti, National Police Chief Léon Charles said another eight suspects were still at large and being sought for Investigative Judge Clément Noël told the French-language newspaper Le Nouvelliste that the Haitian Americans arrested, James Solages and Joseph Vincent, said the attackers originally planned only to arrest Moïse, not kill him. Noël said Solages and Vincent were acting as translators for the attackers.

The same newspaper quoted Port-au-Prince prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude as saying he ordered an investigative unit of the National Police Force to interrogate all the security agents close to Moïse. These include Moise's security coordinator Jean Laguel Civil and Dimitri Hérard, head of the General Security Unit of the National Palace.

“If you are responsible for the president's security, where have you been? What did you do to avoid this fate for the president?” Claude said.

The attack, which took place at Moïse's home before dawn Wednesday, also seriously wounded his wife, who was flown to Miami for treatment.

Joseph assumed leadership with the backing of police and the military and declared a two-week “state of siege.” Port-au-Prince already has been on edge amid the growing power of gangs that displaced more than 14,700 people last month alone as they torched and ransacked homes in a fight over territory.

The killing brought the usually bustling capital to a standstill, but Joseph urged the public to return to work.

Vargas has pledged Colombia's full cooperation, and authorities there identified 13 of the 15 Colombians implicated in the attack as retired members of the military, 11 captured and two killed. They range in rank from lieutenant colonel to soldier. 

(AP) 

US President Joe Biden on Friday nominated Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti as his ambassador to India. He would be the replacement for Kenneth Juster, the Indian envoy under former president Trump.

Garcetti is the 42nd mayor of Los Angeles, the second-largest city in the United States, after New York City. As the news came out, the Indian-American community welcomed the nomination. Tweeting her best wishes to Garcetti, US-India Business Council president Nisha Biswal said: “Excited to see Mayor Garcetti put his bits of Hindi to good use and advance the US-India partnership”.

Garcetti’s connections with India may not be known to many. Garcetti has travelled several times to India. In college, he also spent a year studying Hindi and Urdu.

Garcetti co-founded climate mayors and led more than 400 US mayors to adopt the Paris Climate agreement. Speaking about India, the pandemic and climate change issues, Garcetti told the Los Angeles Times: “We can’t get our climate goals without India hitting its climate goals. We can’t see the economy truly reopened to international commerce and tourism until COVID is under control.”

“He has lived and conducted field work on nationalism, ethnicity, and human rights in Southeast Asia and Northeast Africa,” the White House said in a statement.

The White House said, “He is the current Chair of C40 Cities a network of 97 of the world’s biggest cities taking bold climate action (and) has led the organisation’s engagement and expansion in India, as well as C40’s global response to the Covid pandemic through the sharing of best practices and resources.” New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai are active members of C40 cities.

“Biden's nomination of Garcetti to serve as next ambassador to India is an important step forward in the US-India partnership as the two countries work together to end the pandemic, increase economic cooperation, and ensure regional security,” Indian-American Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi said.

At least 52 people were killed and over 50 others injured in a massive fire that broke out at a six-storey juice factory outside Bangladesh's capital Dhaka, according to media reports on Friday.

The fire broke out at around 5pm on Thursday at the Shezan juice factory in Naryanganj's Rupganj, according to fire officials.

It is suspected that the fire originated from the ground floor of the building and spread quickly due to the presence of chemicals and plastic bottles.

Fifty-two people have died and over 50 others were injured in the fire, the Dhaka Tribune reported.  

Several workers jumped off the building to escape the devastating fire, it said. 

Eighteen firefighting units were struggling to douse the fire at the factory building of Hashem Foods Limited.

People gathered in front of the building in search of their loved ones who are still missing. Of the many missing, the identities of 44 missing workers have been confirmed, the newspaper said.

Rescued workers and relatives alleged that the front gate and only exit of the factory remained locked at the time of the fire. 

They also claimed that the building had no proper fire safety measures in place.

Deputy Director of Narayanganj District Fire Service Abdullah Al Arefin said it will take some time to fully control the fire. 

Until the fire is doused, it is not possible to say exactly how much damage has occurred and the cause of the fire, he added.

A five-member probe committee has been formed by the district administration to look into the incident. 

Rescuers have recovered the bodies of all 28 people who were on a plane that crashed in a remote area in Russia's Far East this week, local officials said Friday. One of the plane's black boxes also was recovered. 

The Antonov An-26 crashed Tuesday near its destination in the Kamchatkatown region town of Palana, apparently as it came in for a landing in bad weather. The plane was en route from the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to Palana when it missed a scheduled communication and disappeared from radar. None of the six crew members or 22 passengers on board survived the crash. 

Wreckage was found Tuesday evening on a coastal cliffside and in the sea. The remote, hard-to-access crash site and the weather hindered the search and rescue operation, and rescuers had only found the remains of 19 victims as of Wednesday. 

The rest of the bodies were found Friday, along with one of the two black boxes. It wasn't immediately clear whether the black box recovered was a voice recorder or a flight data recorder. 

In the aftermath of the crash, authorities in Kamchatka declared three days of mourning. Officials said that families of the victims will receive payments of more than 3.5 million rubles (about $47,200) that includes compensation from the airline, an insurance payment and a subsidy from the regional government. 

Police have opened an investigation and are looking at three possible causes of the crash weather, equipment malfunction or pilot error. 

In 2012, an Antonov An-28 plane belonging to Kamchatka Aviation Enterprise crashed into a mountain while flying the same route as Tuesday's flight. Ten of the 14 people on board were killed. Blood tests found alcohol in the systems of both pilots, who were among the dead, Russian news agency Tass reported.