US president pays surprise visit to Afghanistan

Kabul, May 26: US President Barack Obama paid a surprise visit to Afghanistan Sunday, an Afghan official said.

The US president arrived in the Bagram air base in north of Kabul, the main US base in Afghanistan, late Sunday, Xinhua quoted an official source as saying on condition of anonymity.

The aim of his trip is reported to meet American soldiers on a memorial day weekend and he will also visit the injured soldiers who got wounded in Afghanistan conflicts.

Obama is not planning to meet President Hamid Karzai and the two leading presidential candidates of upcoming presidential runoff, the media reported.

The source said the US leader would stay for about five hours and that he will not make announcement on the number of Americans troops in Afghanistan after 2014.

More than 51,000 NATO-led troops, including 33,500 American forces, are currently stationed in Afghanistan. The majority of the foreign troops are set to leave the country by the year end.

Kabul and Washington failed to sign the controversial Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) which would govern the presence of US troops in Afghanistan after 2014.

The Afghan grand assembly attended by 2,500 tribal elders and notables from across the country in November last year endorsed the BSA. However, Karzai said he would sign the pact only if the US agreed to support meaningful peace talks with the Taliban and stop searching civilian houses.

Washington urged outgoing Karzai to sign the BSA before the end of 2013, warning that failure to sign the pact would mean that US forces completely leave the country and Afghanistan risks renewed civil war.

The two presidential runoff candidates, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, have said they would sign the BSA if they win the election.

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Spain blocks arms ship from India to Israel amid ongoing Gaza genocide

News Network

May 18,2024

In a humanitarian move, Spain has refused entry to a ship carrying arms from India’s Chennai to Israel to dock at one of its ports, its Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares has said.

The Denmark-flagged cargo ship Marianne Danica sailed from Chennai on April 8 when people in Gaza were observing Ramadan fasting, and was headed to the port of Haifa in Israel, according to maritime tracking portals and Spanish media.

Spain has been extremely critical of the rising civilian casualties due to the Israeli offensive in Gaza and, along with Belgium, has suspended arms exports licenses to Tel Aviv.

Spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs Randhir Jaiswal, at the weekly press conference, only said that they have seen the report of the ship and will revert with more information.

Meanwhile, a source said, “Investigation will reveal if the items on board were cleared for export and if the end user is the same as reported by The Guardian because there are items that are not banned for exports.”

Speaking to reporters in Brussels on Thursday on the issue, Mr. Albares had said, “This is the first time we have done this because it is the first time we have detected a ship carrying a shipment of arms to Israel that wants to call at a Spanish port.”

“This will be a consistent policy with any ship carrying arms to Israel that wants to call at Spanish ports. The Foreign Ministry will systematically reject such stopovers for one obvious reason: the Middle East does not need more weapons, it needs more peace,” he stated.

The ship was carrying 27 tonnes of explosives according to local reports. It was to make a port call at Cartegena in Spain.
In February, Mr. Albares said that they had suspended arms export licences to Israel since October 7, which he said made them “realise” the importance of a “fair and lasting solution” to the Palestinian cause.

The incident comes amid an ongoing row between Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s party and his coalition partners over another ship, Borkum, that was due to dock at Cartegena port on Friday over allegations that it was carrying arms meant for Israel. However, the Spanish government has said that the arms it is ferrying are meant for the Czech Republic.

Belgium had suspended two arms export licences to Israel.

“We welcome the decision of the Spanish government to deny the transit authorisation of the vessel Marianne Danica, in accordance with Tratado (treaty) on Arms Trade and Spanish law,” Amnesty International Spain said on social media platform ‘X’.

The timing also coincides with the Israeli ground offensive inside Rafah. According to the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) at least 6,30,000 Palestinians have been forced out of Rafah since the launch of the incursion on May 7.

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