India and China reiterated their commitment to maintaining peace and tranquility along their border by enhancing communications between their militaries during a meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the annual BRICS Summit here.

“Both leaders have reaffirmed once again their readiness to give their militaries the necessary directions to enhance communications between them and to maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas,” Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said at a media briefing here on Thursday evening.

Indian and Chinese troops were in a face-off position for over two months on the Doklam plateau at the India-Bhutan-China tri-junction last year.

The stand-off began in June when Indian troops stalled a road building by the Chinese Army in the area, citing the disputed status of the region and its close proximity to India’s artery in the northeast.

New Delhi objected to Chinese road building in Doklam because of the disputed status and its proximity to the Siliguri Corridor which links India’s northeast to the rest of the country.

The stand-off ended in August after both sides retreated from the point of the face-off.

Thursday’s meeting was the third between Modi and Xi after their informal meeting in Wuhan, China, in April initiated by Xi, and on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Summit (SCO) last month.

During the Wuhan meet, both Modi and Xi pledged to keep the India-China border quiet and personally guide their respective armies to avert a Doklam-like military stand-off in future.

According to Gokhale, during the meeting in Johannesburg, both sides saw “forward movement in the sense of delegations going to have specific talks on imports by China”.

He said that a delegation representing the Indian pharmaceutical industry will visit China on August 21-22.

Beijing had given the approval to import of generic Indian cancer-treatment drugs earlier this year.

“In addition, a number of Indian mills in the non-Basmati rice sector have been cleared by a Chinese delegation on the grounds of phytosanitary and quarantine requirement,” the Indian Foreign Secretary said.

Following the Modi-Xi meeting in Qingdao, the 2006 Protocol on phytosanitary requirements for exporting rice from India to China was amended to include the export of non-Basmati varieties of rice from India.

Gokhale described the bilateral meeting as “very productive”.

“The two leaders will meet again on the margins of the G20 Summit in Argentina at the end of this year,” he added.

Modi and Xi earlier in the day participated in the 10th BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) Summit here.

Pretoria: Prime Minister Narendra Modi shakes hands with South African Deputy President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa during a meeting in Pretoria, South Africa on Friday.

India and South Africa signed three agreements, including in the areas of agriculture and space cooperation, following bilateral talks between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on the sidelines of the annual BRICS Summit here.

Addressing the media here on Thursday evening, Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said that both leaders expressed satisfaction at the growth of bilateral trade.

India-South Africa trade stood at a little over $4.1 billion till the end of August last year.

“Among the areas, the Prime Minister said the South African companies should be exploring in India are defence, food processing, and health insurance,” Gokhale said.

The two sides signed three agreements on cooperation in exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes, setting up of Mahatma Gandhi-Nelson Mandela Centre of specialization for artisan skills, and agricultural research and education.

This was Modi’s first meeting with Ramaphosa after the latter assumed office in February this year.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned Wednesday’s suicide attack outside a polling station in Pakistan’s Quetta that killed 31 people, said his spokesman.

Guterres extended his heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and to the government and people of Pakistan, said Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman, in a statement on Wednesday, Xinhua news agency reported.

The United Nations stands in solidarity with and supports the efforts of the government of Pakistan in the fight against terrorism, said the statement.

The election day attack outside a polling station in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province in the southwest, killed at least 31 people and injured about 40 others.

Massive delays in counting and allegations of rigging dominated the early hours of Thursday in Pakistan, where official poll results were still awaited even 15 hours after voting ended.

Preliminary results indicate Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) has obtained a clear edge over other parties with 119 in their kitty as unofficial results continue to pour in.

Although PTI workers and supporters started celebrations before the final results, no statement — or even a tweet — has been issued by the former cricket himself on the victory.

His spokesperson Naeemul Haque, however, tweeted that the PTI chief will “address the nation” at 2 p.m. “in celebration and recognition of the massive support received from the people of Pakistan in the 2018 elections which was a contest between the forces of good and evil”.

In Punjab, with preliminary results from 50 percent polling stations available with ECP, PML-N is currently holding its lead on 129 provincial seats but PTI is closing in with a lead on 122 seats.

Imran Khan’s party is clearly steering ahead in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa with a lead on 64 seats against Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), which is currently leading on 12 seats, as per reports from 35 percent polling stations in the province.

The preliminary results from 37 percent polling stations in Sindh show PPP-P leading on 75 seats, followed by PTI on 22 seats.

In Balochistan, Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) is leading on 12 provincial seats, followed by Balochistan National Party (BNP) on nine seats, based on unofficial results from 35 percent polling stations.

According to Geo News, Awami National Party leader Ghulam Ahmed Bilour conceded defeat to PTI’s Shaukat Ali, his competitor on Peshawar’s NA-31 seat, saying: “The results indicate that Imran Khan is a favourite leader of the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. I am a democratic person and I admit the defeat.”

Counting is still going on at the polling stations of different constituencies.

According to PTV news, Imran Khan has maintained a massive lead over PML-N’s Shahid Khaqan Abbasi in Islamabad constituency. The PTI chief was pitted against former Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi in the crucial National Assembly seat.

The voter turnout was recorded at 50-55 percent of the nearly 106 million electorates, similar to the previous electoral contest in 2013.

Television visuals showed election workers sorting through massive piles of paper ballots at polling stations across the country.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shahbaz Sharif at a mid-vote count press conference said his party rejects the poll results.

In a tweet, he said the party had rejected the results “due to manifest and massive irregularities”.

Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also said he had not received any official results from any constituency where he was contesting, despite it being past midnight.

“My candidates (have been) complaining (that) polling agents have been thrown out of polling stations across the country. Inexcusable and outrageous,” he tweeted.

A delay has been reported in the transmission of election results due to the breaking down of the Election Commission of Pakistan’s Results Transmission System (RTS), which is being run through a software powered by National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra).

The Election Commission’s secretary Babar Yaqoob flatly denied allegations of vote count manipulation.

Shortly before Sharif spoke, state television said that just one-fifth of the votes had been counted so far — an unusually slow count that further fuelled suspicion of rigging.

Yaqoob said the vote-counting system, which was untested, had “crashed”, adding: “There is definitely no conspiracy, no one wants to influence the results”.

A single party will need to bag at least 137 of the directly elected seats to be able to form the government on its own.

As many as 12,570 candidates were in the electoral fray for a total of 849 seats of national and provincial assemblies in the country’s 11th general election.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that he is committed to working with the Congress on a new Russia sanctions bill after he issued a “Crimea Declaration” that rejected Russia’s control of Crimea.

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Pompeo on Wednesday said that he will support the bill to hold Russia accountable for its behaviours around the globe.

He confirmed the necessity to raise the cost of Moscow’s alleged malpractice “if we can find the right places and the right leverage point”, Xinhua news agency reported.

Saying that sanctions focusing more on Russian individuals and oligarchs are necessary, Pompeo noted: “that the things that impact the Russian economy are the things that I hear the Russians are most concerned about.”

He also said that Washington does not and will not recognize the Kremlin’s control of Crimea.

“There will be no relief of Crimea-related sanctions until Russia returns control of the Crimean Peninsula to Ukraine,” he said, noting the US stance regarding Crimea is a “policy of nonrecognition”.

Citing the 213 sanctions on Russian entities and individuals since the Trump administration assumed office, Pompeo said “with respect to Russia, this administration has been tougher than previous administrations, and I fully expect it will”.

“The President… will be their toughest enemy, most difficult enemy,” he said.

The relations between Washington and Moscow have been strained over Ukraine, Syria, Iran, the poison attack of an ex-Russian spy in Britain, and Russia’s alleged meddling in US 2016 elections.

The two nations’ presidents met earlier this month in Finland. However, due to the wide backlash inside the US over President Donald Trump’s remarks there, the White House announced earlier on Wednesday that the next meeting between Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will be delayed till next year.

In the Crimea Declaration, Pompeo said “the US reaffirms as policy its refusal to recognize the Kremlin’s claims of sovereignty over” Crimea.

Russia was expelled from the Group of Eight in 2014 and has since then endured sanctions of the West for its incorporation of Crimea.

Twenty-one Indian-origin persons have been sentenced here to up to 20 years for their role in a massive India-based call centre scam which defrauded thousands of US residents of hundreds of millions of dollars, the Justice Department said.

The sentences which range from 4 years to 20 years were announced earlier this week, the department said in a press release on Friday.

“The stiff sentences imposed this week represent the culmination of the first-ever large scale, multi-jurisdiction prosecution targeting the India call center scam industry,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

“This case represents one of the most significant victories to date in our continuing efforts to combat elder fraud and the victimization of the most vulnerable members of the US public.

“The transnational criminal ring of fraudsters and money launderers who conspired to bilk older Americans, legal immigrants and many others out of their life savings, must recognize that all resources will be deployed to shut down these telefraud schemes, put those responsible in jail and bring a measure of justice to the victims,” Sessions said.

According to various admissions made in connection with the defendants’ guilty pleas, between 2012 and 2016, the defendants and their conspirators perpetrated a complex fraud and money laundering scheme in which individuals from call centres located in Ahmedabad frequently impersonated officials from the federal tax agency, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) or US Citizenship and Immigration Services in a ruse designed to defraud victims located throughout the US.

Using information obtained from data brokers and other sources, the accused targeted the US victims who were threatened with arrest, imprisonment, fines or deportation if they did not pay alleged monies owed to the government.

Victims who agreed to pay the scammers were instructed how to provide payment, including by purchasing stored value cards or wiring money. Upon payment, the call centres would immediately turn to a network of “runners” based in the US to liquidate and launder the fraudulently obtained funds.

For their services, the runners would earn a specific fee or a percentage of the funds. Runners also received victims’ funds via wire transfers, which were retrieved under fake names and through the use of using false identification documents, direct bank deposits by victims or other gift cards that victims purchased.

Three other conspirators were sentenced earlier this year for laundering proceeds for the conspiracy.

Twenty-two of the accused were held jointly and severally liable for restitution of $8,970,396 payable to identified victims of their crimes. Additionally, the court entered individual preliminary orders of forfeiture against the defendants for assets that were seized in the case, and money judgments totalling over $72,942,300.

The indictment in the case also charged 32 India-based conspirators and five India-based call centres with general conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy. These defendants are yet to be arraigned in the case.

As many as 38 people were killed and 37 wounded in a series of bombings and attacks in Syria’s Sweida province on Wednesday, authorities said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said suicide bombers from the Islamic State (IS) detonated bomb vests and explosive devices in Sweida city in tandem with an attack by this terror-designated group on towns in the eastern countryside of Sweida on Wednesday, Xinhua reported.

Three suicide bombers set off their bomb vests near the grocery market and the roundabouts of Mashnaqa and Najmeh in Sweida city, the Observatory said, adding that explosive devices were detonated in the same areas.

In the northeastern countryside of Sweida, where the Syrian warplanes are taking part in striking the IS fighters, the IS militants launched attacks on several towns amid confrontation between the Syrian army and the IS militants.

Meanwhile, a medical source inside the city said that over 30 people were killed in the attacks, adding that the wounded are being taken to the national hospital in the city.

Another explosion took place in the Maslakh area in the city.

The Election Commission on Wednesday took notice of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chairman Imran Khan and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shahbaz Sharif delivering speeches after casting their votes in the 11th general elections, which it termed as “violation of the code of conduct”.

The poll panel spokesperson Nadeem Qasim told Express News that actions may be taken against politicians who delivered speeches and those who voted on-camera with their every move being monitored.

Qasim said that the vote might not be endangered, but the voter may face consequences as per the Election Commission’s law. The electoral body also directed media channels to not air live media talks of candidates as long as polling was underway.

The poll body also took notice of PML-N leader and former Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif’s press talk after casting his vote in Sialkot.

A day earlier, Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority issued show-cause notices to several news channels for inviting candidates on their live election transmissions.

The representatives of the channels were directed to file written replies as well as appear for personal hearings on July 31.

Six persons, including a political worker, were killed and several injured on Wednesday in sporadic incidents of violence as millions of voters queued up outside polling stations across Pakistan to elect a new government.

While polling stations officially opened for voting at 8 a.m., enthusiastic citizens queued up outside their respective stations as early as 7 a.m, Dawn News website said. Polling stations will remain open for voting till 6 p.m. and counting is being done simultaneously.

Results are expected to trickle in immediately after the polling ends with the final outcome likely by Thursday morning or afternoon, according to election officials.

The website reported that five people were killed and 12 injured in a blast that took place in Quetta. Polling was underway at a school nearby, when a police van was targeted in the attack, it said.

A Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) worker was killed and two others injured as party activists clashed with Awami National Party (ANP) workers outside a polling station in Nawan Kali in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s Swabi.

The workers of the two parties clashed in Mardan as well. Several people have been injured in the firing incident. Following the clash, police took control of the affected area, the Dawn reported.

Two people were also injured in a firing incident in Dera Murad Jamali in Balochistan.

In a separate incident, four people were injured in a blast outside a political camp in Larkana, in Sindh province, the home of the Bhutto family, reported Express Tribune.

Independent candidate Jibran Nasir said that Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan supporters attacked a facilitation camp he had set up in Chandio Village in Karachi.

As many as 12,570 candidates are contesting for a total of 849 seats of national and provincial assemblies in the general election. Nearly 106 million people are eligible to vote.

The battle is set to come down to three parties: Shahbaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Imran Khan’s PTI.

In an effort to increase voter participation the Election Commission of Pakistan has declared a public holiday on Wednesday.

Prominent people who cast their votes include former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Mustafa Kamal and chief of the Pak Sarzameen Party.

Over four lakh security personnel has been deployed at polling stations across the country to maintain law and order and take action against harassment, after the nation witnessed one of the bloodiest campaignings on July 13.

According to a poll official, 5,878 polling stations have been declared “highly sensitive” — official euphemism to mean they are prone to violence — in Sindh; 5,487 in Punjab and Islamabad; 3,874 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA and 1,768 in Balochistan.

According to the reports, women voters were being denied the right to vote in a PK-65 constituency of Nowshehra in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province.

Geo TV said a suspicious person was detained when he tried to enter Karachi’s Lyari Bihar Colony polling station in NA-246, claiming to be a police officer.

“The suspicious person has been taken to Chakewara Police Station,” a police officer said, adding that the polling process was halted for about 20 minutes.

The elections are being held as emotions run over a graft case that led to the imprisonment of ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam.

Sharif’s PML-N has condemned the legal cases facing its members and reported pressures to leave the party along with harassment to prevent it from returning to power after its absolute majority in 2013.

These elections are the second in Pakistan’s history in which a government was able to complete its term to make way for another government after being ruled by military dictators for half of the 71 years of its existence since its founding in 1947.