China on Friday said that Pakistan must not be vilified and pressured on the front of terror after a global watchdog put the country on “grey list” of countries that finance terrorism.

China calls Pakistan its “best friend” and resolutely backs the country whenever it is slammed for funding and sheltering terrorists.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said it won’t comment on the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) decision to put Pakistan on the “grey list” and counseled the world to see the efforts made by Islamabad in an “objective” way.

“We will not make comment on the decision of the task force. Pakistan has made enormous efforts for counterterrorism and made a great sacrifice. The international community should view this in an objective, just way and should give more support and recognition to Pakistan,” ministry’s spokesperson Lu Kang said.

“Pakistan efforts in the counter terrorism have not only won recognition from China but also from many countries around the world. In recent years, it has taken positive measures to enhance financial regulations to combat terrorism financing and made very important progress,” Lu said.

“We hope all the relevant parties can view the efforts made by Pakistan on counter-terrorism in an objective way instead of accusing and pressuring it. China and Pakistan are all-weather, strategic partners. China is willing to enhance counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan.”

The FATF on Thursday put Islamabad on “grey list” for failing to rein in terrorists and funding to outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Paris-based FATF is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 to combat money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system.

Chinese defence against its “all-weather” ally is not new. Beijing has invested over $50 billion in infrastructure projects in Pakistan, which are part of its ambitious Belt and Road programme.

Five people were killed and two others injured when a man armed with a shotgun and smoke grenades stormed into the newsroom of a community newspaper chain in the US state of Maryland, prompting law enforcement agencies to provide protection at the headquarters of all American media organisations.

The suspect, identified as Jarrod W. Ramos, 38, was taken into custody after the targeted attack on Thursday at the office of the Capital Gazette located in Annapolis, reports The New York Times.

The attack has been deemed as the deadliest day for journalism in America in several years.

Ramos had a long history of conflict with the daily, which produces a number of local newspapers along Maryland’s shore.

He lost a defamation case against the paper in 2015 over a 2011 column he contended defamed him. The column provided an account of Ramos’s guilty plea to criminal harassment of a woman over social media.

“This person was prepared today to come in, this person was prepared to shoot people,” The Washington Post quoted Anne Arundel County Deputy Police Chief William Krampf said.

“His intent was to cause harm.”

The police said all of the victims killed were Capital Gazette employees: Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith and Wendi Winters.

Fischman and Hiaasen were editors, McNamara was a reporter, Smith was a sales assistant and Winters worked for special publications, according to the newspaper’s website.

Four of the victims died on the spot while the fifth was pronounced dead at the University of Maryland Medical Centre.

The shooting began at about 3 p.m. in the office building just outside of downtown Annapolis, The Washington Post reported.

Ramos entered the building with a shotgun and looked for his victims, the police said.

The police, who arrived at the scene within a minute of the reported gunfire, apprehended Ramos found hiding under a desk in the newsroom.

Gazette reporter Phil Davis described the scene as a “war zone” and a situation that would be “hard to describe for a while”.

After his arrest, Ramos refused to cooperate with the authorities or provide his name. He was identified using facial recognition technology, a law enforcement official told The New York Times.

President Donald Trump tweeted: “My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families,” CNN reported.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said: “The senseless attack on a Maryland newspaper today is sickening. God bless these journalists. We pray for them and their families tonight.”

Joel Simon, Executive Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said that violence against journalists was unacceptable.

“Newspapers like the Gazette do vital work, and our thoughts are with them amid this unconscionable tragedy,” he added.

The Capital Gazette, which has an editorial staff of 31 people, had a daily circulation of about 29,000 and a Sunday circulation of 34,000 as of 2014.

Commonly referred to as the Capital, the paper was founded in 1884 as the Evening Gazette.

The paper promotes itself as one of the oldest publishers in the country, with roots dating to the Maryland Gazette in 1727.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who provided key votes for same sex-marriage, abortion access and affirmative action, has announced his retirement from the US Supreme Court, a move that will give the President a chance to replace the pivotal justice and solidify a more conservative majority.

“It has been the greatest honour and privilege to serve our nation in the federal judiciary for 43 years, 30 of those years on the Supreme Court,” The Washington Post quoted the 81-year-old as saying in a statement released on Wednesday, his last day of the term.

He said his final day in office will be July 31.

Kennedy hand-delivered a short letter of resignation to President Donald Trump, shortly after a half hour meeting at the White House.

“Please permit me by this letter to express my profound gratitude for having had the privilege to seek in each case how best to know, interpret and defend the Constitution and the laws that must always conform to its mandates and promises,” Justice Kennedy wrote to Trump.

Trump said he held Kennedy in high esteem, reports CNN.

“He’s been a great justice of the Supreme Court… He is a man who’s displayed great vision, he’s displayed tremendous vision.”

Trump also announced that a search for a replacement from a list of 25 conservative jurists he had previously identified as candidates for the court’s next vacancy will begin immediately, reports The New York Times.

Potential nominees include Brett M. Kavanaugh, a federal appellate judge for the District of Columbia Circuit who clerked for Justice Kennedy at the Supreme Court.

Another possibility is Judge Thomas M. Hardiman of the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, whom Trump seriously considered last year to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016. The President chose Judge Neil M. Gorsuch instead.

Justice Kennedy, a Californian and graduate of Harvard Law School, was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1987.

He wrote some of the country’s most important gay rights decisions and helped to drastically shift the US legal treatment of gays, lesbians and transgender people.

In 2015, he wrote the court’s opinion that established the right for gay people to marry each other.

He determined how far a government may intrude on a woman’s right to an abortion; whether attempts to curtail the corrupting influence of campaign contributions violated free speech; and how and when it was appropriate for the government to exercise affirmative action, The Washington Post reported.

His decisions shielded juveniles and the intellectually disabled from death penalty.

The US efforts to ban Iran’s oil exports will be futile as it is not an easy task to block the country’s crude from the global market, an Iranian oil official said on Wednesday.

Although some European companies, such as Shell and Total, have stopped buying Iranian oil over the past few weeks, Iran is still exporting oil to Europe, Asia and elsewhere in the world, officials at the Iranian Petroleum Ministry said.

A day earlier, a senior US State Department official said told the US has been pushing its allies to stop oil imports from Iran by November 4, Xinhua reported.

“This big claim (of cutting Iran oil supply) is not feasible. Last month, Iran exported 2.8 million barrels of crude oil and condensate per day,” the Iranian official said.

“Removing this from the global market in a few months is not possible,” the Iranian official said.

However, “Iran is prepared for the worst-case scenarios” in case the US pressures take effect, he noted.

Meanwhile, “there is no surplus capacity for countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to supply oil for a long term,” the official pointed out.

Following US President Donald Trump’s decision to quit the historic Iran nuclear pact on May 8, Washington vowed to re-impose sanctions against Iran and inflict punishments including secondary sanctions on countries that have business links with the Islamic republic.

Firms doing business in Iran were given up to 180 days to terminate investments, before they risk huge fines.

The US withdrawal from the landmark nuclear deal has been widely criticized, as some of its major European allies have been working to prevent the 2015 deal from falling apart.

At least nine people were killed and 11 others wounded on Tuesday in an airstrike by the Saudi Arabia-led Arab coalition in the city of Hudaydah, eyewitnesses said.

The occupants of the bus that was hit in the attack were inhabitants of Hudaydah, who were attempting to leave the Houthi-controlled city before the Arab coalition begins an all-out offensive to take the city, Efe reported.

In the past weeks, fighting has taken place as Yemeni government forces, backed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have advanced toward the port city from the south, seizing its international airport.

Hudaydah’s seaport is a critical lifeline for food aid to reach millions of Yemenis living in areas controlled by the Houthis, including the capital Sanaa.

The UN has been trying to prevent an assault that would lead to even greater food insecurity.

At least 26,000 people have been displaced by violence and fears of an impending assault by government troops on Hudaydah, according to UN data.

These forces have been pushing toward Hudaydah as part of the ongoing Saudi-led war against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, which began in March 2015.

Yemen has been locked in a political and military crisis since the popular regional uprisings of 2011, with the Houthis taking control of the capital Sanaa in September 2014, expelling President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who is supported by Saudi Arabia.

The bombing campaign by the Saudi-Emirati-United States coalition has destroyed much of Yemen’s infrastructure and led to a humanitarian catastrophe, pushing millions to the brink of starvation.

Over 22 million people in Yemen are in need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN.

Two Israeli missiles struck targets near Damascus airport early on Tuesday, Syrian state media said.

The Syrian state news agency, Sana, said: “two Israeli missiles came down near Damascus international airport”.

Syrian opposition sources told DPA news agency that the midnight attack targeted an Iranian cargo plane, which was landing at Damascus International Airport.

When contacted by AFP news agency, a spokesman for the Israeli army said: “We do not comment on foreign reports.”

Syria intensifies offensive to retake Deraa
Israel has warned of a growing Iranian military presence in neighboring Syria, which it sees as a threat to its safety.

Its military has carried out attacks on Iranian and Iran-affiliated targets in Syria since April of this year.

In May, Israel hit dozens of military sites in Syria after accusing Iran of launching rocket and missile attacks towards its forces in occupied Golan Heights.

Iran has vowed retaliation for one alleged Israeli attack on April 30 that reportedly killed a number of Iranian personnel.

Iran and their Hezbollah-backed movement have been fighting alongside Syrian government forces since the conflict started in 2011.

Israeli seized a large swathe of the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it, in a move never recognised by the international community.

Aljazeera

Nine police personnel have been killed and three others wounded in a suicide blast attack in Afghanistan’s Kunar province an official said on Tuesday.

The attack was carried out around 8 p.m. on Monday, when a terrorist tried to make his way into an Afghan Local Police (ALP) camp in Babar Tangai area of Chawkay district, Xinhua news agency reported.

The ALP personnel intercepted the bomber, but the attacker detonated his explosive, causing the casualties, provincial government spokesman Ghani Musamim said.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far, but Taliban militants and Islamic State fighters have presence in the mountainous province.

The government established the ALP, or community police, in 2010 to protect villages and districts around the country where army and police have limited presence.

The Afghan security forces’ casualties have risen since the beginning of 2015 when Afghan soldiers and police assumed full responsibilities of security from the US and NATO troops.

Eighty-six people have been killed in an attack by herdsmen on six villages in central Nigeria, local media reported.

Another six people were wounded and 50 homes were destroyed in the attacks in the Gashish district of Plateau state, Channels Television reported citing local police on Monday.

President Muhammadu Buhari had been briefed on the “deeply unfortunate killings,” according to a post on his Twitter page.

“The grievous loss of lives and property arising from the killings in Plateau today is painful and regrettable,” a second post said.

“My deepest condolences to the affected communities. We will not rest until all murderers and criminal elements and their sponsors are incapacitated and brought to justice.”

The grievous loss of lives & property arising from the killings in Plateau today is painful and regrettable. My deepest condolences to the affected communities. We will not rest until all murderers and criminal elements and their sponsors are incapacitated and brought to justice.

State Governor Simon Lalong said a curfew had been put in place from 6pm to 6am local time (17:00 GMT to 05:00 GMT). He visited the villages involved and called for calm as the government investigated the attack.

Tensions between the state’s primarily Christian farming community and the mainly Muslim herdsmen have often spilled over into violence in recent years.

Drought in the country’s north has also driven the nomads and their cow herds further south in search of fresh grazing, further escalating conflicts.

US President Donald Trump has hosted the relatives of victims killed by illegal immigrants amid outrage over the separation of migrant families.

“Your loved ones have not died in vain,” he told the group of so-called Angel Families at the White House on Friday, BBC reported.

Trump has faced global condemnation for the US immigration policy that has seen more than 2,000 migrant children stripped from their families.

He bowed to public pressure and reversed the policy earlier this week.

The president signed an executive order on Wednesday to end the separate detention of undocumented immigrant children from their parents after illegally entering the country.

As part of the the administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy, which seeks to criminally charge and jail undocumented border crossers, children cannot legally be held with their parents. They have instead been kept in separate facilities.

“These are the American citizens permanently separated from their loved ones,” he said on Friday, before introducing family members of victims.

“I cannot imagine it being any worse, but we promise to act with strength and resolve.

“We’ll not rest until our border is secure, our citizens are safe and we end this immigration crisis once and for all,” Trump added.

Laura Wilkerson, whose son was killed in 2010 by an undocumented immigrant, told audience members: “None of our kids had a minute to say goodbye. We weren’t lucky enough to be separated for five days or 10 days.

“We were separated permanently.”

Approximately 2,300 children have been removed from their families since Mr Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy began in May, and housed in detention centres run by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Some shelters, including three in Texas, house so-called “tender age” children, who are under five years old.

About 500 children have been reunited with their families since May, a Homeland Security official said on Thursday. But it is unclear how the remaining families affected will be reunited.

Images of children in metal cages, and audio of young migrants crying out for their parents sparked protests and drew international condemnation from world leaders and organisations.

The Finance Ministers of the Eurozone, the Eurogroup, has reached an agreement that will put an end to Greece’s third bailout program, the French Finance Minister said.

The agreement will end the eight-year debt-relief program for Greece, in which the country received 300 billion euros in three financial assistance programs as agreed in 2010, 2011 and 2015 in exchange for structural reforms and fiscal adjustments.

Bruno Le Maire told the media after the late Thursday night meeting that the Eurozone nations have reached an agreement on the bailout program for Greece.

He described it as a good deal that should allow the debt-ridden country to look to the future with confidence and accelerate its recovery, Efe news reported.

Eurozone President and Portuguese Finance Minister Mario Centeno said at a press conference shortly after the meeting “after eight long years Greece will finally be graduating from its financial assistance”.

He also confirmed that Athens will not need any additional bailouts.

The ministers finalized the last revision of the third bailout program after verifying that Athens has complied with the 88 requirements, and consequently approved a final disbursement of 15 billion euros.

This will provide Greece with a financial cushion of 24 billion euros, with which Athens could pay off its debts in the next 22 months without having to resort financing on the market to support itself.

With this last disbursement, Greece will have received a total of 61.9 billion euros of the 86 billion euros that were made available to it in the third bailout, agreed in 2015.

Taking into account the two agreements reached in 2010 and 2011, the total aid amounts to 288.7 billion.

However, the key part of the agreement are the relief measures that should allow the Greek debt, which is close to 180 per cent of GDP, to be sustainable and the markets to regain confidence in Athens’ ability to honour their commitments.