Jerusalem, July 3 (IANS) Israel’s Ministry of Environmental Protection and Ministry of Health revealed on Wednesday that it has detected, during a monitoring operation, mosquitoes that were later found to be infected with the West Nile virus.

Mosquitoes carrying the West Nile virus were captured in Tel Aviv, Herzliya, Kiryat Ono, Petah Tikva, the Lev Hasharon Regional Council, Central District, as well as in Eilat and the Aylot Regional Council in the south of the country.

In accordance with the results of the monitoring, the ministries asked the public to protect themselves against mosquitoes by following the issued guidelines to help the national effort to reduce the mosquito hazard.

Oren Ashet Kathabi, Director of the Department of Zoonotic Diseases in the Public Health Division of the Ministry of Health, explained that West Nile Fever is a disease that originates from animals and is also transmitted to humans.

It is caused by a virus found mainly in poultry, and is transmitted to humans and animals through mosquitoes that feed on infected birds. In most cases, it is a mild flu-like illness that goes away on its own.

The disease is often characterised by fever, headache, joint and muscle pain, conjunctivitis, and sometimes nausea and diarrhea. Rare complications are possible or meningitis, and rarely the disease ends in death.

To avoid mosquito bites and hazards, the Israeli ministry has recommended draining and drying stagnant water sources that may constitute habitats for mosquitoes.

–IANS

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Islamabad, July 3 (IANS) At least three people were killed in an improvised explosive device (IED) blast in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the police said on Wednesday.

According to the police, the blast occurred in Bajaur district of the province, killing three people on the spot, including a former member of the Senate.

The police said that scores of people had gathered for the campaign for the upcoming bypolls in the district when the bomb planted on a roadside exploded.

An investigation has been launched to find the motives behind the incident.

After the explosion, the police and security forces rushed to the site immediately and cordoned off the area to launch a search operation.

No group or individual has claimed responsibility for the attack yet.

–IANS

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Islamabad, July 3 (IANS) Pakistan and Afghan Taliban held important talks during an informal dinner meeting on the sidelines of the Doha process for Afghanistan earlier this week.

While both sides have officially stated that the talks were “positive in nature”, inside sources revealed that many critical roadblocks still persist.

The meeting between Pakistan’s Special Envoy on Afghanistan, Ambassador Asif Durrani, and Afghan Taliban’s Chief Spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid was held at the residence of Pakistan’s Ambassador to Qatar.

The all-important UN-backed Doha process meeting was attended by several countries, including India.

During the Pak-Afghan meeting, many crucial and sensitive matters were discussed with both sides putting forward their demands and recommendations on the table.

As per reliable sources, Durrani highlighted the issue of the operational presence of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on Afghanistan soil and told the Afghan Taliban to take action against the outfit.

Pakistan insisted that TTP militants are being trained, funded, facilitated, and supported on Afghan territory and are attempting to penetrate into Pakistan through many pockets of the porous Pak-Afghan border.

“Pakistan also briefed the Afghan Taliban on the scope of ‘Operation Azm-e-Istehkam’, asserting that there would be no talks with the TTP and the operation to take down TTP militants would not be compromised,” said a source on the condition of anonymity.

On the other hand, the Afghan Taliban raised serious concerns over the decision of the Pakistan government to repatriate 1.7 million illegal Afghans without consulting the Afghan Taliban and called for an immediate halt to the ongoing process.

The Afghan Taliban also reiterated its previous recommendations for peace talks between Pakistan and the TTP and expressed its readiness to facilitate them.

“Afghan Taliban’s demands were clearly negated by the Pakistan side,” the source stated.

Pakistan has already conducted air strikes on Afghan territory in the past and claimed to have destroyed TTP training centres operating freely on the Afghan side.

Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif also recently said that the option of conducting air strikes and military operations in Afghanistan to take down TTP militants remains an option and would be considered only if Afghan Taliban continues to ignore Islamabad’s demands of taking action against TTP on Afghan soil.

The Afghan Taliban also responded to the statement, threatening serious consequences to Pakistan if such an attempt was made.

Experts believe that while there was nothing achieved from the meeting in Doha, it can pave the way to more consultations and talks between the two sides which can be considered as a positive development.

“The meeting was part of renewed efforts by Pakistan to convince the Afghan Taliban to get rid of TTP and its affiliates. It would not be wrong to say that Pakistan’s hint of extending its military operation into Afghanistan has forced the Afghan Taliban side to table talks,” said senior political analyst Kamran Yousaf.

–IANS

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Colombo, July 3 (IANS) Labelling it as a “major scam”, the extended family of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) chief Velupillai Prabhakaran has urged all Tamils in India and around the world not to fall into the trap laid out by certain elements in the diaspora fraternity who have been collecting millions of dollars by saying that the slain Tamil leader is still alive.

Karthic Manoharan, the son of Prabhakaran’s elder brother Velupillai Manoharan, told IANS that a “mafia gang” which wants to use Prabhakaran as a “brand name” and collects funds from Tamils living around the world is operating at a major scale.

V. Prabhakaran was killed during the final stages of Sri Lanka’s 26-year-long bloody war against the LTTE, which was crushed by the Lankan security forces in May 2009.

“Give due respect to the dead. Not a penny given to the gang of fraudsters, who had been claiming that Prabhakran is alive, will go to the family or the poor and suffering Tamils in war-ravaged Sri Lanka, and instead end up in their pockets,” said Karthic, the 43-year-old nephew of the late LTTE supreme leader.

Branding the alleged fraudsters as “liars”, Karthic named some Indian Tamil leaders and Lankan-born Tamil Eelam campaigners for running a campaign to resurrect his dead uncle Prabhakaran and his only daughter Dwaraka Prabhakaran.

Manoharan’s family has maintained an extremely low profile since they left Sri Lanka in 1983. They finally broke their silence after some diaspora groups in Switzerland enacted a fake drama with an AI-manipulated video speech of Dwaraka Prabhakaran on ‘Maaveerar Naal’ or ‘Great Heroes Day’ on November 27, 2023.

“We need to put an end to this nonsense. My uncle with his entire family died during the last stages of the war. This had been confirmed and if any of them were alive, they would have contacted us as we all were quite close and he used to call us from Sri Lanka,” the nephew said.

He added that the final conversation his family had with Prabhakaran was in 2008, a year before the war came to an end.

“My uncle, in what turned out to be his last call, said that the situation was really bad in Sri Lanka,” Karthic said.

Prabhakaran’s parents were taken to India by Karthic’s father Manoharan in 1983 along with the rest of the family after the ethnic war broke out in Sri Lanka, with the military hunting for the LTTE leader.

The family lived in Tamil Nadu for 13 years till 1998 and then migrated to Denmark through a UN agency.

“My father was planning to start a business in India but then Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination happened and my uncle was the suspect. So, my dad was asked to leave India,” the Tamil rebel leader’s nephew told IANS.

The family later approached the UNHCR and moved to the Scandinavian country in 1996 which accepted their plea first.

However, Karthic said that because the family was related to the LTTE leader, they received “ill-treatment” from some diaspora groups in Denmark who had been amassing money in the name of the rebel movement.

“Having travelled from India, we were also branded as RAW agents,” said Karthic, who expressed gratitude to the Indian government for allowing the family to stay in the country for more than a decade.

Karthic initially believed that his grandparents were also killed during the last days of the war in May 2009. The family later came to know that they were alive and had been kept in an army camp until his grandfather’s death was announced in 2010. Prabhakaran’s mother also died later.

One of Karthic’s aunts (sister of Prabhakaran) still lives in India with her family while another resides in Canada.

However, he said, the extended family still cannot meet each other or travel due to many visa issues and fear of not being able to return.

–IANS

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Moscow, July 3 (IANS) The Russian Foreign Ministry has declared a diplomat working at the Romanian Embassy in Moscow persona non grata, according to a Ministry statement issued on Wednesday.

Romanian Ambassador to Russia Cristian Istrate was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday and “handed a note declaring a staff member of the Romanian Embassy persona non grata”, the statement said.

It added that the move was taken in response to Romania’s recent decision to declare a Russian embassy worker persona non grata, reported Xinhua news agency.

The Romanian Foreign Ministry declared a diplomat working at the Russian Embassy in Bucharest persona non grata on May 24 for “actions that contradict the provisions of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations”.

–IANS

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