US-backed Syrian forces push
on as IS militants fight back
BAGHOUZ, Mar 13: US-backed Syrian forces say Islamic State militants are putting up a desperate fight against their advances and have staged a counterattack from the tiny speck of land the extremists still hold in eastern Syria. A commander with the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces says the IS counterattack began overnight, from the west of a riverside pocket in the Syrian village of Baghouz where the Islamic State group has been making its last stand. — AP
Niger kills 33 Boko Haram 'terrorists'
NIAMEY, Mar 1: Niger said on Wednesday it had killed 33 Boko Haram "terrorists" and seized vehicles and weapons in an operation in the Lake Chad region in the country's southeast. "Offensive actions carried out on Tuesday inflicted heavy losses on the enemy," a defence ministry statement read on state television said. "Thirty-three terrorists (were) killed" while there were no losses on the army's side, it said. — AP
Malaysia accused of U-turn on death penalty abolition
KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 13: The Malaysian government was Wednesday accused of a "shocking" U-turn on plans to abolish capital punishment after a senior official said only the mandatory death penalty would be axed. A reformist alliance which stormed to power last year announced in October that it had decided to scrap capital punishment entirely, a move that would have handed a reprieve to more than 1,200 people on death row. Executions are currently mandatory for murder, kidnapping, possession of firearms and drug trafficking, among other crimes. — AFP
Meaningful progress made
in talks with Taliban: US
WASHINGTON, Mar 13: The United States and Taliban wrapped up their talks in Doha, the capital city of Qatar, with "meaningful progress" made, said the U.S. State Department on Tuesday. "We've received reports back from Special Representative (Zalmay) Khalilzad that they've had meaningful progress," Robert Palladino, the State Department's deputy spokesperson, told reporters at a daily briefing. Palladino said the Taliban has agreed that "peace will require both sides to fully address four core issues," namely "counterterrorism assurances, troop withdrawal, intra-Afghan dialogue, and a comprehensive ceasefire." — Xinhua
Kentucky student files
defamation suit against CNN
NEW YORK, Mar 13: A Kentucky teenager sued CNN on Tuesday for defamation, saying the cable network falsely conveyed to viewers that he was the "face of an unruly hate mob" confronting a Native American activist at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington in January. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann in federal court in Kentucky, seeks $275 million in compensatory and punitive damages over the videotaped incident in the nation's capital. Sandmann and other Covington Catholic students had been in Washington to attend a March for Life anti-abortion rally. — Reuters
Number of HIV-infected workers up among overseas Filipino
MANILA, Mar 13: More and more overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a lawmaker said on Wednesday. Citing data from the Department of Health (DOH), Lawmaker Aniceto Bertiz of the House of Representatives said a total of 90 OFWs were newly diagnosed as HIV-positive in January 2019, up 33 percent from 68 recorded in January 2018. In January 2019, cases brought to 6,345, the cumulative number of OFWs found living with HIV since the government began passive surveillance of the virus in 1984, Bertiz said. — Xinhua
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