Rayshard Brooks,&nbsp;Daniel Prude,&nbsp;Breonna&nbsp;Taylor,&nbsp;Atatiana&nbsp;Jefferson,&nbsp;Aura&nbsp;Rosser,&nbsp;Stephon&nbsp;Clark,&nbsp;Botham&nbsp;Jean,&nbsp;Philando&nbsp;Castille,&nbsp;Alton&nbsp;Sterling,&nbsp;Freddie&nbsp;Gray&nbsp;are just a few individuals&nbsp;killed by the&nbsp;American&nbsp;police in the last 7 years.&nbsp;&nbsp;

There are many more&nbsp;Black Americans,&nbsp;who were either shot,&nbsp;tasered,&nbsp;brutally mauled&nbsp;or asphyxiated.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

What they call,&nbsp;choked to death&nbsp;but none of these killings were enough&nbsp;to shake the collective conscience of the American society&nbsp;or the American judicial system&nbsp;for that matter.&nbsp;&nbsp;

It took a convergence of forces for America to wake up,&nbsp;a pandemic,&nbsp;an election year,&nbsp;the highest rate of unemployment&nbsp;and to top it all,&nbsp;the killing of&nbsp;George&nbsp;Floyd&nbsp;in broad daylight.&nbsp;&nbsp;

With every city under lockdown,&nbsp;Americans couldn't look away.&nbsp;They were forced to pay attention.&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/gravitas-is-mozambique-the-latest-outpost-of-islamic-state-374372">Watch |</a>

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/gravitas-is-mozambique-the-latest-outpost-of-islamic-state-374372/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

George Floyd's killing became a rallying point for racial justice in the United States&nbsp;as the trial in the case officially begins.&nbsp;America is on the edge once again.&nbsp;Every American, irrespective of their&nbsp;colour&nbsp;or background&nbsp;is watching the developments closely&nbsp;because this is far more than the trial of one police officer in the death of one Black&nbsp;American.&nbsp;This is a test of the American society&nbsp;and of the&nbsp;American&nbsp;judicial system.&nbsp;&nbsp;

If they fail this test,&nbsp;the implications will be national.&nbsp;Perhaps even global.&nbsp;America is on trial.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Civil rights leader Reverend Al Sharpton said, "Make no mistake about it: Chauvin is in the courtroom but&nbsp;America&nbsp;is on trial."&nbsp;

The judicial system is on test.&nbsp;Martin Luther King III, Martin Luther King Jr's son,&nbsp;"This is, this is a test for America, American justice, I believe, because people are beyond fed up.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Derek Chauvin,&nbsp;the officer accused in the murder of George Floyd has been finally put on trial.&nbsp;The case is significant&nbsp;because it is quite uncommon for US police officers to be&nbsp;penalised&nbsp;for using lethal force.&nbsp;

The court proceedings have begun,&nbsp;the opening remarks have been made.&nbsp;The arguments from both sides- reveal just how divided&nbsp;America&nbsp;has become as a society.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Eric Nelson, Derek Chauvin's Defense Attorney, said,&nbsp;"Derek Chauvin did exactly what he had been trained to do over the course of his 19-year career. The use of force is not attractive, but it is a necessary component of policing."&nbsp;&nbsp;

Jerry Blackwell, an attorney for the prosecution, said,&nbsp;"You will learn that he [Derek Chauvin] was well aware that Mr. Floyd was unarmed, that Mr. Floyd had not threatened anyone, that Mr. Floyd was in handcuffs, that he was completely in control of the police, he was defenseless.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Eric Nelson, Derek Chauvin's Defense Attorney, said, "The evidence will show that Mr. Floyd died of a Cardiac Arrhythmia that occurred as a result of hypertension, coronary disease, the ingestion of methamphetamine and fentanyl."&nbsp;&nbsp;

Jerry Blackwell, Prosecutor, said, "He did not die from an opioid overdose. Why? Because you'll be able to look at the video footage and you see he looks absolutely nothing like a person,&nbsp;who would die from an opioid overdose."&nbsp;&nbsp;

This is the most high-profile case since the 1991 beating of Rodney King Junior.&nbsp;The trial ended with partial justice being delivered.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

All efforts have been made to ensure that this one does not end in a mistrial.&nbsp;&nbsp;

A total of 12 people&nbsp;are&nbsp;sitting on the jury&nbsp;with three alternates.&nbsp;There are six women&nbsp;and nine men.&nbsp;9 of them are white&nbsp;Americans,&nbsp;4 of them are black&nbsp;Americans&nbsp;and 2 jurors are multi-racial.&nbsp;The diversity of the jury&nbsp;is aimed at instilling a sense of legitimacy in the judicial process.&nbsp;

Amy&nbsp;Forliti, AP Reporter, Minneapolis,&nbsp;said, "Their ages range from their 20s to their 60s, and they include a chemist, an auditor, a social worker, a registered nurse who works with covid-19 patients and a grandmother who does volunteer work. The one thing that they all do have in common, though, is that they all said they could put aside their prior opinions and make a decision based on the evidence in the case that's going to be presented at trial."&nbsp;&nbsp;

Outside the court,&nbsp;sentiments are running high.&nbsp;Americans from all backgrounds&nbsp;have assembled near the&nbsp;Minneapolis&nbsp;Courthouse.&nbsp;They say the verdict will serve as justice for all of America.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Luke Arseneau, paraprofessional at a school,&nbsp;said,&nbsp;"I can tell you right now that opioids did not kill George Floyd. Derek Chauvin did."&nbsp;&nbsp;

Chaz Neal, business owner&nbsp;said, "This is a trial for, for justice for George Floyd, but the results are going to be affected everywhere."&nbsp;&nbsp;

Sabrina Mohammed, student from Minneapolis, said, "I’m honestly just trying to take in as much of the case as&nbsp;I&nbsp;can without getting overwhelmed, because my mental health is deteriorating, unfortunately, as a black, as a black woman in the United States. So&nbsp;I’m&nbsp;just trying to protect myself as well."&nbsp;&nbsp;

1100 miles away from the heart of action&nbsp;in Washington DC,&nbsp;all the developments are being monitored.&nbsp;The White House&nbsp;says&nbsp;US president Joe&nbsp;Biden&nbsp;will be following the trial closely.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary&nbsp;said, "Well, he certainly will be watching closely, as&nbsp;Americans&nbsp;across the country will be watching. you know at the time of George Floyd's death, he talked about this as being an event that really opened up a wound in the American public, and it really brought to light for a lot of people in this country just the kind of racial injustice and inequality that many communities are experiencing every single day."&nbsp;

It's a moment of reckoning for the American society.&nbsp;A chance for the American justice system to prove it can actually work.&nbsp;Because for decades,&nbsp;it has failed black&nbsp;Americans,&nbsp;who have suffered due to police brutality.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

The trial of Derek Chauvin is an opportunity for this system to redeem itself.&nbsp;The outcome is anything but certain&nbsp;and the stakes for the entire country are enormous.&nbsp;

Rayshard Brooks, Daniel Prude, Breonna Taylor, Atatiana Jefferson, Aura Rosser, Stephon Clark, Botham Jean, Philando Castille, Alton Sterling, Freddie Gray are just a few individuals killed by the American police in the last 7 years.

Rayshard Brooks, Daniel Prude, Breonna Taylor, Atatiana Jefferson, Aura Rosser, Stephon Clark, Botham Jean, Philando Castille, Alton Sterling, Freddie Gray are just a few individuals killed by the American police in the last 7 years. There are many more Black Americans, who were either shot, tasered, brutally mauled or asphyxiated. What they call, choked to death but none of these killings were enough to shake the collective conscience of the American society or the American judicial system for that matter. It took a convergence of forces for America to wake up, a pandemic, an election year, the highest rate of unemployment and to top it all, the killing of George Floyd in broad daylight. With every city under lockdown, Americans couldn't look away. They were forced to pay attention. Watch | George Floyd's killing became a rallying point for racial justice in the United States as the trial in the case officially begins. America is on the edge once again. Every American, irrespective of their colour or background is watching the developments closely because this is far more than the trial of one police officer in the death of one Black American. This is a test of the American society and of the American judicial system. If they fail this test, the implications will be national. Perhaps even global. America is on trial. Civil rights leader Reverend Al Sharpton said, "Make no mistake about it: Chauvin is in the courtroom but America is on trial." The judicial system is on test. Martin Luther King III, Martin Luther King Jr's son, "This is, this is a test for America, American justice, I believe, because people are beyond fed up. Derek Chauvin, the officer accused in the murder of George Floyd has been finally put on trial. The case is significant because it is quite uncommon for US police officers to be penalised for using lethal force. The court proceedings have begun, the opening remarks have been made. The arguments from both sides- reveal just how divided America has become as a society. Eric Nelson, Derek Chauvin's Defense Attorney, said, "Derek Chauvin did exactly what he had been trained to do over the course of his 19-year career. The use of force is not attractive, but it is a necessary component of policing." Jerry Blackwell, an attorney for the prosecution, said, "You will learn that he [Derek Chauvin] was well aware that Mr. Floyd was unarmed, that Mr. Floyd had not threatened anyone, that Mr. Floyd was in handcuffs, that he was completely in control of the police, he was defenseless. Eric Nelson, Derek Chauvin's Defense Attorney, said, "The evidence will show that Mr. Floyd died of a Cardiac Arrhythmia that occurred as a result of hypertension, coronary disease, the ingestion of methamphetamine and fentanyl." Jerry Blackwell, Prosecutor, said, "He did not die from an opioid overdose. Why? Because you'll be able to look at the video footage and you see he looks absolutely nothing like a person, who would die from an opioid overdose." This is the most high-profile case since the 1991 beating of Rodney King Junior. The trial ended with partial justice being delivered. All efforts have been made to ensure that this one does not end in a mistrial. A total of 12 people are sitting on the jury with three alternates. There are six women and nine men. 9 of them are white Americans, 4 of them are black Americans and 2 jurors are multi-racial. The diversity of the jury is aimed at instilling a sense of legitimacy in the judicial process. Amy Forliti, AP Reporter, Minneapolis, said, "Their ages range from their 20s to their 60s, and they include a chemist, an auditor, a social worker, a registered nurse who works with covid-19 patients and a grandmother who does volunteer work. The one thing that they all do have in common, though, is that they all said they could put aside their prior opinions and make a decision based on the evidence in the case that's going to be presented at trial." Outside the court, sentiments are running high. Americans from all backgrounds have assembled near the Minneapolis Courthouse. They say the verdict will serve as justice for all of America. Luke Arseneau, paraprofessional at a school, said, "I can tell you right now that opioids did not kill George Floyd. Derek Chauvin did." Chaz Neal, business owner said, "This is a trial for, for justice for George Floyd, but the results are going to be affected everywhere." Sabrina Mohammed, student from Minneapolis, said, "I’m honestly just trying to take in as much of the case as I can without getting overwhelmed, because my mental health is deteriorating, unfortunately, as a black, as a black woman in the United States. So I’m just trying to protect myself as well." 1100 miles away from the heart of action in Washington DC, all the developments are being monitored. The White House says US president Joe Biden will be following the trial closely. Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary said, "Well, he certainly will be watching closely, as Americans across the country will be watching. you know at the time of George Floyd's death, he talked about this as being an event that really opened up a wound in the American public, and it really brought to light for a lot of people in this country just the kind of racial injustice and inequality that many communities are experiencing every single day." It's a moment of reckoning for the American society. A chance for the American justice system to prove it can actually work. Because for decades, it has failed black Americans, who have suffered due to police brutality. The trial of Derek Chauvin is an opportunity for this system to redeem itself. The outcome is anything but certain and the stakes for the entire country are enormous.

On the edge again, America watches developments closely 

Taiwan has decided to buy an upgraded version of Lockheed Martin Corp's Patriot surface-to-air missile, the air force said on Wednesday, as the island bolsters its forces to guard against a rising threat from China.&nbsp;

Chinese-claimed Taiwan has complained of repeated incursions by China's air force in recent months into the island's air defence identification zone, as Beijing seeks to pressure Taipei into accepting its sovereignty.&nbsp;

Taiwan's Air Force said it had decided to buy the Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3) Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) missiles, with deliveries to start in 2025 and deployment the following year.&nbsp;

The Air Force did not disclose how many missiles Taiwan was planning to buy, citing the sensitivity of the matter.&nbsp;

"These purchase plans were made based on the threat from the enemy," an Air Force spokesman said, adding it will continue to 'boost defence capacity'.&nbsp;

The spokesman said the Air Force is 'cautiously optimistic' about the progress of the purchase.&nbsp;

Taiwan's Defence Ministry, in a report to parliament, said the decision to obtain the newer Patriots was made during a 2019 meeting with the United States during the previous administration of US President Donald Trump.&nbsp;

US President Joe Biden's government has not announced any Taiwan arms sales since taking office in January, though it has pledged its 'rock solid' commitment to the democratically-governed island.&nbsp;

US arms sales to Taiwan always anger China, which has demanded they stop.&nbsp;

In July, China said it would put sanctions on Lockheed Martin for involvement in a $620 million upgrade package for existing Patriot missiles Taiwan operates.&nbsp;

China has announced similar sanctions before on US companies for Taiwan arms sales, though it is unclear what form they have taken.&nbsp;

The United States, like most countries, has no official diplomatic ties with Taiwan, but Washington is bound by law to provide the island with the means to defend itself.&nbsp;

Washington has been pushing Taiwan to modernise its military so it can become a 'porcupine', hard for China to attack.&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)&nbsp;

Taiwan has decided to buy an upgraded version of Lockheed Martin Corp's Patriot surface-to-air missile, the air force said on Wednesday, as the island bolsters its forces to guard against a rising threat from China.

Taiwan has decided to buy an upgraded version of Lockheed Martin Corp's Patriot surface-to-air missile, the air force said on Wednesday, as the island bolsters its forces to guard against a rising threat from China. Chinese-claimed Taiwan has complained of repeated incursions by China's air force in recent months into the island's air defence identification zone, as Beijing seeks to pressure Taipei into accepting its sovereignty. Taiwan's Air Force said it had decided to buy the Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3) Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) missiles, with deliveries to start in 2025 and deployment the following year. The Air Force did not disclose how many missiles Taiwan was planning to buy, citing the sensitivity of the matter. "These purchase plans were made based on the threat from the enemy," an Air Force spokesman said, adding it will continue to 'boost defence capacity'. The spokesman said the Air Force is 'cautiously optimistic' about the progress of the purchase. Taiwan's Defence Ministry, in a report to parliament, said the decision to obtain the newer Patriots was made during a 2019 meeting with the United States during the previous administration of US President Donald Trump. US President Joe Biden's government has not announced any Taiwan arms sales since taking office in January, though it has pledged its 'rock solid' commitment to the democratically-governed island. US arms sales to Taiwan always anger China, which has demanded they stop. In July, China said it would put sanctions on Lockheed Martin for involvement in a $620 million upgrade package for existing Patriot missiles Taiwan operates. China has announced similar sanctions before on US companies for Taiwan arms sales, though it is unclear what form they have taken. The United States, like most countries, has no official diplomatic ties with Taiwan, but Washington is bound by law to provide the island with the means to defend itself. Washington has been pushing Taiwan to modernise its military so it can become a 'porcupine', hard for China to attack. (With inputs from agencies)

Taiwan to buy new US air defence missiles to deter Chinese aggression 

The United States preaches Human Rights to the world. But it has failed to secure the rights of its own. Why does Washington continue to fester racism?

Gravitas: Why has US failed to fight racism?

As the number of casualties by Myanmar's military coup is alarmingly increasing, the US State Department has ordered its non-essential diplomats in Myanmar to return to the US.

Amid a crackdown on protestors, which has taken hundreds of lives in the past few days, the US State Department sees it to be fit to call all non-essential diplomats back to the US for their own safety.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/ethnic-groups-in-myanmar-mobilising-against-army-374370" hreflang="en">Ethnic groups in Myanmar mobilising against army</a>

"The Burmese military has detained and deposed elected government officials. Protests and demonstrations against military rule have occurred and are expected to continue," the State Department issued a statement.

Since the military coup began, a few months back, locals of Myanmar have been regularly taking to the streets to protest against the military's control over the country, and have been demanding the release of the civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi and her aides.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/protesters-in-myanmar-launch-garbage-strike-as-death-toll-crosses-500-374209" hreflang="en">Protesters in Myanmar launch 'garbage strike' as death toll crosses 500</a>

However, these protests have been met with tear gas, rubber bullets, detentions and live rounds.

Considering the rising violence in the country, the US State Department had earlier, in mid-February, authorised a "voluntary departure of non-emergency US government employees and their family members," the department said in a statement.

However, with Myanmar observing the bloodiest days of protests, the department has now "updated that status to ordered departure".

"The Department of State made the decision to authorize ordered departure from Burma because the safety and security of US government personnel and their dependents, as well as private US citizens, is the department's highest priority," a spokesperson said.

As of now, the order has been issued for all non-essential diplomats. The status will be reviewed in 30-day increments, the spokesperson added.

As the number of casualties by Myanmar's military coup is alarmingly increasing, the US State Department has ordered its non-essential diplomats in Myanmar to return to the US.

As the number of casualties by Myanmar's military coup is alarmingly increasing, the US State Department has ordered its non-essential diplomats in Myanmar to return to the US. Amid a crackdown on protestors, which has taken hundreds of lives in the past few days, the US State Department sees it to be fit to call all non-essential diplomats back to the US for their own safety. Also read | Ethnic groups in Myanmar mobilising against army "The Burmese military has detained and deposed elected government officials. Protests and demonstrations against military rule have occurred and are expected to continue," the State Department issued a statement. Since the military coup began, a few months back, locals of Myanmar have been regularly taking to the streets to protest against the military's control over the country, and have been demanding the release of the civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi and her aides. Also read | Protesters in Myanmar launch 'garbage strike' as death toll crosses 500 However, these protests have been met with tear gas, rubber bullets, detentions and live rounds. Considering the rising violence in the country, the US State Department had earlier, in mid-February, authorised a "voluntary departure of non-emergency US government employees and their family members," the department said in a statement. However, with Myanmar observing the bloodiest days of protests, the department has now "updated that status to ordered departure". "The Department of State made the decision to authorize ordered departure from Burma because the safety and security of US government personnel and their dependents, as well as private US citizens, is the department's highest priority," a spokesperson said. As of now, the order has been issued for all non-essential diplomats. The status will be reviewed in 30-day increments, the spokesperson added.

US orders non-essential diplomats in Myanmar to return: State Department

According to a top US border official, more than a million migrants are set to arrive at the US-Mexico border this year. The constant influx of migrants on the Southwest border is posing a growing humanitarian challenge for US President Joe Biden.

US witnesses constant influx of migrants at Mexico border

Trouble mounts for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo as another woman has now come forward to accuse him of kissing her aggressively on the cheeks. Sherry Vill added that she was left rattled and afraid to come forward with her account after this incident.

Sherry Vill is the latest woman to accuse Cuomo of 'kissing aggressively'

The Taliban’s swagger is unmistakable. From the recent bellicose speech of their deputy leader, boasting of “conquests,” to sneering references to the “foreign masters” of the “illegitimate” Kabul government, to the Taliban’s own website tally of “puppets” killed — Afghan soldiers — they are promoting a bold message:

We have already won the war.

And that belief, grounded in military and political reality, is shaping Afghanistan’s volatile present. On the eve of talks in Turkey next month over the country’s future, it is the elephant in the room: the half-acknowledged truth that the Taliban have the upper hand and are thus showing little outward interest in compromise, or of going along with the dominant American idea, power-sharing.

While the Taliban’s current rhetoric is also propaganda, the grim sense of Taliban supremacy is dictating the response of a desperate Afghan government and influencing Afghanistan’s anxious foreign interlocutors. It contributes to the abandonment of dozens of checkpoints and falling morale among the Afghan security forces, already hammered by a “not sustainable” casualty rate of perhaps 3,000 a month, a senior Western diplomat in Kabul said.

The group doesn’t hide its pride at having compelled its principal adversary for 20 years, the United States, to negotiate with the Taliban and, last year, to sign an agreement to completely withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021. In exchange, the Taliban agreed to stop attacking foreign forces and to sever ties with international terrorist groups such as al-Qaida.

The Biden administration has yet to definitively say whether it will meet that deadline, just weeks away.

“No mujahed ever thought that one day we would face such an improved state, or that we will crush the arrogance of the rebellious emperors, and force them to admit their defeat at our hands,” the Taliban’s deputy leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, said in a recent speech. “Fortunately, today, we and you are experiencing better circumstances.”

Nearly every day, the Taliban’s website features reports of purported defections to its side, though the details are likely exaggerated, just as both the Taliban and the Afghan government exaggerate each other’s casualties. “59 enemy personnel switch sides to Islamic Emirate,” read one recent headline.

Having outlasted the all-powerful Americans, the rest is child’s play, in the Taliban’s view. The game is essentially over.

“They think they have beaten the Americans, so they can beat the other Afghan forces as well, and get control over the country,” said Jawed Kohistani, an Afghan analyst and former security official in Kabul.

The Taliban, who governed most of the country from 1996 to 2001, are not interested in true sharing-power, Kohistani said. “They are planning to restore their Islamic emirate,” he added, “and they will punish all those involved in corruption and land grabbing.”

Antonio Giustozzi, a leading Taliban expert, disputed the idea that the Taliban are necessarily bent on reimposing a similarly hard-line Islamic regime. “As long as they can get to power through a political agreement, between establishing the emirate and democracy, there are options,” he said. “The aim would be to become the dominant power.”

The Taliban know that Afghanistan, an aid-dependent state, 80% of whose expenditures are funded from international donors, cannot afford the isolation of that era, analysts say.

Just as the Taliban have become increasingly sophisticated in their use of social media, online propaganda and a pugnacious English-language website — though they still often ban smartphones in areas they control — so has their language evolved to reflect the current moment.

With the decisive shift in their military fortunes, their words have become assertive and victorious, a posture that would have been impossible a mere three years ago, analysts say.

The corollary to such posturing is the Afghan government’s insistence that it expects a deadly endgame with the insurgency. Government officials rarely claim that &lt;em&gt;they &lt;/em&gt;and not the Taliban are the victors, because they can’t. Evidence of Taliban ascendancy, in the insurgents’ steady offensive in the countryside, their systematic encroachment on cities and their overrunning of military bases, is too prevalent.

U.S. negotiators are pushing ideas of compromise and power-sharing, but government officials are largely resistant to them — in part because any interim government would most likely require Afghanistan’s president, Ashraf Ghani, to step down. He has steadfastly refused to even consider it.

Instead, the government employs back-to-the-wall language indicating that the bloody struggle will only intensify. Earlier this month, a senior official told reporters inside the intensively guarded presidential palace complex that a compromise, coalition government — recently proposed to both sides by Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. peace envoy — would merely be used by the Taliban as a “Trojan horse” for the seizure of power.

It was “totally unrealistic” to think the insurgents would agree to it, “knowing their psychology,” the official said. “I am not promising a better situation in the future. But we will continue fighting.”

Ghani sounded a largely pessimistic note in remarks to the Aspen Institute in January. “In their eschatology, Afghanistan is the place where the final battle takes place,” he said of the Taliban.

We “hope for the best, but prepare for the worst,” he said.

The Ghani administration’s bleak outlook also reflects the insurgent group’s territorial gains. In December, nearly 200 checkpoints in Kandahar, the Taliban’s historic stronghold, were abandoned by Afghan security forces, according to the U.S. government’s Afghanistan watchdog.

“I think they are 90% right,” said Giustozzi, of the insurgent group’s claims of victory. “Clearly the war has been lost. Clearly things have gone in the wrong direction. Things have worsened under Ghani. The trend is in their favor.”

Some analysts caution that while the Taliban may think they have won, other armed actors in the Afghan equation will make a forced takeover difficult. That was the experience 25 years ago, when the Taliban were forced to battle warlords principally in the north and east, and failed to gain total control over the entire country.

A militia in central Afghanistan led by Abdul Ghani Alipur, a local warlord, has already inflamed hostility with the government in recent months. And longtime power brokers in the country’s west and north have rallied fighters to defend against the Taliban, if necessary.

Meanwhile, the Taliban rely on fear to keep local populations in rural areas quiescent. An effective tool is the insurgents’ hidden network of ad hoc underground prisons where torture and punishment are meted out to those suspected of working for, or with, the government.

But the Taliban are also viewed by some as being less corrupt than Afghan officials. The group’s judges adjudicate civil and property disputes, perhaps more efficiently than the government’s faltering institutions.

In some areas under Taliban control, they have permitted schools for girls to continue operating, Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, pointed out in a recent paper — though, he notes, this may be driven more by political imperative than a softening of ideology.

Elsewhere, the Taliban’s increasingly confident messaging has penetrated deep into its rank-and-file, in large part because events have borne it out.

People said that it is not possible to fire on U.S. forces,” said Muslim Mohabat, a former Taliban fighter from Watapor District in Kunar province. “They would say the barrel of the rifle would bend if you open fire on them, but we attacked them, and nothing happened.”

“Then we kept attacking them and forced them to leave the valley,” said Mohabat, who fought in some of the most violent battles of the war with the United States.

In the insurgents’ view, their advances will inexorably lead to the end of the Kabul government.

“On the battlefield there is a sense that, ‘We’re stronger than ever,’ ’’ said Ashley Jackson, a Taliban expert at the Overseas Development Institute. “Power-sharing and democracy, these are anathema to their political culture.”

The Taliban’s swagger is unmistakable. From the recent bellicose speech of their deputy leader, boasting of “conquests,” to sneering references to the “foreign masters” of the “illegitimate” Kabul government, to the Taliban’s own website tally of “puppets” killed — Afghan soldiers — they are promoting a bold message: We have already won the war.

The Taliban’s swagger is unmistakable. From the recent bellicose speech of their deputy leader, boasting of “conquests,” to sneering references to the “foreign masters” of the “illegitimate” Kabul government, to the Taliban’s own website tally of “puppets” killed — Afghan soldiers — they are promoting a bold message: We have already won the war. And that belief, grounded in military and political reality, is shaping Afghanistan’s volatile present. On the eve of talks in Turkey next month over the country’s future, it is the elephant in the room: the half-acknowledged truth that the Taliban have the upper hand and are thus showing little outward interest in compromise, or of going along with the dominant American idea, power-sharing. While the Taliban’s current rhetoric is also propaganda, the grim sense of Taliban supremacy is dictating the response of a desperate Afghan government and influencing Afghanistan’s anxious foreign interlocutors. It contributes to the abandonment of dozens of checkpoints and falling morale among the Afghan security forces, already hammered by a “not sustainable” casualty rate of perhaps 3,000 a month, a senior Western diplomat in Kabul said. The group doesn’t hide its pride at having compelled its principal adversary for 20 years, the United States, to negotiate with the Taliban and, last year, to sign an agreement to completely withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021. In exchange, the Taliban agreed to stop attacking foreign forces and to sever ties with international terrorist groups such as al-Qaida. The Biden administration has yet to definitively say whether it will meet that deadline, just weeks away. “No mujahed ever thought that one day we would face such an improved state, or that we will crush the arrogance of the rebellious emperors, and force them to admit their defeat at our hands,” the Taliban’s deputy leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, said in a recent speech. “Fortunately, today, we and you are experiencing better circumstances.” Nearly every day, the Taliban’s website features reports of purported defections to its side, though the details are likely exaggerated, just as both the Taliban and the Afghan government exaggerate each other’s casualties. “59 enemy personnel switch sides to Islamic Emirate,” read one recent headline. Having outlasted the all-powerful Americans, the rest is child’s play, in the Taliban’s view. The game is essentially over. “They think they have beaten the Americans, so they can beat the other Afghan forces as well, and get control over the country,” said Jawed Kohistani, an Afghan analyst and former security official in Kabul. The Taliban, who governed most of the country from 1996 to 2001, are not interested in true sharing-power, Kohistani said. “They are planning to restore their Islamic emirate,” he added, “and they will punish all those involved in corruption and land grabbing.” Antonio Giustozzi, a leading Taliban expert, disputed the idea that the Taliban are necessarily bent on reimposing a similarly hard-line Islamic regime. “As long as they can get to power through a political agreement, between establishing the emirate and democracy, there are options,” he said. “The aim would be to become the dominant power.” The Taliban know that Afghanistan, an aid-dependent state, 80% of whose expenditures are funded from international donors, cannot afford the isolation of that era, analysts say. Just as the Taliban have become increasingly sophisticated in their use of social media, online propaganda and a pugnacious English-language website — though they still often ban smartphones in areas they control — so has their language evolved to reflect the current moment. With the decisive shift in their military fortunes, their words have become assertive and victorious, a posture that would have been impossible a mere three years ago, analysts say. The corollary to such posturing is the Afghan government’s insistence that it expects a deadly endgame with the insurgency. Government officials rarely claim that they and not the Taliban are the victors, because they can’t. Evidence of Taliban ascendancy, in the insurgents’ steady offensive in the countryside, their systematic encroachment on cities and their overrunning of military bases, is too prevalent. U.S. negotiators are pushing ideas of compromise and power-sharing, but government officials are largely resistant to them — in part because any interim government would most likely require Afghanistan’s president, Ashraf Ghani, to step down. He has steadfastly refused to even consider it. Instead, the government employs back-to-the-wall language indicating that the bloody struggle will only intensify. Earlier this month, a senior official told reporters inside the intensively guarded presidential palace complex that a compromise, coalition government — recently proposed to both sides by Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. peace envoy — would merely be used by the Taliban as a “Trojan horse” for the seizure of power. It was “totally unrealistic” to think the insurgents would agree to it, “knowing their psychology,” the official said. “I am not promising a better situation in the future. But we will continue fighting.” Ghani sounded a largely pessimistic note in remarks to the Aspen Institute in January. “In their eschatology, Afghanistan is the place where the final battle takes place,” he said of the Taliban. We “hope for the best, but prepare for the worst,” he said. The Ghani administration’s bleak outlook also reflects the insurgent group’s territorial gains. In December, nearly 200 checkpoints in Kandahar, the Taliban’s historic stronghold, were abandoned by Afghan security forces, according to the U.S. government’s Afghanistan watchdog. “I think they are 90% right,” said Giustozzi, of the insurgent group’s claims of victory. “Clearly the war has been lost. Clearly things have gone in the wrong direction. Things have worsened under Ghani. The trend is in their favor.” Some analysts caution that while the Taliban may think they have won, other armed actors in the Afghan equation will make a forced takeover difficult. That was the experience 25 years ago, when the Taliban were forced to battle warlords principally in the north and east, and failed to gain total control over the entire country. A militia in central Afghanistan led by Abdul Ghani Alipur, a local warlord, has already inflamed hostility with the government in recent months. And longtime power brokers in the country’s west and north have rallied fighters to defend against the Taliban, if necessary. Meanwhile, the Taliban rely on fear to keep local populations in rural areas quiescent. An effective tool is the insurgents’ hidden network of ad hoc underground prisons where torture and punishment are meted out to those suspected of working for, or with, the government. But the Taliban are also viewed by some as being less corrupt than Afghan officials. The group’s judges adjudicate civil and property disputes, perhaps more efficiently than the government’s faltering institutions. In some areas under Taliban control, they have permitted schools for girls to continue operating, Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, pointed out in a recent paper — though, he notes, this may be driven more by political imperative than a softening of ideology. Elsewhere, the Taliban’s increasingly confident messaging has penetrated deep into its rank-and-file, in large part because events have borne it out. People said that it is not possible to fire on U.S. forces,” said Muslim Mohabat, a former Taliban fighter from Watapor District in Kunar province. “They would say the barrel of the rifle would bend if you open fire on them, but we attacked them, and nothing happened.” “Then we kept attacking them and forced them to leave the valley,” said Mohabat, who fought in some of the most violent battles of the war with the United States. In the insurgents’ view, their advances will inexorably lead to the end of the Kabul government. “On the battlefield there is a sense that, ‘We’re stronger than ever,’ ’’ said Ashley Jackson, a Taliban expert at the Overseas Development Institute. “Power-sharing and democracy, these are anathema to their political culture.”

The Taliban think they have already won, peace deal or not

A US study has found that the COVID-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna are 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 infection in a real-world setting.

US study: Pfizer, Moderna 90% effective after 2 doses in real world

US President Joe Biden has touted the progress of the US vaccination campaign against COVID-19. But at the same time, Biden has also warned Americans not to let their guard down and risk a setback in the vaccination program.

President Biden unveils plans for US vaccination expansion

The president of the Pacific island nation of Palau was visiting Taiwan on Tuesday along with the US Ambassador to his country, a show of solidarity as China increases diplomatic, economic and military pressure on Taiwan.&nbsp;

Palau President Surangel Whipps said during a meeting with Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen that he and his delegation 'feel like home when we are here'.&nbsp;

In her welcoming statement, Tsai noted Whipps was the first foreign leader to visit Taiwan since the beginning of the pandemic and said a travel bubble established between the two sides would be a model for safe two-way travel that has been closely watched not just by our own people but also by the entire world.&nbsp;

China has banned its citizens from visiting Palau, but Taiwan has responded by introducing a travel bubble between the two that will allow visitors to avoid being quarantined.&nbsp;

The presence on the trip of the US Ambassador to Palau, John Hennessey-Niland, was a further sign of Washington's support for Taiwan, despite the lack of formal diplomatic relations between the two.&nbsp;

China claims Taiwan as its own territory to be brought under Beijing's control by force if deemed necessary and it has worked to internationally isolate the island.&nbsp;

Taiwan has just 15 formal diplomatic allies but operates a network of trade offices around the world that act as de-facto embassies, including in the United States, Japan and most other major nations.&nbsp;

China has blocked Taiwan's participation in international organisations including the United Nations and sought to scupper the island's relationships with other countries by threatening to withdraw its own diplomatic presence and economic support.&nbsp;

In Beijing on Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying repeated China's opposition to formal exchanges between Taiwan and the US.&nbsp;

"We hope the US will pay great attention to China's concerns and act prudently on the issue of Taiwan so as to avoid further damage to China-US Relations," Hua told reporters at a daily briefing.&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)&nbsp;

The president of the Pacific island nation of Palau was visiting Taiwan on Tuesday along with the US Ambassador to his country, a show of solidarity as China increases diplomatic, economic and military pressure on Taiwan.

The president of the Pacific island nation of Palau was visiting Taiwan on Tuesday along with the US Ambassador to his country, a show of solidarity as China increases diplomatic, economic and military pressure on Taiwan. Palau President Surangel Whipps said during a meeting with Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen that he and his delegation 'feel like home when we are here'. In her welcoming statement, Tsai noted Whipps was the first foreign leader to visit Taiwan since the beginning of the pandemic and said a travel bubble established between the two sides would be a model for safe two-way travel that has been closely watched not just by our own people but also by the entire world. China has banned its citizens from visiting Palau, but Taiwan has responded by introducing a travel bubble between the two that will allow visitors to avoid being quarantined. The presence on the trip of the US Ambassador to Palau, John Hennessey-Niland, was a further sign of Washington's support for Taiwan, despite the lack of formal diplomatic relations between the two. China claims Taiwan as its own territory to be brought under Beijing's control by force if deemed necessary and it has worked to internationally isolate the island. Taiwan has just 15 formal diplomatic allies but operates a network of trade offices around the world that act as de-facto embassies, including in the United States, Japan and most other major nations. China has blocked Taiwan's participation in international organisations including the United Nations and sought to scupper the island's relationships with other countries by threatening to withdraw its own diplomatic presence and economic support. In Beijing on Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying repeated China's opposition to formal exchanges between Taiwan and the US. "We hope the US will pay great attention to China's concerns and act prudently on the issue of Taiwan so as to avoid further damage to China-US Relations," Hua told reporters at a daily briefing. (With inputs from agencies)

Palau president visits Taiwan despite Chinese pressure 

New York is set to legalize recreational marijuana after state lawmakers reached a deal to allow sales of the drug for recreational use. With this, New York will be the 15th US state to legalize marijuana.

New York to legalize recreational marijuana

The first day in the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is accused of killing George Floyd, featured an intense series of opening arguments, numerous photographs, videos of the killing, and testimony from three witnesses.

George Floyd Murder Trial: Prosecutor says Chauvin betrayed his oath

Opening statements begin in Derek Chauvin trial for George Floyd's death

Opening arguments in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer charged over George Floyd’s death last year. The African American's May 2020 killing drew outrage and a worldwide reckoning on police reform and racial justice.

Opening arguments in George Floyd case set to begin, US braces for Chauvin's trial

Former Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin squeezed the life out of George Floyd when he arrested him in last May, a prosecutor told jurors in his opening statement at Chauvin's trial on murder charges on Monday.&nbsp;

Jerry Blackwell, a prosecutor with the Minnesota attorney general's office, told jurors that officers who wear the Minneapolis police badge pledge to never use 'unnecessary force or violence'.&nbsp;

"You will learn that on May 25, Derek Chauvin betrayed this badge when he used excessive and unreasonable force upon the body of George Floyd," Blackwell said.&nbsp;

He displayed a still image from a bystander's cellphone video of Chauvin, who his white, with his knee on the neck of Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man in handcuffs, saying it showed Chauvin 'grinding and crushing him until the very breath — no, ladies and gentlemen — the very life was squeezed out of him'.&nbsp;

Floyd's death ignited a global protest movement and over the preceding two weeks of jury selection, many jurors told Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill and the lawyers on each side that they recognised the scrutiny their deliberations would come under, not least by those who view the trial as a reckoning for how Black people are policed in the United States.&nbsp;

"It's been a long time coming," a gospel choir sang on Sunday evening at a prayer service attended by Floyd's relatives. "But I know a change is gonna come."&nbsp;

The service was held in a church a few blocks east of the deadly arrest.&nbsp;

Philonise Floyd, a brother of George Floyd, said before the service began that he had faith that prosecutors from the Minnesota attorney general's office would see Chauvin convicted.&nbsp;

"The video is the proof," he said.&nbsp;

Chauvin, 45, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, with his lawyers arguing that he followed his training and that the main cause of Floyd's death, which the county examiner ruled a homicide, was a drug overdose. He faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted on the most serious charge.&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)&nbsp;

Former Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin squeezed the life out of George Floyd when he arrested him in last May, a prosecutor told jurors in his opening statement at Chauvin's trial on murder charges on Monday.

Former Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin squeezed the life out of George Floyd when he arrested him in last May, a prosecutor told jurors in his opening statement at Chauvin's trial on murder charges on Monday. Jerry Blackwell, a prosecutor with the Minnesota attorney general's office, told jurors that officers who wear the Minneapolis police badge pledge to never use 'unnecessary force or violence'. "You will learn that on May 25, Derek Chauvin betrayed this badge when he used excessive and unreasonable force upon the body of George Floyd," Blackwell said. He displayed a still image from a bystander's cellphone video of Chauvin, who his white, with his knee on the neck of Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man in handcuffs, saying it showed Chauvin 'grinding and crushing him until the very breath — no, ladies and gentlemen — the very life was squeezed out of him'. Floyd's death ignited a global protest movement and over the preceding two weeks of jury selection, many jurors told Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill and the lawyers on each side that they recognised the scrutiny their deliberations would come under, not least by those who view the trial as a reckoning for how Black people are policed in the United States. "It's been a long time coming," a gospel choir sang on Sunday evening at a prayer service attended by Floyd's relatives. "But I know a change is gonna come." The service was held in a church a few blocks east of the deadly arrest. Philonise Floyd, a brother of George Floyd, said before the service began that he had faith that prosecutors from the Minnesota attorney general's office would see Chauvin convicted. "The video is the proof," he said. Chauvin, 45, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, with his lawyers arguing that he followed his training and that the main cause of Floyd's death, which the county examiner ruled a homicide, was a drug overdose. He faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted on the most serious charge. (With inputs from agencies)

A 'grinding and crushing' knee on Floyd: Opening statements begin in trial 

Donald Trump is not in the White House anymore, but there are things still on his mind. But the selection of the right stage to say it all could keep&nbsp;him safe from online trolling.

The former US president took to stage to wish a couple getting married at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

It must have been a great moment for the couple to have a former US president speak at their&nbsp;wedding. But Trump went on a rant, talking about Iran, China, the border migrant crisis&nbsp;and Joe Biden.

"We were ready to make a deal [with Iran], they were ready to do anything, they would have done anything. And this guy [Biden] goes and drops the sanctions and then he says we'd like to negotiate now," Trump is heard saying in a video circulating online.&nbsp;

This was an apparent reference to Biden's effort to engage with Iran in order to re-enter the nuclear deal the US struck in 2015 under Barack Obama, and Trump unilaterally withdrew from in 2018.

Trump also spoke about the domestic situation in the US. "The border is not good. It's the worst that it has ever been," he said.

Trump had strived hard to&nbsp;build a wall along the US-Mexico border, one of his key campaign promises in&nbsp;2016.

Trump then went on to speak&nbsp;about his election loss to Biden in 2020. "They said get 66 million votes, sir, and the election is over. I got 75 million votes, and you saw what happened," he said.

Trump still maintains that he did not lose the elections and that there was widespread voting fraud. His claims have been refuted by US Supreme Court and election officials. Joe Biden got 80 million votes, 5 million more than what Trump bagged.

At the very end of his 400-word long address, Trump said, "It's an honour to have you at Mar-a-Lago, you are a beautiful couple...have fun".

The video has been posted online by TMZ.

Donald Trump is not in the White House anymore, but there are things still on his mind. But the selection of the right stage to say it all could keep him safe from online trolling.

Donald Trump is not in the White House anymore, but there are things still on his mind. But the selection of the right stage to say it all could keep him safe from online trolling. The former US president took to stage to wish a couple getting married at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. It must have been a great moment for the couple to have a former US president speak at their wedding. But Trump went on a rant, talking about Iran, China, the border migrant crisis and Joe Biden. "We were ready to make a deal [with Iran], they were ready to do anything, they would have done anything. And this guy [Biden] goes and drops the sanctions and then he says we'd like to negotiate now," Trump is heard saying in a video circulating online. This was an apparent reference to Biden's effort to engage with Iran in order to re-enter the nuclear deal the US struck in 2015 under Barack Obama, and Trump unilaterally withdrew from in 2018. Trump also spoke about the domestic situation in the US. "The border is not good. It's the worst that it has ever been," he said. Trump had strived hard to build a wall along the US-Mexico border, one of his key campaign promises in 2016. Trump then went on to speak about his election loss to Biden in 2020. "They said get 66 million votes, sir, and the election is over. I got 75 million votes, and you saw what happened," he said. Trump still maintains that he did not lose the elections and that there was widespread voting fraud. His claims have been refuted by US Supreme Court and election officials. Joe Biden got 80 million votes, 5 million more than what Trump bagged. At the very end of his 400-word long address, Trump said, "It's an honour to have you at Mar-a-Lago, you are a beautiful couple...have fun". The video has been posted online by TMZ.

Trump takes mic to wish a couple at wedding, starts talking about foreign policy

The sacred intersection where George Floyd died beneath the knee of a police officer has seen such an increase in violence that food delivery drivers are afraid to venture there. There have been gunbattles, with bloodied shooting victims dragged to ambulances because of barricades keeping the police and emergency vehicles away.

“Having no police: This is the experiment right here,” said P.J. Hill, a leader of Worldwide Outreach for Christ, a church that has been on that corner in Minneapolis for almost 40 years. “This is their one-block experiment.”

Residents all over town still complain of officers using excessive force, like during a recent confrontation in which a white officer appeared to wind up and punch a Black teenager. And officers accuse some community members of antagonizing them, like in a recent dispute over a homeless encampment that erupted into a melee with punches and pepper spray.

Ten months ago, Minneapolis, and the country, seemed to coalesce around the belief that policing needed an overhaul after gruesome video footage surfaced of the last moments of Floyd’s life. Now, with the murder trial of the officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck scheduled to begin Monday, the struggle over what to overhaul and how to do it has left Minneapolis at war with itself over public safety and the role of the police.

A pledge by most City Council members in June to defund and dismantle the Police Department and create a new system of public safety met fierce resistance. It has since given way to a grab bag of efforts that have yet to prove their effectiveness and have left the city fractured.

Looming over everything is a palpable unease over what the 12 jurors will decide in the trial of Derek Chauvin, who is facing second- and third-degree murder charges, as well as manslaughter, after being captured on video kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes in May.

Many worry that an acquittal could set back the work that has been done to reform public safety and to attempt healing, and put the city right back where it was last summer with buildings ablaze and the streets roiling with anger.

“People don’t have much faith that he’s going to be convicted,” said pastor Brian Herron of Zion Baptist Church in the neighborhood Near North, the historic heart of Black Minneapolis. “I think there’s hope that he is, but we have seen this movie before. We’ve watched this movie over and over and over again. We can recite the lines.”

Cities all across America last year faced a surge in violence, fueled in part by the economic despair and alienation brought on by the pandemic, criminologists said. Minneapolis was no exception: It saw a 25% increase in homicides, rapes, robberies and assaults.

But home in on the four neighborhoods surrounding George Floyd Square, the name given to the corner where Floyd died, and the story is far bleaker and deadlier. In those areas — Powderhorn Park, Central, Bryant and Bancroft — violent crime shot up by 66% last year, according to statistics from the Police Department. And this year, so far, little has changed.

The area has become something of an autonomous zone, with barriers and signs calling it “the free state of George Floyd.” Police have stayed away for almost a year to avoid inflaming tensions.

Residents and city leaders have tussled over the role that the Police Department’s depleted ranks have played in the violence plaguing the entire city. Around 200 officers have left the force, some temporarily, over the past year, with many taking leave for post-traumatic stress disorder. The City Charter allows for 888 officers, but there are currently 648 on active duty, city officials said.

Supporters of defunding the police have applauded steps to redirect $8 million from the Police Department’s budget, which now sits at about $170 million. Some of those funds have gone to the Office of Violence Prevention, which has seen its budget grow more than fourfold over the past year to about $7 million.

With that money, the office is expanding programs that offer social services, said Sasha Cotton, its director. The office is also developing a program modeled after Cure Violence, a national violence-intervention initiative. The city’s version will consist of six teams of about 15 people, some former gang members, working in communities to settle any simmering disputes that may lead to violence.

The growth in resources won’t make the work any simpler, Cotton said. That’s because the challenges have grown, too: the surge in violence, the pandemic-induced economic hardship, the unease over the trial.

“We’re under a microscope and at an epicenter that no city wants to be in,” she said. “I think that from these challenges there is real growth happening, and that we will come out of it better on the other side. But it’s sort of like that awkward teenage space that people have to go through.”

Pastor Curtis Farrar, who leads Worldwide Outreach for Christ at George Floyd Square, said gang violence had long been a problem in the area, but it had been improving before Floyd was killed and the police pulled back. Now the sounds of gunshots are a constant, and recently workers he has hired to change his church’s windows have refused to come to the area because they feel it is too dangerous.

In many ways, the future of the intersection could turn on the outcome of the trial. For too long, he said, the community has watched police officers kill and get away with it.

“I don’t know if anybody at this point knows how it’s going to be solved unless they see justice as really being blind,” he said. “If they don’t, we’re going to have some serious problems in this community.”

Many officers worry about further unrest, said Sgt. Sherral Schmidt, president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis. Officers began leaving the department in droves after the uprising last summer, she said, and morale has only gotten worse. With a staffing shortage, officers have found themselves bouncing from call to call, with little opportunity to engage with the community, she said. Even the members of the community engagement team have been reassigned to different jobs to help make up for the patrol shortage, she said.

Officers are expected to have to work 12-hour shifts once the trial reaches closing arguments, Schmidt added.

“The biggest thing for our cops right now is they feel no support,” she said. “So every day, they come in and it’s like, ‘Oh, what are we going to be scrutinized for today?’”

Some longtime civil rights activists have been critical of the police, but they have also criticized the way that supporters of the defund movement have tried to effect change. Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights lawyer, said the defund movement is nothing more than “catchy slogans and catchphrases.” She said that last summer she warned Jeremiah Ellison, a City Council member supporting efforts to dismantle the Police Department, that it would lead to only chaos.

“You’re going to turn Minneapolis into the wild, Wild West,” she recalled telling him.

But Ellison said the uptick in violence in the city began long before any money was redirected from the police, and he credited council members for investing in alternatives to policing.

“To do what we’ve done in 10 months,” he said, “as far as city government is concerned, that’s kind of moving at light speed.”

In June, nine council members, a veto-proof majority, stood on a stage in a park behind large block letters that read “Defund Police” and pledged to dismantle the Police Department.

“They stood on a stage in Powderhorn Park in front of the entire nation with a big sign, with 1-million-point font saying, ‘defund the police,’” said Jacob Frey, the mayor of Minneapolis, calling it an ill-conceived move. He could not support that position, he added, because he did not agree with it and “it wasn’t going to be delivered.”

Many of those members have since backtracked. They proposed a measure last year to change the City Charter to create a Public Safety Department — of which the police would be just one part — that they say would promote a more holistic approach to public safety. That effort has failed, but a new proposal is on track to appear on the ballot this fall. Activists are also gathering signatures to get a measure on the ballot that would perform a similar action.

Though he has disagreed with most council members, Frey has acknowledged the urgency to do something.

“There’s clearly a lot of passion and pain and frustration,” he said.

He has favored working with the police chief, Medaria Arradondo, to establish policy reforms — many of which his critics have said are too incremental.

A number of new policies on the use of force has been put into effect, including requiring officers to intervene when a fellow officer is using impermissible force and requiring greater scrutiny when force is used against someone in handcuffs.

For many residents, though, the policy changes have done nothing to upend what they see as an underlying culture of aggression and disrespect. D.A. Bullock, an activist and a filmmaker who lives in North Minneapolis, recalled recently going to a scene where the police had just shot someone and having officers aggressively tell him to get back.

“I’ve seen a number of interactions between police and residents since George Floyd was murdered, and I can’t, from a practical standpoint, I can’t identify anything that they’re doing differently,” Bullock said. “They still roll up, and they roll up in force. They’re still very much aggressive. I haven’t seen any deescalation tactics.”

Still, if the city feels tense over the continued debate about policing and public safety, there are small signs of racial healing.

One of them is on display every Sunday at Herron’s church, which is predominantly Black. More white faces have been appearing in the pews, he said. It gives Herron hope that even as the city feels these days as if it is under siege — with National Guard troops on the streets, and concrete-and-wire barricades fortifying government buildings downtown — some people, at least, are trying to come together.

“If you look physically, it doesn’t look like much has changed,” he said. “But if you look with spiritual eyes, you see a conversation. You see a movement toward each other, instead of away from each other.”

He continued, “It’s being done organically. We’re not on purpose trying to be a multicultural church. It’s what’s in the atmosphere now.”

The sacred intersection where George Floyd died beneath the knee of a police officer has seen such an increase in violence that food delivery drivers are afraid to venture there.

The sacred intersection where George Floyd died beneath the knee of a police officer has seen such an increase in violence that food delivery drivers are afraid to venture there. There have been gunbattles, with bloodied shooting victims dragged to ambulances because of barricades keeping the police and emergency vehicles away. “Having no police: This is the experiment right here,” said P.J. Hill, a leader of Worldwide Outreach for Christ, a church that has been on that corner in Minneapolis for almost 40 years. “This is their one-block experiment.” Residents all over town still complain of officers using excessive force, like during a recent confrontation in which a white officer appeared to wind up and punch a Black teenager. And officers accuse some community members of antagonizing them, like in a recent dispute over a homeless encampment that erupted into a melee with punches and pepper spray. Ten months ago, Minneapolis, and the country, seemed to coalesce around the belief that policing needed an overhaul after gruesome video footage surfaced of the last moments of Floyd’s life. Now, with the murder trial of the officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck scheduled to begin Monday, the struggle over what to overhaul and how to do it has left Minneapolis at war with itself over public safety and the role of the police. A pledge by most City Council members in June to defund and dismantle the Police Department and create a new system of public safety met fierce resistance. It has since given way to a grab bag of efforts that have yet to prove their effectiveness and have left the city fractured. Looming over everything is a palpable unease over what the 12 jurors will decide in the trial of Derek Chauvin, who is facing second- and third-degree murder charges, as well as manslaughter, after being captured on video kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes in May. Many worry that an acquittal could set back the work that has been done to reform public safety and to attempt healing, and put the city right back where it was last summer with buildings ablaze and the streets roiling with anger. “People don’t have much faith that he’s going to be convicted,” said pastor Brian Herron of Zion Baptist Church in the neighborhood Near North, the historic heart of Black Minneapolis. “I think there’s hope that he is, but we have seen this movie before. We’ve watched this movie over and over and over again. We can recite the lines.” Cities all across America last year faced a surge in violence, fueled in part by the economic despair and alienation brought on by the pandemic, criminologists said. Minneapolis was no exception: It saw a 25% increase in homicides, rapes, robberies and assaults. But home in on the four neighborhoods surrounding George Floyd Square, the name given to the corner where Floyd died, and the story is far bleaker and deadlier. In those areas — Powderhorn Park, Central, Bryant and Bancroft — violent crime shot up by 66% last year, according to statistics from the Police Department. And this year, so far, little has changed. The area has become something of an autonomous zone, with barriers and signs calling it “the free state of George Floyd.” Police have stayed away for almost a year to avoid inflaming tensions. Residents and city leaders have tussled over the role that the Police Department’s depleted ranks have played in the violence plaguing the entire city. Around 200 officers have left the force, some temporarily, over the past year, with many taking leave for post-traumatic stress disorder. The City Charter allows for 888 officers, but there are currently 648 on active duty, city officials said. Supporters of defunding the police have applauded steps to redirect $8 million from the Police Department’s budget, which now sits at about $170 million. Some of those funds have gone to the Office of Violence Prevention, which has seen its budget grow more than fourfold over the past year to about $7 million. With that money, the office is expanding programs that offer social services, said Sasha Cotton, its director. The office is also developing a program modeled after Cure Violence, a national violence-intervention initiative. The city’s version will consist of six teams of about 15 people, some former gang members, working in communities to settle any simmering disputes that may lead to violence. The growth in resources won’t make the work any simpler, Cotton said. That’s because the challenges have grown, too: the surge in violence, the pandemic-induced economic hardship, the unease over the trial. “We’re under a microscope and at an epicenter that no city wants to be in,” she said. “I think that from these challenges there is real growth happening, and that we will come out of it better on the other side. But it’s sort of like that awkward teenage space that people have to go through.” Pastor Curtis Farrar, who leads Worldwide Outreach for Christ at George Floyd Square, said gang violence had long been a problem in the area, but it had been improving before Floyd was killed and the police pulled back. Now the sounds of gunshots are a constant, and recently workers he has hired to change his church’s windows have refused to come to the area because they feel it is too dangerous. In many ways, the future of the intersection could turn on the outcome of the trial. For too long, he said, the community has watched police officers kill and get away with it. “I don’t know if anybody at this point knows how it’s going to be solved unless they see justice as really being blind,” he said. “If they don’t, we’re going to have some serious problems in this community.” Many officers worry about further unrest, said Sgt. Sherral Schmidt, president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis. Officers began leaving the department in droves after the uprising last summer, she said, and morale has only gotten worse. With a staffing shortage, officers have found themselves bouncing from call to call, with little opportunity to engage with the community, she said. Even the members of the community engagement team have been reassigned to different jobs to help make up for the patrol shortage, she said. Officers are expected to have to work 12-hour shifts once the trial reaches closing arguments, Schmidt added. “The biggest thing for our cops right now is they feel no support,” she said. “So every day, they come in and it’s like, ‘Oh, what are we going to be scrutinized for today?’” Some longtime civil rights activists have been critical of the police, but they have also criticized the way that supporters of the defund movement have tried to effect change. Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights lawyer, said the defund movement is nothing more than “catchy slogans and catchphrases.” She said that last summer she warned Jeremiah Ellison, a City Council member supporting efforts to dismantle the Police Department, that it would lead to only chaos. “You’re going to turn Minneapolis into the wild, Wild West,” she recalled telling him. But Ellison said the uptick in violence in the city began long before any money was redirected from the police, and he credited council members for investing in alternatives to policing. “To do what we’ve done in 10 months,” he said, “as far as city government is concerned, that’s kind of moving at light speed.” In June, nine council members, a veto-proof majority, stood on a stage in a park behind large block letters that read “Defund Police” and pledged to dismantle the Police Department. “They stood on a stage in Powderhorn Park in front of the entire nation with a big sign, with 1-million-point font saying, ‘defund the police,’” said Jacob Frey, the mayor of Minneapolis, calling it an ill-conceived move. He could not support that position, he added, because he did not agree with it and “it wasn’t going to be delivered.” Many of those members have since backtracked. They proposed a measure last year to change the City Charter to create a Public Safety Department — of which the police would be just one part — that they say would promote a more holistic approach to public safety. That effort has failed, but a new proposal is on track to appear on the ballot this fall. Activists are also gathering signatures to get a measure on the ballot that would perform a similar action. Though he has disagreed with most council members, Frey has acknowledged the urgency to do something. “There’s clearly a lot of passion and pain and frustration,” he said. He has favored working with the police chief, Medaria Arradondo, to establish policy reforms — many of which his critics have said are too incremental. A number of new policies on the use of force has been put into effect, including requiring officers to intervene when a fellow officer is using impermissible force and requiring greater scrutiny when force is used against someone in handcuffs. For many residents, though, the policy changes have done nothing to upend what they see as an underlying culture of aggression and disrespect. D.A. Bullock, an activist and a filmmaker who lives in North Minneapolis, recalled recently going to a scene where the police had just shot someone and having officers aggressively tell him to get back. “I’ve seen a number of interactions between police and residents since George Floyd was murdered, and I can’t, from a practical standpoint, I can’t identify anything that they’re doing differently,” Bullock said. “They still roll up, and they roll up in force. They’re still very much aggressive. I haven’t seen any deescalation tactics.” Still, if the city feels tense over the continued debate about policing and public safety, there are small signs of racial healing. One of them is on display every Sunday at Herron’s church, which is predominantly Black. More white faces have been appearing in the pews, he said. It gives Herron hope that even as the city feels these days as if it is under siege — with National Guard troops on the streets, and concrete-and-wire barricades fortifying government buildings downtown — some people, at least, are trying to come together. “If you look physically, it doesn’t look like much has changed,” he said. “But if you look with spiritual eyes, you see a conversation. You see a movement toward each other, instead of away from each other.” He continued, “It’s being done organically. We’re not on purpose trying to be a multicultural church. It’s what’s in the atmosphere now.”

Ten months after Floyd’s death, Minneapolis residents are at war over policing

China agreed to invest $400 billion in Iran over 25 years in exchange for a steady supply of oil to fuel its growing economy under a sweeping economic and security agreement signed Saturday.

The deal could deepen China’s influence in the Middle East and undercut U.S. efforts to keep Iran isolated. But it was not immediately clear how much of the agreement can be implemented while the U.S. dispute with Iran over its nuclear program remains unresolved.

President Joe Biden has offered to resume negotiations with Iran over the 2015 nuclear accord that his predecessor, President Donald Trump, abrogated three years after it was signed. American officials say both countries can take synchronized steps to bring Iran into compliance with the terms of the agreement while the U.S. gradually lifts sanctions.

Iran has refused to do so, and China has backed it up, demanding that the United States act first to revive the deal it broke by lifting unilateral sanctions that have suffocated the Iranian economy. China was one of five world powers that, along with the U.S., signed the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran.

The foreign ministers of the two countries, Javad Zarif and Wang Yi, signed the agreement during a ceremony at the foreign ministry in Tehran, Iran, on Saturday, according to Iran’s semiofficial Fars News Agency. That capped a two-day visit by Wang that reflected China’s growing ambition to play a larger role in a region that has been a strategic preoccupation of the United States for decades.

“China firmly supports Iran in safeguarding its state sovereignty and national dignity,” Wang said in his meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, the Chinese foreign ministry reported. The United States, Wang said, should immediately rescind its sanctions on Iran and “remove its long arm of jurisdictional measures that have been aimed at China, among others.”

Iran did not make the details of the agreement public before the signing, nor did the Chinese government give specifics. But experts said it was largely unchanged from an 18-page draft obtained last year by The New York Times.

That draft detailed $400 billion of Chinese investments to be made in dozens of fields, including banking, telecommunications, ports, railways, health care and information technology, over the next 25 years. In exchange, China would receive a regular — and, according to an Iranian official and an oil trader, heavily discounted — supply of Iranian oil.

The draft also called for deepening military cooperation, including joint training and exercises, joint research and weapons development and intelligence-sharing.

Iranian officials touted the agreement with Beijing — first proposed by China’s leader, Xi Jinping, during a 2016 visit — as a breakthrough. But it has been met with criticism inside Iran that the government could be giving too much away to China.

Hesamoddin Ashena, a top adviser to Rouhani, called the deal “an example of a successful diplomacy” on Twitter, saying it was a sign of Iran’s power “to participate in coalitions, not to remain in isolation.” He called it “an important decree for long-term cooperation after long negotiations and joint work.”

A spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry, Saeed Khatibzadeh, called the document a “complete road map” of relations for the next quarter-century.

Wang has already visited Iran’s archrival, Saudi Arabia, as well as Turkey, and is scheduled to go to the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman in the days ahead. He has said that the region is at a crossroads and offered China’s help in resolving persistent disputes, including over Iran’s nuclear program.

China is even ready to play host to direct talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians, hinting that U.S. dominance in the region has hindered peace and development.

In Iran, opinions about China’s expanding influence have been mixed.

After Xi first proposed the strategic agreement during his visit in 2016, negotiations to complete it moved slowly at first. Iran had just reached its deal with the United States and other nations to ease economic sanctions in exchange for severe restrictions on its nuclear research activities, and European companies began flocking to Iran with investments and offers of joint partnerships to develop gas and oil fields.

Those opportunities evaporated after Trump withdrew the United States from the deal and imposed new sanctions that the Europeans feared could entangle them, forcing Iran to look east.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, ordered a revival of talks with China, appointing a trusted conservative politician and former speaker of parliament, Ali Larijani, as a special envoy.

“China is a friend for hard times,” Zarif, the foreign minister, said after signing the deal. “The history of cooperation between two ancient cultures of Iran and China dates back centuries. Signing the cooperation agreement will further strengthen the ties of the two nations.”

Critics have complained that the negotiations lacked transparency and called the deal a sellout of Iran’s resources, comparing it to one-sided agreements that China has made with countries like Sri Lanka.

Supporters of the deal said that Iran had to be pragmatic and recognize China’s growing economic prominence.

“For too long in our strategic alliances, we have put all our eggs in the basket of the West, and it did not yield results,” said Ali Shariati, an economic analyst who until recently was a member of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce. “Now, if we shift policy and look at the East, it won’t be so bad.”

It remains to be seen how many of the ambitious projects detailed in the agreement will materialize. If the nuclear agreement collapses entirely, Chinese companies, too, could face secondary sanctions from Washington, an issue that has infuriated China in the past.

The U.S. prosecution of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei includes accusations that the company was furtively trading with Iran in violation of those sanctions.

Chinese officials have emphasized that both Washington and Tehran needed to take steps to resolve the nuclear dispute.

“All the parties can consider an approach of synchronized reciprocity, creating a road map for restoring observance of the agreement,” Wang said in the talks with his Iranian counterpart, Zarif. “There can be efforts to achieve initial gains, creating the conditions for relaunching the whole agreement.”

China agreed to invest $400 billion in Iran over 25 years in exchange for a steady supply of oil to fuel its growing economy under a sweeping economic and security agreement signed Saturday.

China agreed to invest $400 billion in Iran over 25 years in exchange for a steady supply of oil to fuel its growing economy under a sweeping economic and security agreement signed Saturday. The deal could deepen China’s influence in the Middle East and undercut U.S. efforts to keep Iran isolated. But it was not immediately clear how much of the agreement can be implemented while the U.S. dispute with Iran over its nuclear program remains unresolved. President Joe Biden has offered to resume negotiations with Iran over the 2015 nuclear accord that his predecessor, President Donald Trump, abrogated three years after it was signed. American officials say both countries can take synchronized steps to bring Iran into compliance with the terms of the agreement while the U.S. gradually lifts sanctions. Iran has refused to do so, and China has backed it up, demanding that the United States act first to revive the deal it broke by lifting unilateral sanctions that have suffocated the Iranian economy. China was one of five world powers that, along with the U.S., signed the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran. The foreign ministers of the two countries, Javad Zarif and Wang Yi, signed the agreement during a ceremony at the foreign ministry in Tehran, Iran, on Saturday, according to Iran’s semiofficial Fars News Agency. That capped a two-day visit by Wang that reflected China’s growing ambition to play a larger role in a region that has been a strategic preoccupation of the United States for decades. “China firmly supports Iran in safeguarding its state sovereignty and national dignity,” Wang said in his meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, the Chinese foreign ministry reported. The United States, Wang said, should immediately rescind its sanctions on Iran and “remove its long arm of jurisdictional measures that have been aimed at China, among others.” Iran did not make the details of the agreement public before the signing, nor did the Chinese government give specifics. But experts said it was largely unchanged from an 18-page draft obtained last year by The New York Times. That draft detailed $400 billion of Chinese investments to be made in dozens of fields, including banking, telecommunications, ports, railways, health care and information technology, over the next 25 years. In exchange, China would receive a regular — and, according to an Iranian official and an oil trader, heavily discounted — supply of Iranian oil. The draft also called for deepening military cooperation, including joint training and exercises, joint research and weapons development and intelligence-sharing. Iranian officials touted the agreement with Beijing — first proposed by China’s leader, Xi Jinping, during a 2016 visit — as a breakthrough. But it has been met with criticism inside Iran that the government could be giving too much away to China. Hesamoddin Ashena, a top adviser to Rouhani, called the deal “an example of a successful diplomacy” on Twitter, saying it was a sign of Iran’s power “to participate in coalitions, not to remain in isolation.” He called it “an important decree for long-term cooperation after long negotiations and joint work.” A spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry, Saeed Khatibzadeh, called the document a “complete road map” of relations for the next quarter-century. Wang has already visited Iran’s archrival, Saudi Arabia, as well as Turkey, and is scheduled to go to the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman in the days ahead. He has said that the region is at a crossroads and offered China’s help in resolving persistent disputes, including over Iran’s nuclear program. China is even ready to play host to direct talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians, hinting that U.S. dominance in the region has hindered peace and development. In Iran, opinions about China’s expanding influence have been mixed. After Xi first proposed the strategic agreement during his visit in 2016, negotiations to complete it moved slowly at first. Iran had just reached its deal with the United States and other nations to ease economic sanctions in exchange for severe restrictions on its nuclear research activities, and European companies began flocking to Iran with investments and offers of joint partnerships to develop gas and oil fields. Those opportunities evaporated after Trump withdrew the United States from the deal and imposed new sanctions that the Europeans feared could entangle them, forcing Iran to look east. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, ordered a revival of talks with China, appointing a trusted conservative politician and former speaker of parliament, Ali Larijani, as a special envoy. “China is a friend for hard times,” Zarif, the foreign minister, said after signing the deal. “The history of cooperation between two ancient cultures of Iran and China dates back centuries. Signing the cooperation agreement will further strengthen the ties of the two nations.” Critics have complained that the negotiations lacked transparency and called the deal a sellout of Iran’s resources, comparing it to one-sided agreements that China has made with countries like Sri Lanka. Supporters of the deal said that Iran had to be pragmatic and recognize China’s growing economic prominence. “For too long in our strategic alliances, we have put all our eggs in the basket of the West, and it did not yield results,” said Ali Shariati, an economic analyst who until recently was a member of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce. “Now, if we shift policy and look at the East, it won’t be so bad.” It remains to be seen how many of the ambitious projects detailed in the agreement will materialize. If the nuclear agreement collapses entirely, Chinese companies, too, could face secondary sanctions from Washington, an issue that has infuriated China in the past. The U.S. prosecution of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei includes accusations that the company was furtively trading with Iran in violation of those sanctions. Chinese officials have emphasized that both Washington and Tehran needed to take steps to resolve the nuclear dispute. “All the parties can consider an approach of synchronized reciprocity, creating a road map for restoring observance of the agreement,” Wang said in the talks with his Iranian counterpart, Zarif. “There can be efforts to achieve initial gains, creating the conditions for relaunching the whole agreement.”

China, with $400 billion Iran deal, could deepen influence in Mideast

Members of the United States Navy were recently witnessed singing a popular Hindi song at dinner with Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) on Saturday.&nbsp; On the same day, India’s Ambassador to the United States Taranjit Singh Sandhu met with the CNO, Michael M Gilday.

“Together, we will promote a free, open &amp; inclusive rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. I look forward to our two navies’ continued cooperation”, Gilday tweeted.

The Navy sang the following in Hindi - "This is a friendship bond that cannot be broken ever”, echoing the state of relations between the United States and India.

<div class="ui-state-default" contenteditable="false">
<div class="twitter-block" draggable="false">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Great to meet with India’s Ambassador to the United States <a href="https://twitter.com/SandhuTaranjitS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SandhuTaranjitS</a> today! Together, we will promote a free, open &amp; inclusive rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. I look forward to our two navies’ continued cooperation. <a href="https://twitter.com/IndianEmbassyUS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@IndianEmbassyUS</a> 🇮🇳🇺🇸 <a href="https://t.co/UJ8aopHjl0">pic.twitter.com/UJ8aopHjl0</a>
— USNavyCNO (@USNavyCNO) <a href="https://twitter.com/USNavyCNO/status/1375613959106088960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 27, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
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The original song is called “Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera” and was performed by coveted musician AR Rahman for the soundtrack of the film “Swades” in 2004.

Watch the clip below

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<div class="twitter-block" draggable="false">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
'ये वो बंधन है जो कभी टूट नहीं सकता! This is a friendship bond that cannot be broken ever.' 🇮🇳🇺🇸 
 
US Navy singing a popular Hindi tune <a href="https://twitter.com/USNavyCNO?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@USNavyCNO</a> 's dinner last night! <a href="https://t.co/hfzXsg0cAr">pic.twitter.com/hfzXsg0cAr</a>
— Taranjit Singh Sandhu (@SandhuTaranjitS) <a href="https://twitter.com/SandhuTaranjitS/status/1375937058229919744?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 27, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Cooperation between the United States and India has improved in the face of increased Chinese activity in the Indian Ocean, Indo-Pacific.&nbsp;

Recently, a grouping of four countries called “Quad” including India, United States, Japan, and Australia convened which was seen as signalling to China that their excesses in the region will not go unanswered.

The US also extended extensive support to Taiwan as it faces increasing threat of a Chinese invasion, with Chinese planes continuously breaching territorial borders.

Members of the United States Navy were recently witnessed singing a popular Hindi song at dinner with Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) on Saturday. On the same day, India’s Ambassador to the United States Taranjit Singh Sandhu met with the CNO, Michael M Gilday.

Members of the United States Navy were recently witnessed singing a popular Hindi song at dinner with Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) on Saturday. On the same day, India’s Ambassador to the United States Taranjit Singh Sandhu met with the CNO, Michael M Gilday. “Together, we will promote a free, open & inclusive rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. I look forward to our two navies’ continued cooperation”, Gilday tweeted. The Navy sang the following in Hindi - "This is a friendship bond that cannot be broken ever”, echoing the state of relations between the United States and India. Great to meet with India’s Ambassador to the United States @SandhuTaranjitS today! Together, we will promote a free, open & inclusive rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. I look forward to our two navies’ continued cooperation. @IndianEmbassyUS 🇮🇳🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/UJ8aopHjl0 — USNavyCNO (@USNavyCNO) March 27, 2021 × The original song is called “Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera” and was performed by coveted musician AR Rahman for the soundtrack of the film “Swades” in 2004. Watch the clip below 'ये वो बंधन है जो कभी टूट नहीं सकता! This is a friendship bond that cannot be broken ever.' 🇮🇳🇺🇸 US Navy singing a popular Hindi tune @USNavyCNO 's dinner last night! pic.twitter.com/hfzXsg0cAr — Taranjit Singh Sandhu (@SandhuTaranjitS) March 27, 2021 × Cooperation between the United States and India has improved in the face of increased Chinese activity in the Indian Ocean, Indo-Pacific. Recently, a grouping of four countries called “Quad” including India, United States, Japan, and Australia convened which was seen as signalling to China that their excesses in the region will not go unanswered. The US also extended extensive support to Taiwan as it faces increasing threat of a Chinese invasion, with Chinese planes continuously breaching territorial borders.

Watch: US Navy sings Hindi song from hit Bollywood movie 'Swades'

At the end of a winding answer Thursday about competing with China and about his relationship with Xi Jinping, a man he said does not have a democratic “bone in his body,” President Joe Biden offered up a revealing assessment of one of America’s most pressing challenges.

“This is a battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies,” he told reporters at his first news conference as president. “We’ve got to prove democracy works.”

China’s president, Xi, Biden said bluntly, was “a smart, smart guy” who shared with President Vladimir Putin of Russia a belief that “autocracy is the wave of the future and democracy can’t function” in the complexities of the modern world.

Among the biggest tasks of his presidency, Biden seemed to be arguing, is to prove anew to a skeptical world that both American democracy and its model of democratic capitalism still works — and that it is superior to the very different system Xi is ruthlessly enforcing at home as he tries to extend China’s influence around the world.

For a president barely 10 weeks into office, casting the United States as confronting a global struggle with the Chinese model has some clear political benefits. One of the few issues that unites Democrats and Republicans is the need to compete head-on with Beijing. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said Monday that the Chinese have already taken notice.

“They recognize in many ways that we are now finally awakened to the challenge,” he said this week at the Atlantic Council. “And I would call it a bipartisan awakening.”

Biden’s aides say his view of the Chinese challenge is not solely one of foreign policy. He plans to make full use of the fear of Beijing’s ambitions as he introduces his infrastructure initiative next week.

There will be hundreds of billions of dollars for technologies and projects that the Chinese are also pouring cash into, including semiconductors, artificial intelligence and 5G networks, as well as big breakthroughs in electric cars and synthetic biotechnology.

On Friday, Biden said he suggested to Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain that the big Western democracies work together to counter China’s ambitious efforts to build better trade routes around the world, a project called the Belt and Road Initiative. The project is one of China’s main instruments for influencing nations in its economic orbit by investing in ports, rail lines, roads and other infrastructure in Asia, Africa and Europe.

“We talked about China and the competition they’re engaging in in the Belt and Road Initiative,” Biden said. “And I suggested we should have, essentially, a similar initiative coming from the democratic states, helping those communities around the world.”

There is a striking similarity between Biden’s list and Xi’s “Made in China 2025” initiative — which was first announced six years ago as an effort to make China largely independent of Western suppliers for critical technology.

At the core of Biden’s infrastructure and supply-chain initiatives is an effort — parts of which began in the Trump years — to ensure the West is not dependent on Chinese technology. It is a battle that blossomed over Huawei, the maker of next-generation communications networks, but has now spread to fears that Chinese apps like TikTok could be a pathway for attacks on American infrastructure.

“China is outinvesting us by a long shot,” Biden said, previewing his argument, “because their plan is to own that future.”

It is a time-tested approach: President Dwight D. Eisenhower used the launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, to spur a military and civilian space race, and President John F. Kennedy picked up on the theme in setting the goal for landing a man on the moon.

A decade ago, President Barack Obama used his State of the Union address to call for a “Sputnik moment” of public investment, also using China as a spur, but the effort fell flat.

Yet for all the unanimity around the China challenge, it is far from clear whether Biden’s political strategy will work.

Republicans object to both the huge government spending in the Biden plan and to the overhang of debt it would create. And there seems bound to be a rerun of the arguments, dating to the 1980s, over whether a federal “industrial policy” — where taxpayer dollars are poured directly into technologies in which the United States judges it must stay ahead — that creates a competitive advantage for America makes sense or just squelches the innovations of Silicon Valley.

No matter how that plays out, Biden is casting the United States’ current competition in very different terms than his predecessors did. “Look, I predict to you,” he said, “your children or grandchildren are going to be doing their doctoral thesis on the issue of who succeeded: autocracy or democracy? Because that is what is at stake, not just China.”

Most notable was what was missing. There was no talk of American “exceptionalism,” just a shorter-term assurance that “on my watch,” China would not reach its overall goal “to become the leading country in the world, the wealthiest country in the world, and the most powerful country in the world.”

Biden was also careful not to make Cold War analogies; in fact, he noted that what was missing now was much of an ideological contest. (“You don’t have Russia talking about communism anymore,” he noted.) He has always said he would cooperate with adversaries, and on Friday he invited Xi and Putin to a virtual climate summit meeting he is hosting in April. He speaks of competition, not containment.

“I see stiff competition with China,” Biden said, over everything from chips to national values, which he added was the key to his two-hour conversation with Xi. And that, he said, meant pushing back on China’s stripping of rights in Hong Kong or on its harsh repression of Muslim minorities.

“The moment a president walks away from that, as the last one did,” he said, taking a dig at former President Donald Trump, “is the moment we begin to lose our legitimacy around the world.”

Still, Biden’s discussion of an open contest between two similarly sized superpowers was a significant change for U.S. presidents.

A quarter-century ago, President Bill Clinton would make the case — oftentimes, during visits to Beijing — that the arrival of the internet would force China to embrace an more American-style democracy. Clearly, that did not work out.

President George W. Bush stressed areas where Chinese and American interests overlapped — counterterrorism and North Korea were the two he mentioned the most — but never cast China as a technological equal. Obama would always say the United States “welcomes the rise of China” and recognized that it could not contain the country if it wanted to, so it would be foolish to try.

And Trump spent three years imposing tariffs and insisting he would cut the deal of the century with China, and one year castigating it as the exporter of the coronavirus, while his secretary of state at the time, Mike Pompeo, insisted that over time, the Communist Party would collapse.

Now, Biden’s team says it is assembling a strategy built more around competition than containment.

“I don’t think China is on a mission to export its model abroad and undermine democracy abroad,” said Thomas J. Christensen, a Columbia professor and former State Department official dealing with China during the Bush administration. “But I do think they are on a mission to defend their model from criticism and defend single-party authoritarian rule.”

Christensen published an essay this week in Foreign Affairs titled, “There Will Not Be a New Cold War,” arguing that American allies were “too economically dependent on China to adopt entirely hostile policies,” and that the United States’ advantage was that it had allies and partners who ranked among the greatest technological powers in the world.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken seemed to acknowledge that this week when, on a visit to Brussels, he assured the Europeans that he would not force them to make an “us or them choice.”

The Biden camp’s calculation seems to be that it is more important to hold allies together than to ensure that each one cuts off its dependency on Chinese technology or investment.

The problem will come, as Blinken notes, as China lashes out at those who criticize its actions at home, in the South China Sea, or against Taiwan. “When one of us is coerced,” he said, “we should respond as allies and work together to reduce our vulnerability by ensuring our economies are more integrated with each other.” Which sounds a lot like creating opposing camps.

At the end of a winding answer Thursday about competing with China and about his relationship with Xi Jinping, a man he said does not have a democratic “bone in his body,” President Joe Biden offered up a revealing assessment of one of America’s most pressing challenges.

At the end of a winding answer Thursday about competing with China and about his relationship with Xi Jinping, a man he said does not have a democratic “bone in his body,” President Joe Biden offered up a revealing assessment of one of America’s most pressing challenges. “This is a battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies,” he told reporters at his first news conference as president. “We’ve got to prove democracy works.” China’s president, Xi, Biden said bluntly, was “a smart, smart guy” who shared with President Vladimir Putin of Russia a belief that “autocracy is the wave of the future and democracy can’t function” in the complexities of the modern world. Among the biggest tasks of his presidency, Biden seemed to be arguing, is to prove anew to a skeptical world that both American democracy and its model of democratic capitalism still works — and that it is superior to the very different system Xi is ruthlessly enforcing at home as he tries to extend China’s influence around the world. For a president barely 10 weeks into office, casting the United States as confronting a global struggle with the Chinese model has some clear political benefits. One of the few issues that unites Democrats and Republicans is the need to compete head-on with Beijing. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said Monday that the Chinese have already taken notice. “They recognize in many ways that we are now finally awakened to the challenge,” he said this week at the Atlantic Council. “And I would call it a bipartisan awakening.” Biden’s aides say his view of the Chinese challenge is not solely one of foreign policy. He plans to make full use of the fear of Beijing’s ambitions as he introduces his infrastructure initiative next week. There will be hundreds of billions of dollars for technologies and projects that the Chinese are also pouring cash into, including semiconductors, artificial intelligence and 5G networks, as well as big breakthroughs in electric cars and synthetic biotechnology. On Friday, Biden said he suggested to Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain that the big Western democracies work together to counter China’s ambitious efforts to build better trade routes around the world, a project called the Belt and Road Initiative. The project is one of China’s main instruments for influencing nations in its economic orbit by investing in ports, rail lines, roads and other infrastructure in Asia, Africa and Europe. “We talked about China and the competition they’re engaging in in the Belt and Road Initiative,” Biden said. “And I suggested we should have, essentially, a similar initiative coming from the democratic states, helping those communities around the world.” There is a striking similarity between Biden’s list and Xi’s “Made in China 2025” initiative — which was first announced six years ago as an effort to make China largely independent of Western suppliers for critical technology. At the core of Biden’s infrastructure and supply-chain initiatives is an effort — parts of which began in the Trump years — to ensure the West is not dependent on Chinese technology. It is a battle that blossomed over Huawei, the maker of next-generation communications networks, but has now spread to fears that Chinese apps like TikTok could be a pathway for attacks on American infrastructure. “China is outinvesting us by a long shot,” Biden said, previewing his argument, “because their plan is to own that future.” It is a time-tested approach: President Dwight D. Eisenhower used the launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, to spur a military and civilian space race, and President John F. Kennedy picked up on the theme in setting the goal for landing a man on the moon. A decade ago, President Barack Obama used his State of the Union address to call for a “Sputnik moment” of public investment, also using China as a spur, but the effort fell flat. Yet for all the unanimity around the China challenge, it is far from clear whether Biden’s political strategy will work. Republicans object to both the huge government spending in the Biden plan and to the overhang of debt it would create. And there seems bound to be a rerun of the arguments, dating to the 1980s, over whether a federal “industrial policy” — where taxpayer dollars are poured directly into technologies in which the United States judges it must stay ahead — that creates a competitive advantage for America makes sense or just squelches the innovations of Silicon Valley. No matter how that plays out, Biden is casting the United States’ current competition in very different terms than his predecessors did. “Look, I predict to you,” he said, “your children or grandchildren are going to be doing their doctoral thesis on the issue of who succeeded: autocracy or democracy? Because that is what is at stake, not just China.” Most notable was what was missing. There was no talk of American “exceptionalism,” just a shorter-term assurance that “on my watch,” China would not reach its overall goal “to become the leading country in the world, the wealthiest country in the world, and the most powerful country in the world.” Biden was also careful not to make Cold War analogies; in fact, he noted that what was missing now was much of an ideological contest. (“You don’t have Russia talking about communism anymore,” he noted.) He has always said he would cooperate with adversaries, and on Friday he invited Xi and Putin to a virtual climate summit meeting he is hosting in April. He speaks of competition, not containment. “I see stiff competition with China,” Biden said, over everything from chips to national values, which he added was the key to his two-hour conversation with Xi. And that, he said, meant pushing back on China’s stripping of rights in Hong Kong or on its harsh repression of Muslim minorities. “The moment a president walks away from that, as the last one did,” he said, taking a dig at former President Donald Trump, “is the moment we begin to lose our legitimacy around the world.” Still, Biden’s discussion of an open contest between two similarly sized superpowers was a significant change for U.S. presidents. A quarter-century ago, President Bill Clinton would make the case — oftentimes, during visits to Beijing — that the arrival of the internet would force China to embrace an more American-style democracy. Clearly, that did not work out. President George W. Bush stressed areas where Chinese and American interests overlapped — counterterrorism and North Korea were the two he mentioned the most — but never cast China as a technological equal. Obama would always say the United States “welcomes the rise of China” and recognized that it could not contain the country if it wanted to, so it would be foolish to try. And Trump spent three years imposing tariffs and insisting he would cut the deal of the century with China, and one year castigating it as the exporter of the coronavirus, while his secretary of state at the time, Mike Pompeo, insisted that over time, the Communist Party would collapse. Now, Biden’s team says it is assembling a strategy built more around competition than containment. “I don’t think China is on a mission to export its model abroad and undermine democracy abroad,” said Thomas J. Christensen, a Columbia professor and former State Department official dealing with China during the Bush administration. “But I do think they are on a mission to defend their model from criticism and defend single-party authoritarian rule.” Christensen published an essay this week in Foreign Affairs titled, “There Will Not Be a New Cold War,” arguing that American allies were “too economically dependent on China to adopt entirely hostile policies,” and that the United States’ advantage was that it had allies and partners who ranked among the greatest technological powers in the world. Secretary of State Antony Blinken seemed to acknowledge that this week when, on a visit to Brussels, he assured the Europeans that he would not force them to make an “us or them choice.” The Biden camp’s calculation seems to be that it is more important to hold allies together than to ensure that each one cuts off its dependency on Chinese technology or investment. The problem will come, as Blinken notes, as China lashes out at those who criticize its actions at home, in the South China Sea, or against Taiwan. “When one of us is coerced,” he said, “we should respond as allies and work together to reduce our vulnerability by ensuring our economies are more integrated with each other.” Which sounds a lot like creating opposing camps.

Biden defines his underlying challenge with China: ‘Prove democracy works’

Gunshots were fired at the US cultural centre in Myanmar's biggest city of Yangon on Saturday but caused no injuries, an embassy spokesperson said.&nbsp;

The United States has been strident in its criticism of the junta that seized power in Myanmar on February 1 and the killing of hundreds of anti-coup protesters by security forces.&nbsp;

"We can confirm that shots were fired at the American Center Yangon on March 27. There were no injuries. We are investigating the incident," embassy spokesperson Aryani Manring said.&nbsp;

Meanwhile, Myanmar's security forces shot and killed at least 91 people - including a young boy - on Saturday, news reports and witnesses said, even as the ruling junta's leader said the military would protect the people and strive for democracy.&nbsp;

Protesters against the February 1 military coup came out on the streets of Yangon, Mandalay and other towns, defying a warning that they could be shot 'in the head and back', while the country's generals celebrated Armed Forces Day.&nbsp;

"Today is a day of shame for the armed forces," Dr Sasa, a spokesman for CRPH, an anti-junta group set up by deposed lawmakers, told an online forum.&nbsp;

The deaths on Saturday, one of the bloodiest days since the coup, would take the number of civilians reported killed to nearly 400. Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in parts of Myanmar on Saturday.&nbsp;

A boy reported by local media to be as young as five was among at least 13 people killed in Myanmar's second city of Mandalay. The Myanmar Now news portal said 64 people had been killed in total across the country by 2.30 pm (0800 GMT).&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)&nbsp;

Gunshots were fired at the US cultural centre in Myanmar's biggest city of Yangon on Saturday but caused no injuries, an embassy spokesperson said. The United States has been strident in its criticism of the junta that seized power in Myanmar on February 1 and the killing of hundreds of anti-coup protesters by security forces.

Gunshots were fired at the US cultural centre in Myanmar's biggest city of Yangon on Saturday but caused no injuries, an embassy spokesperson said. The United States has been strident in its criticism of the junta that seized power in Myanmar on February 1 and the killing of hundreds of anti-coup protesters by security forces. "We can confirm that shots were fired at the American Center Yangon on March 27. There were no injuries. We are investigating the incident," embassy spokesperson Aryani Manring said. Meanwhile, Myanmar's security forces shot and killed at least 91 people - including a young boy - on Saturday, news reports and witnesses said, even as the ruling junta's leader said the military would protect the people and strive for democracy. Protesters against the February 1 military coup came out on the streets of Yangon, Mandalay and other towns, defying a warning that they could be shot 'in the head and back', while the country's generals celebrated Armed Forces Day. "Today is a day of shame for the armed forces," Dr Sasa, a spokesman for CRPH, an anti-junta group set up by deposed lawmakers, told an online forum. The deaths on Saturday, one of the bloodiest days since the coup, would take the number of civilians reported killed to nearly 400. Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in parts of Myanmar on Saturday. A boy reported by local media to be as young as five was among at least 13 people killed in Myanmar's second city of Mandalay. The Myanmar Now news portal said 64 people had been killed in total across the country by 2.30 pm (0800 GMT). (With inputs from agencies)

Gunshots fired at US cultural centre in Myanmar, says embassy 

The US special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad has departed for Turkey and the nearby region, the US State Department said on Saturday, in a push to encourage Afghan parties to accelerate negotiations to end conflict in the country.&nbsp;

President Joe Biden is deciding whether to meet a May 1 deadline for the withdrawal of the last 3,500 American troops in Afghanistan that was set in a February 2020 accord struck with the Taliban under former President Donald Trump.&nbsp;

Biden's administration has sought to build international pressure on the Taliban and US-backed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's government to reach a peace agreement and a ceasefire before the deadline.&nbsp;

"He will engage the two sides on their preparatory efforts for talks on a political settlement that produces a permanent ceasefire and a durable and just peace," the State Department said in a statement, adding that Khalilzad departed for the talks on Thursday.&nbsp;

The Taliban on Friday said it would resume hostilities against foreign forces - which ended under the US-Taliban deal - if they remain beyond the deadline.&nbsp;

Biden on Thursday said it would be hard to comply with the deadline, which also requires the departure of some 7,000 allied forces.&nbsp;

The Taliban has said it was committed to the agreement, which it has termed the 'most sensible and shortest path' to end 20 years of war in Afghanistan - America's longest foreign conflict.&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies) &nbsp;

The US special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad has departed for Turkey and the nearby region, the US State Department said on Saturday, in a push to encourage Afghan parties to accelerate negotiations to end conflict in the country.

The US special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad has departed for Turkey and the nearby region, the US State Department said on Saturday, in a push to encourage Afghan parties to accelerate negotiations to end conflict in the country. President Joe Biden is deciding whether to meet a May 1 deadline for the withdrawal of the last 3,500 American troops in Afghanistan that was set in a February 2020 accord struck with the Taliban under former President Donald Trump. Biden's administration has sought to build international pressure on the Taliban and US-backed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's government to reach a peace agreement and a ceasefire before the deadline. "He will engage the two sides on their preparatory efforts for talks on a political settlement that produces a permanent ceasefire and a durable and just peace," the State Department said in a statement, adding that Khalilzad departed for the talks on Thursday. The Taliban on Friday said it would resume hostilities against foreign forces - which ended under the US-Taliban deal - if they remain beyond the deadline. Biden on Thursday said it would be hard to comply with the deadline, which also requires the departure of some 7,000 allied forces. The Taliban has said it was committed to the agreement, which it has termed the 'most sensible and shortest path' to end 20 years of war in Afghanistan - America's longest foreign conflict. (With inputs from agencies)

US envoy to Afghanistan heads to Turkey, region to push talks to end conflict 

Joe Biden appeared for his first press conference with 'cheat sheets', notes and even a list of the reporters in attendance. What did the US President tell the press? WION's Palki Sharma brings you report.

Gravitas: Joe Biden attends his first press conference with a 'cheat sheet'

US President Joe Biden holds his first press conference over 60 days since taking office.

US President Joe Biden's first Press Conference as the POTUS

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On the edge again, America watches developments closely