KABUL: The Taliban are aiming to reach a withdrawal agreement with the US by the end of January and are prepared to “scale down” military operations ahead of signing the deal, according to their chief spokesman.
The statement by Suhail Shaheen to Pakistani daily Dawn comes as the group and the US held discussions in Doha this week, after insurgent sources told AFP they had offered to initiate a brief cease-fire.
“We have agreed to scale down military operations in days leading up to the signing of the peace agreement with the United States,” Shaheen told Dawn in a report published Saturday.
He added that the Taliban were “optimistic” a deal with Washington could be signed before the end of the month and that the reduction in fighting across the country would also include the targeting of Afghan forces.
“It’s now a matter of days,” said the spokesman.
Washington has for weeks been calling on the militants to reduce violence, posing it as a condition for resuming formal negotiations on an agreement that would see US troops begin to leave the country in return for security guarantees, after a near two-decade fight.
The Taliban and the US had been negotiating the deal for a year and were on the brink of an announcement in September 2019 when President Donald Trump abruptly declared the process “dead,” citing Taliban violence.
Talks were later restarted between the two sides in December in Qatar, but were paused again following an attack near the Bagram military base in Afghanistan, which is run by the US.
Any agreement with the Taliban is expected to have two main pillars — an American withdrawal from Afghanistan, and a commitment by the insurgents not to offer sanctuary to militants — and would ultimately have to be given final approval by Trump.
The Taliban’s relationship with Al-Qaeda was the main reason cited for the US invasion more than 18 years ago.
A deal would hopefully pave the way for intra-Afghan talks.
Many observers agree that the war can no longer be won militarily, and that the only route to a lasting peace in Afghanistan is for an agreement between the Taliban and the US-backed government in Kabul.
The Taliban have until now refused to negotiate with the Afghan government, which they consider an illegitimate regime, raising fears that fighting will continue regardless of any deal ironed out with the Americans.
Taliban aim to sign deal with US by end of month
https://arab.news/9z6gg
Taliban aim to sign deal with US by end of month
- Washington has for weeks been calling on the militants to reduce violence
- The Taliban and the US had been negotiating the deal for a year
Holders Barcelona, PSG win through to Women’s Champions League semis
BARCELONA: Barcelona eased to a 3-1 win over Brann on Thursday to set up a repeat of last season’s Women’s Champions League semifinal against Chelsea, progressing 5-2 on aggregate, while Paris Saint-Germain also clinched a place in the last four of Europe’s elite club competition.
Reigning Ballon d’Or Aitana Bonmati, Fridolina Rolfo and Patri Guijarro struck for the defending European champions in the quarter-final second leg, with Barca targeting a third triumph in four seasons.
Stubborn Norwegian surprise package Brann held their own in a 2-1 first-leg defeat and battled hard at the Johan Cruyff Stadium, but Jonatan Giraldez’s side patiently unpicked them.
Tomine Svendheim’s second-half goal gave a strong traveling contingent reward for their noisy support, but Guijarro, who scored twice in last season’s final, killed off any chance of an unlikely comeback.
Barcelona, who beat Chelsea 4-0 in the 2021 final, have now reached the semis for six consecutive seasons.
“I think like last year it will be a very equal tie,” Barca coach Giraldez told reporters.
“(Chelsea) have invested a lot and have a high quality squad.
“For sure we will see a great semifinal, they are in great form — but so are we.”
Bonmati broke the deadlock brilliantly after 24 minutes, wriggling free on the edge of the box and bending home beyond the reach of Brann goalkeeper Aurora Mikalsen.
Barcelona grabbed their second on the night when Caroline Graham Hansen glided inside effortlessly and her blocked cross sat up nicely for Rolfo to tap home in the 56th minute.
The Swedish winger, who scored the winner for Barcelona in last season’s thrilling final against Wolfsburg, has returned from her knee injury with three goals in seven games despite playing at left-back.
Brann then pulled a goal back when Svendheim stole in behind Lucy Bronze and slid a low effort into the far corner after a long drive forward by Signe Gaupset.
Rolfo struck the post for Barca and Guijarro then sealed the win with a tap-in after the vibrant Graham Hansen picked the locks again and put the ball across the face of goal.
“We came here and we pushed them,” said Brann coach Martin Ho.
“We didn’t want to come here and lay low for the whole game, we wanted to make it a challenge.”
In Paris, the home side built on a 2-1 quarter-final first-leg win away to Hacken by beating the Swedish side 3-0 at the Parc des Princes to progress 5-1 on aggregate and set up a semifinal against domestic rivals Lyon.
Impressive Malawi striker Tabitha Chawinga, the top scorer in the French league this season, gave PSG the lead on the night just before the half-hour mark, firing a shot in off the far post on her left foot after collecting a pass from Marie-Antoinette Katoto.
They doubled their lead on 70 minutes as a long-range strike by Korbin Albert sailed into the top corner.
Albert, a 20-year-old midfielder, is a rising star in the US but is at the center of a brewing storm over controversial social media posts which have drawn a strong response from American great Megan Rapinoe.
PSG’s third goal arrived soon after that as Katoto headed in from a Sakina Karchaoui cross for her fifth goal in this season’s Champions League.
The result means there is guaranteed to be a French side in the final in Bilbao in May, with PSG and Lyon meeting in the semifinals next month.
They also clashed in the last four two years ago, when Lyon went on to win the trophy for a record-extending eighth time.
Lyon, who beat Benfica in the quarter-finals, are currently seven points ahead of PSG at the top of the French league.
UAE, Saudi Arabia ranked as leading global entrepreneurial ecosystems
RIYADH: The UAE and Saudi Arabia have been ranked first and third respectively in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report for 2023-2024.
The report, which assesses the entrepreneurial ecosystems of countries worldwide, is highly regarded by international bodies such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and various UN organizations,
Saudi Arabia showed significant progress in its entrepreneurial environment, with its National Entrepreneurship Context Index score increasing from 5.0 in 2019 to 6.3 in both 2022 and 2023.
This reflected the country’s successful efforts to diversify its economy and foster a supportive climate for entrepreneurship, said the report. A notable highlight was increased female entrepreneurship, with eight women starting new businesses for every 10 men in 2023.
The country also has the highest proportion of adults who know an entrepreneur, perceive ease in starting a business, recognize good business opportunities, and believe they possess the necessary skills and experience to start a business.
However, despite high acknowledgment of opportunities and capabilities, there remains a considerable fear of failure, the report concluded.
Additionally, a significant percentage of Saudi entrepreneurs are expected to leverage digital technologies and focus on minimizing environmental impacts and maximizing social impacts, indicating a readiness for future challenges.
Meanwhile, the UAE set a record with its National Entrepreneurship Context Index score of 7.7, the highest in the report’s history.
The report also positioned the UAE as the best environment in the world for starting and conducting new business ventures, surpassing many advanced economies. It also ranked third globally in terms of physical infrastructure.
Significant strides have been made in entrepreneurship education within schools, emphasizing skills like creative thinking, problem solving, opportunity recognition and risk assessment. The country ranked among the top five out of 49 in this aspect.
Al-Ahli crowned champions of inaugural Saudi Women’s Cup
- They defeated Al-Shabab 3-2 in a thrilling final at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh on Thursday night
RIYADH: Al-Ahli were crowned champions of the Saudi Arabian Football Federation (SAFF) Women’s Cup for the 2023-2024 season beating rivals Al-Shabab 3-2 at the Kingdom Arena on Thursday night.
Al-Ahli forward, Ibtissam Jraidi, was the player of the match, scoring a brace in the first and second half of the game.
During the second-half, Al-Ahli continued to lead with teammate Naomie Kabakaba scoring in the 53rd minute.
Al-Shabab made amends in the 68th minute with a penalty from forward player Oriana Altuve, followed by a free kick that assisted Chaima Abdulaziz to score in the 88th minute.
Moroccan star Jraidi raised the cup for Al-Ahli during the post-match ceremony.
The 2023-2024 season is the SAFF Women’s Cup inaugural season, making Al-Ahli the first-ever champions.
The football league system was launched in November by the Saudi Arabian Football Federation, in a mission to increase the competitiveness of Saudi women’s football, amid the rapid development of women’s football worldwide.
Arab News Research and Studies Unit launches latest deep dive on Jerusalem
- Focus on Israel’s land appropriations with settler organizations, marginalization of Christians and Muslims
- Arab News provides details of aim to ‘Judaize’ Palestinian East Jerusalem
LONDON: For the past 20 years Israel’s government has collaborated with the country’s leading settler movement in a plot to appropriate land in East Jerusalem, with the aim of reestablishing the Biblical “City of David,” at the cost of Muslims and Christians alike, and sabotaging any hope of a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
The wealthy City of David Foundation, also known as Elad, has also been given virtual carte blanche by various government departments to develop biblically themed national parks surrounding Jerusalem’s Old City.
It has also embarked on a series of controversial archaeological projects designed to provide evidence that East Jerusalem is the site of the City of David, as mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.
“What we are seeing is the establishment of a very specific, exclusionary, absolutist biblical narrative in and around the Old City, and the etching of that narrative physically into the landscape through archaeology, parks, and so on,” said Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer and founder of Terrestrial Jerusalem. This is an Israeli NGO that works to track developments in Jerusalem that could impact either the political process or permanent-status options.
The aim was “the marginalization of Palestinian East Jerusalem, politically, geographically and economically, and the marginalization of the Christian presence in Jerusalem.”
Normally, the Christian presence in Jerusalem is never more apparent than during Holy Week, which began on Sunday — Palm Sunday in the Christian calendar — and culminates on Easter Sunday, March 31. Today is Good Friday, when Christians commemorate the crucifixion of Christ, which they believe took place at the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City’s Christian quarter.
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Battleground: Jerusalem The biblical battle for the Holy City
But presiding over the celebrations at the church on Palm Sunday , Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, expressed his dismay that many parishioners and pilgrims had been unable to participate this year because of the war in Gaza, “which is so terrible and seems never-ending ... and everything going on around us this year.”
The details of what Terrestrial Jerusalem describes as “the strategic encirclement of Jerusalem’s Old City” are revealed today in a special Deep Dive by the Arab News Research and Studies Unit.
The plot has been a long time in the planning. Speaking in June 1998 after Jewish settlers seized four homes in Silwan, Elad spokesman Yigal Kaufman said: “Our aim is to Judaize East Jerusalem. The City of David is the most ancient core of Jerusalem, and we want it to become a Jewish neighborhood.”
Last week Israel dealt a fresh blow to hopes of Palestinian statehood when it announced it was seizing 800 hectares of occupied Palestinian land in the Jordan Valley, a move condemned as illegal by numerous states and institutions from the European Union to the Arab League’s parliament.
The announcement, by Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, was made last Friday as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv for talks on Gaza with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Philippine president warns of countermeasures in response to Chinese aggression at sea
- Marcos said the Philippines "seek no conflict with any nation,” but would not be “cowed into silence”
- His remark follows repeated aggressive action by Chinese coast guard ships in disputed South China Sea waters
MANILA: The Philippine president said Thursday that his government would take action against what he called dangerous attacks by the Chinese coast guard and suspected militia ships in the disputed South China Sea, saying “Filipinos do not yield.”
Ferdinand Marcos Jr. did not provide details of the actions his government would take in the succeeding weeks but said these would be “proportionate, deliberate and reasonable in the face of the open, unabating, and illegal, coercive, aggressive and dangerous attacks by agents of the China coast guard and Chinese maritime militia.”
“We seek no conflict with any nation, more so nations that purport and claim to be our friends but we will not be cowed into silence, submission, or subservience,” Marcos wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Marcos’s warning is the latest sign of the escalating disputes between China and the Philippines in the contested waters that have caused minor collisions between the coast guard and other vessels of the rival claimant nations, sparked a war of words and strained relations.
China and the Philippines, along with Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei, have overlapping claims in the resource-rich and busy waterway, where a bulk of the world’s commerce and oil transits.
Chinese officials in Manila or Beijing did not immediately respond to Marcos’s public warning, which he issued during Holy Week — one of the most sacred religious periods in the largely Roman Catholic nation.
China’s defense ministry accused the Philippines of escalating the South China Sea disputes by undertaking provocative moves and spreading “misinformation to mislead the international community.”
“It is straying further down a dangerous path,” Senior Col. Wu Qian, the Chinese defense ministry’s top spokesperson, said in a statement issued Thursday by the Chinese Embassy in Manila.
Both China and the Philippines said they were acting to protect their sovereignty. Wu said China remained “committed to properly managing maritime differences,” while Marcos said he had been in touch with international allies who had offered to help the Philippines.
Marcos said he issued his statement after meeting top Philippine defense and national security officials, who submitted their recommendations. These include the use of faster military vessels instead of chartered civilian boats when the Philippine navy delivers a new batch of personnel and supplies to the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, two Philippine security officials said.
The shoal, the site of frequent hostilities since last year, has been occupied by a small Philippine naval contingent but surrounded by the Chinese coast guard and other vessels in a decades-long territorial standoff.
It’s unclear if Marcos approved that recommendation. The two Philippine officials separately spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authority to discuss the issue publicly.
In the latest hostilities on Saturday, the Chinese coast guard used water cannons that injured several Philippine navy crewmen and heavily damaged their wooden supply boat near the Second Thomas Shoal. The cannon blast was so strong it threw a crewman off the floor but he hit a wall instead of plunging into the sea, Philippine military officials said.
The Philippine government summoned a Chinese embassy diplomat in Manila to convey its “strongest protest” against China. Beijing accused the Philippine vessels of intruding into Chinese territorial waters, warning Manila not to “play with fire” and saying China would continue to take actions to defend its sovereignty.
The United States condemned the actions by the Chinese coast guard. In a telephone call with Philippine defense chief Gilberto Teodoro Jr. Wednesday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reiterated a warning that it is obligated to come to the aid of the Philippines under a 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty if Philippine forces, aircraft and ships come under armed attack, including anywhere in the South China Sea, Pentagon Press Secretary Pat Ryder said.
Beijing has warned Washington to stay away from what it says is a purely Asian dispute, but the US has said it would press on with Navy patrols as it has done for more than 70 years in accordance with international law to help safeguard freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea.