Afghan peace talks begin
AP, Islamabad
China, the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan launched their third round of talks Saturday aimed at finding a way to get the warring Taliban to sit and talk peace with the Afghan government.
At the start of talks in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan’s special adviser on foreign affairs, said there should be no preconditions to negotiations yet the Taliban have already said they would not hold direct talks with the Afghan government until they first held talks with U.S. officials.
19 killed in Iraq hotel fire
AP, Iraq
A fire in a hotel and adjacent massage parlor has killed 19 people and wounded ten others Friday in Irbil, capital of the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
Nawzad Hadi, the governor of Irbil, said the fire broke out in the sauna of the Hotel Capitol at 4pm on Friday afternoon. He said that 15 of the victims were identified as from the Philippines, three were Iraqis and one was Palestinian.
Canada lifts Iran sanctions
AFP, Ottawa
Ottawa announced Friday the lifting of economic sanctions against Tehran, which will allow Canadian firms access to Iran after a deal on its nuclear program recently came into force.
Canada, however, will maintain restrictions on exports of nuclear goods and technologies and anything that could help Iran in the development of ballistic missiles, it said.
And it will maintain a list of people and entities with which dealings are prohibited due to concern over their “relation to the risk of proliferation and to Iran’s ballistic missile activities.”
India bus crash kills 37
AFP, Ahmedabad
A packed passenger bus plunged off a bridge into a river in western India Friday killing at least 37 people, an official said, in one of the deadliest road accidents in recent years.
The accident happened when the driver lost control and veered off the road into Purna river in Navsari district, some 285 kilometres from Ahmedabad, the main city of Gujarat state.
