All that remains of Shareef-Ud-Din Bajad’s apple orchard are the snapped branches, buried deep in the winter snow.

In mid-November, officials from the local forest department in Kashmir had surrounded the mountain-top mud-hut house in the village of Kanidajan where Mr Bajad, 70, had lived for his entire life.

“The officials threatened me and my family with jail if I didn’t leave my house,” said Mr Bajad, who lived there with his wife and six children.

“They told me I had encroached upon forest land.”

Mr Bajad and his family are Gujjars, a nomadic tribe whose members have herded their livestock between Kashmir’s mountainous forests and its lowland plains for generations.

However, the survival of Kashmir’s 1.4 million tribal people, who constitute 12 per cent of the region’s total population, is in jeopardy.

Since early November, dozens of tribal people have been forced to leave their homes in an Indian government-led eviction campaign, after a court in the Hindu-majority secular nation ruled 64,000, mostly Muslim tribal people had been living in Jammu and Kashmir’s forests illegally.

The family was forced to immediately leave their home despite below-freezing temperatures.

When Mr Bajad’s son returned to their property two days later he found the authorities had chopped down around 10,000 apple trees, the main source of income for Mr Bajad’s family and those in his village.

“They want to make sure that our livelihood is destroyed. Otherwise, instead of axing the trees they could have fenced it and taken it to their possession. But the Narendra Modi government wants to teach us a lesson,” Mr Bajad said.

India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has implemented a succession of anti-Muslim policies since prime minister Narendra Modi, was re-elected with a landslide victory in 2019.

In August 2019, the BJP removed Jammu and Kashmir's autonomous status, bringing India's only Muslim-majority state under direct rule from New Delhi.

Activists say the evictions are the latest attempt by the BJP to erode civil liberties and curtail the income of its largely Muslim residents.

After Jammu and Kashmir was brought under central rule, tribal people such as the Gujjar should have been afforded protection under India’s Forest Rights Act (FRA).

The ongoing evictions in Jammu and Kashmir are, therefore, “totally illegal” according to Prashant Bhushan, a senior advocate in the Supreme Court of India.

“Under the FRA there has to be the determination of their [tribal] rights first and the local rural authorities have to be included,” said Mr Bhushan.

Activists believe the evictions are happening so the Indian government can sell resource-rich territory to the private sector after a law forbidding the sale of land to non-Kashmiris was scrapped in October.

The evicted people will see no financial windfall and say they have been offered no compensation for the property taken or the loss of income.

With many of Kashmir’s lawyers and civil-society activists languishing in jails without charge, no legal challenge has been launched against the evictions.

When approached by The Telegraph, a BJP party figure said it had not intentionally destroyed homes or seized land from Kashmiri tribal people.

“Our aim is to retrieve the forest land which has been occupied illegally,” said Sarita Chauhan, the commissioner secretary in the Jammu and Kashmir Government.

She said: “There is no direction to evict the tribal community. There might have been a mistake by the officials on the ground and some tribal people might have got affected.”

However, for Mr Bajad, the reality seems very different. “If the government doesn’t come to our rescue, I will burn myself to death,” he said./ The Telegraph

An estimated 10.4 million children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), South Sudan, northeast Nigeria, the Central Sahel, and Yemen are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition in 2021, UNICEF said.

In a statement, the UN agency said that the countries or regions are experiencing dire humanitarian crises, and further more are struggling with intensifying food insecurity, a deadly pandemic of COVID-19 and – with the exception of the Central Sahel – experiencing a looming famine.

“For countries reeling from the consequences of conflicts, disasters and climate change, COVID-19 has turned a nutrition crisis into an imminent catastrophe,” UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said.

“Families already struggling to feed their children and themselves are now on the brink of famine. We can’t let them be the forgotten victims of 2020,” Fore added.

The increase in acute malnutrition and food insecurity in household among children in Africa and Yemen is due to ongoing armed conflict and insecurity amid limited access to essential nutrition, water, sanitation, health care, and hygiene services, the statement said.

Furthermore, floods in some areas during 2020 have exacerbated the already considerable level of acute malnutrition among children.

UNICEF said in South Sudan, an estimated 7.3 million people – 60% of South Sudan’s population – are projected to be facing severe acute food insecurity in 2021, while an estimated 1.4 million children in the country are expected to experience acute malnutrition in 2021, what is regarded as the highest since 2013.

The number of children suffering from severe acute malnutrition is also expected to rise from estimated 292,000 children in 2020 to more than 313,000 children in 2021.

Also, in the DRC, an estimated 3.3 million children under the age of five are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition in 2021, including no less than 1 million children with severe acute malnutrition, according to the statement.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/aa

Turkish security forces "neutralized" 10 PKK terrorists in northern Iraq, the Turkish National Defense Ministry said on Thursday.

The terrorists, identified through reconnaissance and surveillance in northern Iraq’s Metina and Haftanin regions, were neutralized by an air operation, the ministry said on Twitter.

Turkish authorities use the word "neutralize" to imply the terrorists in question surrendered or were killed or captured.

"Our fight against terrorism continues unabated in the last hours of 2020, as it did throughout the year," said the ministry.

The ministry also shared footage of the air operation.

PKK terrorists often hide out in northern Iraq, across Turkey's border, to plan attacks in Turkey.

In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US, and the EU – has been responsible for the deaths of over 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants.
​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/aa

Turkey’s first lady on Thursday applauded the mothers who have been protesting against the abduction of their children by the PKK terrorist group.

In a Twitter post, Emine Erdogan said: “Exactly one year ago today, I had visited sit-in mothers in Diyarbakir. To this day, 22 mothers reunited with their children but 161 families’ watch for their abducted children marks the 486th day.”

“I wish all mothers, who wait patiently, to reunite with their children in the new year,” she said.

In another Twitter post, Erdogan said: "No matter how great the threat of a terrorist organization, it is doomed to be ineffective in the face of the warm hearts of mothers.”

“Torch lit by sit-in mothers became a light for all of us,” she added.

In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the EU -- has been responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people including women, children and infants. The YPG is the PKK’s Syrian offshoot​​​​​​​./aa

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, said Thursday the US effort to rollout COVID-19 vaccines to Americans has so far been lackluster.

About 12.4 million doses of the vaccines have been distributed to states while just 2.8 million people have received the first of two doses of the vaccine, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is far short of the 20 million President Donald Trump's team had hoped would have been administered by year's end.

"Obviously, it didn't happen, and that's disappointing," Fauci, who sits on Trump's coronavirus task force, said during an interview on the Today television program.

"Hopefully as you get into the first couple of weeks in January the gaining of momentum will get us to the point where we want to be. But there really has to be a lot more effort in the sense of resources for locals," he said. "There really has to be a lot more effort in the sense of resources for the locals -- namely, the states, the cities, the counties -- the places where the vaccine is actually going into the arms of individuals."

The US is currently in the midst of distributing two vaccines -- one from Pfizer-BioNTech and another from Moderna -- as it grapples with record numbers of COVID-related deaths and cases. On Tuesday 3,744 people lost their lives to the disease while roughly 229,000 others were confirmed to be infected, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

During the course of the pandemic, over 19.8 million people have contracted the novel coronavirus in the US while 343,818 individuals have lost their lives./aa

Turkish police dealt a heavy blow to drug-dealing with their operations conducted across the country throughout the year. 

Some 140,000 anti-narcotic operations were conducted in 2020 and at least 20 tons of marijuana, 11 tons of heroin, 800 kilograms (1763 pounds) of cocaine, and 100 million Turkish lira ($13.44 million) were seized.

The police also shared videos of operations conducted by the anti-narcotics teams./aa

More than a year before Anthony Warner detonated a bomb in downtown Nashville on Christmas, his girlfriend told police he was building bombs in an RV trailer at his residence, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Police visited his home, but they were unable to make contact with him or see inside his RV, the documents say.

Before that, officers went to Pamela Perry's home in Nashville on Aug. 21, 2019, after getting a report from her lawyer that she was making suicidal threats while sitting on her front porch with firearms, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department said Tuesday in an emailed statement.

A police report said Raymond Throckmorton, the lawyer, told officers that day that he also represented Warner.

When officers arrived at Perry's home, police said she had two unloaded pistols sitting next to her on the porch. She said the guns belonged to "Tony Warner," police said, and she did not want them in the house any longer.

Perry, then 62, was transported for a psychological evaluation after speaking to mental health professionals on the phone.

Throckmorton told the Tennessean news organization that Perry had fears about her safety, and thought Warner may harm her. The lawyer was also at the scene that day, and told officers Warner "frequently talks about the military and bomb making," the police report said.

Warner "knows what he is doing and is capable of making a bomb," Throckmorton said to responding officers.

Police then went to Warner's home, located about 2.4 kilometres from Perry's home, but he didn't answer the door when they knocked several times. They saw the RV in the backyard, the report said, but the yard was fenced off and officers couldn't see inside the vehicle.

The report said there were "several security cameras and wires attached to an alarm sign on the front door" of the home. Officers then notified supervisors and detectives.

"They saw no evidence of a crime and had no authority to enter his home or fenced property," the police statement said.

Background check run on Warner: police

After officers visited Warner's home last August, the department's hazardous devices unit was given a copy of the police report. During the week of August 26, 2019, they contacted Throckmorton. Police said officers recalled Throckmorton saying Warner "did not care for the police," and that he wouldn't allow Warner "to permit a visual inspection of the RV."

Throckmorton disputes that he told police they couldn't search the vehicle. "I have no memory of that whatsoever," he told the Tennessean. "I didn't represent him anymore. He wasn't an active client. I'm not a criminal defence attorney."

Throckmorton told the newspaper he represented Warner in a civil case several years ago, and that Warner was no longer his client in August 2019. "Somebody, somewhere dropped the ball," he said.

A day after officers visited Warner's home, the police report and identifying information about Warner were sent to the FBI to have the federal agency check its databases and determine whether Warner had prior military connections, police said.

Later that day, the police department said "the FBI reported back that they checked their holdings and found no records on Warner at all." FBI spokesperson Darrell DeBusk told the Tennessean the agency had conducted a standard agency-to-agency record check.

Six days later, "the FBI reported that Department of Defence checks on Warner were all negative," the police department said.

No other information about Warner came to the department or the FBI's attention after August 2019, police said. "At no time was there any evidence of a crime detected and no additional action was taken," the statement said. "The [Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives bureau] also had no information on him."

Warner's only arrest was for a 1978 marijuana-related charge.

Several people injured in blast

The bombing happened on Christmas morning, well before downtown streets were bustling with activity.

Police were responding to a report of shots fired Friday when they encountered the RV blaring a recorded warning that a bomb would detonate in 15 minutes. Then, for unknown reasons, the audio switched to a recording of Petula Clark's 1964 hit Downtown shortly before the blast.

Dozens of buildings were damaged and several people were injured.

Investigators have not uncovered a motive for the Christmas Day bombing, nor has it been revealed why Warner had selected the particular location.

The explosion damaged an AT&T building and wreaked havoc on cellphone, police and hospital communications in several southern states as the company worked to restore service. The company said on Monday the majority of services had been restored for residents and businesses./ abc

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States called on Wednesday for the release of a Uighur Muslim medical doctor who relatives say was sentenced to 20 years jail in China because of family members' human rights activism in the United States.

The daughter of Gulshan Abbas told a briefing organized with the bipartisan U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) that the family had recently learned her mother received the sentence in March last year on terrorism-related charges after disappearing in September 2018.

The daughter, Ziba Murat, called the charges "preposterous." Gulshan's sister, Rushan Abbas, said they stemmed from activism by her and her brother Rishat Abbas, both of whom are based in the United States.

"We have committed to working to defend our people's rights and advocate for justice, and now our sister is denied justice as a punishment," Rushan said.

In a tweet, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, Robert Destro, said Gulshan Abbas must be released.

"Her forcible disappearance, detainment and harsh sentencing by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) is evidence of a family suffering the consequences of speaking out against a government that has no respect for human rights," he said.

Ziba Murat said she could not reveal the source of the information on the sentencing to protect their identity. "We only learned that she is sentenced to 20 years, and we're trying to get more information."

"My mom is a medical professional, non-political, kind person who has spent her life helping people," she said, adding that her mother was in fragile health and suffered from multiple conditions, including high blood pressure.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not respond when asked for details of Gulshan Abbas' status.

The CECC chairman, Democratic Representative James McGovern, called the punishment of an innocent family member in what he said was an attempt to silence free expression "morally reprehensible."

He said it was just part of a "mass persecution" of Uighurs in China that has involved detention of as many as 1.8. million in internment camps, forced labor and other abuses.

U.N. experts and advocates say at least a million ethnic Uighurs have been detained at some point in camps in China's Xinjiang region.

China calls the heavily guarded centers educational and vocational institutes, and says all those who attended have "graduated" and gone home. Access to the camps is restricted and it is not possible to independently verify whether all have closed.