Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Thursday announced a weeklong cease-fire with the Taliban to coincide with the holiday marking the end of Ramadan next week.

A statement sent from the president’s office on Thursday says the cease-fire will begin on 27 Ramadan, or June 12 on the Western calendar, and last through the Eid al-Fitr holiday, until around June 19. It says the cease-fire does not include al-Qaida or the Islamic State group.

There was no immediate comment from the Taliban, who have steadily expanded their presence in recent years, capturing a number of districts across the country and carrying out near-daily attacks, mainly targeting Afghan security forces.

Gen. Mohammad Sharif Yaftali, the army chief of staff, told reporters that Afghan forces would be on standby throughout the cease-fire and respond to any attacks. He also said the army would continue to battle “international terrorists,” apparently referring to al-Qaida and IS.

Ghani’s statement referred to a gathering of Afghanistan’s top clerics on Monday in which they issued a decree against suicide attacks and called for peace talks. A suicide bomber struck just outside the gathering as it was dispersing, killing at least seven people and wounding 20 in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.

The Taliban had denounced the gathering, insisting that its jihad, or holy war, against foreign invaders was justified. It instead urged the clerics to side with it against the “occupation.”

The U.S. and NATO formally concluded their combat mission in Afghanistan in 2014, but the U.S. still has thousands of…

The United States and China have reached a deal that allows the Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE Corp. to stay in business in exchange for paying an additional $1 billion in fines and agreeing to let U.S. regulators monitor its operations.

The fine announced Thursday comes on top of $892 million ZTE has already paid for breaking U.S. sanctions by selling equipment to North Korea and Iran. The Commerce Department said that ZTE must also put $400 million in escrow — a sum that it would forfeit if it violated Thursday’s agreement.

In addition, a compliance team chosen by the United States will be embedded at ZTE and the Chinese company must change its board and executive team.

President Donald Trump has drawn fire from Congress for intervening in the case to rescue a Chinese company that had violated U.S. sanctions against two rogue nations that have been pursuing nuclear weapons programs.

“ZTE is essentially on probation,” said Amanda DeBusk, chair of the international trade and government regulation practice at Dechert LLP and a former Commerce official. “It’s unprecedented to have U.S. agents as monitors … It’s certainly a good precedent for this situation. ZTE is a repeat offender.”

In April, the Commerce Department barred ZTE from importing American components for seven years, having concluded that it deceived U.S. regulators after it settled charges last year of sanctions violations: Instead of disciplining all employees involved, Commerce said, ZTE had paid some of them full bonuses and then lied about it.

The decision amounted to a death sentence to ZTE,…

Egypt’s President Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi on Thursday appointed a new prime minister, picking his housing minister Mustafa Madbouly to form a government.

The appointment came three days after the outgoing premier, Sherif Ismail, submitted his government’s resignation, in keeping with political tradition at the start of a new presidential term. El-Sissi was sworn in on Saturday for a second, four-year term in office, after being re-elected in a vote in which he faced no serious challengers.

El-Sissi and Ismail are known to enjoy a close working relationship. Ismail sought medical treatment in Germany late last year. He returned home a month later showing considerable weight loss, some of which he has since regained.

During Ismail’s treatment in Germany, Madbouly served as acting prime minister in November and was widely seen as likely to succeed Ismail.

Madbouly has been housing minister since March 2014. The 52-year-old architect and urban designer served as director of the United Nations’ HABITAT Regional Office for Arab States from 2012 until 2014. His appointment to form a new government was announced by presidential spokesman Bassam Radi on his Facebook page.

Source: Associated Press

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Spanish environmental authorities say they have captured a rare lynx in Catalonia, three years after it was released in Portugal. Litio, a four-year-old Iberian lynx, had been spotted on the outskirts of Barcelona on May 29.

Officials said Thursday in a statement that the lynx was captured Wednesday by local fauna and flora authorities along with members of a European animal conservation project.

Local authorities said, the Iberian lynx, critically endangered species, had not been seen in Catalonia since the early 20th century.

Litio was born in captivity and released into the wild in Portugal’s Vale do Guadiana natural park in 2015, with a GPS tracking collar that soon stopped working.

In good health, the feline has been released back into the wild in Andalusia with a new tracking collar.

Source: Associated Press

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Vladimir Putin has accused the United States of violating the nuclear balance and warned against a “Third World War” during an annual televised call-in show.

Responding to a worried viewer, Mr Putin called for new arms control negotiations and quoted Albert Einstein’s aphorism that “World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones”.

But he also said Russia had developed weapons to overcome US missile defence after Washington left the Soviet-era anti-ballistic missile treaty in 2002.

“The fear of mutually assured destruction has always restrained and forced military powers to respect each other,” he said. “The exit of the United States from the missile defence treaty was an attempt to ruin this parity, but our efforts in the development of new weapons will preserve this parity.”

These “invincible” nuclear weapons, which include an underwater drone and hypersonic glider warhead, sparked fears of a new arms race when the Russian leader first announced them in March.

US intelligence has claimed Moscow’s nuclear-powered hypersonic cruise missile with “unlimited” range crashed in tests.

But Mr Putin argued that Russia had already proved doubters wrong by successfully developing weapons like the Avant-Garde missile, which flies 20 times faster than the speed of sound. The Mach-10 Dagger missile and a laser weapon are already in service, he said.

The Cold War rhetoric continued as Mr Putin likened Western sanctions on Russia to the US containment policy against the USSR.

He also cited Soviet successes in the space race while pledging to launch 600 new…

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, will take part in the Bilderberg Conference, an annual private gathering of global political, business and media leaders, taking place this year in Turin, Italy, June 7-10.

Parolin’s name is included in the list of 131 participants in this year’s event.

His participation in the meeting has not been officially announced by the Vatican, though sources within the Secretariat of State have confirmed that he is scheduled to take part in the meeting.

It would be the first time high-ranking Vatican official has taken part in the Bilderberg Conferences.

Started in 1954 the Hotel de Bilderberg in Oosterbeek, The Netherlands, and named after the same hotel, the Bilderberg Conference gathers each year some 120-150 participants, among them European and North American political elites, along with industrial, financial, academic and media figures.

The first meeting took place at the invitation of Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld. Co-founders of the meeting were Polish politician Jozef Retinger, former Belgian prime minister Paul van Zeeland, and Paul Rijkens, who was then the head of Unilever.

The success of the first meeting brought the organizers to stage an annual meeting.

According to the groups’ official website, about two-thirds of the participants come from Europe, and the rest from North America, and one-third are political figures or government officials.

The original meeting objective was to strengthen U.S.-European relations. Over the years, the annual meetings became a forum for discussion on a wider range of topics, from…