Toll in sectarian violence in Pak’s Kurram rises to 122
Peshawar, Nov 29: With two deaths in fresh incidents of gunfire despite a ceasefire between the Shia and the Sunni groups, the toll has increased to 122 in the sectarian violence over last week in different parts of Kurram district in northwest Pakistan, police and hospital said on Friday. The clashes in the Kurram district of the restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province escalated with fresh gunfire claiming two more lives and injuring six others on Thursday. The clashes between Alizai and Bagan tribes in the district started on November 22, after an attack on a convoy of passenger vans near Parachinar in which 47 people were killed a day earlier. Several passengers who had sustained grave injuries succumbed later, raising the toll in the convoy killing to 57. (PTI)
Syria insurgents breach second largest city of Aleppo
Beirut, Nov 29: Syrian insurgents have breached Syria’s second largest city, Aleppo, after blowing up two car bombs and were clashing with government forces on Friday, according to a Syria war monitor and fighters. Insurgents have been approaching Aleppo city for days and have seized several towns and villages along the way. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said the insurgents blew up two car bombs at the city’s western edge on Friday. An insurgent commander issued a recorded message posted on social media calling on the city’s residents to cooperate with the advancing forces. Thousands of Syrian insurgents pushed on with their advances on government-held areas in the country’s northwest, reaching the outskirts of Aleppo and wrestling control of several strategic towns and villages along the way, activists and fighters said on Friday. (PTI)
Trump calls for ‘energy dominance’
Washington, Nov 27: President-elect Donald Trump is set to create a National Energy Council that he says will establish American “energy dominance” around the world as he seeks to boost US oil and gas drilling and move away from President Joe Biden’s focus on climate change. The energy council – to be led by North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Trump’s choice to head the Interior Department – will be key in Trump’s pledge to “drill, drill, drill” and sell more oil and other energy sources to allies in Europe and around the globe. The new council will be granted sweeping authority over federal agencies involved in energy permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation and transportation, with a mandate to cut bureaucratic red tape, enhance private sector investments and focus on innovation instead of “totally unnecessary regulation,” Trump said. But Trump’s energy wishes are likely to run into real-world limits. For one, US oil production under Biden is already at record levels. The federal government cannot force companies to drill for more oil, and production increases could lower prices and reduce profits. Trump’s bid to boost oil supplies – and lower US prices – is also complicated by his threat to impose import tariffs on Canada and Mexico, two of the largest sources of US oil imports. (AP)