North America

NEW YORK, Feb 04 (APP): Pakistan will not “rest or relent” until the Kashmiri people have realized their right to self-determination through a free and impartial plebiscite in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions, Ambassador Munir Akram said Friday.

Speaking in a webinar commemorating Kashmir Solidarity Day on Feb 5, the Pakistan envoy said that the Kashmir dispute was the unfinished agenda of self-determination in the South Asian sub-continent.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- All three of U.S. President Joe Biden's nominees to join the Federal Reserve board vowed on Thursday to reduce high inflation if they are confirmed by the Senate, while sustaining the economic recovery.

"I want to recognize the toll inflation exacts on working people who are concerned about how far their paychecks will go for essentials like food, housing, and transportation," Sarah Bloom Raskin, a former Fed governor and Biden's nominee as the Fed's vice chair for supervision, said at a hearing before the Senate Banking Committee.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Joe Biden announced on Thursday a new set of actions aimed at reducing gun violence across the country.

The Biden administration will crack down on illegal flow of guns, help prosecutors bring cases against those using "ghost guns" -- unserialized and untraceable firearms -- to commit crimes, and pursue unlawful gun sellers, among other things, according to the White House.

Biden paid a visit to New York City on Thursday afternoon, where he called for more funding for community policing and law enforcement agencies.

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — The man convicted of murder for shooting Ahmaud Arbery withdrew his guilty plea on a federal hate crime charge Friday, electing to stand trial for a second time in the 2020 killing of a Black man that became part of a larger national reckoning over racial injustice.

Travis McMichael reversed his plan to plead guilty in the federal case days after a U.S. District Court judge rejected terms of a plea deal between defense attorneys and prosecutors that was met with passionate objections by Arbery’s parents.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison will join the review of the fatal shooting of a Black man by Minneapolis police, authorities said Friday, shortly after police released body camera footage that showed SWAT team officers entering an apartment and shooting the 22-year-old man, who was wrapped in a blanket and had a gun in his hand.

Amir Locke was killed in the shooting just before 7 a.m. on Wednesday. Police said Locke pointed a loaded gun “in the direction of officers.” An incident report said he had two wounds in the chest and one in the right wrist.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a surprising burst of hiring, America’s employers added 467,000 jobs in January in a sign of the economy’s resilience even in the face of a wave of omicron infections last month.

The government’s report Friday also drastically revised up its estimate of job gains for November and December by a combined 709,000. It also said the unemployment rate ticked up from 3.9% to a still-low 4%, mainly because more people began looking for work and not all of them found jobs right away.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 03 (APP): Underscoring the importance of South-South Cooperation, the Group of 77 and China has called for ensuring that developing countries have the necessary fiscal space for recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The UN Security Council called for an “immediate cessation of all forms of violence” in Myanmar and expressed hope that a special envoy would be allowed to travel there to mediate the crisis.

   The Association of Southeast Asian Nations wants to send its representative, Cambodia’s foreign minister Prak Sokhonn, to Myanmar, where last year’s coup triggered mass protests and a deadly crackdown on dissent.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A retired Army lieutenant colonel who was a pivotal witness in the first impeachment case against Donald Trump has sued the oldest son of the former president and other Trump allies, accusing them of participating in an “intentional, concerted campaign of unlawful intimidation and retaliation” over his decision to testify.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is having Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer over to the White House on Wednesday to talk about how to fill an upcoming vacancy on the Supreme Court, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.