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Border disengagement happening at slower pace: Jaishankar tells Wang

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 External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said on Friday that during his meeting with visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, he told the latter that the disengagement of troops at the LAC in Eastern Ladakh is a “work in progress”, but is happening at a “slower pace” than desired.

Addressing the media after the meeting, Jaishankar said: “My talks with Foreign Minister Wang Yi have just concluded. We met for about three hours and addressed a broad and substantive agenda in an open and candid manner. We discussed our bilateral relations that have been disturbed as a result of Chinese actions in April 2020.

“So long as there are very large deployments, the border situation is not normal. We still have ongoing friction areas and have made progress in resolving some friction areas, including Pangong Tso. Our discussion today was how to take this forward. There have been 15 rounds of talks.

“If you ask me if our relationship today is normal, then my answer is no, it is not normal. Our effort today is to sort out the issue in its entirety.”

China’s People’s Liberation Army made an aggressive move at the Line of Actual Control in Eastern Ladakh in April 2020 leading to the border dispute between India and China.

The dispute is yet to be resolved even after over two years.

Jaishankar further said that he told Wang the current situation is a “work in progress, obviously, at a slower pace than desirable”.

“This needs to be taken forward since completion of the disengagement at LAC is necessary.”

Jaishankar also said that he raised the issue of Indian students studying in China who have not been allowed to return and resume their education due to Covid-19 restrictions

“I also took up strongly the predicament of Indian students studying in China who haven’t been allowed to return citing Covid restrictions. We hope China will take a non-discriminatory approach since it involves future of many young people.”

Before his talks with Jaishankar, Wang met National Security Advisor Ajit Doval in his office in South Block and extended an invitation to visit China.

Replying to the invitation, Doval said he could visit after the immediate issues were resolved successfully, according to sources.

Doval also discussed the need to take forward early and complete disengagement in remaining areas and remove impediments to allow the bilateral relationship to take its natural course.

He also conveyed to Wang that restoration of peace and tranquility will help build mutual trust and create enabling environment for progress in relations

Wang’s visit marks the first trip by a high-level Chinese official since the border dispute erupted.

International News

Trump says US ready for more Iran strikes, denies plans to rename Hormuz Strait after himself

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Washington, Sep 3: The US military is prepared to launch more strikes on Iran “any time we want,” President Donald Trump has said.

“It was a very heavy attack last night, and we’re prepared to do another one any time we want,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday (local time).

The US military “took out all of the new equipment that they tried to build along the Strait of Hormuz,” said Trump.

Iranian officials said Wednesday that the US strike on Tuesday night hit a wedding party in southern Iran, killing at least four people and wounding dozens of others.

The US Central Command said Wednesday it was looking into the reports and the US military “never targets civilians.”

When asked on Wednesday afternoon whether he really intended to rename the Strait of Hormuz after himself, Trump said: “No, no … it was just thrown out there.”

Trump floated the idea of renaming the strategic waterway earlier Wednesday, less than one week after he signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America” amid escalating tensions with Canada over tariff disputes.

“Now that we have it under USA control, should we change the name Hormuz Strait to TRUMP STRAIT???” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

Trump told a rally in Long Island last month that he would declare the strait a US territory, US media reported.

“After we finish defeating Iran — which is being very badly defeated — pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States,” Trump said.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is gravely concerned by the renewed exchanges of fire overnight between the United States and Iran, his spokesperson said.

“The Secretary-General is deeply alarmed by reports of civilian casualties, including in a strike that reportedly hit a wedding ceremony in Iran,” said spokesman Stephane Dujarric on Wednesday (local time).

Guterres condemns all attacks against civilians. He recalls that all parties must respect their obligations under international humanitarian law, including the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution, reports Xinhua news agency, quoting the spokesman.

“The Secretary-General reiterates his call for an immediate cessation of military action, and urges all concerned to exercise restraint and refrain from actions and rhetoric that could further escalate already high tensions,” said Dujarric, noting that few countries in the region are immune from this escalation, with airspace and critical shipping routes continuing to be heavily impacted.

“Further escalation … would have devastating consequences for civilians and for the wider region and beyond.”

The escalation in the Middle East has had a devastating impact on civilians and added further pressure on humanitarian needs and operations across the region and beyond. In a region already facing many humanitarian crises, the escalation in the Gulf risks further deterioration at a time when humanitarian operations are already overstretched and underfunded, said Dujarric.

Guterres urges the United States and Iran to return urgently to diplomacy. A comprehensive and durable settlement can be achieved only through dialogue and negotiations, said the spokesperson.

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International News

Iran says 18 killed, 108 wounded in latest US strikes

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Tehran, Sep 3: Iran’s Health Minister Mohammad-Reza Zafarghandi has said that 18 people were killed and 108 others wounded in overnight strikes by the United States against the country, according to a statement published on the website of the Iranian president’s office.

In a separate statement, Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned in the strongest terms the latest US “acts of aggression” against the country, highlighting Iran’s determination to “decisively” defend its independence, national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

It said the US government on Tuesday night once again violated Iran’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity and attacked several civilian places and service infrastructure, killing and wounding a number of Iranian citizens and damaging public and private properties, reports Xinhua news agency.

Earlier on Wednesday, US Central Command said on X its forces had “successfully completed a wave of strikes against Iranian military targets,” citing “recent attempted attacks by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members.”

Iran responded by attacking US bases and assets in Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region and the United Arab Emirates.

In the statement, the IRGC said that it successfully hit the living quarters and command post of the US Ali Al-Salem base’s American commander in Kuwait. The IRGC said that the action was taken as part of its operation against Ali Al-Salem Base and demonstrates that it has complete intelligence information regarding the US movements across the region, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported.

The IRGC said that it carried out a ballistic missile attack on a US Marines base, Camp Tition, on the Gulf of Aqaba in Jordan in retaliatory action against the US attack on a wedding ceremony in Sirik, Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.

According to the statement, the operation in Jordan destroyed several facilities and helicopters, and American forces suffered heavy casualties.

The IRGC said that it destroyed a US surveillance balloon control system at an American base in Iraq’s Erbil in retaliation for the deaths caused by the American strike on a wedding ceremony in Sirik. In the statement, the IRGC said that its Ground Forces hit US bases in Erbil and destroyed a maintenance centre and warehouses housing technical equipment, IRNA reported.

It further said that several US personnel were killed and fuel storage facilities were set ablaze.

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Business

Why Nvidia chief Jensen Huang is not ready to retire?

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Chapel Hill (North Carolina), Sep 3: Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang says he does not need to keep working.

He simply cannot bear the thought of missing what artificial intelligence (AI) could deliver over the next decade.

“I’ve been working a long time and Surely I don’t have to work, but I don’t want to miss, I’m definitely not going to miss the next 10, 15 years,” Huang said during a fireside chat with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

For Huang, the appeal lies not only in the technology but also in the scale of the ambitions it has unleashed.

“The ambition of the industry, the ambition of my colleagues, my own ambition has really been supercharged,” he said.

Huang offered a buoyant vision of an AI-powered future in which work that once took a decade could be completed in a year, while year-long projects could be finished within a month.

“What do I expect in the next five, ten years? Things that take ten years are going to take one. Things that take one will take a month,” he added.

The Nvidia Chief said that artificial intelligence was giving ordinary people, companies and countries the ability to tackle problems on a scale previously considered unimaginable.

“It is now possible for average humans like ourselves to think that we can make an impact on a hundred trillion dollar industry,” Huang added.

He said that innovators were talking about adding between $20 trillion and $50 trillion in economic benefits worldwide.

Such ideas, he added, reflected a new level of ambition made possible by access to AI.

“No time in history have we been able to say things like that,” he said.

Huang encouraged countries to approach the technology with optimism and raise their ambitions rather than allow uncertainty to dominate the public conversation.

“This is the time when you have to feel enlightened, inspired, supercharged, lifted, because you now have this incredible technology behind you,” he said.

He compared the development of AI with earlier technological advances that initially appeared almost magical.

“Electricity once made it possible to turn on a light from far away, while modern cars and aircraft became safer as their technology improved.”

AI, Huang said, would similarly advance through engineering, mathematics, software and responsible development.

He rejected predictions that the technology would simply remove human workers.

AI would automate certain skills and tasks, he said, but people would retain the purpose, context and meaning that define their jobs.

Huang also described AI as a great equaliser because people could now communicate with computers through ordinary human language.

Lutnick picked up that theme, suggesting that the technology could place advanced knowledge within everyone’s reach.

“You now can have… A PhD in everything. That’s right. At your fingertips,” Lutnick said.

“You are that person now. Right? Everybody is that person now,” Huang responded.

Lutnick praised Huang’s optimistic assessment and called him “an American treasure”, saying Nvidia was leading the United States towards a future once confined largely to science fiction.

“Your company is leading us in a path that none of us, when we were young, ever dreamed possible,” the US Commerce Secretary said.

Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and has served as its President and Chief Executive since its inception.

The company began as a specialist in graphics technology before its processors became vital to the development and operation of modern artificial intelligence systems.

Born in Taiwan, Huang moved to the United States as a child and studied electrical engineering at Oregon State University and Stanford University.

Under his leadership, Nvidia has grown into one of the world’s most valuable technology companies.

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