Washington: Facing criticism for his approach to the conflict over the worsening situation in Afghanistan as Taliban took over Kabul, US President Joe Biden on Monday also faced a protest from Afghan nationals in the US, who gathered outside White House.

Agitators raised slogans ‘Biden you are responsible’ outside the White House and decried Taliban’s actions back home.

“Our people do not deserve any of this. The women of Afghanistan will have no freedom. We do not want to go back to the burqa’s that is not freedom,” people t echoed slogans outside President Biden’s official residence.

Former US president Donald Trump also blamed his successor for the crisis in Afghanistan and sought his immediate resignation from the post.

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The terror group is now forcing women to get married to its terrorists and executing captured soldiers and unprovoked attacks in civilians by the Taliban, a media report said.

The city was Taliban’s stronghold and was strategically important for the government.

Militants occupied the area after a heavy clash with local authorities in Kandahar city,” a local government official said. Kandahar is the latest city to fall, after Herat and Ghazni.

Meanwhile, the United States has assured the local government to send about 3,000 troops back into Afghanistan to help evacuate staff from the American embassy. The UK is deploying about 600 troops on a short term basis to provide support to British nationals leaving the country.

The Taliban have focussed their offensive on the north, a region they never fully controlled during their 1996-2001 rule, and the heartland of Northern Alliance forces who marched into Kabul with U.S. support in 2001, the Reuters agency said adding that the Taliban also claimed to have captured Lashkar Gah in the south and Qala-e-Naw in the northwest

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New Delhi: The ICC has confirmed its intention to push for cricket’s inclusion in the Olympic Games going forward, starting preparations for a bid on behalf of the sport with the primary target being its addition to the Los Angeles 2028 itinerary.
Thirty-million cricket fans live in the USA, making LA 2028 the ideal Games for cricket to make its return to the Olympic competition. Cricket, till now, has made just one appearance in the Olympics, way back in 1900 in Paris when only two teams competed at the event – Great Britain and hosts France – meaning the sport’s inclusion in 2028 would mark the end of a 128-year absence, it said in a statement.
“The sport will feature in the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games next year, which shapes as a perfect showcase for what the sport can bring to the Olympics, as well as being a momentous occasion on its own,” the statement read.
ICC Chair Greg Barclay said the addition of cricket to the Olympic Games would be beneficial to both the sport and the Games themselves.
“Firstly on behalf of everyone at the ICC, I would like to congratulate the IOC, Tokyo 2020, and the people of Japan for staging such an incredible Games in such difficult circumstances. It truly was fantastic to watch and captured the imagination of the world and we would love for cricket to be a part of future Games,” Barclay said.
“Our sport is united behind this bid, and we see the Olympics as a part of cricket’s long-term future. We have more than a billion fans globally and almost 90 percent of them want to see cricket at the Olympics.
Barclay added: “Clearly cricket has a strong and passionate fanbase, particularly in South Asia where 92% of our fans come from whilst there are also 30 million cricket fans in the USA. The opportunity for those fans to see their heroes competing for an Olympic medal is tantalising.”
“We believe cricket would be a great addition to the Olympic Games, but we know it won’t be easy to secure our inclusion as there are so many other great sports out there wanting to do the same. But we feel now is the time to put our best foot forward and show what a great partnership cricket and the Olympics are.”
The ICC Olympic Working Group will be chaired by England and Wales Cricket Board Chair Ian Watmore. He will be joined by ICC Independent Director Indra Nooyi, Chair of Zimbabwe Cricket Tavengwa Mukuhlani, ICC Associate Member Director and Vice President of the Asian Cricket Council Mahinda Vallipuram and Chair of USA Cricket Parag Marathe.
Marathe believes the time is now for cricket to make its long-awaited return to the Olympics, confident the sport’s inclusion at the showpiece event would accelerate the growth of the game in the USA.
“USA Cricket is thrilled to be able to support cricket’s bid for inclusion in the Olympics, the timing of which aligns perfectly with our continuing plans to develop the sport in the USA,” he said.
“With so many passionate cricket fans and players already in the USA, and a huge global audience and following for the sport around the world, we believe that cricket’s inclusion will add great value to the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games and help us to achieve our own vision for establishing cricket as a mainstream sport in this country.”

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SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Oil futures fell in Asian trade on Thursday, with U.S. crude hitting the lowest level in more than two weeks, amid renewed worries of global oversupply after U.S. crude inventories rose to a record high.

That increase came despite seasonal refinery utilisation hitting an 11-year high, while a rise in the dollar index put further pressure on oil prices.

Brent crude futures fell 45 cents to $38.81 a barrel as of 0518 GMT. It ended up 12 cents in the previous session after touching a session peak of $40.61.

The front-month contract for U.S. crude futures dropped 53 cents to $37.79 a barrel, after dropping to $37.74 earlier, the lowest since March 16. It settle up 4 cents in the previous session following a gain of 3 percent earlier in the session.

Prices will “zig-zag” for the rest of the year, said Tony Nunan, oil risk manager at Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp.

U.S. crude stockpiles rose by 2.3 million barrels to 534.8 million barrels in the week to March 25, the seventh week at record high levels, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows.

But the increase was less than analysts’ expectations of a 3.3 million barrel build after crude imports fell 636,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 7.4 million bpd.

Refinery crude runs rose by 414,000 bpd and refinery utilisation rates rose 2 percentage points to 90.4 percent of total capacity, the highest seasonal rate since 2005.

Crude prices, which have risen about 50 percent since mid-February, have started to track lower in the past week.

“Oil prices will trend down again … $35 a barrel will be the support level. Low prices are not sustainable in the long-run,” Nunan said.

But with OPEC flagging a price of $50 a barrel and oil producers scheduled to meet in Doha on April 17 to discuss a possible output freeze, prices are likely to remain range-bound.

“Anytime prices get close to $45-$50 a barrel, funds that have taken long positions are likely to take profits. Unless things really ignite the global economy, then people will sell-off at that level,” Nunan said.

In Asia, sustained weakness in oil prices is continuing to suppress upstream oil and gas production activity, consultancy BMI Research said in a report on Thursday.

Weaker oil prices are “limiting opportunities to stem natural declines in ageing assets and bringing new production sources online,” the report added.

Concerns over global oversupply were further fuelled after crude output from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) rose in March to 32.47 million bpd from 32.37 million bpd in February, according to a Reuters survey based on shipping and other data.

Iran is expected to add half a million barrels of oil supply a day within a year from existing oilfields after sanctions were lifted in January, Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency told Reuters on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Keith Wallis; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Gopakumar Warrier)

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Some of the most powerful medicine delivered to young patients at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York on Wednesday came in a package less than 32 inches tall and with a tail.

Honor, a 10-month-old colt with Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses, trotted into the hearts of dozens of children and teens being treated at the Manhattan hospital.

Just a handful of young patients were well enough to secure their doctors’ permission to meet Honor in person in a hospital playroom, while others watched him from their beds, viewing an internal television broadcast in their rooms and isolation units.

Maria Benitez, who is 19 but looks much younger, broke into a smile when Honor pranced into the playroom. The hospital declined to elaborate on details of Benitez’s medical condition, saying only she is currently being treated as an outpatient.

While Maria said her favorite animal is a horse, this one was quite different from what she expected.

“He’s smaller,” Maria whispered, staring at the chestnut horse with black eyes.

“They are little horses, but they have big jobs,” said Jorge Garcia-Bengochea, co-founder of Gentle Carousel.

Miniature horses have comforted trauma victims after such tragedies as the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, the 2013 tornadoes that devastated Oklahoma and the 2015 church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina. They also work with families of police officers who have died in the line of duty.

“They are herd animals, so they are very intuitive of what other horses are doing, needing. And they treat people that same way. They sense different emotions, different feelings that children have,” Garcia-Bengochea said.

“Children have been through very traumatic situations and they’ve shut down. Just being around the animal, they get animated, they start talking and they actually sometimes tell the horse things that they haven’t told other people,” he said.

In the hospital, the tiny equines serve as a symbol of hope and beauty, conjuring up an image of outdoor activities, running and strength, said Diane Rode, who heads up the hospital’s child creative arts therapy unit.

“When you’re in the hospital, you’re dealing with pain, anxiety, isolation, and it’s easy to get stuck in that. Focusing on the miniature horses creates a relationship back to the world and an interest and pleasure in the world we are working to foster,” she said.

“Children need more than medicine to get better,” Rode added.

 (Reporting by Barbara Goldberg, Elly Park and Andrew Hofstetter in New York; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

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LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – At least 80 million children living in areas affected by war or natural disaster had their education disrupted last year, leaving them prey to child labor, trafficking and extremism, experts said on Thursday.

Many humanitarian aid appeals for 2015 ignored education, and aid appeals for education were only one-third funded. Overall, education received 1.4 percent of all humanitarian funds, British charity Theirworld said in a report.

“The new analysis …(confirms) 2015 was a disastrous year for children who had their education disrupted by wars and natural disasters,” said Susan Nicolai, head of development progress at the London-based think tank Overseas Development Institute.

“World leaders need to urgently guarantee that there isn’t a future humanitarian emergency response where education isn’t seen as critical,” said Nicolai, whose institute’s research produced the 80 million figure featured in the report.

“Without this we will continue to see short-term crises result in multi-generational disasters,” she added.

Schools help new generations develop the skills they need to build their lives and their countries, and also offer a safe place to learn and play which in turn can help children deal with trauma in the aftermath of a crisis, Theirworld said.

Education during emergencies also protects children from exploitation and poverty, it said. “Out-of-school children are at greater risk of being coerced or exploited by extremists, traffickers and criminals,” it added.

Theirworld was set up by Sarah Brown, wife of former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and launched a global education campaign in 2013.

Although the number of children affected by crises is rising, humanitarian aid for education has almost halved since 2010, leaving an annual funding shortfall of $9 billion, the charity said.

The report looked at funding in 28 countries hit by emergencies, including natural disasters, conflicts or health crises like the Ebola outbreak.

“In the face of increasing needs and the immense cost of not investing today, it is shocking that less than 2 percent of all humanitarian aid goes to education,” said Tom Fletcher, global strategy adviser at Theirworld.

“Humanitarian aid must provide children with a safe school, a future and hope,” he added.

U.N. Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown and others, including the U.N. children’s agency (UNICEF), are calling on world leaders to set up a multi-million dollar humanitarian fund for education in emergencies, that can be mobilized quickly when needed.

The leaders are meeting for the first ever World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul in May.

The report’s funding data was drawn from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Financial Tracking Service, which monitors all humanitarian aid.

 (Reporting by Alex Whiting, editing by Tim Pearce.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)

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Avon shares were up nearly 4 percent at $4.55 in extended trading.

The company sold most of its North American business to Cerberus Capital, its biggest investor, after four years of falling sales.

Avon said it expected to record $60 million in pre-tax charges related to job cuts in the first quarter.

The company, which has 28,300 employees, said the transition of its headquarters would occur over time.

In January, Avon had outlined plans to cut $350 million in costs over the next three years, invest in technology and tap social media to revive sales.

However, a bigger-than-expected fall in fourth-quarter sales indicated that the company had failed to revive demand for its cosmetics in key markets.

“We believe that there is still much more that needs to be done to improve the business as outlined in our December 3 letter,” shareholder Barington Capital said in a statement.

In December, investors led by Barington proposed a restructuring of Avon, and said they had lost confidence in the makeup brand’s leadership.

Barington added on Monday that it continued to believe Avon needed to add new independent directors.

Avon said it would maintain its current facilities in Suffern and Rye, New York and continue to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under its current symbol.

(Reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva, Bernard Orr)

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Reuters Health – People who quit smoking all at once are more likely to be successful than those who cut down on cigarettes gradually, according to a new study.

“For many people, the obvious way to quit smoking is to cut down gradually until they stop,” said lead author Nicola Lindson-Hawley, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford in the U.K.

“However, with smoking, the norm is to advise people to stop all at once and our study found evidence to support that,” Lindson-Hawley told Reuters Health by email. “What we found was that more people managed to quit when they stopped smoking all in one go than when they gradually reduced before quitting.”

The researchers randomly assigned almost 700 adult smokers to either an abrupt quitting or gradual reduction group. Each person set a “quit day” of two weeks after they entered the study, and saw a research nurse once a week until then.

Half of people preferred to cut down gradually, a third preferred abrupt quitting and the rest had no preference before the study began, but preferences did not affect which group they were sorted into.

In the gradual group, the nurse created a reduction schedule for participants to cut back on cigarettes by 75% over those two weeks, and provided participants with nicotine patches and a choice of short-acting nicotine replacement gum, lozenges, nasal spray, sublingual tablets, inhalator, or mouth spray during the reduction period.

In the abrupt quitting group, the participants were also given nicotine patches of 21 mg per 24 hours, as some evidence suggests doing this before quitting may increase success, but no short-acting products, and were told to smoke as usual until the quit date.

Four weeks later, 40% of the gradual group were still not smoking, compared to 49% of the abrupt quit group, as verified by chemical breath analysis. Those who said they preferred gradually cutting down before the study began were less likely than others to still be abstinent from cigarettes at this point.

By six months, 15% of gradual quitters and 22% of abrupt quitters were still abstinent, as reported March 14 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

“There is a lot of evidence to suggest that if you would like to quit the best way to do so is by seeking help in the form of behavioral counseling and a treatment such as nicotine replacement therapy (i.e. patches or gum) or varenicline,” Lindson-Hawley said. “However, there are also benefits of calling quitlines, particularly if these go on to provide proactive support for quitters.”

Those who choose to quit gradually are often more addicted and have failed to quit abruptly several times before, said Dr. John Hughes of the University of Vermont in Burlington.

About one third of quit attempts include gradually cutting down, Hughes told Reuters Health by email.

“The decision to quit for most smokers is a sudden one, that often occurs because something happens to motivate them,” Hughes, who was not part of the new study, said. “With abrupt cessation, they can act on the decision to quit immediately, while still highly motivated (in fact half of smokers quit on the same day they decide to quit).”

The new results should be useful for people who want to quit but don’t have a preference for how to do it, Lindson-Hawley said. “In this case we can tell smokers and the people who treat them that the best approach to try is abrupt quitting rather than gradual quitting.”

In most cases health care services already take this approach, so no major change is necessary, she said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1Mj12Nv

Ann Intern Med 2016.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – A majority of New York City police officers believe the city has become a more dangerous place and feel less satisfied in their jobs, according to a survey released on Monday by the city’s largest police union.

More than 6,000 of the city’s 24,000 patrol officers responded to the online survey, which was conducted by public opinion firm McLaughlin & Associates on behalf of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association.

Nearly 90 percent of the respondents said the city had become “less safe” in the last few years since Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner William Bratton began their tenure. Ninety-six percent said the relationship between the public and the department had worsened.

“The results of this survey prove what we’ve been hearing time and time again from members over the past two years – the job is more difficult than ever, the dangers are greater, and morale is extremely low,” said Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch.

“The understaffing, inadequate training, low pay and lack of support has had a chilling effect on police officers across the city.”

Monica Klein, a spokeswoman for de Blasio, called the survey’s results “highly suspect.”

“We are experiencing historic lows in criminal activity,” she said. “Murders and shootings are at their lowest in modern history. NYPD is the most effective police force in the country thanks to our officers’ dedication and commitment to their job.”

De Blasio’s relationship with the New York City Police Department has been marked by occasional tensions since he took office in 2014.

An NYPD spokesman said the department had not yet received the survey but would review it once it was delivered.

The McLaughlin firm noted that the survey was open to all officers and did not use sampling, making it impossible to report an accurate margin of error. Approximately half of the union’s officers received emailed invitations to participate.

(Editing by Matthew Lewis)

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