Dhaka, Sept 16 (UNB) - Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has continued with his shrill pitch on Kashmir saying that a nuclear war with India is a possibility after New Delhi revoked the special status for Jammu and Kashmir.

Imran Khan, in an interview with Al Jazeera, said that Pakistan could lose in a conventional war with India, and then “there could be consequences”. He insisted that Islamabad will never start a nuclear war and he is “anti-war.”

“But I am clear that when two nuclear armed countries fight a conventional war, there is every possibility of it ending in a nuclear war. If I say Pakistan, God forbid, and in a conventional war, and we are losing, and if a country is stuck between two choices, either you surrender or fight to the death for your freedom. I know Pakistan will fight to the death for freedom, when a nuclear armed country fights to the death, there are consequences,” Imran Khan said.

Khan has been upping the rhetoric against India since the NDA government nullified Article 370 that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

On Friday, at a rally in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, he had said that the situation in Kashmir will drive more Muslims towards extremism and people “will rise against India”. He also said that if the Kashmir issue is not resolved by the international community it could “impact world trade”.

India maintains that the changes in Kashmir are an internal matter and said Pakistan has no locus standi.

Last week, Pakistan had used the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) session to target India and asked the UN body to ensure an end to restrictions in Jammu and Kashmir. New Delhi hit back saying that the Pakistani leadership was trying to promote cross-border terrorism.

At the UNHRC session, Paksitan foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had accused India of turning Kashmir into the planet’s largest prison. New Delhi said the Pakistan foreign minister’s statement was a “fabricated narrative from the epicentre of global terrorism”.

On US President Donald Trump’s offer to intervene on the Kashmir issue, Imran Khan said “if he (Trump) intervenes, seriously intervenes, it is one way you can guarantee some sort of resolution.”

Trump had offered mediation on Kashmir during Imran Khan’s White House visit in July. The US president even said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked him to do so, the claim was swiftly denied by India. New Delhi said that the Kashmir issue can only be resolved bilaterally, and after Pakistan stops supporting terrorism.

After a meeting with PM Modi on the sidelines of the G7 summit in the French town of Biarritz, Trump said the PM feels he has the situation under control. Last week, Trump had said he was willing to help” India and Pakistan resolve the Kashmir issue if “they want”. A significant change in the usage of words, away from mediate” or “intervene. “I get along well with both countries very well. I’m willing to help if they want,” Trump said.

Hyderabad, Sep 15 (AP/UNB) — An official says a sightseeing boat has capsized on a swollen river in southern India, killing 12 people and leaving 35 others missing.

Andra Pradesh state's home minister, M. Sucharita, says there were 61 people — 50 passengers and 11 crew members, all of them Indian nationals — on board the boat when it capsized on the Godavari river on Sunday.

A search operation is underway to try to find the missing people.

Sucharita says 14 people who were wearing life jackets were rescued by local fishermen.

The accident occurred near Kachuluru village in East Godavari district, 380 kilometers (236 miles) east of the state's capital, Hyderabad. The boat was heading from Singanapalli to Papikondalu, a famous tourist spot.

Dhaka, Sept 14 (UNB) - Assam NRC Final List 2019: Assam’s final National Register of Citizens (NRC) list has been published online. Every family member can now check their final status online, reports The Indian Express.

Earlier this week, notifying the date for this publication, the Assam NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela had said adding that the time-frame for those excluded from the list to get the rejection order will be “announced shortly”.

“Whereas the final NRC publication on August 31, 2019, consisted only of supplementary lists, queries are being received about publication of results of all members of a family irrespective of their involvement in the Claims and Objections process. The results for the complete family will be available for display online from September 14, 2019. This display will be available only online,” Hajela in a press statement last Tuesday.

He added that they had also received queries regarding the issue of certified copies of rejection from final NRC from the public and the process of collection of the orders passed by the NRC officers was being carried out to “enable early availability of the same to the public to file appeals”.

More than 19 lakh people in Assam were left facing an uncertain future on August 31 as the final NRC was released, 14 years after a decision on it was first taken and four years after the exercise to compile it began in full swing under the monitoring of the Supreme Court. Of the 3,30,27,661 applicants, 3,11,21,004 made it, leaving out 19,06,657 residents of Assam.

New Delhi, Sep 11 (AP/UNB) — Indian troops have killed a suspected militant during an operation in the northern part of the Indian-controlled Kashmir, the region's police chief said.

Jammu and Kashmir police chief Dilbagh Singh said that Asif Maqbool Bhat was killed in a brief shootout Wednesday morning in Sopore town. He said Bhat was a member of the Pakistan backed Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group.

Singh said Bhat was responsible for a recent shootout in which three members of a fruit trader's family and a 5-year-old girl were wounded, as well as an earlier shooting targeting a migrant laborer from India.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since they won independence from Britain in 1947. Both claim the region in its entirety and have fought two wars over the territory.

India accuses Pakistan of training and arming insurgent groups that have been fighting since 1989 for Kashmir's independence from India or its merger with Pakistan. Pakistan denies that.

India's portion of the disputed territory has been on a security lockdown for more than five weeks after the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi stripped the region of most of its autonomy.

Seoul, Sep 11 (AP/UNB) — South Korea has formally asked the International Olympic Committee to ban the Japanese "rising sun" flag at next year's Tokyo Games, calling it a symbol of Japan's brutal wartime past and comparing it with the Nazi swastika.

South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on Wednesday said it sent a letter to IOC President Thomas Bach expressing "deep disappointment and concern" over Japanese plans to allow the flag in stadiums and other facilities during the 2020 Olympics.

South Korean Olympic officials last month urged the local organizing committee to ban the flag, but Tokyo organizers responded by saying it was widely used in Japan, was not considered a political statement and "it is not viewed as a prohibited item."

The flag, portraying a red sun with 16 rays extending outward, is resented by many South Koreans, who still harbor animosity over Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

The ministry said in its letter to Bach, it described the flag as an unmistakable political symbol that's embraced by Japanese rightwing protesters who vent anger toward Koreans and other foreigners. It said the flag recalls "historic scars and pain" for the people of South Korea, China and other Asian countries that experienced Japan's wartime military aggression, similar to how the "(swastika) reminds Europeans of the nightmare of World War II."

The ministry said it also pointed out that FIFA, the governing body of world soccer, has banned the flag in international matches.

"Furthermore, we emphasized that the use of the rising sun flag during the Tokyo Olympics would be a direct violation of the Olympic spirit promoting world peace and love for humanity, and that the IOC should have the Tokyo organizing committee withdraw its (current) stance on the flag and prepare strict measures to prevent it from being brought to stadiums," the ministry said.

Tokyo's Olympic organizing committee didn't immediately react to South Korea's request to the IOC to ban the flag at the games.