LONDON, APR 10 – Buckingham Palace officials say Prince Philip‘s funeral will take place April 17 at Windsor Castle in a family service that will be closed to the public.

The palace said Philip, also known as the Duke of Edinburgh, took part in planning his funeral and the focus on family was in accordance with his wishes. The 99-year-old duke died Friday.

Prince Harry, who stepped away from royal duties last year and now lives in California, will attend the service along with other members of the royal family. His wife, the duchess of Sussex, who is pregnant, has been advised by her doctor not to attend.

Palace officials said that the ceremony would be conducted strictly in line with government COVID-19 guidelines, which restrict the number of people attending funerals. They declined to say whether the royal family would be required to wear masks.

BAKU, APR 10 – Turkey‘s communications director met the assistant to Azerbaijan‘s president in the country’s capital Baku on Saturday.

Fahrettin Altun congratulated Hikmet Hajiyev, who also serves as the head of the Foreign Policy Affairs Department of Azerbaijan’s Presidential Administration, on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region from nearly three decades of Armenian occupation last year.

Altun presented Hajiyev a “Victory Helmet” as a memento of Azerbaijan’s triumph.

The Turkish official also attended the meeting of ministers and high-level officials of the Turkic Council on information and media.

Altun led Turkey’s delegation for the meeting, which included Turkish ambassador Erkan Ozoral and Serdar Karagoz, board chairman and director general of Anadolu Agency.

In his address, Altun stressed the need for unity in the Turkich world in the face of existing and emerging threats.

“We have to protect and watch over each other and strengthen our defenses. We have to adapt both our perception of threats and our understanding of cooperation and solidarity to the conditions today,” he said.

The 8th summit of the Turkic Council is scheduled to be held in Istanbul on Nov. 12 this year.

The council was established in 2009 as an intergovernmental organization with an overarching aim of promoting comprehensive cooperation among Turkic-speaking states.

It consists of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan as member countries, and Hungary as an observer state.

BEIJING, Apr 10 (DNA): Pakistan and China would cooperate to boost mango industry through talent exchange, joint project research and constructing demonstration zones.

Combining Pakistan’s rich mango variety resources with China’s cultivation and integrated pest control technology, it is promising to jointly create a top-class mango product said Ni Zhangguang, a mango expert at the Tropical and Subtropical Economic Crops Research Institute, Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

“One of the advantages of Pakistani mangoes is its long harvest period from May to September. There are relatively low mango supply in Chinese market from the end of April to the beginning of June,” he told CEN.

He said, “If Pakistan mango exporters grasp this period, profits can be large. The consumption capacity in China is very high.”

Ni Zhangguang and his team started the promotion of mango planting in Yunnan in the 1980s, which has made a great contribution to the local poverty alleviation.

“We introduced new mango varieties and adopted cultivation techniques to help improve the production and the quality of the products. After our efforts, the price of mango rose from RMB 0.3 per kilogram to RMB 6 per kilogram, and the yield per mund increased from 600 kilograms to 1,000 kilograms.”

‘Our technology plus demonstration zone” mode can be adopted in Pakistan Ni Zhangguang said adding, it was a good way to encourage the farmers to learn new technologies initially.

The demonstration zones were under standardized management. The production, sale and price of mangoes were excellent. Seeing the benefits, farmers took the initiative to purchase mango seedlings and requested to learn techniques, he said.

Ni Zhangguang and his team have been to Pakistan once for the research of mango breeding.

“The potential of Pakistan mangoes is huge”, he said adding Pakistan is rich in natural resources and has suitable climatic conditions for mango planting. Pakistan also has wide mango varieties.

“When we were there, Pakistan friends gave us seeds of Sindhri and Chaunsa for trial planting in Yunnan. They now begin to blossom and bear fruits”, he said.

BEIJING, Apr 10 (DNA): Director-General of the Department of International Organizations and Conferences of the Foreign Ministry of China, Yang Tao, and Director-General (United Nations) of the Foreign Ministry of Pakistan, Usman Iqbal Jadoon have jointly chaired the 3rd Round of China-Pakistan Consultations on the United Nations Affairs by video conference.

The Embassy of China in Pakistan, the Embassy of Pakistan in China and the Permanent Missions of China and Pakistan to the United Nations in New York and Geneva also attended the meeting, according to press release issued by Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Views were exchanged on a wide range of multilateral issues of mutual interest covering all major areas of the United Nations’ work.

Both sides agreed to firmly safeguard multilateralism and support the central role of the United Nations in international affairs, strengthen their cooperation on the United Nations and other multilateral platforms and to support each other on each side’s core and major interests, work toward the political and peaceful resolution of regional and international hotspot issues, and jointly safeguard peace and stability of the world, especially in Asia.

The two sides also agreed to continue to strengthen cooperation on counter-terrorism and peacekeeping in the UN framework, by addressing the issue of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, and supporting the UN peacekeeping operations, so as to make greater contributions to the maintenance of international and regional peace and security.

The both sides agreed to consolidate strategic coordination in the field of human rights, jointly opposing ‘double standards’ and the politicization of human rights issues, and working for the promotion and protection of all human rights in a cooperative manner.

DNA

ISLAMABAD, APR 10 – Pakistan strongly condemned the indiscriminate firing of heavy weapons and grenades on a Mosque in Shopian, Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), on 9 April 2021.

Desecration and damage caused to the Mosque during so-called “cordon-and-search operation”, and repeated incidence of extra-judicial killings in various places in IIOJK, are manifestations of the unabated state-terrorism to which Kashmiris are subjected in the occupied territory.

This inhuman conduct of Indian forces is reflective of their moral bankruptcy as well as the prevalent culture of impunity in IIOJK. Targeting the faith and cultural identity of the people of occupied territory is in clear violation of basic human norms and fundamental precepts of international law.

History is witness that the use of brutal and indiscriminate force against the Kashmiris and targeting of their religious places has not succeeded in breaking their will. Such attempts will not succeed in the future as well.

The Government and people of Pakistan will continue to stand by the Kashmiri people in their just and legitimate struggle for the right to self-determination as enshrined in the relevant UNSC resolutions.