Tensions between India and Pakistan rose Wednesday after Pakistan claimed it shot down two Indian fighter jets over Pakistani air space and arrested a pilot.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan tried to defuse the tension by saying war is futile and can lead to unknown consequences while making an oblique reference to the nuclear weapons that both countries possess.

Worried over escalating tensions, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke separately with foreign ministers of India and Pakistan, urging them to avoid “further military activity”.

“I expressed to both ministers that we encourage India and Pakistan to exercise restraint, and avoid escalation at any cost,” Pompeo, who is accompanying President Donald Trump at the second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, said in Vietnam.

In London, Prime Minister Theresa May said Britain is deeply concerned over rising tensions between India and Pakistan, urging both the nuclear-armed nations to exercise restraint to avoid further escalation.

“The UK is deeply concerned about rising tensions between India and Pakistan and urgently calls for restraint on both sides to avoid further escalation. We are in regular contact with both countries, urging dialogue and diplomatic solutions to ensure regional stability,” she said.

In response to an urgent question on “The situation in Jammu & Kashmir” tabled during the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions session, May told the House of Commons that the UK remained in regular contact with both countries and was working towards de-escalating tensions.

Russia has expressed “serious concern” over the escalation of tensions.

Moscow called on both sides to exercise “restraint”, adding that existing problems should be solved by “political and diplomatic means”.

For a second day, China urged India and Pakistan to exercise restraint and said the two sides should engage in dialogue to uphold the peace and stability in the region.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang’s remarks came after Pakistan targeted military installations in India in response to Indian counter-terrorism in Balakot.

“I understand that in the latest development Pakistan says it had shot down two Indian aircraft and captured Indian pilots,” Lu said in Beijing.

In Brussels, the European Union’s diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini urged India and Pakistan to show the “utmost restraint” in their escalating confrontation.

“We expect both countries to now exercise utmost restraint and avoid any further escalation of the situation,” Mogherini said in a statement.

Shelling across the heavily militarised Line of Control which divides Kashmir between the two South Asian countries sent many seeking shelter Wednesday, even before India and Pakistan both claimed they had shot each other’s warplanes down, igniting fears of an all-out conflict.

Pakistani officials said four people were killed on Tuesday by shelling from the Indian side of the ceasefire line.

The death toll mounts on both sides each time sabre-rattling between India and Pakistan turns into conflict. This time, Kashmiris have watched warplanes fighting overhead and cowered under the shelling.

At least 2,000 people left their homes near the unofficial border in the Kotli and Jhelum Valley districts on the Pakistani side, and authorities closed all public schools, said officials. Other districts also saw an exodus.

“More people are leaving their homes and moving to safer places,” said Umar Azam, a senior government official in Kotli. Internet was also cut in some zones near the frontier — often a sign of military activity.

Women, men and children, loaded with cases and bags, could be seen on roads. Some pulled cattle or carried other animals.

Habib Ullah Awan, a 46-year-old grocery store owner in the nearby border village of Chakothi said shells were still falling when he left his home with eight members of his family early Wednesday.

“My house was not safe because of the shelling, God forbid, nothing will be left if a shell hits my house,” he told AFP.

Most people leaving Chakothi went to Muzaffarabad, the main city in Pakistani Kashmir, or to stay with relatives in other villages. Those with no family to house them went to the Hattian Bala camp set up by the local administration.

Mushtaq Ahmed said he was taking his wife and children to Muzaffarabad. “But I will come back, I can’t afford to leave my home and belongings unguarded,” he told AFP.

At Kamalkote, on the Indian side, residents said they had also faced heavy shelling.

“We spent the night in total horror. Shells did not land in the village, but fighter jets are still flying above us,” said a man who gave his name as Tariq.

There was also heavy shelling at Poonch further south on the Line of Control.

While no casualties were reported there, authorities have told villagers to prepare bunkers.

Some, fearing hostilities, took buckets underground to bail out complexes near the main city of Jammu that had been left flooded by melted winter snow.

Some residents have also left villages. “It happens regularly,” said one at Poonch who declined to be named.

“My relatives know my family will be arriving.”

Baseer Khan, a senior government official in Indian-administered Kashmir, said authorities are always prepared to evacuate border residents but no order to do so has yet been given.

US President Donald Trump (L) shakes hands with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un following a meeting at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi on February 27, 2019. // AFP PHOTO

Trump and Kim kicked off the highly anticipated second summit meeting here with a brief private chat before dinner at the French colonial era Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and an interpreter will attend the dinner, according to the White House.

The contents of the meeting was not known as of press time, but President Trump tweeted before the meeting that North Korea could enjoy development success similar to that of summit host and communist comrade Vietnam if Pyongyang gave up its nuclear ambition.

“Vietnam is thriving like few places on earth. North Korea would be the same, and very quickly, if it would denuclearise,” Trump tweeted.

“The potential is AWESOME, a great opportunity, like almost none other in history, for my friend Kim Jong Un. We will know fairly soon – Very Interesting!”

Kim, who arrived in Vietnam on Tuesday by train, is to spend his time in the country not only meeting with Trump but also on an official goodwill visit to explore development until Saturday, according to state-run Korean Central News Agency.

While Kim reportedly concentrated on preparations for the summit, senior officials of his delegation led by ruling party’s Politburo member Ri Su Yong yesterday were seen in the tourist destination of Ha Long Bay in Quang Ninh province some 150 kilometres east of Hanoi.

US President Donald Trump (R) and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un sit for a dinner at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi on February 27, 2019. // AFP PHOTO

Meanwhile, President Trump met separately yesterday with Vietnamese leaders President Nguyen Phu Trong and Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc to warm up US-Vietnam relations, and expressed his gratitude for Vietnam’s hospitality.

Trump first visited Vietnam in 2017 for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) meeting in the central city of Danang, where he had spelled out his Indo-Pacific Strategy to adjust the US position in a region undergoing changing geo-politics.

Vietnam looks to cash in on the Trump-Kim summit to not only raise its international profile, but also take the opportunity to build closer ties with Washington. Trump told Vietnamese leaders that “it’s a very important summit in Vietnam because you really are an example of what can happen with good thinking”.

Several aviation deals were signed yesterday as Vietnam’s growing budget airlines Bamboo Airways and Vietjet agreed to buy a number of Boeing aircraft for their fleets.

Trump is expected to meet with Kim five times this week to talk about denuclearising the Korean peninsula. The White House wants this summit to end with concrete results today. The Hanoi Declaration is being prepared to mark the final outcome, as the summit ends today.

US President Donald Trump (L) shakes hands with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un before a meeting at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi on February 27, 2019. // AFP PHOTO

Issues on the table include a declaration to officially end the 1950-1953 Korean War, closure of the Yongbyon nuclear facilities, as well as the lifting of international sanctions against the secretive regime in Pyongyang, but no one can speculate how far the two sides can go.

Washington wants to see a complete and verified demolition of nuclear projects in North Korea, while Pyongyang wants to have sanctions lifted and bring to an end the Korean War. The war ceased more than half a century ago after a ceasefire agreement but without a peace pact, North Korea is technically still at war with the US.

Pakistan said it downed two Indian jets in its airspace and captured two pilots, but insisted it does not “want to go towards war” with its neighbour.

India confirmed the loss of one of its planes and said it had shot down a Pakistani fighter jet, in a conflict played out over the skies of the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.

In a sign of the deepening crisis, Pakistan closed its airspace “until further notice”. At least six airports were shuttered in India, and a vast area of airspace north of New Delhi was closed to civilian flights.

    A Pakistani military spokesman said that one of the downed Indian planes had fallen in Pakistani-held Kashmir, while the other came down on the Indian side of the heavily militarised de facto border dividing the territory.

“We do not want escalation, we do not want to go towards war,” Major General Asif Ghafoor told a press conference, calling for talks with New Delhi.

One of the captured pilots was in custody and the other was in hospital, he said.

Ghafoor said the jets had been shot down after Pakistani planes earlier flew across the Line of Control, the de facto border in Kashmir, to the Indian side in a show of strength, hitting non-military targets including supply depots.

Afterwards, he said, the two Indian planes crossed the LoC into Pakistani airspace.

“The Pakistan Air Force was ready, they took them on, there was an engagement. As a result both the Indian planes were shot down and the wreckage of one fell on our side while the wreckage of the other fell on their side,” he said.

He denied initial reports that a Pakistan plane had been shot down, saying accounts an F-16 had been lost were incorrect as none were used in the action.

– ‘Unfortunate loss’ –

Later, Indian foreign ministry spokesman Rajeesh Kumar announced that a Pakistan jet was hit as it took part in an operation “to target military installations on the Indian side”.

“The Pakistani aircraft was seen by ground forces falling from the sky on the Pakistan side,” he told a briefing.

“In this engagement, we have unfortunately lost one Mig-21. The pilot is missing in action. Pakistan has claimed that he is in their custody.”

In a separate incident, a helicopter crashed and exploded into flames outside the main city of Srinagar in Indian-administered Kashmir, killing three people, officials said, adding they were investigating the cause.

The incidents are the latest in a dangerous sequence of events between the two countries, whose ties have been under intense strain since a February 14 suicide bombing in Indian Kashmir that killed 40 troops.

New Delhi had promised to act, and on Tuesday its warplanes flew into Pakistani airspace and struck what it said was a camp of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), the militant group that claimed the Kashmir bombing.

It was India’s first air strike on Pakistani soil since the neighbours fought a war in 1971 — when neither had nuclear weapons.

Islamabad, while denying the Indian strike caused any major damage or casualties, quickly vowed to retaliate, fuelling fears of a disastrous confrontation in South Asia.

– Appeal against ‘escalation’ –

Earlier Wednesday, the Indian foreign minister sought to ease the situation by downplaying Tuesday’s strike, repeating Indian claims that it had been a pre-emptive attack on JeM as the group planned further assaults.

“India does not wish to see further escalation of this situation. India will continue to act with responsibility and restraint,” Sushma Swaraj said during talks in China with her counterparts from Beijing and Moscow.

The US, along with China and the European Union, have called for cooler heads to prevail.

“We encourage India and Pakistan to exercise restraint, and avoid escalation at any cost,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said after speaking with his counterparts from both countries.

China Wednesday again urged the two sides to “exercise restraint” and seek dialogue.

– Crisis for Khan –

The confrontation represents the first major foreign policy crisis for Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who is believed to be close to the powerful military and who came to power last year vowing to seek dialogue with New Delhi.

Pakistan has denied involvement in the Kashmir bombing on February 14.

While India has consistently accused its neighbour of supporting extremist groups, Pakistan has equally vehemently denied any role in attacks in India and its only Muslim-majority state, Kashmir.

The Himalayan region has been divided between India and Pakistan since independence in 1947. They have fought two of their three wars over the territory.

Previously, the US and other members of the international community have acted to defuse tensions.

“If I were Washington, I’d be in overdrive making phone calls and signalling that it wants tensions to be de-escalated now,” said Moeed Yusuf, an expert at the US Institute of Peace in Washington.

“The risks of letting this play out are too great.”

In explosive public testimony to Congress on Wednesday, Cohen will also state that Trump essentially instructed him to lie about a lucrative real estate project Trump had in the works in Russia even while running for president in 2016, according to a prepared statement by Cohen that was provided to The New York Times and other US news outlets.

Trump, in Vietnam for a second nuclear summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, responded to the release of the statement by trying to distance himself from Cohen and discredit him.

“Michael Cohen was one of many lawyers who represented me (unfortunately),” Trump tweeted.

    Cohen will testify before the House of Representatives Oversight Committee on the second of three keenly awaited days of testimony on Capitol Hill. Tuesday’s first session at the Senate was held behind closed doors.

Cohen, 52, worked closely with Trump for more than 12 years, becoming vice president of the Trump Organization, where he was the billionaire property magnate’s behind-the-scenes “fixer.”

Last year, Cohen pleaded guilty to illegally using campaign funds for hush money payments to two women who said they had affairs with Trump. The president denies the liaisons.

Cohen also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in testimony in 2017 when he sought to cover up Trump’s pursuit of the Moscow real estate project during the presidential election campaign. Cohen will soon start serving three years in prison.

Trump in his tweet Wednesday said Cohen is “lying in order to reduce his prison time”, even though he has already been sentenced. Trump noted that Cohen has been disbarred in the state of New York for lying to congress.

In the testimony Wednesday, Cohen will say again that he kept working on the Trump Tower project in Moscow well into the campaign and did not stop in January 2016 as he had originally told lawmakers. Trump has insisted he had no dealings in Russia during the campaign.

    – ‘Telling me to lie’ –

“In conversations we had during the campaign, at the same time I was actively negotiating in Russia for him, he would look me in the eye and tell me there’s no business in Russia and then go out and lie to the American people by saying the same thing,” Cohen plans to say.

“In his way, he was telling me to lie.”

Cohen will state that he is sorry for what he calls his misplaced loyalty.

“I am ashamed that I chose to take part in concealing Mr. Trump’s illicit acts rather than listening to my own conscience. I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is. He is a racist. He is a conman. He is a cheat,” Cohen will say, according to the statement.

He will also state that Trump had advanced knowledge through longtime adviser Roger Stone that WikiLeaks planned to publish hacked emails from the Clinton campaign.

Cohen will testify that Trump, when he learned this from Stone, said “Wouldn’t that be great?”

Cohen will state that he does not have direct evidence that Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia to defeat Clinton but that he has suspicions.

Trump has repeatedly denied any prior knowledge of a June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower in New York during which a representative of Russia’s government offering dirt on Clinton met with Donald Trump Jr and senior campaign officials.

But Cohen said that in 2017, as he read media coverage of the meeting, “something clicked in my mind.”

He said he then recalled a meeting with Trump in early June 2016 in which Trump Jr walked into the room, approached his father and said in a low voice “the meeting is all set.”

“I remember Trump saying, ‘OK, good… Let me know.'”

Cohen said Trump had always told him Trump Jr. had “the worst judgment of anyone in the world.” Cohen said he thought the son would never set up a big meeting on his own and without first checking with his father.

“I also knew that nothing went on in Trump world, especially the campaign, without Mr. Trump’s knowledge and approval. So, I concluded that Don Jr. was referring to that June 2016 Trump Tower meeting about dirt on Hillary with the Russian representative,” Cohen’s statement says.

On race, Cohen said America has seen Trump woo white supremacists and bigots but that in private “he is even worse.”

“He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn’t a ‘shithole.’ This was when Barack Obama was President of the United States,” Cohen will state, according to the statement.

Girding for a fresh political assault on the president, Republicans focused on damage control, pointing out that Cohen is headed to prison for three years for his crimes and labelling him a convicted liar.

“Disgraced felon Michael Cohen is going to prison for lying to Congress and making other false statements. Sadly, he will go before Congress this week and we can expect more of the same,” Trump’s spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said from Hanoi.

“It’s laughable that anyone would take a convicted liar like Cohen at his word.”

Fire fighters gather at the scene of a fiery train crash at the Egyptian capital Cairo’s main railway station on February 27, 2019. – The crash killed at least 20 people, Egyptian security and medical sources said. // AFP PHOTO

The accident, which sparked a major blaze at the Ramses station, also injured 40 others, the sources said.

    Egyptian state TV confirmed the figures.

The fire broke out after a train crashed into a steel barrier, the sources said.

Photos showed a thick cloud of black smoke billowing around the station. Firefighters were seen hosing down the charred wreckage of the train.

Footage also showed fire engulfing the train and a nearby platform and people rushing to help the casualties.

Fire fighters and onlookers gather at the scene of a fiery train crash at the Egyptian capital Cairo’s main railway station on February 27, 2019. // AFP PHOTO

Ambulances and rescue teams were dispatched to the site, medical sources said.

“Any person found to be negligent will be held accountable and it will be severe,” Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli said as he arrived at the site.

Egyptians have long complained that the government has failed to deal with chronic transport problems in the country, where roads are as poorly maintained as railway lines.

The official statistics agency says there were 1,793 train accidents in 2017.

As one of the most powerful figures in North Korea, Yo-jong stands next to her brother in all engagements and has been spotted inspecting the summit venue and holding an ashtray for her brother.

When the North Korean leader departed Pyongyang for Hanoi on Saturday afternoon for his second summit with US President Donald Trump, Yo-jong stood next to her brother.

Kim Yo-jong holds ashtray for her brother at Nanning Station in China, on Tuesday. (Yonhap)She was also spotted carefully assisting Kim as he took a smoking break before arriving in Vietnam. A habitual smoker, Kim was spotted smoking at Nanning Station in China in footage taken by Japanese TBS TV. There, Yo-jong stood next to her brother and held the ashtray.

At Dong Dang Station in Vietnam and at the North Korean Embassy in Hanoi on Tuesday, Yo-jong showed up first before her brother and checked the environs.

On Tuesday evening, Yo-jong also inspected the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi, where Trump and Kim are expected to hold the summit.

On her close assistance and “odd jobs,” experts say it stresses her position as an important figure for the North Korean regime. She is director of the propaganda and agitation department of the Workers‘ Party of Korea.

Kim Yo-jong (Yonhap)

Former South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun also said her holding the ashtray was “normal.”

“It is more natural for Kim’s sister to hold the ashtray than for others to do it. If it was another person, it could be interpreted as trying to flatter the leader,” Jeong said in a radio interview Wednesday.

Pundits say it is very important for the North to limit access to anything that could possibly reveal information about Kim’s health, and that collecting the cigarette butts is an important task.

According to sources, North Korea is making sure to collect everything that Kim has used, such as tissues and towels. Kim is also said to bring along his own toilet when he travels.

    Trump’s enthusiastic tweet came hours before a second summit in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi to build on their historic first meeting in Singapore last June.

In just a few words, Trump encapsulated his fervent belief that only his uniquely personal brand of diplomacy and business acumen can break a stand-off with the isolated, nuclear-armed state that has bedevilled US leaders ever since the end of the Korean war in 1953.

Trump, who has previously spoken of the “love” between him and the North Korean strongman, said that by abandoning nuclear weapons the country would very quickly emulate Vietnam — a communist country once locked in conflict with the United States, but now a thriving trade partner.

    “The potential is AWESOME, a great opportunity, like almost none other in history, for my friend Kim Jong Un. We will know fairly soon – Very Interesting!” Trump tweeted.

Trump has torn up the script by bringing Kim out of the cold, giving him a legitimacy once considered unthinkable in Washington, which has long seen North Korea as the world’s most repressive state.

But now there is intense pressure for results.

The Singapore summit ended only with a vague statement promising to work “towards complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”.

Since then Washington and Pyongyang have disagreed even on what this means. And while North Korea has now gone more than a year without conducting missile and nuclear tests, it has done nothing to roll back the arsenal already built.

That leaves Trump, who claimed after Singapore that North Korea is “no longer a nuclear threat,” scrambling to get something concrete out of Kim in Hanoi — or face growing criticism that he is being played by the man about half his age.

On the defensive, Trump said in another tweet Wednesday that opponents in the Democratic Party should “stop talking about what I should do with North Korea and ask themselves instead why they didn’t do ‘it’ during eight years of the (Barack) Obama Administration?”

– Dinner date –

The Kim-Trump relationship, bringing together two leaders fond of showmanship, has turned into the diplomatic equivalent of a Hollywood odd-couple bromance.

Before the Singapore get-together they were slinging bizarre insults — Trump calling Kim “rocket man” and Kim calling him a “dotard” in response. With North Korea then busily testing missiles and conducting earth-shaking underground nuclear tests, analysts feared that the duo were egging each other on toward a catastrophic confrontation.

Now Trump promotes himself as someone who by daring to do things differently actually defused what he said was a near-war situation inherited on taking over the White House.

“He’s never had a relationship with anybody from this country, and hasn’t had lots of relationships anywhere,” Trump said of Kim before leaving Washington.

The Hanoi summit is more elaborate than the brief first occasion. The White House said Trump and Kim will hold a 10-minute meeting, before going off for an approximately 20-minute session without aides, followed by dinner lasting around 90 minutes.

On Thursday they are due to meet again, although no details have been released, adding to the impression that much of the occasion is being decided at the last minute.

– How much to give? –

With Congress back home investigating Trump for alleged illegal activities and also trying to stop his controversial use of executive power to fund the construction of a US-Mexican border wall, the president would dearly like to change the news narrative by proclaiming a dramatic win.

Critics warn he is so keen to deal with Kim that he could give away too much in his desire to make headlines, endangering rock-solid US allies South Korea and Japan. In Singapore, Trump took his own generals by surprise when he announced a suspension of military exercises with the South — something the North badly wanted.

Washington would ideally like Kim to dismantle a key nuclear facility at Yongbyon, allow in international inspectors, or even hand over a full list of all the country’s nuclear assets — something the North Koreans have categorically refused to do.

In return, Trump is believed to be considering dangling relief from tough international sanctions. Opening diplomatic liaison offices is another possible US concession.

Trump could go further by making a joint declaration that the 1950-53 Korean War is over, after hostilities ended with a ceasefire but no peace treaty.

Although that would be seemingly a mostly symbolic gesture, many analysts caution that it could open the door to a cascade of real-world consequences upsetting a region where the US and China are already in a growing struggle for influence.

BNPB spokesperson Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the landslide occurred at 9 p.m. when the mine’s supporting beams and planks collapsed on account of unstable soil conditions.

“As of 5 a.m. local time, 14 people have been evacuated with one dead and 13 injured,” Sutopo said in a statement on Wednesday.

He said recovery efforts were still ongoing as many of those buried were thought to still be alive.

He added that the Bolaang Mongondow BNPB was coordinating with the local police, military command,and search and rescue agency to recover the buried miners.

“Although President Trump did not specify a date, his saying that (he and Moon) have a lot to talk about raised the idea of a meeting in the near future,” a top Cheong Wa Dae official told reporters Tuesday, referring to Moon’s telephone conversation with US President Donald Trump on Feb. 19.

President Moon Jae-in speaks at the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. Yonhap

“If the meeting takes place, President Moon will have to go to Washington.” The official added that the date of a possible Moon-Trump summit could be set during their telephone conversation scheduled for after Trump’s meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Earlier in the day, Moon had expressed high hopes for the second US-North Korea summit. “The international order surrounding the Korean Peninsula is changing. The most important element is that we have become able to lead such changes,” President Moon Jae-in said at a Cabinet meeting.

“The international community highly rates our role in the changes in the Korean Peninsula situation.”

A day earlier, Moon had commented that South Korea must be ready to take the initiative if North Korea opens its economy to the world.

According to Cheong Wa Dae, Trump informed Moon that he would speak with the South Korean leader soon after meeting Kim. Regarding Monday’s comments, Kim Eui-kyeom said that Moon was emphasizing the need to play a leading role in related matters.

The spokesman also downplayed his comments from the previous day regarding the possibility of the US and North Korea declaring an end to the Korean War, saying he was only expressing hopes for such an outcome.

On Monday, Kim Eui-kyeom told reporters that he believes the US and North Korea could agree on declaring the end of the Korean War, saying that such a declaration would be welcome regardless of the form it takes, and that a two-way declaration involving only the US and North Korea would be significant.

The spokesman, however, drew the line at a peace treaty, saying that while declaring the end of the war is a political issue, negotiating a peace treaty would require multiparty talks.