 Hello and welcome to today's episode of the International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch, where we bring you some of the top stories from around the world. Let's take a look at today's headlines. Iraq ups pressure on the United States to withdraw all forces. Protests across Chicago after the release of body cam footage of police shooting and an armed child. Shock survey finds overwhelming support in the United States for vaccine patent waivers. And in our video section today, we take a look at the scheduled withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. In our first story, we take a look at Iraq, where the government has increased its efforts to get a definite timeline for the US troops withdrawn from the country. According to Iraq's public broadcaster, the government led by Mustafa Al-Qadimi wants all foreign troops to leave Iraq before the national elections, which are scheduled to be held in October this year. On Thursday, the Iraqi news agency reported that senior officials in the foreign ministry met the US ambassador earlier in the day. It was part of a series of meetings sought by the technical military committee to expedite the process of foreign troops withdrawal. The committee was formed by Prime Minister Qadimi last week under the command of Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Abdul Amir Yarallah. Reflecting on the previous talks held on April 8, Qadimi had tweeted that Iraq deserved to live in peace, security and prosperity and not in conflicts and wars. The presence of the US forces and bases in the country has become a constant source of trouble due to almost routine attacks by various militias. The new Joe Biden administration in the US had started negotiations to set a timeline for full withdrawal. After the third round of talks on April 7, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Iraqi Foreign Minister Fahad Hussain issued a joint communique stating that the mission of US and the coalition forces has now transitioned thereby allowing for the redeployment of any remaining combat forces from Iraq. The lack of a timeline is often speculated to be linked to US apprehensions about the security of foreign missions in Iraq. However, Qadimi has stated that the Iraqi forces are capable of providing security to all peaceful missions in the country, asserting that the Iraqi forces were primarily responsible for the defeat of the Islamic State. The US also wants the presence of non-combatting forces in the country for quote-unquote training and advisory tasks. It is yet unclear whether militias opposed to foreign presence in the country will agree to any such arrangements. In our second story, we take a look at Chicago where people have responded with outrage after the police watchdog released body cam footage of the shooting of a teenage child. The footage released by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability or the COPA on April 15 showed the 13-year-old Adam Toledo seemingly unarmed, shot dead while being chased by the police. Toledo, a boy of Mexican origin, was killed on March 29 in the Little Village neighborhood. The incident occurred when the police arrived at the scene, responding to emergency calls, reporting multiple shooting incidents in the area. In the footage released, the police can be seen chasing Toledo along with another person, later identified as 21-year-old Ruben Roman. In the footage, the police officer responsible for the shooting, Eric Stillman, could be heard shouting orders at Toledo for him to drop something he had reportedly held in his hands. As Toledo responding to the orders stops with his empty hands, raised and turns around to very clearly surrender, Stillman fires a shot that hits him in the chest. While the police calls for an ambulance, Toledo dies at the scene. The entire incident from the beginning of the chase to the shooting happened within a span of 19 seconds. Toledo had less than one second to respond to police orders before being shot. In-body cam footage from other officers present at the incident along with CCTV footage from the alley where the shooting took place, it was seen that Toledo threw away her handgun before turning around to surrender. While Roman has been charged with various charges of unlawful use of firearms and endangering minors, Stillman or other officers involved in the chase are yet to face any disciplinary action. In a press conference held by Toledo's family, a dean-wise artist, the lawyer representing the family, said that the videos speak for themselves. The footage flew in the face of various claims made by the authorities to justify the incident. The Chicago Police Department claimed that Toledo posed an immediate threat to the officers present at the site without specifying the sort of threat. In a statement during a bond hearing for Roman the Cook County Assistant States Attorney James Murphy even went on to claim that Toledo held a gun in his right hand as he turned to the officers, the state's attorney's office. Later had to clarify that Murphy failed to fully inform himself before the court hearing. Demonstrations and vigils were held in different parts of the city including Little Village where the incident took place and the headquarters of the fraternal order of police, the city's police union. One demonstration also led to a brief interruption of traffic at the city's iconic Michigan Avenue. Protesters carried banners that also alleged a 48-hour cover-up referring to the 48 hours that it took the police to inform Toledo's family of his death. The release of the footage comes just days after another police shooting incident in Minneapolis and the ongoing trial of Derek Chauvin charged in the killing of George Floyd last year. The Washington Post documented 990 cases of fatal shootings by the police across the United States last year. This year so far that number stands at 265. In our next story, we take a look at the results of a recent survey that found overwhelming support for patent rights waiver for COVID-19 vaccines. According to the shock survey conducted by the Progressive International and the data for progress, more than 60% of United States voters across party lines would support President Joe Biden to endorse the demand by over 100 countries at the WTO to waive patent rights for the vaccines. The survey shows only 28% of all voters in the U.S. oppose the move. The survey indicates that 72% of Democrats and over 50% of Republicans would support the move, which can reduce the cost of vaccine production and increase access to poor and developing countries across the globe. Commenting on the findings of the survey, General Coordinator of the Progressive International, David Adler, said in the statement that there is a popular mandate in the United States to put human life and economic recovery ahead of corporate profits. The proposal to suspend patent rights was first proposed by South Africa and India in October last year. However, the United States, Canada and the European Union have opposed the move citing the interest of the innovators. Last month, more than 100 countries wrote to the WTO to waive the intellectual property rights on COVID-19 vaccines. Due to patent rights, countries are barred from producing several leading vaccines. These countries claimed that waiving the patent rights will end the unequal access to vaccines and facilitate the increased production of the cheaper versions. This will also help poor and developing countries to get access to vaccines and immunize their population faster. Due to the patent's regime, the majority of countries are currently dependent on buying expensive doses from companies in the developed world. Patents have also added to the shortages of production. According to studies, 86% of all vaccinations across the globe so far have taken place in richer nations, whereas a share of vaccination in low-income economies is just 0.1%. The World Health Organization, the United Nations and several other international organizations have raised the question of unequal access to vaccines due to hoarding by rich countries and supported the call for a patent waiver. Members of the US Congress have also started a signature campaign in support of the dimad, with lawmakers like Bernie Sanders having already endorsed the measure. According to the campaign, people's vaccine, more than 170 former heads of states, governments and Nobel laureates have written to Joe Biden asking him to support the patent waiver. In our video section today, we take a look at the news of the US withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. On April 14, the US President Joe Biden announced that the country, along with its NATO allies and operational partners, will be withdrawing all its remaining troops from Afghanistan before September 11. However, experts have pointed out that this itself does not signal the end of US presence in Afghanistan. Reports have stated that the United States military will remain in Afghanistan in the form of special operations and CIA personnel along with manned attack aircrafts and roads, among other things. What does this sort of presence mean for the future of Afghanistan? On April 14, US President Joe Biden announced that the US, along with NATO allies and operational partners, will be withdrawing all the remaining troops from Afghanistan before September 11. This year will be the 20th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks and 20 years of direct US presence in Afghanistan. The withdrawal of all foreign troops was part of a deal signed between the Donald Trump administration and the Taliban last year in February. Though the deal set May 1, 2021 as the deadline for the withdrawal, the US is most likely to miss it now. The US-Taliban deal signed last year had also imposed certain conditions on the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. The two main ones were intra-Afghan talks and non-cooperation of the Taliban with Al-Qaeda in ISIS. However, according to reports, the Biden administration has decided to withdraw the troops anyway. The US, which had more than 100,000 troops in the country in 2011, has gradually reduced it to around 2,500 troops due to the rising cost of the Afghanistan war. Most of the troops were withdrawn during Donald Trump's presidency. While Biden and other NATO countries have announced that they will be withdrawing troops, it does not mean an end to US presence in the country. Reports have stated that the United States military will remain in Afghanistan in the form of special operations and CI personnel, along with manned attack aircrafts, drones, etc. Air strikes alone have caused a heavy number of casualties and destruction. According to figures released by the US military, US and its allies dropped 81,638 bombs and missiles on Afghanistan between the years 2001-2019. Data from 2019 to now has not been made public. Even these figures do not include several categories of air strikes, meaning the actual numbers are much higher. More over only a fraction of the deaths and damage caused by these strikes is reported in the media. It is estimated, however, that at least 31,000 Afghan civilians have been killed in total in this war and 360,000 civilians have died due to indirect causes from the war. Redrawal of ground troops alone cannot signify the end of war in Afghanistan when such possibilities continue to exist. So, what did the US achieve in all these years that cost so many lives? The US has failed to realize one of its main goals of destroying the Taliban. It is leaving the country after what is definitely a defeat. The Taliban, in fact, is stronger than it has ever been since 2001. The US had also stated that it will defeat drug trade by ending the circulation of opium and heroin from Afghanistan. But in the past five years, Afghanistan accounted for 84% of global opium production. Meanwhile, certain sections are demanding that the US presence in Afghanistan must continue for the sake of the advances made in women's rights, such as education. The truth is, in pre-Taliban Afghanistan, half of university students, 40% of the country's doctors, 70% of its teachers and 30% of its civil servants were women. Today, after 20 years of US occupation, in half of the country's provinces, fewer than 20% of teachers are female. In many provinces, fewer than 10% are females. Only 37% of adolescent girls can read as compared to 66% of boys. More over 54.4% of Afghanistan's population lives below the poverty line. 98.2% of workers earn around $3.10 a day. Over two-thirds of the country's people lack access to clean drinking water and the literacy rate is a dismal 38.2%. The presence of the US has done nothing to help Afghanistan and its people. Now the withdrawal of the foreign troops is happening without any sort of peace process or structure in place for future governance, as talks between different parties have failed to reach any conclusion. Meer Rahman Dharmani, Speaker of the Lower House of the Afghan Parliament, has stated that this could mean a possibility of the return of civil war.