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There have been reports over a month that commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan Gen. John Nicholson, is in need for more troops. He has provided details for the required new force for the 16 year war. Gen. Nicholson said that he requires 5000 more forces of U.S and NATO troops and he believes that this step will “break the stalemate” in the war. Nicholson has recurrently categorized the fight a “stalemate”, that seems to be an overestimation of the condition in which Taliban forces are gaining more ground against security forces of Afghan. There is be always a problem that the US faces difficulty in Afghanistan as forces of government is not able to take stand for them against Taliban, and NATO getting exhausted of continuing to support them up. Due to this, there has been growths and scaling down for years, always trying to protect the Afghan government from absolute downfall.

The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan told lawmakers Thursday that he needs several thousand additional troops to break “a stalemate” in the 15-year-old war against the Taliban and other terrorist organizations including al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. Army Gen. John Nicholson told the Senate Armed Services Committee that more troops could come from the United States or other NATO nations and would be tasked with training Afghanistan’s military and police forces to provide better offensive capabilities in the fight that the Afghans have led since the beginning of 2015. The general also warned lawmakers of growing influence from Russia and Iran in the country. "I have adequate resources in my counterterrorism mission,” said Nicholson, who leads the NATO training mission and the U.S. counterterrorism mission in Afghanistan. “In my train, advise and assist mission, we have a shortfall of a few thousand.” The general did not specify how many additional troops he needs. He told Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., he did not need 50,000 NATO troops in the country, but he did not rule out the potential for up to 30,000. “Sir, that’s a conversation I’d need to have with my chain of command,” Nicholson told Graham during the Senate hearing.

The Taliban are operating in all regions of Afghanistan and casualties among Afghan police have increased, according to the Ministry of Interior (MoI). The MoI statements confirms reporting by FDD’s Long War Journal and contradicts a recent press briefing by General John Nicholson, the outgoing commander of Resolute Support and US Forces- Afghanistan. The Taliban has launched “military offensives on multiple fronts across the country” and security forces “are tackling insurgents as part of their preplanned operations in at least 14 provinces,” TOLONews reported based on statements made by the spokesman for the MoI. “This year the activities of the enemy has increased compared to previous years. The number of our operations also indicates that this year the number of casualties unfortunately has also increased,” MoI spokesman Najib Danish said, according to TOLONews. TOLONews claims that its sources within the Interior Ministry state that “currently on average 50 members of the security forces are being killed and wounded each day.” Danish’s statement that the Taliban are operating in all areas of the country confirms a mid-May report by published by FDD’s Long War Journal. In that report, LWJ determined that the Taliban has targeted Afghan government forces in nearly all of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, as the military focuses on the Taliban threat in Helmand and Kandahar. Additionally, LWJ reported, based on statements from Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense, that the Taliban directly threaten seven provincial capitals. Additionally, the MoI’s confirmation that the Taliban is on the offensive is backed by data compiled by LWJ on the status of Afghanistan’s districts. Currently the Taliban controls or contests 60 percent of Afghanistan’s 407 districts. These statements directly contradict the highly optimistic assessment of the situation in Afghanistan given by Nicholson, as well as statements by Pentagon Spokesperson Dana White, who has described the Taliban as “desperate,” and said it “has lost ground” and “has not had the initiative.”

Litigation alleging that Deutsche Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia and HSBC Plc illegally fixed the price of silver were centralised in a Manhattan federal court yesterday. The banks have been accused of rigging the price of billions of dollars in silver to the detriment of investors globally. Lawsuits filed by investors since July over the allegations were consolidated yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, following an order issued last Thursday by the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, a special body of federal judges that decides when and where to consolidate related lawsuits. The banks abused their position of controlling the daily silver fix to reap illegitimate profit from trading, hurting other investors in the silver market who use the benchmark in billions of dollars of transactions, according to the suit. Investors claim, the banks unlawfully manipulated silver and silver futures.

The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ruled that the cases should be handled by U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni in Manhattan, who is already overseeing similar litigation over alleged gold price fixing. Three lawsuits were originally filed in Manhattan, and two were filed in Brooklyn. The plaintiffs in the Brooklyn lawsuits had sought to have the litigation consolidated there. The banks had also asked that the litigation be consolidated in Brooklyn, in the Eastern District of New York. However, the multidistrict litigation panel said Manhattan made more sense because the defendants all had corporate offices there and also because the cases involved issues similar to the gold litigation. The plaintiffs allege that the banks abused their power as participants in the silver fix, a London based benchmark pricing method dating back to the Victorian era, in which banks fixed silver prices once a day by phone. In August, the system was replaced by a new benchmark system administered by the CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange) and Thomson Reuters.

HSBC spokesman Neil Brazil declined to comment and representatives of the other banks did not immediately respond to requests for comment. This follows the initiation of similar actions against some bullion banks for alleged gold price manipulation earlier this year. The three named banks, Deutsche Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia, and HSBC are alleged to have abused their position at the LBMA to profit from inside knowledge. The fixing of the price of silver is a daily operation where banks on the panel of the LBMA agree on a price for the precious metals which are then used throughout the financial, jewellery and mining industries throughout the day. It is alleged that some of the banks who fix the price, position themselves advantageously in the silver market before the price is made public. “Defendants have a strong financial incentive to establish positions in both physical silver and silver derivatives prior to the public release of silver fixing results, allowing them to reap large illegitimate profits,” plaintiff Scott Nicholson told the AFP. Separately, Bullion Desk reported yesterday that JPMorgan Chase Bank is now the fifth accredited member of the silver pricing benchmark, the LBMA has confirmed, with others parties “in the pipeline”, a spokesman said.