epubdos : Afghanistan
SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS
Prepared for the U.S. Department of State
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
TO:
SCA & Staff
DATE:
Tuesday, February 27, 2024 6:30 AM ET

Afghanistan
Most UN Security Council members demand Taliban rescind decrees seriously oppressing women and girls (AP)
AP [2/26/2024 10:05 PM, Edith M. Lederer, 6902K, Neutral]
More than two-thirds of the U.N. Security Council’s members demanded Monday that the Taliban rescind all policies and decrees oppressing and discriminating against women and girls, including banning girls education above the sixth grade and women’s right to work and move freely.

A statement by 11 of the 15 council members condemned the Taliban’s repression of women and girls since they took power in August 2021, and again insisted on their equal participation in public, political, economic, cultural and social life -- especially at all decision-making levels seeking to advance international engagement with Afghanistan’s de facto rulers.

Guyana’s U.N. Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett read the statement, surrounding by ambassadors of the 10 other countries, before a closed council meeting on U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ conference with more than 25 envoys to Afghanistan on Feb. 18-19 in Qatar’s capital, Doha.

Afghan civil society representatives, including women, participated in the Doha meeting, which the council members welcomed. The Taliban refused to attend, its Foreign Ministry saying in a statement that its participation would be “beneficial” only if it was the sole and official representative for the country at the talks.

While the Taliban did not attend the meetings, U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo did meet with Taliban officials based in Doha, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. DiCarlo also briefed council members at Monday’s closed meeting.

The Taliban have not been recognized by any country, and the U.N. envoy for Afghanistan last year warned the de facto rulers that international recognition as the country’s legitimate government will remain “nearly impossible” unless they lift the restrictions on women.

The 11 council nations supporting the statement -- Ecuador, France, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, South Korea, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States – underscored that there can only be sustainable peace in Afghanistan if its political process is inclusive and the human rights of all Afghans are respected including women and girls.

Four Security Council nations didn’t sign on to the statement – Russia, China, Mozambique and Algeria.

Secretary-General Guterres told reporters in Doha that among participants — also including representatives of the European Union, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization — there was “total consensus” on requirements for Afghanistan to be integrated into the international community.

To reach this “endgame,” he said, Afghanistan must not be “the hotbed of terrorist activities that impact other countries,” its institutions must include diverse groups including Uzbeks, Tajiks, Pashtuns and Hazaras, and human rights must be respected especially the rights of women and girls.

Guterres said to a certain extent there is currently “a kind of situation of the chicken and the egg.”

“On one hand, Afghanistan remains with a government that is not recognized internationally and, in many aspects, not integrated in the global institutions and in the global economy,” he said. “And on the other hand, there is in the international community a perception that inclusivity has not improved; that the situation of women and girls and human rights in general has in fact deteriorated in recent times.”

The secretary-general said one objective of the meeting with the envoys was “to overcome this deadlock” and develop a roadmap in which the international community’s concerns and the Taliban’s concerns are “taken into account simultaneously.”

A Security Council resolution asked Guterres to appoint a U.N. envoy after consultations with all parties, member states, the Taliban and others.

Guterres said the participants decided he should initiate consultations “to see if there are conditions to create a U.N. envoy that might be able not only to have a coordinating role in relation to the engagements that are taking place but that can also work effectively with the de facto authorities of Afghanistan.”

“I will initiate immediately those consultations,” the U.N. chief said.
UN Security Council set to pick envoy for Afghanistan despite Taliban’s protests (The Independent)
The Independent [2/26/2024 7:27 AM, Arpan Rai, 3055K, Neutral]
The United Nations Security Council is likely to discuss the appointment of a special envoy for Afghanistan on Monday despite the Taliban’s refusal to have an international representative for the war-torn nation.

In a closed-door meeting, the UN secretary general Antonio Guterres will share a report on the appointment of a special envoy for Afghanistan and the recent international meeting on Afghanistan in Doha, said Naseer Ahmed Faiq, Chargé d’Affaires of the Afghanistan Permanent Mission to the UN.

The Taliban regime in Afghanistan is seeking international recognition for its own officials and denies the need for a diplomat selected by the UN to speak on issues concerning Afghanistan.

Speaking at the UN-sponsored talks in Doha last week, Mr Guterres had clarified the need to have “clear consultations” with the Taliban to understand the envoy’s role and who it could be to “make it attractive” from their point of view.

It was in the Taliban’s interests to be part of the consultations, Mr Guterres had argued last Monday.

However, the Taliban threw up last-minute objections and did not attend the meeting, ostensibly over the presence of Afghan civil society members who are not a part of the Islamist group.

The Doha meeting included representatives from the US, China, Pakistan and the European Union had reached a "total consensus" on proposals from a UN independent assessment on Afghanistan, Mr Guterres said.

He added that the assessment recommended the appointment of a UN special envoy – a proposal backed by Western nations but rejected by the Taliban authorities.

Zabiullah Mujahid, the chief spokesperson of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan claimed that the war-battered nation is not in crisis and it does not need a new representative with the existing presence of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA) in the country.

“As for the special representative, the position of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan [the Taliban’s name for the country] is very clear and there is no need to appoint a special representative for Afghanistan,” he said.

Mr Mujahid claimed: “Afghanistan is a secure country and does not suffer from any crisis and needs international cooperation, but within the framework of the cooperation that existed before. In the presence of UNAMA, all issues between the United Nations and Afghanistan will be resolved.”

While no country formally recognises the Taliban government in Afghanistan, informal backing for it has increased from a number of regional powers including China and central Asian nations, for whom the country is an important trade and infrastructure partner.

The international community and Western nations in particular are refusing to provide validation to a regime that has enforced a blanket ban on education and work for women and girls. Mr Guterres said the Doha meeting participants agreed it was essential to revoke these restrictions.
The Taliban hold another public execution as thousands watch at a stadium in northern Afghanistan (AP)
AP [2/26/2024 6:23 PM, Rahim Faiez, 456K, Negative]
The Taliban held a public execution on Monday of a man convicted of murder in northern Afghanistan as thousands watched at a sports stadium, the third such death sentence to be carried out in the past five days.

The execution took place in heavy snowfall in the city of Shibirghan, the capital of northern Jawzjan province, where the brother of the murdered man shot the convict five times with a rifle, according to a witness. Security around the stadium was tight, said the witness, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

It was also the fifth public execution since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops were in the final weeks of their withdrawal from the country after two decades of war.

The Taliban, despite initial promises of a more moderate rule, began carrying out severe punishments in public — executions, floggings and stonings — shortly after coming to power. The punishments are similar to those during their previous rule of Afghanistan in the late 1990s.

Taliban government officials were not immediately available for comment.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said: “The public nature of execution is extremely heinous, and we continue to stand against the use of the death penalty.”

The Taliban’s supreme court said in a statement that Monday’s death sentence was carried out following approval from three of the country’s highest courts and the Taliban supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada. The executed man, identified as Nazar Mohammad from Bilcheragh district in Faryab province, was convicted of killing Khal Mohammad, also from Faryab, it said. The killing took place in Jawzjan.

On Thursday in the southeastern Ghazni province, the Taliban executed two men convicted of stabbing their victims to death. Relatives of the victims fired guns at the two men, also at a sports stadium, as thousands of people watched.

Separate statements from the supreme court said a man and a woman convicted of adultery were flogged with 35 lashes each in northern Balkh province over the weekend. Two other people were given 30 lashes each in eastern Laghman province, also over the weekend, for allegedly committing immoral acts.

The United Nations has strongly criticized the Taliban for carrying out public executions, lashings and stonings since seizing power and has called on the country’s rulers to halt such practices.
No pictures: Afghanistan journalists fear clampdown on visual reporting (Nikkei Asia)
Nikkei Asia [2/26/2024 8:42 PM, Khudai Noor Nasar, 293K, Negative]
Afghanistan’s already limited space for journalism is narrowing further, with Taliban officials increasingly ordering reporters not to take photographs.

In Kandahar province, Gov. Mullah Shireen Akhund told officials in a handout issued Feb. 18 to ensure journalists "refrain from taking pictures during both official and unofficial meetings, as the potential harm outweighs any potential benefits." Journalists in different parts of the country say they fear visual reporting will be banned entirely, as it was during the previous Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001.

"The ruling Taliban consider themselves devout Muslims, viewing other non-Taliban Afghans, especially those in the media, as infidels," said one Afghan journalist who declined to be named. "So for them, we are infidels and they can do whatever they want, as it is their time."

Two days after the Kandahar notice, another key Taliban figure made a similar pronouncement. Muhammad Hashim Shaheed Wror, the general director of the Department of Invitation and Guidance -- an independent body supervising religious policies -- asked journalists at a gathering inside the Ministry of Education not to take photos and videos. Doing so, he suggested, was un-Islamic.

"Don’t waste all your time on taking pictures," he said. "Taking pictures is considered a gigantic sin. By God! In the hereafter, God will order you to breathe life into the souls of your captured images, a task you will find impossible."

He had another piece of advice for the journalists: to focus on growing beards.

Since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, thousands of journalists have fled the country, and more than 300 media outlets have shut down their local operations. Afghanistan ranked 152nd out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ 2023 World Press Freedom Index. Journalists and media workers are routinely harassed and detained by the Taliban’s intelligence agency, although the regime insists this is propaganda against the "Islamic Emirate."

The trend of banning photographers has alarmed many of the journalists who remain. "Journalists heavily rely on visuals to substantiate their reports, so if visuals were to be prohibited, it would essentially amount to a ban on media," said a journalist in Nangarhar province who did not want to be identified.

On Feb. 19, the day after the statement by Kandahar’s Akhund, the Afghanistan Journalists Center said in a news release, "This decision is a serious setback for media freedom in the province, resulting in increased self-censorship and restricted access to information."

Some journalists remain hopeful that such orders from individual Taliban figures will not turn into a countrywide blanket ban on visual journalism.

"The Taliban have their own Radio Television Afghanistan. If they want to impose a ban throughout the country, they have to shut their own media first," said another journalist in Kandahar on condition of anonymity. "I don’t believe it will be possible for Taliban government."

But the Taliban have imposed other restrictions, particularly targeting women in journalism. Women are now banned from appearing on TV without covering their faces.

Female journalists fear a new batch of orders might ban them from the media completely.

"We are certainly worried about the current circumstances, particularly considering that they have already stripped thousands of our colleagues from their jobs," said one female journalist in Kabul. "The Taliban leadership believes that listening to a female voice is considered un-Islamic, and I am concerned that they might extend this belief to impose a ban on our voices too."
Taliban sets sights on making Afghanistan a global cricketing power (Washington Post)
Washington Post [2/27/2024 2:00 AM, Rick Noack, 6.9M, Neutral]
During the Taliban’s first stint in power in the 1990s, its disdain for many sports meant that Kabul’s main stadium drew some of its biggest crowds on the days it was used for public executions.

But since seizing control in Kabul a second time in 2021, the Taliban has turned to making Afghanistan into a global cricketing power, with ambitious plans for a state-of-the-art cricket stadium that could host international matches.

The men’s national team was already on the rise before the takeover but has continued to thrive under the new regime, defying expectations and scoring stunning upsets in international play. Privately funded cricket academies have seen a surge in the number of new players.

Cricket’s appeal to the Taliban may be partly rooted in the sport’s long-standing popularity in ethnic Pashtun communities, where the Taliban has traditionally drawn its strongest support. But as cricket’s reach expands across ethnic lines, the regime may also view the sport as useful.

“Cricket brings the country together,” said Abdul Ghafar Farooq, a spokesman for the Taliban’s Ministry of Vice and Virtue.

Within days of the takeover in August 2021, Anas Haqqani, the influential younger brother of the Taliban’s interior minister, visited the Afghan cricket board to demonstrate the new government’s support for the sport.

Haqqani, a cricket fan who recently injured his foot while playing volleyball, said Taliban soldiers would have made excellent cricket stars. “If we hadn’t waged a war, many of us would be on the national team now,” he said in a rare interview. “The future of cricket here is very bright.”

Surprise victories

Taliban soldiers and other spectators closely followed the Cricket World Cup last fall in India, gathering to watch on large screens in parks, at male salons at wedding venues and in television shops. Cheering on their team as it delivered shocking victories against England, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Netherlands, some Taliban soldiers fired celebratory shots into the sky.

“People don’t have anything to enjoy in Afghanistan, but cricket gives us happiness,” said Mohammad Gul Ahmadzai, 48, who used to watch soccer matches on the television in his travel agency in central Kabul until the broadcasts became less frequent.

Although global soccer is dominated by teams that are often awash in money, he said, the smaller number of serious international competitors in cricket gives Afghans a more realistic chance of winning.

Others say Afghanistan’s cricket frenzy is primarily fed by desperation. Farhard Amirzai, 17, said he and his friends have come to view a professional cricket career as the only path out of poverty.

After the Taliban took power, boys “lost interest in education,” said Amirzai, who spends much of his time practicing on a barren field in Kabul with a makeshift tape-covered cricket ball. “Young people think that even if they graduate from school or university, they won’t find a good job under the current government. So, they try their luck with cricket.”

Even though cricket academies have seen a spike in sign-ups since the Taliban took over, most young Afghans, including Amirzai, cannot afford them.

Taliban soldier Abdul Mobin Mansor would love to join, too, but the 19-year-old said his job leaves him little time. He has wanted to become a national team player ever since he and his comrades — still waging the armed rebellion and hiding in caves at the time — started following the sport on battery-powered radios, he said.

And for Afghan women, there is no chance at all. One of the Taliban-run government’s first actions after the takeover was to ban women from playing sports, reintroducing the policy the movement had put in place when it previously held power and shattering female athletes’ dreams.

Slow to catch on

Believed to have been invented in England in the 16th century, cricket was one of the British Empire’s most popular cultural exports. By the early 20th century, the sport thrived in Australia, British India — which includes what is today India, Pakistan and Bangladesh — and other places in the region. But it was slow to catch on in Afghanistan, where the national sport remained buzkashi, an equestrian game in which horsemen try to score a goal with a carcass, traditionally that of a goat or calf but now almost always fake.

Cricket’s fortunes began to change here after the 1979 Soviet invasion forced millions to flee to Pakistan. The sport rapidly caught on in northwestern Pakistan’s Afghan refugee camps, which were primarily home to Pashtuns. The sport later found its way to Kabul when some Afghans returned in the late 1990s during the Taliban’s first time in power.

Among the first Afghan cricket players was Allah Dad Noori, then the national team’s captain. In an interview, Noori said he initially worried that the Taliban would not allow cricket. But his family’s ties to the regime may have helped convince them. “My brother-in-law, who later spent time in Guantánamo, had already told the Taliban about me,” Noori recalled. “He said to them, ‘This man is the greatest cricketer, and if you capture Kabul you should approve cricket.’”

When British businessman Stuart Bentham arrived in Kabul a couple of years later, he became one of the first foreigners to attend an Afghan cricket match, held in the same Kabul stadium that the Taliban was using for executions.

At the time, the Taliban had soccer players’ heads shaved as punishment for wearing shorts. The long trousers of cricket players may have raised fewer religious concerns, Bentham said, but cricket’s popularity in neighboring Pakistan probably also played a role in the Taliban desire to promote the sport.

“Pakistan had a lot of influence over the Taliban at that time,” he said.

Plight of female athletes

The Afghan team’s importance to the Taliban has begun to prompt uncomfortable questions abroad. Australia’s national cricket team announced early last year that it would boycott matches against Afghanistan to protest the Taliban’s repression of girls and women. But during the Cricket World Cup, the Australians rescinded the boycott, disappointing many Afghan women and others.

Weeda Omari, 35, said she hopes no foreign team would agree to play in a Kabul stadium under the Taliban. Omari used to work as a women’s sports coordinator for Kabul’s municipality until her team of colleagues was disbanded within days of the takeover.

She has since fled the country, but 80 percent of the female athletes whom she supervised are still in Afghanistan. “Their families accuse them of having drawn the Taliban’s ire by becoming athletes, and now they’re being pushed to marry,” said Omari. “Many call me to cry.”

Even though the Taliban-run government remains internationally isolated and under heavy sanctions, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s cricket board said it was recently granted about $16 million from the Dubai-based International Cricket Council, with media reports suggesting that Afghan cricket can expect to receive similar annual contributions in coming years.

In a statement, the ICC said it “will not penalise the [Afghanistan Cricket Board], or its players for abiding by the laws set by the government of their country,” but continues to advocate for women’s cricket in the country. The ICC does not release public details on member funding.

In an interview, Hamdullah Nomani, the Taliban’s minister of urban development, said plans to construct a major new cricket stadium in Kabul have been discussed at the highest levels of leadership. Although the idea for a new stadium originated under the previous government, the Taliban-run government appears intent on helping to finish the project with private funding.

The government’s primary concern is that the stadium might not be big enough. “There’s not enough land,” Nomani said.
Why I opened a secret school for Afghan girls (The Economist – opinion)
The Economist [2/26/2024 11:58 AM, Neggeen Sadid, 1141K, Neutral]
The first sign that the Taliban knew about Roya Azimi’s secret school for girls was when one of her neighbours phoned her last winter. “Tomorrow, they’ll take you away, they’ll take your husband,” the man said coldly. He owned a shop in the area and acted as an unofficial intermediary between local residents and the Taliban. “It’s not my responsibility. I’m just warning you.”

Azimi, 33, set up the school in her home in 2022, when the Taliban issued a de facto ban on secondary education for girls. She and six other women teach about 150 girls between the ages of nine and 18. Knowing there was a chance her house would come under suspicion, she had already found a back-up building with enough room for the pupils. The day after the phone call she went out into the snow-covered streets, whiteboard and markers hidden under her burqa, and set up the new classroom.

But it wasn’t the end of Azimi’s troubles. A few weeks later one of her teachers, a woman called Najela Muradi, saw something that made her heart skip a beat: a green Ford pickup truck parked in the street outside. America had brought thousands of trucks into the country to supply the Afghan police – now they belonged to the Taliban. As Muradi walked down the road, the vehicle prowled behind her. When she got home she called Azimi, her voice shaking with fear.

Azimi already knew they had a problem – a neighbour had phoned to tell her that officers from the Ministry of Virtue and Vice, the Taliban’s notorious religious enforcement agency, had tried to enter the school. The neighbour managed to persuade the men that it was just a girls’ sewing class, and they left. But Azimi knew they could easily come back. She decided to close the school for a few days, telling the girls that the staff needed to revise the curriculum.

She wasn’t sure what the consequences would be if they got caught. Since the Taliban returned to power in 2021 they have issued 75 edicts aimed at keeping women in the home and have arrested people for protesting against them. It is likely that someone found to be educating girls would be severely punished by the Taliban.

The teachers met to discuss what they should do, talking in a corridor so that no one could see them through the windows. Some of them thought they should close the school altogether, fearing that the Taliban would arrest them. Others argued that the next generation of women relied on them to keep hope alive. In the end they decided to keep the school open.

Azimi grew up in north-eastern Afghanistan, and as a child she only narrowly escaped being taken out of school herself. Her father wanted her to have a secondary education, but when he had to move to another province for work, her mother’s brothers took his place as heads of the family.

One day, when Azimi was around 12, a man saw her walking to school and told her that when she was older she would be “nice property” for someone. Her uncles said she should stop going to school because it was bringing shame on the family. Her mother, who had been forced to leave school herself at a similar age, persuaded them to let Azimi keep going so long as she wore a burqa.

Some of the teachers thought they should close the school, fearing that the Taliban would arrest them. Others argued that the girls relied on them to keep hope alive

Azimi finished secondary school and went to study Persian literature at university. It was there she became an activist: she and a group of friends used to visit schools and give talks to the girls on women’s rights. She carried on with activism after university, combining it with a management job at a school. When the Taliban stopped girls from going to secondary school, Azimi knew straight away what she had to do. First she asked her friends who had fled Afghanistan to send her some money. Then she got in touch with Muradi, an old friend, and the pair made a list of the best female teachers in the province.

One by one, Azimi visited all the teachers on the list to ask them if they would join the school (she didn’t want to risk phoning them, in case someone was listening in). She tried hard to convince them, explaining that they had a moral duty to protect the freedoms introduced by the previous government. After all, hadn’t they benefited from those freedoms themselves? Although most of the teachers were too afraid to join her, some agreed.

Muradi, now 24, was one of the first. Azimi sent me a video of one of her lessons. There are no children’s drawings on the walls of the classroom; the only signs that it’s used for teaching are the whiteboard and the timetable pinned to the door. Girls of various ages sit cross-legged on the floor, conjugating English verbs. Muradi tries to keep them engaged by calling out their names, but the atmosphere feels lethargic.

Many of the children are barely eating, Azimi told me. When the Taliban took over, Western donors suspended aid payments and America froze the $9bn that the country held in foreign reserves. This worsened a hunger crisis in the country: aid agencies estimate that a third of Afghan children don’t have enough to eat.

Muradi is hungry, too. Since she turned 18 she has been the main breadwinner in her family, providing for her younger sisters, parents and several other relatives. After losing her job at an NGO when the Taliban took over, she is now scraping by on credit and the small stipend Azimi gives her. “My sisters are often hungry. I know I don’t give them enough to eat. But they would never speak about it to anyone,” she said. “Girls of that age have pride.”

Pupils are drilled on security: did they keep their notebooks and pens hidden on their way in? Were they conservatively dressed? Did they stagger their arrival times?

She feels very protective of her students. Next to their names on the class register are details about their families, their interests, their problems. There is Kawsar, 16, whose father died (many of the girls have dead or absent fathers). Though desperately poor, Kawsar and her sisters come to classes well prepared and ready to learn. There is Sima, 17, who always speaks up in class, and is confident enough to admit if she hasn’t done her homework. There is Nasiba, 14, who is usually underprepared for lessons – Muradi suspects she has problems at home but doesn’t dare ask her family in case it gets Nasiba into trouble.

Then there is Maryam, 17, who often has to stay at home to help with chores (something that happens more often now school is no longer “official”, she said). Maryam told me she had heard about Azimi’s school through friends, and asked her mother if she could go (she was scared to ask her father directly, she said). Her mother said no, and told Maryam that it was safer to stay at home. When she raised the subject again, her mother shut her down. “That’s enough,” she said, “you’ve studied enough.”

“Mother, what are you saying?” Maryam replied. “I’ve only studied till the ninth grade!” She got in touch with Azimi, who called Maryam’s mother and convinced her that school would be good for her daughter. Azimi persuaded her to talk to her husband, who gave his permission for Maryam to attend the school. Maryam’s brother, a shopkeeper, was sceptical. “And what will you do with this education, anyway, marry a Talib?” he said.

Maryam told me how scared she feels on her walk to school each day. “They don’t support us outside,” she said. When I asked who she meant she said, “You know, ordinary people. The shopkeepers, the street vendors.” It would take only one of them to report her to the Taliban for Maryam and her family to face arrest.

Pupils at the secret school are drilled on security: did they keep their notebooks and pens hidden on their way in? Were they conservatively dressed? Did they stagger their arrival times? Their teachers use Nokia “brick phones” to communicate with each other as they worry that the Taliban could hack a smartphone (it’s unclear whether the Taliban have the capacity to do this, although they have embraced technology since they were last in charge).

Despite the risks she and her colleagues are taking, Azimi says she’s not scared. “I have this strength…and that’s not something everyone has”

Muradi is afraid that one of her pupils will reveal the existence of the school to the Taliban. What if their parents don’t have an excuse ready when someone drops by and asks where their daughter is? Muradi said that since the Taliban retook power, she has realised how many of her friends, neighbours and colleagues were on their side all along. Her greatest fear is that one of the girls in her class might be working for Taliban intelligence.

Despite the risks she and her colleagues are taking, Azimi says she’s not scared. “I have this strength…and that’s not something everyone has.” She sees it as her job to embolden her staff, many of whom are terrified. “[Teaching] is not against your religion, beliefs, your culture or your people,” she tells them. “Have pride.”

Azimi also gives strength to her pupils. She knows the pressures they are under, and that those with dry lips and pale faces, who turn up in clothes that are unsuitable for the weather and are unable to focus on their work, are likely to be suffering at home. One has a brother who rips up her books. But she won’t let her students give into despair. “It’s possible everything will change. You might need 20 years, but this is Afghanistan” she says, encouraging them to see the long view. “Be people who know something.”
Pakistan
Pakistan Lawmakers to Meet February 29 to Elect New PM (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [2/26/2024 8:27 AM, Ismail Dilawar and Kamran Haider, 5543K, Neutral]
Pakistan’s lawmakers will meet on February 29 to elect a prime minister with former premier Shehbaz Sharif expected to take the job after his party formed a coalition to shut out jailed leader Imran Khan’s group despite it winning the most seats in contentious elections, Geo News television channel reported.

The legislators will elect a new speaker, deputy speaker and the prime minister in the first session of National Assembly, or lower house, the broadcaster said, citing unidentified officials at the office of the outgoing speaker, Raja Pervez Ashraf. Information Minister Murtaza Solangi did not immediately confirm the date.

The meeting comes weeks after the Feb 8. national polls and as two family-controlled parties - Pakistan Muslim League-N led by former three times premier Nawaz Sharif and Pakistan Peoples Party co-chaired by ex-president Asif Ali Zardari and his son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari - agreed to form a coalition government to shut out jailed leader Imran Khan’s group despite it winning the most seats in contentious elections.

The parliament proceedings to elect the prime minister for the next five years is widely seen to be procedural as the coalition partners have already nominated Nawaz Sharif’s younger sibling, Shehbaz Sharif, as their candidate for the top job. They control 152 out of the 265 National Assembly seats. This does not include independent candidates who are joining different political parties after the elections.

Sharif comes up against Khan’s nominee for prime minister — Omar Ayub Khan, who is the grandson of a former military ruler. Ayub Khan has the support of independents associated with the cricket legend’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party who have joined a conservative Islamic party to secure reserved seats. They now control more than 90 seats in total but how many of the independent candidates would switch to other political parties remains unclear.

Whoever becomes prime minister will need to immediately start negotiating with the International Monetary Fund for a new loan to support the cash-strapped economy. A Pakistani official told Bloomberg News that the country is seeking a fresh loan of at least $6 billion to repay billions of dollars in debt due this year.
Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan, wife indicted on graft charges (Reuters)
Reuters [2/27/2024 3:57 AM, Asif Shahzad, 5.2M, Neutral]
A Pakistani court indicted jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi on Tuesday on charges that they allegedly received land as a bribe during his premiership,
his party said.

Khan, 71, has been in jail since August in connection with other cases, and has previously denied the allegations. He had already been convicted in two cases on corruption charges, that disqualified him from taking part in politics for 10 years.

The trial was held on a jail’s premises. The couple pleaded not guilty, the party said.

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party backed candidates won the largest number of seats in parliament in Feb. 8 national elections despite the convictions and what it says a military backed crackdown.

But his opposition parties led by the Sharif and Bhutto dynasties cobbled together an alliance to make a minority coalition government.

The latest indictment is related to Al-Qadir Trust, which is a non-governmental welfare organization set up by Khan and his third wife Bushra Bibi in 2018 when he was still in office.

Prosecutors say the trust was a front for Khan to receive valuable land as a bribe from a real estate developer, Malik Riaz Hussain, who is one of Pakistan’s richest and most powerful businessmen.

The PTI condemned the indictment. "Trials conducted behind prison walls, only meant to paving way for miscarriage of justice," it said in a statement.
A senior police officer and 2 wanted Pakistani Taliban members were killed in a shootout, police say (AP)
AP [2/27/2024 2:01 AM, Staff, 456K, Neutral]
A senior police officer and two wanted Pakistani Taliban members died in an intense shootout set off when police raided a militant hideout early Tuesday in the country’s northwest, a local police official said.

Two other police officers were wounded in the shootout early Tuesday in Mardan, a city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The local official, Hidayat Ullah, identified the slain police superintendent as Ijaz Khan, who led the raid.

The two Taliban members who were killed were being sought by police over their alleged connection to more than 20 past attacks on security forces and a monetary reward had been offered for any information leading to their arrest.

The Pakistani Taliban, who routinely target security forces in the northwest bordering Afghanistan, had no immediate comment.

The group known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP are separate from but allies of the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops were leaving the country.
Pakistan Arrests Two Journalists as X Remains Restricted for 10 Days (VOA)
VOA [2/26/2024 8:08 PM, Ayaz Gul, 761K, Neutral]
Authorities in Pakistan detained a journalist Monday, the second within a week, while domestic access to social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, remained disrupted for a 10th consecutive day.

The crackdown comes amid widespread electoral fraud allegations following parliamentary elections, fueling concerns about freedom of speech in a country known for throttling media.

Asad Ali Toor, an independent journalist with nearly 300,000 followers on X and more than 160,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel, was taken into custody Monday evening by the Federal Investigation Agency, or FIA, his lawyer confirmed.

Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir said that the FIA’s cybercrime reporting center in the capital, Islamabad, had summoned Toor earlier in the day to join an inquiry into allegations that he was running a “malicious campaign” through social media platforms against top judges, including the country’s chief justice.

“[The] manner in which journalists in this country are being treated is appalling. Constitutional Courts must play their role 2 [sic] ensure fundamental rights are not brazenly violated in this manner,” the lawyer wrote on X.

The FIA or government officials immediately did not comment on Toor’s detention, which has outraged journalists and human rights activists.

“The assault on press freedom in Pakistan continues to strengthen as journalists are arrested simply for reporting, asking critical questions, & speaking truth to power,” Usama Khilji, a digital rights activist, said on X.

He noted that Toor was critical of some of the controversial rulings that Supreme Court Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa announced.

“Is the Supreme Court above criticism? Is the media’s role of accountability obsolete? Is this still a democracy?” Khilji asked.

Munizae Jahangir, a television talk show host and co-chairperson of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said they would stage a rally against the arrest and “for freedom of expression” in Islamabad on Tuesday.

“Arrest of @AsadAToor must be condemned. Criticism of judgments is not a crime & they are public property,” Jahangir wrote on X, adding that “it is a journalist’s duty and right to criticize” judgments and comment on court proceedings.

Last Thursday, police in the country’s most populous province of Punjab arrested Imran Riaz Khan in a late-night raid on his home, citing corruption charges. He denied any wrongdoing and told the judge during a Friday court hearing that he was being targeted for his critical reporting on alleged state-sponsored rigging in the national elections.

Khan returned home only recently after allegedly being detained and tortured for five months by Pakistani intelligence agency operatives. He has 5.6 million followers on X and 4.6 million subscribers to his YouTube channel.

X remains blocked

Meanwhile, X services remained restricted in Pakistan on Monday, 10 days after services were suspended amid allegations of massive rigging in the February 8 vote.

“Metrics show that X/Twitter remains restricted in #Pakistan into a tenth day, as the nation joins an exclusive set of countries that have imposed extended or permanent bans on international social media platforms,” Netblocks, a U.K.-based global cybersecurity watchdog, said on X.

Pakistan has experienced five internet service interruptions since the beginning of 2024, affecting its 128 million users, Surfshark, a Lithuania-based internet shutdown tracker, reported last week.

It said that three restrictions happened this month and were directly related to the parliamentary elections, while the remaining two happened in January during virtual campaign events organized by jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s opposition, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, party.

Many Pakistani users are skirting the restriction through virtual private networks, or VPNs, which allow users to hide online locations and identities.

“With reports of VPN restrictions coming to light as well, it seems that the country is prepared to take any means necessary to cut its citizens off from each other and the rest of the world,” said Lina Survila, the Surfshark spokeswoman.

Authorities shut down mobile internet services across Pakistan on election day and for several hours beyond, citing terrorism threats to the electoral process. The move, however, triggered domestic and international backlash and fueled vote-rigging allegations.

PTI alleged the communications blackout was carried out to manipulate final results, preventing its candidates from winning and enabling pro-military parties to gain the upper hand despite losing by big margins in initial projections.

The interim government has rejected the fraud charges and dismissed calls from several countries, including the United States and Britain, to fully investigate the allegations as an interference in Pakistan’s internal affairs.
Ex-PM Nawaz’s daughter is Pakistan’s first female provincial chief minister (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera [2/26/2024 6:46 AM, Abid Hussain, 2060K, Neutral]
Maryam Nawaz, the daughter of three-time former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, has been elected the chief minister of the key province of Punjab – the country’s first woman to hold the post.

Maryam’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) and its allies on Monday received 220 votes in the 371-member Punjab Assembly in an election boycotted by the opposition Sunni Ittehad Council party, backed by jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Khan alleges the February 8 parliamentary and provincial elections were rigged – an allegation denied by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

“I am disappointed the opposition is not here to be part of this democratic process,” Maryam, 50, said on the opposition’s boycott of her election.

Political dynasty

Maryam is the fourth member of her family to become Punjab chief minister after her father Nawaz Sharif, his brother Shehbaz, and Shehbaz’s son Hamza who held the post for a few months last year.

Shehbaz could return as prime minister for a second term when the parliament meets later this week.

Born in 1973, Maryam is the eldest among four siblings and was not into politics until 2013 when Nawaz became the prime minister for the third time. Soon, she emerged as the family’s apparent political heir while her brothers handled the business.

After Nawaz was disqualified from the post of the prime minister in 2017 for lying in his assets declarations before the ECP, Maryam assumed a more prominent role in the party.

However, days before the 2018 election, which she planned to contest, a court in capital Islamabad convicted her of corruption, along with her father and her husband. The conviction disqualified her from contesting elections for a decade.

A year later, she was relieved in the case while Nawaz, suffering ill health, went into self-imposed exile in the United Kingdom, from where he returned in October last year.

‘Landmark event’

Nida Kirmani, associate professor of sociology at Lahore University of Management Science, told Al Jazeera Maryam’s election as Punjab chief minister “may not necessarily be a victory for women’s empowerment, it is certainly a landmark event” in Pakistan’s political history.

“One hopes that she will use her position to further the cause of gender equality in her province and set an example for the rest of the country to follow,” Kirmani said.

Pakistan was the first Muslim-majority country to elect a female prime minister when Benazir Bhutto took over in 1988. She won for a second time in 1993.

Both Maryam and Bhutto belong to Pakistan’s prominent political dynasties who have been ruling over the country for decades. Bhutto’s son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is currently the head of the Pakistan People’s Party, the second-largest party in parliament and a dominant player in the Sindh province.

Kirmani said Maryam’s appointment follows a trend of dynastic politics not only in Pakistan but across the region.

“It is a reality that many women who occupy powerful positions do so partially because of their family backgrounds. Changing this would require a change in the structure of the political system and the structure of patriarchy itself,” she said.

“Like other women in powerful positions, Maryam will have to work twice as hard to prove herself as a worthy political leader in her own right.”

However, with questions over the legitimacy of the election and faced with reviving her party, other observers say Maryam’s tenure will not be an easy one.

Political commentator Asma Shirazi told Al Jazeera the biggest challenge for her would be to revive the PMLN’s popularity in a province considered the party’s bastion.

“She has to focus on performance, but also how she behaves with her rivals. She must keep the house [provincial assembly] together,” she said.

Afiya Shehrbano Zia, scholar and gender rights activist, thinks Maryam should reach out to those committed to fighting the larger challenges in the province.

“If [her] office shows a compassionate but strong female face, much can be achieved and she will gain legitimacy. But it cannot be performative. She must carve out her own identity which will require angering and crossing the old Punjabi men and holding her own,” she told Al Jazeera.
India
U.S. seeks closer defense supply chain ties with Japan, India: official (Nikkei Asia)
Nikkei Asia [2/26/2024 1:02 PM, Ryo Nakamura, 293K, Negative]
The U.S. intends to increase defense industrial cooperation with Japan, India and other partners in the Indo-Pacific, a senior Pentagon official told Nikkei Asia, to build supply chain resilience in the face of threats like China.

"A strong industrial base is a deterrent," said Laura Taylor-Kale, assistant secretary of defense for industrial base policy.

"Keeping in mind the pacing threat in the Indo-Pacific, we ... recognize that it is important for us to really understand the industrial base as a strategic asset," she noted in an interview with Nikkei Asia on Friday.

The Pentagon’s first-ever national defense industrial strategy, released in January and authored by Taylor-Kale, warns that China "became the global industrial powerhouse in many key areas -- from shipbuilding to critical minerals to microelectronics -- that vastly exceeds the capacity of not just the United States, but the combined output of our key European and Asian allies as well."

The Pentagon has referred to China as a "pacing threat" against which U.S. defense planners must measure their decisions.

While aiming to build up U.S. domestic production capacity in the long term, Taylor-Kale said that working with allies and partners is crucial for securing critical minerals and other raw materials to produce defense equipment and ammunitions in the near term.

"In the short and the medium term, we have to work very closely with our allies and partners to do that," the assistant secretary said. "I view this strategy as really an opening for us to have these conversations and to agree on areas where we know that there are challenges for all of us."

In 2023, the U.S. concluded bilateral Security of Supply Arrangement deals with Japan, South Korea and Singapore. The deals let the Pentagon request priority delivery for American defense contractors from companies in these countries in emergencies.

"We can use those [arrangements] to build further cooperation," Taylor-Kale said. In addition to those three countries, she cited India and Australia, with which the Pentagon intends to enhance defense industrial cooperation, but stressed that she does not exclude other countries in the region.

The assistant secretary noted the significance of the U.S. designating certain businesses in Australia and the U.K. as domestic sources under the Defense Production Act in 2023. The move opens the door to Washington subsidizing companies from the two allies to produce critical minerals, strategic materials and other goods.

Taylor-Kale stopped short of calling for multilateral talks on arms production in the Indo-Pacific.

"I think we are at a stage where we’re having these conversations with a lot of our bilateral partners. And I think it will be important to keep going forward and doing that," she said. "Hopefully, we’ll come to some sort of agreement there on how we want to move forward and whether or not it’s even desirable to move forward on multilateral."

Following lessons from the war in Ukraine, the strategy proposed exploring a new consultation group with Indo-Pacific countries to deepen defense industry cooperation and solve production challenges.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has convened regular meetings of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. Over 50 nations participated, looking to coordinate weapons deliveries and tackle common challenges to accelerate output. Washington also has organized engagements with national armaments directors.

One challenge for Washington is how to handle the proposed takeover of U.S. Steel by Nippon Steel. While advocating for supply chain integration, the U.S. flagged the deal for national security concerns, posing the question of a double standard.

"I think we are open in having conversations about what it means to work together in economic cooperation while [maintaining] our national security," Taylor-Kale said.
Where’s India? Key holdout country’s minister absent from WTO meeting (Reuters)
Reuters [2/26/2024 7:13 AM, Emma Farge and Rachna Uppal, 11975K, Neutral]
India’s trade minister, seen as the main holdout in global trade negotiations in Abu Dhabi, missed the start of a major World Trade Organization meeting on Monday, sparking concerns that his absence could hamper discussions.

India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal is expected to be one of the main players at the four-day talks where delegates are seeking deals on fisheries and digital trade tariffs.

Instead, he was at a textile event in New Delhi attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and is not expected at the WTO meeting until late on Tuesday or Wednesday, some delegates said, privately voicing concern since he might miss other key ministers completely.

WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said that participation in the conference was "excellent" and that she was not concerned.

"There is no mystery, it is just some slight mistiming and he will be here with us," she said in response to a question about Goyal’s participation. "So I think we are in good shape there, I’m not too worried about it."

Other members of India’s delegation are in Abu Dhabi and an official in Goyal’s ministry said he would join them on Tuesday and was likely to stay until the end of the conference.

India has a history of blocking multilateral negotiations and Goyal was expected to oppose deals at the WTO’s last major meeting in Geneva in 2022 but then dropped opposition.

His absence did not prevent him from, via a pre-recorded statement posted on the WTO website on Monday, making a fresh push for a stand-alone permanent waiver to WTO rules that currently restrict domestic agriculture subsidies on food items like rice.

Several Western countries have privately said they would never accept this.

"Finding a permanent solution on public stockholding remains an unaccomplished agenda on which we have to deliver," Goyal said, adding that this was needed to cut global hunger by 2030.

He also said the global trade watchdog should not negotiate on non-trade issues such as climate change, gender or labour.

India has already said it would oppose U.S. and European efforts to extend a global ban on cross-border e-commerce duties during the meeting.

New Delhi maintains it is fighting to protect livelihoods in developing nations.
Ahead of India election, tension brews in Kashmir over tribal caste quotas (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera [2/27/2024 3:00 AM, Tarushi Aswani, 2.1M, Neutral]
Like many people from his nomadic tribal community, Bashir Ahmed Gujjar, a 70-year-old shepherd, never went to school.

Poor and often on the move, formal education was not an option.

Things changed for the Gujjars, his community, after the government introduced quotas for what are known in India as Scheduled Tribes (STs), in state-run educational institutions and government jobs in 1991 as part of an affirmative action programme for historically marginalised groups. Gujjars were included in the beneficiaries.

Families decided to send their children to school and college. “My children, my nieces and nephews have all been fortunate enough to have received education because of the ST status bestowed on us by the government,” Bashir told Al Jazeera at his home in the region’s Pulwama district. He said his niece now works as a teacher in a government school in Tral because of the job quotas that Gujjars can avail.

Now, he fears the next generation of his community could lose out on those gains of the past three decades.

Earlier this month on February 6, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government passed a legal amendment to include another community, the Paharis, within the list of STs. At the time, federal Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda said the law would not erode the education and job quotas currently available for existing tribes — but would add additional quotas for new communities.

But the government is yet to explain how it plans to do that, leading to fears among the Gujjars and Bakarwals, two major tribal communities originally covered by the affirmative action, that they will now need to split their benefits with the Paharis who have historically been seen as better off.

“We have no hope for the future. The government is giving our share of guarantees to others,” Bashir said.

The government move has sparked a wave of protests by Gujjar and Bakerwal community groups, demanding that the amendment be repealed. The move has also spawned caste divisions in a region already on the edge over other controversial moves by the Modi government in recent years.

The decision to add Paharis to the list of STs could affect the national elections, expected to be held between March and May.

‘Using reservation to sway Paharis’

The Paharis consist of Hindus and Sikhs – who mostly migrated from what is now Pakistan when the subcontinent was carved up during partition in 1947 – and a significant number of Muslims.

Constituting about 8 percent of the region’s 16 million people, nearly two-thirds of Paharis live in the Jammu area towards the south of Indian-administered Kashmir, while a few reside in forests in the north.

The current tensions are rooted in the events of 2019 when, in a sudden move, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government abolished the special status of the region and brought it under New Delhi’s direct rule.

Since then, the Gujjars and Bakarwals allege that the BJP has been trying to induct the Paharis into the ST category.

India’s affirmative action to uplift its historically marginalised groups – mainly underprivileged castes and Indigenous tribes – also includes a provision to reserve seats for them in legislative assemblies.

In Indian-administered Kashmir, also referred to as Jammu and Kashmir in official documents, state assembly seats for the Gujjar and Bakarwal communities were reserved in 2004.

Members of these two communities – who form about 10 percent of the region’s population – now allege that the BJP is trying to patronise the Paharis community for political benefits ahead of the general election.

More than 200km (124 miles) away from Tral, in Jammu, Javid Chohan, another Gujjar, said the government was trying to curb protests through a heightened police presence and internet blackouts.

“The BJP is using reservation to sway the region’s Pahari-speaking population to strengthen its Hindu vote bank in Jammu,” he told Al Jazeera. Unlike the Paharis, the Gujjars and Bakarwals of the region are predominantly Muslim.

Pro-India political parties also allege that the BJP is using the community to peddle its politics, like it did with its promise in its 2014 and 2019 election manifestos to resettle thousands of Kashmiri Hindus, called Pandits, displaced by the rise of an anti-India rebel movement in the late 1980s.

“First, they used Kashmiri Pandits to win the 2019 election. This time, the Paharis are being politicised. The BJP is pitting communities who have lived in harmony for centuries against each other,” Waheed Ur Rehman Para of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), told Al Jazeera. “They are stealing from one’s plate to feed the other.”

Naik Alam, an elected representative of the Gutroo village in Tral, said the BJP was “simply misusing” law to show that Hindus can also get a reservation in a Muslim-majority region.

What’s the BJP’s election game plan?

In the 90-member legislative assembly in Indian-administered Kashmir, the BJP, which predominantly relies on Hindu votes, has traditionally done well in the Jammu region, where Hindus are in the majority. But it has struggled to make political inroads in the Kashmir region, where Muslims are in majority.

Spanning Jammu and Kashmir are nine seats in the legislature that are reserved for STs. Critics of the BJP argue that winning these could help it secure an overall majority in the legislature: The state assembly elections are also expected to be held later this year.

In 2020, the federal government granted 4 percent reservation, as a linguistic minority, to the Paharis, who form the majority in at least 10 constituencies. If given the ST status, the group could contest the seats reserved for STs in the legislature and challenge the traditional dominance of Gujjars and Bakarwals in these sets. Gujjars and Bakarwals are predominantly Muslims, who rarely vote for the BJP.

Gujjar activist Guftar Ahmed Choudhary said the BJP’s move would backfire.

“We are protesting for our rights. Our youth leaders are being targeted and even pressured by the authorities to give up the movement… This is completely unconstitutional and the BJP will suffer in the coming elections,” Choudhary told Al Jazeera.

But according to BJP’s Kavinder Gupta, a former deputy chief minister of the region, reservations for the Paharis were long due. He alleged that Kashmiri political parties regarded the community as second-class citizens and ignored their development.

“We were only trying to bring the Paharis into the mainstream since they have always been sidelined by the Kashmiris,” Gupta told Al Jazeera.

Lawyer Ahsan Mirza, a member of the Pahari Tribe ST Forum, a group working for the welfare of the Paharis, said the community had been previously assured by the BJP of a place in the tribal quota.

Iqbal Hussain Shah, another Pahari activist in the Jammu district of Rajouri, echoed Gupta’s comments to argue that the Paharis were discriminated against for decades. He also suggested that even Muslim Paharis would now back the BJP, a Hindu-majority party.

“Gujjars and Bakerwals got the ST status in 1991 and the BJP got us this status finally, after three decades. All Paharis will definitely support the BJP in the upcoming election,” he said.

But Zahid Parwaz Choudhary, the head of the Gujjar-Bakarwal Youth Welfare Conference, sees a more sinister plan on the part of the BJP.

“Now that Paharis are declared as STs, the community would eat into the opportunities aimed at the social and economic empowerment of the Gujjars and Bakarwals,” he told Al Jazeera.

“It is simple: BJP knows it cannot secure many votes in Kashmir, so they are using the Paharis to cut the vote share of other political parties.”
‘Why are you asleep?’ Rahul Gandhi pleads with India’s low castes to vote out Modi (The Guardian)
The Guardian [2/26/2024 11:00 PM, Amrit Dhillon, 12499K, Neutral]
His voice hoarse from all the speeches he had made during his 4,000-mile march across the breadth of India, Rahul Gandhi urged people at a rally in Uttar Pradesh state to think hard.

Specifically, to think hard about caste. “Are there any of you Dalits or other low castes in the judiciary?” the leading face of India’s opposition Congress party, asked the crowd. “Are any of you in the media? Do any of you own even one of India’s 200 top companies? Of the civil servant class which rules this country, are any of you among them?

“Why are you all asleep? Don’t you see you’re being fooled? There are hardly any of you in these institutions. You are 73% of the population. What kind of society is this where you don’t make any decisions?”

Gandhi is the fifth generation of the illustrious first family that used to tower over Indian politics but which has lost some of its aura in recent years. As he makes his third attempt to defeat the Hindu nationalist prime minister, Narendra Modi, after defeats in 2014 and 2019, he has pitched himself as an unlikely man of the people, calling for a “caste census” that would shine a light on who owns wealth and wields power.

At the heart of his campaign ahead of the election, which is likely to be held in May, Gandhi has been walking across the country, from east to west, holding rallies every day.

Last week the march took him through Allahabad, a town closely linked with the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty which has given India three prime ministers.

His cavalcade set off from Anand Bhawan, the historic house, now a museum, from where his great grandfather and grand­father took part in the freedom movement against British rule.

By the time he reached a local landmark, a former cinema called Laxmi Talkies, a huge crowd had assembled. Although Gandhi used to be an indifferent speaker, the long march with its endless rallies has lifted his oratory. His voice carries more conviction. He is more adept at working a crowd. Long dismissed as an irrelevant dilettante by the ruling Bharatiya Janata party of prime Minister Modi and scorned as an entitled dynast, Gandhi has proved on this march – and on his first march last year which took him from south to north – that he can handle the grind of grassroots politics and connect with ordinary Indians.

India, says Gandhi, is in the dark about caste, the rigid Hindu system of social hierarchy. “You’re nowhere,” he tells the crowds. “You have to find out what is your share in the country’s wealth. How much wealth do the 73% castes have in this country? This will reveal everything.”

India’s affirmative action of the past few decades has been based on estimates. The last caste census was in 1931, under British rule. The findings of a census in 2011 were never made public. Late last year, the government of Bihar state, ruled by a local party, became the first to carry out a caste census. It revealed that more than two-thirds of its 130 million people belonged to so-called “backward” or marginalised communities, a much higher figure than most people imagined. Gandhi is demanding a similar census in all of India’s 28 states. He wants more clarity on the respective sizes of each category of caste that has been the basis for affirmative action.

Despite decades of such action, social inequality remains extreme. The privileged castes still control the bulk of the country’s resources and make most of the decisions. In its 2023 Davos report, Oxfam said 60% of the country’s wealth was held by the richest 5% of citizens.

Whether Gandhi’s demand will win voters is an unknown. “He has nothing else. His party tried a soft version of the ruling BJP’s Hindu nationalism and it didn’t work,” said Asim Ali, a political researcher. But, he added: “This focus on caste has come a bit late. It will need five to 10 years to mobilise opinion on this. It’s too late to have an impact on this general election.”

The opposition alliance of which Congress is a member has been lurching from crisis to crisis. Beyond wanting to topple Modi, little unites the more than two dozen parties in the India coalition, as it is known by its acronym. Compared with the monolith of the BJP which exudes confidence about coming back with an even larger majority – together with its partners it won 353 of the 543 parliamentary seats in 2019 – the India alliance is struggling even with the basics such as seat-sharing arrangements in key constituencies.

On the caste census, it’s quite clear that Gandhi feels he is on to something and is running with it. On its own, maybe it would not fly but if he can latch it to unemployment and inflation, his party feels there is a chance to undercut the BJP’s support.

As Sanjay Jha, a former Congress leader and now a political analyst, points out, among those devastated by the pandemic and reeling from economic hardship, the call for a caste census to re-allocate the country’s resources will strike a chord.

“If, after 10 years of Modi’s rule, they look at their lives and see that all they have got is a cooking gas cylinder and some free grain, they are going to wonder if it’s enough,” says Jha.

The BJP has been successful in subsuming caste differences under its ideology of Hindu nationalism. Neerja Chowdhury, a political analyst, says Gandhi is hoping to crack the caste consolidation that the BJP has achieved by creating a new caste consciousness to show people they have been hoodwinked.

“But where Gandhi is failing is articulating this message in an idiom that will click or in a catchy slogan that’s part of a narrative that could project him as an alternative to Modi. That isn’t happening,” she said.
Indian finance minister asks cenbank, fintechs to hold monthly meetings in wake of Paytm (Reuters)
Reuters [2/26/2024 12:31 PM, Nikunj Ohri, 5239K, Neutral]
India’s finance minister has asked the Reserve Bank of India to hold monthly meetings with fintech firms to address their regulatory concerns, the ministry said in a statement, following a crisis at Paytm Payments Bank triggered by a central bank order.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman met representatives from the fintech industry on Monday to hear their concerns in the wake of the central bank’s order to Paytm Payments Bank to stop accepting fresh deposits in its account or popular wallets from March.

However, the developments at Paytm Payments Bank - an associate of One 97 Communications - were not discussed in the meeting, said two government officials who attended the meeting.

The finance ministry will meet Indian law enforcement agencies and fintech firms soon, one of the two officials said. The meeting would help convey concerns of fintech firms to different enforcement agencies, the ministry statement said.

The central bank and government would look at the concerns raised by some listed fintech companies regarding their ownership structure, it said.

The government will also take steps to simplify ‘know your customer’ (KYC) norms across the fintech space, it added.
Runaway train speeds 43 miles down tracks in India without a driver (CBS News)
CBS News [2/26/2024 9:11 AM, Arshad R. Zargar, 13914K, Negative]
Social media channels lit up Monday as gobsmacked Indians shared a video showing a driverless train zooming past several stations at high speed. It was no cutting-edge robotic public transport innovation, however — but a fully loaded freight train that was apparently left unattended, on a slope, by an engineer who forgot to pull the emergency brake.

Indian Railways, the national rail operator, ordered an investigation Monday into what could have been a major disaster in a country where train tracks often bisect busy neighborhoods and collisions are common.

"We have ordered an inquiry," Deepak Kumar, a Northern Railways spokesperson, told the French news agency AFP, adding that no one had been hurt in the incident.

The 53-carriage freight train loaded with gravel was on its way from Jammu in northern India to Punjab on Sunday morning when it stopped in Kathua for a crew change. Indian media reports say the driver and his assistant got off without applying the skid brakes.

It soon started rolling down the tracks, which are on a gradient, before eventually barreling down the line at 53 miles per hour, racing through several stations and covering 43 miles in total before it was brought to a halt.

Videos shared on social media showed the train zooming through stations at high speed.

Officials had closed off railway crossings on the train’s path to avoid accidents.

Wooden blocks were then placed on the tracks to reduce the speed of the train and, eventually, they brought it to a stop.

This is the second such incident in India. In 2018, about 1,000 passengers had a narrow escape when their train, running from the western state of Gujarat to Odisha in the east, rolled about 7 miles without a driver. The cause of that incident was the same: The driver had forgotten to apply skid brakes at a station when the engine was being changed.

In June 2023, nearly 300 people were killed in a train collision in eastern India caused by a signal system error. In 2016, 152 people were killed when a passenger train derailed in the central state of Uttar Pradesh.

The country’s worst train disaster, which killed more than 800 people in 1981, was when a passenger train derailed and tumbled into a river in the eastern state of Bihar during a cyclone.

India has one of the largest railway networks in the world, and an estimated 13 million people travel on trains every day. But significant investment in recent years aimed at modernizing the network, a significant proportion of the country’s rail infrastructure is still outdated.
What Modi’s UAE Trip Means for IMEC (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [2/26/2024 9:42 AM, Seamus Duffy, 201K, Negative]
Earlier this month, during his visit to the UAE, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi signed an agreement with Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed on the operation of the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC). The corridor, itself the product of an MOU signed on the sidelines of last September’s G-20 summit in New Delhi, promises to transport goods from the west coast of India to Europe via ports on the Persian Gulf, overland links on the Arabian peninsula, and Israeli harbors on the Mediterranean.

The development is somewhat surprising because, following the outbreak of hostilities in Gaza, analysts were quick to point out that it would be very difficult to operationalize IMEC amid regional tensions, a fact even India was willing to admit. The latest agreement, however, comes on the heels of several developments in IMEC over the last few months that suggest that predictions of its death may have been premature. Amid the Houthis’ ongoing attacks against shipping, freight volumes in the Red Sea have declined by nearly 80 percent. The devastating impact on Red Sea shipping, however, has provided a golden opportunity for IMEC to serve as an alternative route around the blockade. Several Israeli firms have already signed agreements with their Emirati counterparts to begin transporting goods overland from Dubai to the Israeli port of Haifa.

The ongoing crisis in the Red Sea has created a strong impetus among IMEC partners to facilitate the project quickly. India has faced difficulties in the last year putting the finishing touches on its other regional infrastructure initiatives, particularly those involving Iran, which may be adding to New Delhi’s sense of urgency. The signing of the agreement between the UAE and India, along with India’s apparent haste at operationalizing the project, only represents a continuation of this trend.

Nonetheless, India’s speed here should not be confused for wisdom. Not only does IMEC face serious long- and short-term challenges, but the fallout from these complications may seriously undermine India’s relationship with other regional partners. This is particularly true of Iran, whose infrastructure initiatives with India serve as a key alternative to IMEC, should the latter fail. By alienating partners like these, India is engaging in a high-risk gambit that may prove disastrous for its interests across the region. Nowhere is this fact more apparent than by simply looking at the route goods will take across the corridor.

The Gulf of Oman

Leaving from the west coast of India, goods bound for Europe must first cross the northernmost part of the Arabian Sea, pass through the Gulf of Oman, and enter the Persian Gulf to unload their wares at the ports on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. Although this voyage is relatively short, its position near Iran and the vital Strait of Hormuz makes it a fraught passage. Even prior to the start of the Gaza conflict, Iran had deliberately targeted shipping passing through these waters on at least seven different occasions in the last five years. The fact that some of these ships were directly or indirectly related to Israeli owners give credence to the fact that, even absent the war in Gaza, Iran needs little excuse to target Israel’s shipping interests. Given that IMEC’s success by and large hinges on some degree of Israeli cooperation, this does not bode well for the success of any IMEC initiatives even if the Gaza conflict is resolved in the near future.

Outside that rosy future, however, the prospects for shipping passing through these waters are even more dire. Following the escalation of the naval conflict in the Red Sea, shipping in both in the Gulf of Oman and off the west coast of India either faced suspicious activity from other armed vessels or actual attacks from enemy drones. Although Iran was quick to distance itself from these attacks in the face of U.S. accusations, diplomacy can only take you so far if your actions do not reflect your words. Despite comments from India’s external affairs minister expressing his concern at these attacks during a visit to Tehran back in January, Iran has proven unwilling or unable to address India’s concerns. Recent attacks by the Houthis on an India-bound oil tanker as well as Tehran’s continued interdictions of shipping in the Gulf of Oman demonstrate as much.

It is unlikely that this theater will witness a serious escalation, as the degrees of separation between India and Israel on the one hand and between Iran and its proxies on the other gives both sides space for plausible deniability. Nonetheless, Iran has expressed a desire to sever Israel’s commercial links to the rest of the world. Not only does India’s current encouragement of IMEC directly contradict Iran’s wishes, but New Delhi’s reliance upon transit corridors that Iran has a recent history of disrupting means Iran has the ability to impose a blockade, should it choose to.

India’s reliance, therefore, on IMEC provides a strong incentive to Iran to further destabilize shipping in this theater. This could have wide-reaching consequences on New Delhi’s interests in the region. For one, India just signed a long-term LNG contract with Qatar, their largest to date, to provide energy exports to India until 2048. Such a deal, by dint of geography, relies on a stable Persian Gulf. Furthermore, the presence of millions of Indian migrants across the Persian Gulf, whose livelihoods depend in turn on that same maritime stability, means that India cannot afford to contribute to the destabilization of this region.

Trans-Arabia

After transiting the northern Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf, goods will be unloaded at the port of Jebel Ali near Dubai. From there, they will begin their long journey across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel to the port of Haifa. This long, trans-Arabian journey is perhaps the most ambitious leg of the IMEC project, and will eventually be serviced by rail links that stretch across the peninsula. The technical difficulties in accomplishing this feat, however, are not the main obstacles on this section. Instead, the political tensions between IMEC participants pose a much greater threat.

For one, crossing Jordan poses a major obstacle, largely related to Israel’s involvement. One in five Jordanians is a Palestinian refugee. As a result, Amman faces significant domestic pressure to increasingly distance itself from Israel, making IMEC such a sensitive issue to Jordan. Over the last month, several protests have taken place across Jordan with the express design of limiting the passage of goods from Jordan to Israel, with some even explicitly targeting the ongoing overland links between the UAE and Israel. The more IMEC partners pursue the project, the more hypocritical Amman appears, and the greater the pressure becomes to curtail cross-border commercial connections with Israel. It is perhaps for this reason that Jordanian officials have been notably silent about their participation in the project. Should India attempt, directly or indirectly, to stimulate the use of the trans-Arabian leg of IMEC any more without substantial movements toward peace in Gaza, it is hard to see Jordan tolerating this pressure for long.

The relationship between the UAE and Saudi Arabia is also another source of potential instability. The two countries are currently engaged in an economic competition, which threatens to seriously undermine the project’s long-term profitability. Not only do Riyadh’s tariff rules limit the degree to which Emirati-produced goods can take advantage of logistical links along IMEC to access new markets, but the aggressive restrictions on the placement of regional headquarters Riyadh enacted earlier this year pose a direct threat to Dubai’s status as a regional logistics hub.

The difficulty is that IMEC both relies upon and bolsters Dubai’s role in this regard. Riyadh does not take this economic preeminence lightly: Saudi Arabia threatened a blockade against the UAE just last year. It is not a stretch to imagine Riyadh might see Dubai’s role in IMEC as economic competition, rather than cooperation. Thus, not only is New Delhi playing a dangerous game by relying on two economic competitors to cooperate, but it is jeopardizing its role in regional stability by inserting itself into economic competition between two of India’s erstwhile security partners.

The Eastern Mediterranean

Finally, after their long journey across the Arabian Peninsula, the goods arrive at the Mediterranean ports of Israel: Ashkelon, Ashdod, and the major port of Haifa. Here they will be shipped on to Europe via the Greek port of Piraeus. These ports represent the final security bottleneck on the journey to Europe, and quite a significant one at that.

For one, the ports are directly threatened by a conflict in Gaza, regardless of escalation by regional actors. In the early days, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Haifa all suffered rocket attacks launched by Hamas. The attack on Ashkelon, just north of Gaza, was so significant, in fact, that the port had to close until late November. Although Israel’s current ground campaign in Gaza has limited the degree to which these ports can be directly threatened by Hamas, these attacks demonstrate that the local security problems faced by the ports can only be addressed with the occupation of substantial portions of Gaza, an act that most IMEC members oppose in some form or another.

Local security threats, however, are not the primary long-term concern at these ports. Iran and its proxies have expressed repeatedly throughout the conflict that one of their primary aims is to blockade Israel. A key part of this strategy involves disrupting Israeli shipping in the eastern Mediterranean. This sentiment has been expressed by Iranian officials and Iranian proxies alike, and is one that they generally appear capable of executing. Drone attacks on Ashdod in late January and missile strikes on Haifa earlier that month indicate as much. It appears that Haifa, in particular, is a port that Iran is intent on striking. Since the January attacks, the Israel Defense Forces have intercepted suspicious targets in and around Haifa multiple times. This is hardly surprising, considering the size of the port and its relative isolation from the conflict in the south. To effectively execute Iran’s strategy of blockade, Haifa’s connection to the outside world would have to, at the very least, be threatened.

Therein lies the principal danger for New Delhi in its IMEC ambitions. When it comes to Haifa, there are no degrees of separation present between both India and Israel on one side and Iran and its proxies on the other, unlike in the Gulf of Oman. An attack on the Indian-owned Haifa port, a strategy that ran has considered since the early stages of the Gaza conflict, would force New Delhi into a very difficult position: defend the interests of India, and by extension Israel, at the expense of irreparably altering ties with Tehran. Similarly, should an Iranian proxy choose to target Haifa, it would also expose Iran to a stunning hypocrisy if it did not lend its full support to the act. This is not to say that the two are destined to conflict, but rather that this particular issue is one that will be difficult to navigate should it arise.

IMEC will only make this worse: It incentivizes India to be more supportive of the safety and security of Israel’s Mediterranean ports, and it provides a tempting target for Iran to strike in order to blockade Israel. New Delhi will have to carefully calibrate its diplomacy with Tehran if it wants to have its cake and eat it too.

Conclusion

India’s renewed interest in IMEC comes at a profoundly sensitive period in the foreign policy of New Delhi. Amid the Red Sea crisis, India is weaning itself off of Russian oil imports and arms sales and seeking new energy suppliers, like the UAE and Qatar. It is also trying to counter the influence of China, which seems to be surrounding New Delhi by bolstering its ties with new security partners.

Although the temptation to capitalize on the crisis in the Red Sea to advance IMEC might be strong, as outlined above, not only is the success of the project dubious from a political and security perspective, but the failure of the project, especially if it is targeted by Iran or its proxies in the region, threatens to seriously undermine the security of India’s energy and trade partners along the route. That such partners are absolutely critical to India solving its current foreign policy problems underscores the degree to which New Delhi’s current strategy is risky at best, reckless at worst.
NSB
What Underlies Sheikh Hasina’s Successful Diplomacy? (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [2/26/2024 6:12 AM, Abu Jakir, 201K, Neutral]
Following her victory in the disputed general elections in January, which was boycotted by the opposition, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina received congratulatory messages from several Asian and allied nations, including India, China, and Russia. However, powerful Western democracies like the United States and United Kingdom expressed concern over the election’s legitimacy.

A month later, Hasina received a letter of cooperation from U.S. President Joe Biden. This was followed by the visit of a high-level U.S. delegation to Dhaka late last week.

This turnaround is the outcome not only of Washington’s willingness to engage with the new government, despite its concerns over the fairness of the elections, but also of Hasina’s diplomatic skills. She has leveraged the country’s growing economic might to win friends.

Hasina has served four terms as Bangladesh’s prime minister so far and the present term is her fifth. What accounts for her political longevity? And how has she been able to enhance Bangladesh’s influence on the global stage?

Hasina’s tenure as Awami League (AL) chief stands out for its longevity, surpassing any other politician in the party’s history. Unchallenged within the party, she has become its public face, echoing the undisputed leadership role of her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in the 1960s and 70s.

However, her rise to prominence wasn’t without its challenges. Upon returning from exile in 1981, Hasina found the AL riven with factionalism and weakened by the assassination of several of its leaders, including Rahman. The presence of multiple and competing centers of power exacerbated the crisis.

Moreover, the brutal military dictatorship of the time lured AL members to legitimize its rule, further weakening the party’s ranks. Despite these obstacles, Hasina’s leadership proved pivotal in unifying the party and paving the way for its eventual resurgence.

Rumeen Farhana, international affairs secretary of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, (BNP), the AL’s main rival, told The Diplomat that it’s not an easy feat to “stay in power for more than fifteen years” especially given her “abysmal human rights record.” During her decade-long rule, Hasina has unleashed brute force to suppress opposition parties, including the BNP. Her government has also silenced dissenting voices. Hundreds have been forcibly disappeared.

Many in Bangladesh believe that her leadership, both within her party and at the national level, has been crucial not only for her long stint at the helm but also for Bangladesh’s pursuit of its national interests abroad. Her shrewd understanding of world politics has also helped her play the chips on the bargaining table more deftly, they say.

As Obaidul Quader, secretary general of the ruling Awami League and effectively the second-most powerful person in Bangladesh pointed out, economic diplomacy is the secret behind Hasina’s influence. “She consistently prioritizes economic diplomacy, which I think serves as the backbone of her foreign policy,” Qader told The Diplomat.

Bangladesh’s economic resilience, even amidst the COVID-19 crisis, has bolstered its foreign policy and allowed Hasina to pursue a more assertive approach on the international stage.

Under Hasina, Bangladesh’s diplomacy with India, China, and Russia has matured. It has been able to maintain a steady course because of the economic relationships it has with these countries. China tops the list of Bangladesh’s trading partners, with bilateral trade reaching $16 billion last year. India comes in second. Meanwhile, Russia is building a massive $12 billion nuclear power plant, the largest infrastructure project in Bangladesh’s history.

Western nations, major buyers of Bangladesh’s booming apparel exports, which earned the country $47 billion in foreign exchange last year, recognize the South Asian nation’s growing importance in the global economy. As Bangladesh’s buying power surges, it’s becoming an increasingly attractive market. During his visit just before the general election, French President Emmanuel Macron signed a $3 billion deal for French aviation giant Airbus with Bangladesh.

According to Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud, while the country’s location and the present global geopolitical context play a part in enabling Bangladesh to maintain close ties with both regional rivals, India and China, as well as both global rivals, China and the United States, it is Hasina’s “steadfast diplomacy that makes us a notable player on the global stage today.”

The core principle of Bangladesh’s foreign policy, “friendship to all and malice to none,” was established by Hasina’s father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the nation’s founding father and independent Bangladesh’s first prime minister. This policy stemmed from Bangladesh’s unique circumstances — a densely populated nation with limited resources seeking stability in a complex geopolitical landscape.

However, decades of steady development and economic growth have empowered Bangladesh to engage in international negotiations with greater confidence and assertiveness, and to pursue its interests on both bilateral and multilateral platforms.

“Prime Minister Hasina’s success in diplomacy and trade stems from her ability to make her counterparts feel like they are getting a good deal in negotiations,” Munshi Faiz Ahmed, a former chairman of the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS) told The Diplomat. Besides, she has been very vocal about global issues on the international stage. For example, recently Hasina issued “a strong statement terming Israel’s attack on Palestine as ‘genocide.’” Her government has also “taken a leading role, garnering international attention in urging other nations to take proactive action to address climate change,” Ahmed said.

Sujit Roy Nandi, a prominent AL leader, emphasized the importance of internal harmony for successful diplomacy. He commended Hasina’s ability to maintain discipline within the party through “effective communication and unwavering resolve,” highlighting her skills in negotiation and navigating complex situations.

“The tumultuous past has helped her [Hasina] to shape her vision with certain clarity. She has brought discipline in her party first and then channeled her power of communication on the global level,” Nandi told The Diplomat, “That’s obviously helped her and Bangladesh to perform better diplomatically.”

Farhana, the BNP leader, admitted that Hasina is “a skilled maneuverer of diplomacy.” “But so were many dictators in history,” she pointed out. Hasina’s “diplomatic success doesn’t make her a popular leader. It has made her popular among her own party only.”
Overworked and underpaid, Nepal’s nurses quit jobs to head abroad (Reuters)
Reuters [2/26/2024 6:50 AM, Rojita Adhikari, 11975K, Neutral]
For Nepali nurse Anshu, being picked for a job programme in Britain was long overdue recognition of her years of study and work - and a chance to boost her earnings.

"I finally feel my work has been valued," said the 28-year-old, who asked to be identified only by her first name. She hopes her current monthly salary of 26,000 rupees ($196) at a private hospital in Nepal will rise to more than 10-times that in Britain.

But as she and several dozen other nurses prepare to leave, the bilateral government pilot under which they were recruited has fuelled concerns about an acute shortage of nurses and other medical professionals in the South Asian country.

Though only 43 nurses were accepted for the pilot phase, an official at the country’s Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE) told Context a second phase was planned and that Britain eventually wanted to recruit 10,000 Nepali nurses.

While that would help Britain plug labour gaps in the National Health Service (NHS), it could exacerbate Nepal’s shortages, nursing officials said.

"The situation is already worrying," said Hira Kumari Niraula, director of Nepal’s Nursing and Social Security Division (NSSD), a government body involved in the provision of public health services.

"Recently we started community health nursing and school nurse programmes to make nursing service available in needy communities. But the challenge is in many places we are not able to find nurses who are willing to work," Niraula added.

Nepal currently has less than half of the 45,000 nurses that it needs working in the country’s hospital, rural clinics and other healthcare facilities, according to the NSSD.

It is among 55 countries included in a World Health Organization red list of nations facing a severe shortage of healthcare workers.

"We are in a shortage situation but the government is encouraging nurses to migrate. Then who will stay in Nepal?" Niraula said.

The DoFE has defended the agreement signed with Britain, saying such accords ensure migrant nurses’ rights and help deter illegal migration and labour exploitation.

"There is news that Nepali nurses are being cheated, abused, and exploited abroad as they take backdoor entries," said DoFE information officer Kabiraj Upreti. "This agreement can be a milestone."

‘NO FUTURE’

From Zimbabwe to the Philippines, concern is growing about the loss of qualified medical staff attracted by better salaries to take up health and care jobs in countries such as Britain, Australia, Canada and the United States.

In Nepal, more than one-third of the 115,900 nurses registered with the Nepal Nursing Council (NNC) have sought documents to practice overseas.

About half of Nepal’s migrant nurses went to the United States, followed by Australia and Dubai. Just over 500 have already migrated to Britain.

But the causes of the country’s medical staffing shortfall go beyond migration, said Roshan Pokharel, secretary of the Ministry of Health and Population.

"We are very much aware that a large number of health workers are migrating. But that’s not their problem. It’s our problem that we are not able to provide permanent, long-term, and stable jobs to our health workers," Pokharel said.

"Government has allocated only around 4% of the total budget to the health sector which is just not enough," he added.

Limited financial resources for healthcare in the country of 30 million mean the lure of better-paid jobs abroad is stronger than ever for many nurses.

Tired of demanding working conditions and low pay, Grishma Basnet, 25, who works in the intensive care unit (ICU) at a private hospital in the capital, Kathmandu, has applied to work in the United States and is awaiting news on where she will go.

"I have to look after three patients in the ICU, whereas the global standard is one nurse should only look after one patient in the ICU. Isn’t this exploitation?," said Basnet, who said she earned 15,000 rupees per month at present.

"Why should I stay in this country? There is no future here," she said.
Sri Lanka ends visas for hundreds of thousands of Russians staying there to avoid war (The Independent)
The Independent [2/26/2024 5:57 AM, Shweta Sharma, 3055K, Negative]
Sri Lanka has told hundreds of thousands of Russians and some Ukrainians staying in the country to escape the war that they must leave in the next two weeks, immigration officers said.

The immigration controller issued a notice to the tourism ministry asking Russian and Ukrainian people staying on extended tourist visas to leave Sri Lanka within two weeks from 23 February.

Just over 288,000 Russians and nearly 20,000 Ukrainians have traveled to Sri Lanka in the last two years since the war began, according to official data.

Commissioner-General of Immigration said the “government is not granting further visa extensions” as the “flight situation has now normalised”.

However, the office of president Ranil Wickremesinghe ordered an investigation of the notice to the tourism ministry in an apparent bid to prevent diplomatic tensions.

The president’s office said that the notice had been issued without prior cabinet approval and the government had not officially decided to revoke the visa extensions, reported the Sri Lankan newspaper Daily Mirror.

The exact number of visitors who extended their stay beyond the typical 30-day tourist visa duration remains unclear.

However, concerns have been raised over thousands of Russians and a smaller number of Ukrainians staying in the country for an extended period of time and even setting up their own restaurants and nightclubs.

Tourism minister Harin Fernando told Daily Mirror that the ministry has been receiving complaints of some Russian tourists running unregistered and illegal businesses in the southern part of the country.

Raids were conducted by the authorities following discussions with the Immigration Department, he said.

It comes amid a furious social media backlash over Russian-run businesses with a “whites only” policy that strictly bars locals. These businesses include bars, restaurants, water sports and vehicle hiring services.

In a bid to boost tourism and recover from its worst economic crisis since 2022, Sri Lanka began granting 30-days visas on arrival and extensions for up to six months.

In April 2022, the nation defaulted on its $46bn (£36 bn) foreign debt. The economic crisis triggered violent street protests for several months and ultimately culminated in the resignation of then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa three months later.
Are Sri Lanka’s Anti-Drug Crime Operations Working? (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [2/26/2024 5:38 AM, Rathindra Kuruwita, 201K, Neutral]
In a bid to tackle escalating concerns over crime and drug-related activities, the Sri Lankan government launched a special operation that goes by the name “Yukthiya” (justice) on December 17, 2023.

The government has declared the operation to be a success, with over 58,000 raids resulting in 58,234 arrests and substantial drug seizures (worth about $25 million) so far. Minister of Public Security Tiran Alles has claimed a 17 percent reduction in overall crime

However, the operation has come under intense scrutiny at home and abroad. There is skepticism about its impact on crime rates, while local and international human rights organizations have slammed it for rights abuses.

In January, a group of Working Group experts and Special Rapporteurs at the United Nations called upon the Sri Lankan government to “immediately suspend and review” the operation, emphasizing the need for a shift toward policies grounded in health and human rights. The U.N. experts underscored the disproportionate impact on drug offenders from “marginalized socio-economic groups,” expressing disapproval of their confinement in rehabilitation centers under military administration.

Sri Lanka’s own Human Rights Commission echoed these concerns. While acknowledging the importance of combating drugs and crime, it drew attention to a series of complaints relating to torture, cruel treatment, as well as arbitrary arrests and detentions linked to the operation.

Opposition politicians have criticized the Yuktiya operation, describing it as nothing more than a staged spectacle designed to bolster government approval ratings and support the embattled acting Inspector General of Police (IGP) Deshabandu Tennakoon.

Tennakoon is under a cloud for multiple reasons. The Presidential Commission of Inquiry on the Easter Sunday Attacks highlighted Tennakoon’s negligence and failure to prevent the serial terror attacks that killed 275 people, despite having the capability to do so. The Sri Lanka Supreme Court found him guilty of torture as well. Lawsuits have been filed by the Catholic Church and human rights advocates contesting his appointment as the acting IGP. The Constitutional Council rejected his nomination twice, before agreeing to appoint him acting IGP.

The ongoing anti-drug and anti-crime operation is seen as a strategic move to improve Tennakoon’s public image and eliminate obstacles in his professional trajectory. With a reputation for loyalty to those in power, Tennakoon’s leadership is deemed crucial for the government at a time it is facing numerous challenges.

The Yukthiya operation appears to be a last-ditch effort by the present Sri Lankan government, headed by Ranil Wickremesinghe and backed by the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), to salvage public support ahead of the pivotal 2024 presidential election. According to the recent Sri Lanka Opinion Tracker Survey (SLOTS), only 9 percent of Sri Lankan adults would consider voting for Wickremesinghe in a presidential election, while the SLPP would secure a mere 8 percent of the vote. This underscores the government’s urgency to undertake measures such as the Yukthiya operation to enhance its standing among the electorate.

Wickremesinghe did not attain the position of executive president through a direct popular vote, a departure from the usual process followed by his predecessors (barring one). Instead, he ascended to the position through a vote among Members of Parliament in mid-2022, after the previous president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, had been forced to resign by mass protests. Wickremesinghe’s rise was facilitated by the SLPP. The SLPP, the political party associated with the Rajapaksas, had previously come to power in 2019 and 2020 by defeating an administration led by Wickremesinghe, who was a prime target for the Rajapaksa political base. In a series of palace intrigues and behind-the-scenes negotiations, the same SLPP later supported Wickremesinghe’s ascent to the presidency, a position he has held for nearly 18 months.

Despite claims of economic stabilization by economists, this sentiment is not widely shared among the general population. Small and medium enterprises are grappling with challenges, nearly a million households have faced electricity disconnections, and children are dropping out of school due to the financial strain on education costs. The prevailing sentiment among the populace is one of desperation.

Politicians, academics, and bureaucrats in Sri Lanka agree that agricultural modernization and boosting exports is the answer to the country’s economic malaise.

Rather than implementing concrete measures to achieve this, the government has opted for symbolic gestures. This has been the path followed by successive governments since 1977, which turned to adopting measures to distract the masses instead of undertaking substantive economic reforms.

In El Salvador, a successful anti-drug and crime operation contributed to the landslide victory of President Nayib Bukele in presidential elections early this month, giving him a second term at the helm. A similar success story would have also done a lot for the declining popularity of the Wickremesinghe government. Nevertheless, there are two primary challenges in winning people over with the Yukthiya operation.

First, Sri Lankans harbor a profound cynicism toward government initiatives of this nature. Both Mahinda Rajapaksa and Maithripala Sirisena initiated comparable anti-drug and crime campaigns during their presidencies. Despite witnessing a brief reduction in criminal activity following the removal of low-level offenders and drug addicts from the streets, criminal activities eventually surged to unprecedented levels. The prevailing public perception is that the government eradicated one faction of underworld criminals only to inadvertently facilitate the expansion of operations for other criminals with ties to government officials.

The second issue with the operation is the absence of a discernible decrease in crime. On February 21, Minister Alles asserted that prior to the operation, there were daily violent deaths linked to underworld activities. This has purportedly ceased, he said. Contrary to this claim, violent crimes persist without any noticeable reduction, and the severity and prevalence of gun violence have escalated. A striking illustration is the recent incident where five individuals, including a political party leader, fell victim to fatal violence.

The majority of Sri Lankan underworld leaders and their associates have sought refuge in Dubai and various other safe havens. Rarely are they arrested, even when Interpol Red Notices are issued against them. Compounded by the economic downturn and austerity measures, there is a considerable pool of potential manpower available for criminals, including individuals from the armed forces. In recent incidents, allegations have surfaced implicating highly trained members of elite units as being involved as hired assassins for the underworld.

While effective law enforcement is key in curbing crime, it is also a reactive measure. On the other hand, there is strong evidence that austerity measures lead to an increase in crime. Another aspect of austerity in Sri Lanka is a misguided attempt to reduce military expenses. The country’s police force is already inadequately staffed, with low morale, and implementing austerity measures is likely to exacerbate these challenges. It is evident that mere policing efforts will prove insufficient in dealing with a population that perceives the government as illegitimate, especially amidst dire economic circumstances.
Central Asia
Karakalpak Activist Muratbai Given Asylum Seeker Status in Kazakhstan (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [2/27/2024 12:00 AM, Catherine Putz, 201K, Neutral]
Karakalpak activist Aqylbek Muratbai has reportedly been granted asylum seeker status in Kazakhstan, where he is presently in detention at the request of authorities in neighboring Uzbekistan.

Earlier reports, citing family and lawyers, claim that Muratbai has been charged in Uzbekistan with public calls for mass disorder and violence (Article 244 part 2 of the Criminal Code of Uzbekistan) and production or demonstration of materials containing a threat to public safety (Article 244-1 part 3).

A lawyer cited by RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service said that Uzbek authorities considered a memorial event held 500 days after the July 2022 events in Nukus – in which Karakalpak activists urged people to turn off their lights for 16 minutes, the number of years in prison that Karakalpak lawyer and journalist Dauletmurat Tazhimuratov was sentenced to by an Uzbek court – a “public call for mass unrest and violence.” The second charge, the lawyer said, related to the publication of a video of Koshkarbai Toremuratov, another Karakalpak activist in Kazakhstan, delivering a speech at the October 2023 Warsaw Human Dimension Conference, a major human rights conference convened annually by the OSCE.

Although Muratbai holds an Uzbek passport, he has lived in Kazakhstan since 2013. He was detained the night of February 15. On February 19, a court in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, ordered him held in custody for 40 days (that is, until March 30), while Astana decides whether to fulfill an extradition request.

Muratbai’s sister, Fariza Narbekova, told RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service this week the activist has been given an asylum seeker’s certificate by the Almaty Department of Coordination of Employment and Social Programs. While valid, the certificate ought to prevent his extradition. The RFE/RL report stated that the certificate is valid until May 23, 2024 and that it could be extended for another three months.

As I wrote earlier this month:

Muratbai has become a significant voice for the Karakalpak people in the nearly two years since violence broke out in Nukus, the capital of the Republic of Karakalpakstan, in July 2022 after Tashkent had proposed a constitutional change that would have eliminated the autonomous republic’s sovereignty. While Uzbekistan quickly walked the proposed changes back, Tashkent has spared no effort in pursuing serious charges against those who opposed the proposal. More than 60 civilians have been charged in Uzbekistan in connection with the 2022 Karakalpakstan protests, most of them in a pair of trials of January and March 2023.

But the Uzbek authorities have looked beyond the borders of Uzbekistan and Karakalpakstan for targets, including two trials in absentia of Aman Sagidullayev and Nietbay Urazbayev in May 2023. Sagidullayev has political asylum in Norway, but Urazbayev lived in Kazakhstan. Even though he had obtained Kazakh citizenship, Urazbayev told The Diplomat last year that he was nevertheless worried that the Uzbek authorities would find some way to get him. Urazbayev died in Almaty in early January 2024, a month after being notified that he was being stripped of his Kazakh citizenship.

Between September and November 2022, Kazakh authorities had detained at least five Karakalpak activists in Kazakhstan – Ziuar Mirmanbetova, Koshkarbai Toremuratov, Zhangeldi Dzhaksymbetov, Raisa Kudaibergenova, and Tleubike Yuldasheva – all of whom where Uzbek citizens. Ultimately, none was extradited and all five were released after a full year in detention.

As of November 2023, four of the five Karakalpak activists had their refugee applications rejected.

While Muratbai’s asylum seeker certificate may, technically, lead to the granting of refugee status, in practice Kazakhstan rarely grants such status.

In November 2023, a report by Elisabeth Briand for openDemocracy outlined the uphill battle asylum seekers face in Kazakhstan:

Only 327 foreign citizens currently have refugee status in Kazakhstan, according to data from the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection. The vast majority – 255 – are from Afghanistan, 59 are from Ukraine, six are from China, six are from Syria, and one is from Uzbekistan. To date, 514 additional people have received an asylum-seeker certificate.

Generally Kazakhstan does not expel refugees back to their home countries, as it would violate the 1951 Refugee Convention. They are left to either seek asylum in another country or to live on the margins: without an official status, meaning they cannot access public healthcare or obtain a legal job, and live in a constant fear of expulsion.

At present, Muratbai’s extradition is temporarily blocked by the asylum seeker certificate. Whether he will be released after 40 days is uncertain. The other Karakalpak activists detained in Kazakhstan, as noted above, were held in custody for a full year before being released. Then their refugee applications were denied.
Kazakh Activists Mark Second Anniversary Of Ukraine War With Rally In Almaty (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [2/26/2024 4:14 PM, Staff, 235K, Neutral]
Kazakh activists marked the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine with a rally over the weekend in the Central Asian nation’s largest city, Almaty, to show support for Kyiv.

Around 100 activists gathered near a monument to prominent Ukrainian writer, poet, and thinker Taras Shevchenko carrying flowers, balloons, and posters in Ukrainian saying "Glory to Ukraine!" and "Peace to Ukraine, freedom to the world!"

The activists also sang Ukrainian songs, held Ukrainian national flags, and lit candles.

When some of those in attendance unfolded more national flags from Ukraine and Kazakhstan, police officers approached and warned that the gathering was not officially permitted by the city. However, they did not halt the event and no clashes were reported.

The Kazakh government under President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev has been trying to maintain cooperation with Ukraine, its Western allies, and Russia since Moscow launched its ongoing invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

While not openly condemning Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, Toqaev has publicly stated that his country would not recognize parts of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions occupied by Moscow’s forces as Russian territory.

Thousands of Russians have moved to Kazakhstan to avoid a so-called "partial mobilization," which Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in September 2022.

Meanwhile, Kazakh businesses last year set up so called "invincibility" yurts (traditional nomadic felt tents) in Kyiv and several other Ukrainian cities to provide local residents with food, tea, warmth, and the possibility of charging electronic devices.

Kazakhstan has preserved its economic ties with Russia, while the Kazakh-Russian border is over 7,000 kilometers long -- the world’s second largest after the U.S.-Canadian border.

While many in Kazakhstan have openly supported Kyiv, the attitude among Kazakh citizens to the ongoing war in Ukraine varies.

Around 3.5 million of some 20 million Kazakh citizens are ethnic Russians and about 250,000 are ethnic Ukrainians.

Meanwhile, more than 1 million Russian citizens residing mostly in Russian regions adjacent to Kazakhstan, are ethnic Kazakhs, some of whom were mobilized to the war in Ukraine and died there.
Avalanche kills 4 skiers in Kyrgyzstan visiting from Czech Republic and Slovakia (CBS News)
CBS News [2/26/2024 1:46 PM, Staff, 76.1K, Negative]
Four tourists were killed in an avalanche that hit a group of skiers in Kyrgyzstan, the Czech and Slovak foreign ministries told Agence France-Presse on Monday. Kyrgyz state media said the accident occurred in the country’s northeast, close to the border with Kazakhstan and China, where a French tourist died at the beginning of February in similar circumstances.

"Twenty-three tourists from the Czech Republic and Slovakia were skiing when an avalanche was triggered," the Kabar state news agency reported, citing rescue services.

Czech foreign ministry spokeswoman Mariana Wernerova told AFP that three of the dead skiers were Czech nationals.

"We can confirm that three Czech citizens have died in an avalanche on the border between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan," she said.

Czech diplomats in the Kazakh capital Astana "are in touch with local authorities and the travel agency," Wernerova added.

Slovak foreign ministry spokeswoman Beatrice Szaboova said the fourth victim was Slovak.

"Our embassy in Astana is following the case and... providing consular assistance," she told AFP.

Avalanches have hit the region before. In 2022, a hiker filmed the terrifying moment he and nine others were caught in an avalanche in Kyrgyzstan. "If we had walked 5 minutes further on our trek, we would all be dead," the hiker wrote on Instagram.

A former Soviet country, Kyrgyzstan has for years been trying to invest in its still underdeveloped tourism sector, particularly in winter sports.

It recently eased visa restrictions in a bid to attract more foreign tourists, many of whom come for its vast and towering mountain ranges that reach some 23,000 feet in altitude.

The U.S. State Department advises Americans traveling to Kyrgyzstan to exercise normal precautions while in most parts of the country. Officials urge people to reconsider going to the border region with Tajikistan in the country’s southwest because of intermittent border clashes in the Batken region.

"Travelers are at heightened risk of injury or death when visiting or transiting that region," the State Department says in its latest travel advisory from June 2023. "Armed violence may occur with little or no warning."
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan install water-monitoring stations on border (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [2/26/2024 4:14 PM, Staff, 57.6K, Neutral]
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have inaugurated a pair of upgraded flow-monitoring stations on transboundary canals in a measure designed to lay the ground for improved collective water resource management in the region.

Tajikistan’s Energy and Water Resources Ministry said in a statement on February 23 that the monitoring posts will provide automated and real-time digital data on the volumes of water passing through them.

The project to build the facilities was completed with funding from the Swiss Cooperation Office.

The opening ceremony, which was attended by Tajik Energy and Water Resources Minister Daler Juma and Uzbek Water Resources Minister Shavkat Khamrayev, took place against the backdrop of a bilateral working group on the integrated use of water resources held in the northern Tajik city of Guliston.

Successful dialogue in this kind of format is increasingly seen as indispensable to ensure that Central Asia is spared the gravest consequences of a looming water shortage crisis.

Concern over the problem has latterly graduated into alarm.

In April 2023, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s office warned that it was expecting the volume of water in the region’s two main rivers to shrink by 20 percent in the following irrigation season as compared to a recent multi-year average. That forecast was included in an emergency presidential decree to envisioned a 10-15 percent reduction of the volume of the Syr Darya and 15-20 percent contraction of the Amu Darya. Both rivers once flowed into the Aral Sea, 90 percent of which has vanished since 1960.

Harbingers of catastrophe are coming from all sides. In a report published in November, the Almaty-based Eurasian Development Bank predicted that Central Asia was “highly likely to face an acute chronic water deficit of 5–12 [cubic kilometers] in 2028–2029.”

“The region will potentially experience agriculture, industry, and energy crises. Shortages of food, drinking water, and electricity will cause a mass exodus of people from rural areas to cities and abroad,” the report stated.

The situation is being compounded by Afghanistan’s work on a 285-kilometer canal, the Qosh-Tepa, intended for the irrigation of up to 550,000 hectares of farming land. Once finished, the Qosh-Tepa will have the capacity to divert up to 20 percent of water from the Amu Darya.
Uzbek court sentences 23 over contaminated cough syrup deaths (Reuters)
Reuters [2/26/2024 7:49 AM, Mukhammadsharif Mamatkulov, 5239K, Negative]
A court in Uzbekistan sentenced 23 people to prison terms on Monday over the deaths of 68 children linked to contaminated cough syrups produced by India’s Marion Biotech, following a six-month-long trial.

The Central Asian nation had previously reported 65 deaths linked to the medicines, but last month the prosecutors at the Tashkent city court updated the death toll and said two more people had been charged during the hearings.

The defendants, including one Indian national, faced jail terms ranging from two to 20 years. They were found guilty of tax evasion, sale of substandard or counterfeit medicines, abuse of office, negligence, forgery, and bribery.

Singh Raghvendra Pratar, an executive director of Quramax Medical, a company that sold medicines produced by India’s Marion Biotech in Uzbekistan, was handed the longest – 20-year - prison term.

Former senior officials who were in charge of licensing imported medicines were also sentenced to lengthy terms.

The court decided that compensation amounting to $80,000 (1 billion Uzbek sums) would be paid to each of the families of 68 children who died from consumption of the syrup, as well as to four other children who became disabled.

Parents of eight other children affected by the drug will get from $16,000 to $40,000. The compensation money will be collected from seven of the convicts, the court’s decision said, according to the Supreme Court statement.
Lengthy Prison Sentences For Uzbek Child Deaths Blamed On Indian-Produced Medicine (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [2/26/2024 9:54 AM, Staff, 223K, Negative]
The Tashkent City Court sentenced 23 people -- including an Indian national -- to prisons terms of up to 20 years after a cough syrup imported into Uzbekistan from India killed 68 children in 2022.

In reading out the court’s verdict on February 26, the judge said Indian national Ragvendra Pradar, who is the director of the Quramax Medical company that imported the medicine, received 20 years, while the former chief of Uzbekistan’s state pharmacy development agency, Sardor Kariev, received an 18-year prison term and his two former deputies, Amirkhon Azimov and Nodirbek Musaev, were sentenced to 16 years in prison each.

Several other defendants were handed prison terms of up to 10 years in prison, while the remainder received parole-like sentences.

The charges against the defendants included tax evasion, the sale of substandard or counterfeit medicines, abuse of office, negligence, forgery, and bribery.

In December 2022, amid reports about the mass deaths of children blamed on Doc-1 Max syrup, which was produced by Marion Biotech and imported by Quramax, Uzbek authorities suspended the sale of all the company’s products.

Uzbekistan’s Health Ministry said at the time that Doc-1 Max syrup contained the extremely toxic substance ethylene glycol.

Criminal probes over the affair have been launched in both Uzbekistan and India.

The Indian regulator has canceled Marion Biotech’s manufacturing license and arrested some of its employees.

A legal representative of Marion Biotech said at the time the company regretted the deaths.

The defendants in Tashkent went on trial in August last year.

Two months before the Uzbek outbreak, cough and cold syrups made by Indian firm Maiden Pharmaceuticals Ltd were blamed for the deaths of dozens of children in the West African country of Gambia.

A laboratory analysis by the World Health Organization (WHO) found that Maiden Pharmaceuticals’ syrups contained "unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol," chemicals often meant for industrial use.
Twitter
Afghanistan
Heather Barr
@heatherbarr1
[2/26/2024 9:10 AM, 62.2K followers, 34 retweets, 73 likes]
We should all be tuning in shortly to watch the Security Council discuss next steps on Afghanistan, including whether the UN will appoint a Special Envoy, what qualifications and mandate s/he would have, and who might be appointed. But we can’t--the meeting is closed door, again.

Sara Wahedi
@SaraWahedi
[2/26/2024 8:00 AM, 77.1K followers, 14 retweets, 53 likes]
Amid an unprecedented week of human rights abuses in Afghanistan, today’s UN Security Council’s closed-door meetings are unjust. Transparency is vital. Afghans must have access into discussions that hold critical ramifications on their future.

Sara Wahedi
@SaraWahedi
[2/26/2024 3:20 AM, 77.1K followers, 16 retweets, 42 likes]
Another public execution in a soccer stadium has been scheduled today in Afghanistan’s Jawzjan province. Just days after another public execution, which was strongly condemned by the UN, the Taliban is getting bolder.

Mina Sharif
@minasharif
[2/26/2024 8:50 AM, 34.1K followers, 22 retweets, 50 likes]
When you’re an obvious foreigner, especially male, you can do tourist videos of Afghanistan & pretend all is well. If you’re a woman and look Afghan, you will be treated as an Afghan woman. Exposure of abuse that is welcome, encouraged, and enforced by the Taliban "leadership"

Mariam Solaimankhil
@Mariamistan
[2/26/2024 10:48 PM, 92.3K followers, 2 retweets, 10 likes]
In a world racing towards the future, the West has somehow chosen to turn Afghanistan over to the Taliban, who seem hell-bent on dragging it back to the Stone Age. The Taliban are not the only option and never were the only option to lead Afghanistan. #FreeAfghanistan
Pakistan
Raza Ahmad Rumi
@Razarumi
[2/26/2024 12:39 PM, 578.2K followers, 123 retweets, 343 likes]
Journalist @AsadAToor has been arrested by Federal Investigation Agency. Ridiculous. Asad was cooperating with FIA investigation. Justice Isa should not allow this to happen and must intervene to end this witch-hunt in his court’s name. #ReleaseAsadToor

Hamid Mir
@HamidMirPAK
[2/27/2024 1:00 AM, 8.4M followers, 985 retweets, 2.3K likes]
Ulterior motives, malafide intentions and anti-state propoganda. Nothing new in this FIR against @AsadAToor who was demanding to respect article 244 of the constitution which prohibits interference of Armed Forces into politics. Every Pakistani knows who violated 244?

Hamid Mir
@HamidMirPAK
[2/26/2024 9:23 PM, 8.4M followers, 195 retweets, 715 likes]
every government including those led by Nawaz Sharif, Imran Khan, Shahbaz Sharif or caretaker regime has curbed free speech more severely than the previous one. “Consequently, Pakistani media will likely face harder times regarding free speech in future,” https://thewire.in/south-asia/media-and-social-media-platforms-in-pakistan-face-increasing-restrictions
India
Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/27/2024 3:37 AM, 95.7M followers, 280 retweets, 1K likes]
India’s prowess in the space sector shows the energy and vibrancy in our nation!

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/27/2024 2:50 AM, 95.7M followers, 1.2K retweets, 4.2K likes]
Misgovernance of LDF and UDF is for everyone to see. People of Kerala see the BJP as a ray of hope. Addressing a @BJP4Keralam rally in Thiruvananthapuram.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/27/2024 1:01 AM, 95.7M followers, 2.6K retweets, 9.3K likes]
Let us make our electoral process even more participative. I call upon people from all walks of life to spread the message, in their own style, among first time voters - #MeraPehlaVoteDeshKeLiye!

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/26/2024 8:17 AM, 95.7M followers, 4K retweets, 18K likes]
Over the next two days, 27th and 28th February, I will be in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra to attend various programmes. From space to the seas, from agriculture to MSMEs, these programmes will cover diverse sectors. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleseDetail.aspx?PRID=2009042

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/26/2024 8:17 AM, 95.7M followers, 333 retweets, 977 likes]
In Thiruvananthapuram tomorrow, I will be at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, where 3 key projects relating to the space sector will be inaugurated. These projects will ensure better technical facilities for the sector. I will also review the progress in the Gaganyaan Mission.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/26/2024 8:17 AM, 95.7M followers, 354 retweets, 1K likes]
I look forward to being among the people of Thiruvananthapuram at the @BJP4Keralam public meeting in the city on the 27th afternoon. Kerala is tired of UDF and LDF and the people of this great state are all set to support the BJP in a big way.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/26/2024 8:17 AM, 95.7M followers, 320 retweets, 921 likes]
MSMEs are crucial for our economy as they drive innovation, employment, and contribute significantly to growth. Our Government attaches great importance to this sector. I will take part in the ‘Creating the Future – Digital Mobility for Automotive MSME Entrepreneurs’ programme in Madurai tomorrow evening. When it comes to the MSME sector, Tamil Nadu’s contribution is greatly valued.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/26/2024 8:17 AM, 95.7M followers, 338 retweets, 1K likes]
In Thoothukudi on the 28th morning, key projects will be inaugurated or their foundation stones would be laid. This includes significant projects relating to the VOC Port. You would be happy to know that we are making efforts to make the port the first Green Hydrogen Hub Port of India.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/26/2024 8:17 AM, 95.7M followers, 1.3K retweets, 3.8K likes]
I will be addressing two @BJP4TamilNadu public meetings during this visit. In the afternoon tomorrow, 27th February, will be speaking at Tiruppur and on the 28th will be speaking at Tirunelveli. I urge the people from Tiruppur, Tirunelveli and the surrounding areas to come and bless us in large numbers. Over the last few months, it has become crystal clear that Tamil Nadu is supporting the NDA in a great way and the Lok Sabha results will also reflect that!

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/26/2024 8:17 AM, 95.7M followers, 963 retweets, 2.3K likes]
The programme in Maharashtra will be held in Yavatmal on the 28th. At a massive public programme, the 16th instalment of PM-KISAN will be released, positively impacting several farmers across India. Multiple projects relating to irrigation in Marathwada and Vidarbha will also be launched. Rail and road projects will also be covered in this meeting.

President of India
@rashtrapatibhvn
[2/26/2024 8:54 AM, 24.1M followers, 214 retweets, 1.6K likes]
Rashtrapati Bhavan hosted ‘Purple Fest’, a celebration of diversity for promoting inclusion of Divyang-jan. The fest was organised in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. Thousands of visitors participated in various activities during the day-long Fest. President Droupadi Murmu witnessed cultural performances by Divyangjan in Amrit Udyan. @RBVisit

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[2/26/2024 10:20 AM, 3M followers, 395 retweets, 3.3K likes]
Delivered the Prof. Hriday Nath Kunzru Memorial Lecture at JNU on Bharat and the World. Made the following 5 points:
1 Bharat is a statement that as we engage the world, it doesn’t have to be done on terms set by others.
2 Bharat wont allow our foreign policy approach to be clouded by imported ideologies and global conformism.
3 Compulsions of vote banks and a rosy-eyed view emanating from ideological predilections led to continuous misreading of some neighbours.
4 The global image of nations is significantly shaped by their culture. If we are defensive about ours, this naturally extrapolates into how we project ourselves, or in how others see us.
5 Today, a civilizational state is once again making its presence felt in the comity of nations. It brings to bear its particular experiences, outlook and approach to world affairs. This will have a stabilizing impact on an order that is currently marked by volatility and uncertainty. It will certainly help define the emergence of multipolarity. https://bit.ly/42RF8A2

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[2/26/2024 10:20 AM, 3M followers, 462 retweets, 2.5K likes]
My remarks at the 55th Session of the Human Rights Council.
Spoke about:
-India’s pluralistic ethos and institutional guarantees for human rights;
-Our leadership to help find solutions for issues facing the Global South;
-The urgency to reform multilateral mechanisms for effective response to geopolitical challenges.

Brahma Chellaney
@Chellaney
[2/27/2024 2:45 AM, 262.5K followers, 51 retweets, 272 likes]
India’s foreign minister says those who attacked Indian diplomatic missions in San Francisco, London and Canada in 2023 must be "brought to book." But these states shield terrorism-glorifying Sikh militants as potential leverage against India, which explains their lack of action.
NSB
Awami League
@albd1971
[2/26/2024 10:23 AM, 636.2K followers, 26 retweets, 100 likes]
It is clear as daylight that @bdbnp78 was behind the #BDRmutiny and killed the country’s smart officers, Foreign Minister @DrHasanMahmud62 said today (26 February). "Can the government do such a thing after forming a government with a huge mandate? It is as clear as daylight that #BNP lost its sense and they staged the BDR mutiny through conspiracy and our smart officers were killed," he told reporters at his residence while responding to a question. https://tbsnews.net/bangladesh/bnp-was-behind-bdr-mutiny-hasan-mahmud-799350 #Bangladesh #AwamiLeague #ALBDNews

Awami League
@albd1971
[2/26/2024 5:48 AM, 636.2K followers, 34 retweets, 119 likes]
The #Bangladesh Forest Department has inaugurated the 2nd National Forest Inventory of Bangladesh jointly with @FAO. During the ceremony, Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister @saberhc said that the inventory will help building a strong information system for the #forests.#ClimateAction https://unb.com.bd/category/Bangladesh/bangladesh-committed-to-ensuring-protection-monitoring-of-its-natural-resources-saber-hossain/131575#google_vignette

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[2/27/2024 1:39 AM, 107.1K followers, 36 retweets, 40 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu met with the community of Kan’ditheemu in the North Miladhunmadulu Atoll, where he reiterated the Administration’s commitment to addressing their concerns.

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[2/27/2024 2:18 AM, 107.1K followers, 25 retweets, 31 likes]
President Dr @Mmuizzu met with the Island Council and WDC members of Noomaraa Island in North Miladhunmadulu Atoll, where Council members shared their most pertinent needs.

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[2/26/2024 1:16 PM, 107.1K followers, 53 retweets, 63 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu met with the community of Kulhudhuffushi City in the South Thiladhunmathi Atoll, reiterating the Administration’s commitment to addressing their concerns. The meeting was held at HDh. Atoll Education Centre.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maldives
@MoFAmv
[2/27/2024 1:51 AM, 53.5K followers, 5 retweets, 9 likes]
Secretary, Multilateral Ahmed Shiaan delivered remarks at an event held by @UNFPAMaldives on population and development in the Maldives. He urged further collaborative action to address demographic trends shaping the country’s development trajectory.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maldives
@MoFAmv
[2/26/2024 1:08 PM, 53.5K followers, 14 retweets, 21 likes]
Secretary, Bilateral Dr Hala Hameed delivered opening remarks at the ‘Workshop on Implementation of International Nuclear Safeguards in Maldives’ by @ENERGY, aimed at familiarizing the local stakeholders on the international nuclear safeguards regime. @USinMaldives @AusHCMV

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maldives
@MoFAmv
[2/26/2024 11:44 AM, 53.5K followers, 23 retweets, 37 likes]
State Minister @SherynaSamad called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, & to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law, at a side event on Human Rights Situation in Palestine on the margins of #HRC55 Maldives will always stand in solidarity with #Palestine

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maldives
@MoFAmv
[2/26/2024 10:39 AM, 53.5K followers, 25 retweets, 28 likes]
State Minister @SherynaSamad met with the UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights @NadaNashif on the margins of #HRC55. Outlined the priorities of #Maldives for the ongoing #HRC session & reiterated the Government’s commitment towards promoting and protecting human rights.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maldives
@MoFAmv
[2/26/2024 7:45 AM, 53.5K followers, 19 retweets, 23 likes]
Secretary Dr. Hussain Niyaaz delivered remarks at the 3rd steering committee meeting of the EU-funded project "support to addressing the risk of terrorism and to increasing security in the Maldives" implemented by @UNODC & reiterated 🇲🇻 commitment to eliminate terrorism.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maldives
@MoFAmv
[2/26/2024 5:05 AM, 53.5K followers, 20 retweets, 24 likes]
Maldives participated in the opening segment of the 55th Session of the Human Rights Council. The Maldives delegation for the High-level segment of the 55th Session of the Human Rights Council is led by State Minister @SherynaSamad. #HRC55

M U M Ali Sabry
@alisabrypc
[2/27/2024 12:05 AM, 5M followers, 11 retweets, 21 likes]
The proposal presented by President @RW_UNP to establish a "Children of Gaza Fund" was approved by the Cabinet of Minister, which is an important step towards protecting the most vulnerable in light of the atrocious circumstances currently faced by them in #Palestine. The Government will donate US $1mn which will be distributed via official #UN agencies to the welfare of children affected by the violence in #Gaza. The fund will also be open to donations from our citizens throughout the Month of #Ramadan. The Office of the #President, the Office of the #PrimeMinister and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will contribute the funds that are usually spent on #Ifthar towards the Children of Gaza Fund. All Ministries and Government Institutions will be encouraged to contribute to the fund this year in lieu of holding their customary Ifthar celebrations @MFA_SriLanka

Namal Rajapaksa
@RajapaksaNamal
[2/26/2024 10:29 AM, 438.1K followers, 5 likes]
Met with @SriLankaTelecom & @SLICInsurance trade unions of #SLPP. Emphasized: SOEs shouldn’t be privatized for personal gain. They should be self-sufficient, easing taxpayer burden. While investments are welcome, they must ensure clear reasons, transparency, and mutual benefit.

Namal Rajapaksa
@RajapaksaNamal
[2/26/2024 10:01 PM, 438.1K followers, 2 retweets, 13 likes]
Met with provincial council chairmen, strong advocates of party policies at the provincial level. It’s evident provincial elects lack progress in the last decade. Prioritizing their needs is essential for real change.
Central Asia
MFA Kazakhstan
@MFA_KZ
[2/26/2024 1:27 PM, 50.6K followers, 5 retweets, 6 likes]
Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan Murat Nurtleu, during his visit to Geneva, held a number of bilateral meetings with the heads of international organizations. https://gov.kz/memleket/entities/mfa/press/news/details/714000?lang=en

MFA Kazakhstan
@MFA_KZ
[2/26/2024 10:44 AM, 50.6K followers, 13 retweets, 15 likes]
#Kazakhstan Participates to High-Level Segment of #UN Human Rights Council https://gov.kz/memleket/entities/mfa/press/news/details/713925?lang=en

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[2/26/2024 11:51 PM, 157.6K followers, 1 retweet, 16 likes]
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev was briefed on the status of tasks assigned during the expansive session of Uzbekistan’s Security Council. The Defense Minister reported on the strides made in meeting objectives, continuous improvements in troop readiness and efficiency, modernization of arms and equipment, fine-tuning the operations of the Armed Forces’ NCO corps.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[2/26/2024 10:09 PM, 157.6K followers, 1 retweet, 6 likes]
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev reviewed a presentation of proposals for improving the technical regulation system, which examined solutions crafted to address the challenges faced by the sector. Issues concerning the enhancement of the Agency for Technical Regulation’s operations were discussed.

{End of Report}
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