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:
Wednesday, February 28, 2024 6:30 AM ET

Afghanistan
US Announces Tech, Academic Opportunities to Empower Afghan Women (VOA)
VOA [2/27/2024 3:43 PM, Akmal Dawi, 761K, Neutral]
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has announced new partnership programs designed to empower Afghan women in the face of Taliban suppression of women’s rights in Afghanistan.

Speaking at a meeting of the U.S.-founded group called the Afghan Women Economic Resilience Summit (AWERS), Blinken said Microsoft and LinkedIn will provide virtual training and certifications for Afghan girls worldwide, helping them gain valuable skills and connect with potential employers.

Additionally, he said, U.S. academic institutions will offer scholarships to Afghan women and girls who have resettled in the U.S. over the last two years. The State Department did not give details on which schools are involved with the program.

Established in 2022, AWERS aims to empower Afghan women both inside and outside their homeland.

"We are investing in skills, training, jobs, and female entrepreneurs," Blinken told the State Department gathering in Washington. "This mission is more important than ever."

Erosion of women’s rights

The announcement comes as the United Nations has reported a systematic dismantling of Afghan women’s rights over the past two years.

Human rights groups accuse the Taliban of imposing "gender apartheid" by systematically erasing women from public life.

The Taliban reject such criticism, insisting their policies uphold Islamic and traditional Afghan values.

Blinken did not say if the U.S. will resume its flagship Fulbright program for Afghanistan, which remains paused since the Taliban seized power in 2021.

Restrictions ‘suffocating Afghanistan’s potential’

With the Taliban’s rampant persecution of women’s rights activists, it is unclear how the AWERS programs will reach women inside Afghanistan.

"The Taliban’s restrictions are suffocating Afghanistan’s potential," Blinken said, adding that the absence of women in the workforce is slashing more than $1 billion from the nation’s economy.

Despite the Taliban’s desire for international recognition, Washington maintains that restoring women’s rights is a core requirement for normalizing relations.
Afghan rebels say four Taliban fighters killed in rare operation against Kabul airport (The Independent)
The Independent [2/27/2024 6:43 AM, Arpan Rai, 3055K, Negative]
Four Taliban fighters were killed and three others were injured in an attack on Kabul international airport on Monday by the country’s National Resistance Front which has been targeting the Taliban.

The NRF, led by politician Ahmad Massoud, claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks on Monday in a statement. The NRF and another group, the Afghanistan Freedom Front, are former security personnel from the previous Western-backed government.

“The freedom fighters of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan targeted the Taliban terrorist air forces stationed in the military section of Kabul airport with a missile attack, resulting in 4 Taliban terrorists killed and 3 other terrorists injured,” the NRF said.

“This attack was carried out at 6.40pm today, Monday, 26 February, 2024, with the firing of 3 missile rounds at the terrorists’ headquarters and military helicopters,” it said on X, formerly Twitter.

However, the Taliban’s spokesperson for Kabul police denied any attack on the airport without providing any evidence.

“There is no truth to the false claim of a missile attack on Kabul International Airport. Alhamdulillah, there was no security incident in Kabul today,” spokesperson Khalid Zadran said.

The resistance front is a prominent group of fighters dismantling the Taliban’s forces and their hold on Afghanistan in 20 out of 34 provinces, seen as a primary opponent of the hardline Islamist regime.

NRF chief Ahmad Massoud confirmed the bid to scale up the front’s attacks on the Taliban to The Independent.

“I will definitely not tell you what my forces are doing as we speak, or what the world is going to see in the coming days. But let’s just say the NRF is defending our Afghan people, giving them a fighting chance and a hope to defend themselves,” he said.

An aide says the NRF has killed hundreds of Taliban militants since August 2021, and that the war of resistance continues to be waged despite the interest of the international community having shifted to conflicts elsewhere, such as the wars taking place in Ukraine and Gaza.

“We are arranging 15 to 20 military operations per month in regions occupied by Taliban, and in each of these, we are able to kill three to eight of their terrorists,” the aide told The Independent.

After the Taliban took over most of Afghanistan, the NRF retreated to a mountainous and remote valley in Panjshir province after the takeover, with Panjshir the last province to hold out against the Taliban as they swept through Afghanistan.
McCaul threatening Blinken with contempt over Afghanistan withdrawal documents (The Hill)
The Hill [2/27/2024 11:26 AM, Miranda Nazzaro, 1592K, Negative]
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) on Monday renewed his threat to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt of Congress if the department “continues to withhold” subpoenaed documents on the U.S.’s exit from Afghanistan in 2021.

McCaul, in a letter to Blinken, claimed the State Department’s After-Action Review (AAR) of the Biden administration’s 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan “found significant failures” in the department’s response.

“The law does not afford the State Department blanket authority to hide behind ‘Executive Branch confidentiality interests’ to obstruct Congress’s access to the truth,” McCaul wrote.

Punchbowl News was the first to report McCaul’s letter.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee and the State Department have been in a battle since January 2023 over documents related to the country’s deadly pullout from Afghanistan at the end of August 2021. They are being requested as part of House Republicans’ investigation into what McCaul called a “chaotic” withdrawal from the Middle Eastern country.

McCaul’s letter laid out a series of back-and-forth communications in recent months over the committee’s request for the AAR team’s interview notes, which he said included first-hand accounts.

The committee was told last month a State Department official reviewed the interview notes, which the White House and the National Security Council are now withholding, McCaul said.

The Texas Republican warned that the committee is planning to hold Blinken in contempt of Congress if he does not hand over the AAR’s interview notes by March 6.

“The officials communicated this decision is now above their ‘paygrade,’” McCaul wrote. “The Department’s stated reasons for withholding the interview notes are not rooted in law and, in fact, contravene Congress’s constitutional and statutory oversight authority.” “It is appalling that over two years after the deadly and chaotic withdrawal, the Department continues to choose politics over policy.”

The latest threat comes months after the committee issued a subpoena in July requesting the State Department hand over the documents. In August, McCaul claimed the department produced only a “meager 73 pages of significantly duplicative materials” by the subpoena’s July 25 deadline.

He then demanded transcribed interviews with State Department officials, which he later canceled after claiming Blinken called him and communicated a “personal commitment to cooperating,” with the committee’s July subpoena.

McCaul also issued a subpoena in late March for a sensitive diplomatic cable on the withdrawal, but the State Department missed the deadline, previously telling The Hill that Blinken offered to brief the chair without providing the actual document. McCaul pushed back on this argument, claiming a briefing or summary does not satisfy the subpoena.

Blinken initially told McCaul he was opposed to providing the cable through the State Department’s Dissent Channel to protect the integrity of the channel, which is a communication mechanism that allows diplomats to raise serious concerns over U.S. foreign policy. These concerns are raised directly to the secretary and other senior State Department officials.

After McCaul threatened in May to hold Blinken in contempt of Congress, the State Department eventually agreed to let all members of the committee view the dissent channel cable in June.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Who will talk to Afghanistan’s Taliban? (The Hill – opinion)
The Hill [2/27/2024 11:30 AM, James Durso, 1592K, Neutral]
On Feb. 18 and 19, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres convened a meeting in Doha, Qatar, to discuss the “evolving situation” in Afghanistan and future engagement with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The Taliban declined an invitation to the meeting after the U.N. refused their conditions, including recognizing the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

Guterres reported that the attendees’ “creation of a contact group with a more limited number of states able to have a more coordinated approach in the engagement with the de facto authorities” might include “the P-5 with a group of neighboring countries and a group of relevant donors.” Guterres said he is starting consultations on the appointment of a special envoy “to coordinate engagement between Kabul and the international community.”

The Taliban rejected the need for a special envoy, but Pakistan supported it and specified the envoy must be a “Muslim, experienced diplomat, and from the region.”

Though the West is fixed on the issue of Afghan women and girls, the world needs to engage with the Islamic Emirate on other issues, including water rights, migration, narcotics trafficking and counterterrorism. In many instances, neighbors are already talking directly to the emirate, such as Tashkent’s low-key discussions with Kabul over rights to the water of the Amu Darya, which rises in the Pamir Mountains.

Other countries will also prefer to deal directly with Kabul. China recently appointed a new ambassador to the emirate; Russia will continue its engagement with Kabul; and the Central Asian republics, Iran and Pakistan, as neighboring countries, will not feel the need to use the offices of the envoys, though it will be useful if it can “me-too” their existing positions.

The envoy’s task may be “promoting dialogue between the extremist group and exiled opposition political figures” — that is, the guys the Taliban defeated despite America’s two-decade, $2 trillion sponsorship. In fact, the Taliban and ordinary Afghans are concerned that power sharing will entail the return of the warlords and corrupt officials of the ousted Islamic Republic, according to Obaidullah Baheer of the American University in Afghanistan. If this includes warlords and former Islamic Republic officials, the Taliban’s job will be made much easier.

On the issue of women and girls, the Taliban recently approved female high school graduates to enroll in state-run medical institutes for the new academic year beginning in March, showing that change will come at the Taliban’s pace and will be the result of negotiations between the capital, Kabul and Kandahar, the base of the hard-liners.

The acting interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, and Mullah Yaqoob, acting defense minister, recently warned Hibatullah Akhundzada, Afghanistan’s supreme leader, that reforms must be quickly forthcoming or else there would be consequences. The opportunity to split the Taliban between reformers like Haqqani and Yaqoob and hardline leader Akhundzada may be tempting to Washington, but fostering a civil war will damage Central and South Asia and demonstrate conclusively that Washington is humiliated and spiteful, not patient and constructive.

The envoy may find the going easier if he joins hands with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The OIC has an action plan that addresses the participation of women in all areas of public life; in 2023 the organization announced, “The [OIC] Secretary-General also affirmed the OIC’s determination to continue constructive dialogue to empower Afghan women and guarantee their right to access education at all levels and participate in public life.” The OIC participated in the U.N.’s Doha meeting on Afghanistan.

The OIC can address Afghan women’s rights in an Islamic context and may make better progress than Western governments, which the Taliban consider “the guys we defeated.” With the OIC in the lead, it and the U.N. may be able to convince the Taliban hardliners that women’s rights and education is an Islamic virtue by highlighting women’s contributions to the growing economies of Indonesia and Malaysia, but without taking sides in the Kabul-Kandahar tension.

As to the envoy, though Pakistan would like to fill that role, fraying ties between Pakistan and the Taliban may limit his effectiveness. A better candidate would be from Central Asia, which has diplomats experienced in dealing with the Taliban, or Turkey, the only NATO member with a diplomatic presence in Kabul.

Uzbekistan has strongly supported the Trans-Afghan railway and recently secured Qatar’s financial support for the project. In 2018, Tashkent publicly encouraged the Taliban to start peace negotiations with the Afghan government, and it recently offered technical assistance to the emirate’s Qosh Tepe Canal and warned the Taliban of the potential for leaks. (The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation found that each dollar spent on canal maintenance saves ten to twelve dollars of water.) And the Uzbeks were right: in December 2023, the canal walls apparently failed and spilled enough water to form a nine-kilometer lake in the desert.

Turkey never cut off relations with Afghanistan, and has increased engagement since August 2021. Ankara has hosted visits by senior Taliban officials and provided emergency aid to the emirate; it also encouraged an inclusive government in Kabul, and education for girls. In 2022, Turkey completed the second phase of the Kajaki dam hydropower project. Ankara has also maintained trade links with the emirate (2022 exports were just under $270 million.)

The envoy will have to fight to get on the Taliban foreign minister’s calendar. Seventeen countries maintain embassies in Kabul, the latest being Azerbaijan, which officially opened its embassy on Feb. 15. And, on Jan. 29, the emirate convened a conference in Kabul attended by representatives of 11 countries, including Russia, India, China, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The conference underlined the fact that, while the U.S. and Europe are staying away, Afghanistan’s neighbors are pragmatically seeking to engage the emirate.

Successful engagement with the Islamic Emirate will be a group effort and, if the U.N. envoy materializes, a sure path to success may be via a partnership with the OIC.
Pakistan
Pakistan’s former premier Imran Khan and his wife plead not guilty in another corruption case (AP)
AP [2/27/2024 11:59 AM, Munir Ahmed, 8967K, Negative]
Pakistan’s imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife pleaded not guilty Tuesday in a graft case alleging they accepted a gift of land from a real estate tycoon in exchange for large sums of laundered money, officials said.

The case is the second to indict Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, over acts of corruption allegedly committed while the former cricket star turned Islamist politician was in office.

Prosecutors accuse the couple of using their family’s charity to set up a university on land gifted to them by tycoon Malik Riaz. In return, the businessman was allegedly given 190 million British pounds ($240 million) in laundered money that was returned to Pakistan by British authorities.

Khan, who was ousted in a no-confidence vote in parliament in April 2022, is currently serving multiple prison terms and has some 170 legal cases pending against him on charges ranging from corruption to inciting people to violence and terrorism. The couple earlier was convicted in a graft case on charges of selling state gifts while in office.

Khan has denied wrongdoing and insisted since his arrest last year that all the charges against him are a plot by rivals to keep him from returning to office.

He was barred from running in the Feb. 8 parliamentary elections in which his rivals from the Pakistan Muslim League party, or PML-N, emerged as the largest presence in the National Assembly, or lower house of the parliament. Khan’s rival, former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, is on track to form a coalition government when the parliament meets for its inaugural session.

Khan’s party on Tuesday announced nationwide protests on Saturday against alleged rigging in the election.

That came hours after Khan was brought before the judge at the high security court set up inside Adiala Prison in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, where he is serving his prison terms concurrently.

Bibi, who is imprisoned at the couple’s home in Islamabad, was brought to the court in a security convoy. The judge adjourned the proceedings until next month, Khan’s legal team said.

Separately, Khan and Bibi have been sentenced to seven years in prison each on charges that their 2018 wedding violated marriage laws, allegedly because insufficient time had lapsed between Bibi’s previous divorce and their union.

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party condemned Tuesday’s proceedings as “one sided.” It said Khan’s legal team has had limited access to him, and the media have been barred from covering the trial.

Lawyer Salman Safdar, who represents Khan and Bibi, told reporters later Tuesday that the two are being treated “in an objectionable and condemnable manner.” He said the legal team has filed appeals and he hopes for an acquittal soon.

Khan has so far been convicted on charges of corruption, revealing official secrets and violating marriage laws in three separate verdicts and sentenced to 10, 14 and seven years respectively. Under Pakistani law, he is to serve the terms concurrently — meaning, the length of the longest of the sentences.

Khan is appealing all the convictions.

The new parliament’s inaugural session is expected later this week, though the parliament has yet to confirm it.

Ishaq Dar, a senior leader in Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League party, accused President Arif Alvi of trying to delay the National Assembly on “technical grounds” but did not elaborate. Dar said that if Alvi did not convene the session, the outgoing speaker would do it as a constitutional requirement.

Dar also told reporters that the new prime minister will be voted on by parliament within a few days of the inaugural session. He added that he hopes the new government will be in place next week.
Pakistani Court Indicts Ex-PM Khan, Wife in Graft Case (VOA)
VOA [2/27/2024 12:03 PM, Ayaz Gul, 761K, Negative]
An anti-corruption court in Pakistan indicted former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife Tuesday on charges that he had received land as a bribe while in office.

The trial was conducted in a prison center near the capital, Islamabad, where Khan has been serving lengthy sentences since last August following convictions on multiple charges, including graft, leaking state secrets, and fraudulent marriage.

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, party condemned Tuesday’s indictment, saying the couple pleaded not guilty after the charges were read to them and dismissed them as frivolous, just like in all the previous convictions.

“Trials conducted behind prison walls, only meant to pave the way for miscarriage of justice, particularly in fabricated and politically motivated cases, only to keep Imran Khan behind bars,” said a PTI statement.

The latest corruption case centers on the non-profit charitable Al-Qadir University Trust, which Khan and his wife established months after he took office in 2018.

Prosecutors allege the trust was a front for the deposed prime minister to obtain the valuable land for the school from Malik Riaz Hussain, a major real estate developer and one of Pakistan’s wealthiest and most powerful businessmen.

The prosecutors say that in exchange for the land, Riaz received a favor from Khan.

They allege the quid pro quo involved the settlement of Riaz’s assets, set to be worth $240 million, in a money laundering case.

Riaz reached a deal with British authorities in December 2019 to surrender his assets to Britain’s National Crime Agency in an investigation related to “dirty money." The British agency noted in its judgement that the assets were to be returned to the state of Pakistan, suggesting they were illegally laundered abroad by the property tycoon and his family.

The Khan government was not a party to the deal.

According to the prosecution, the former prime minister arranged for the money to be deposited into Pakistan’s Supreme Court account instead of the national treasury and that doing so allowed Riaz to partially pay off a large financial penalty that the court had imposed on his company in a separate case.

Prosecutors say the quid pro quo caused a loss of tens of millions of dollars to the national treasury, alleging Khan misused his authority as prime minister.

‘Flimsy’ allegations

In a Tuesday statement, the PTI rejected as “flimsy” allegations that Khan misused his authority and stated that the “land donated does not benefit Imran Khan in any way possible since it’s a charitable organization.”

The 71-year-old politician and his wife, Bushra Bibi, have both been convicted in one of the corruption-related lawsuits and sentenced to 14-year prison terms. He has appealed the convictions, which disqualify him from participating in national politics for 10 years.

The PTI said that Khan’s legal team has had “limited access” to the court proceedings and journalists, particularly those representing international media, were barred from covering Tuesday’s trial.

The cricket celebrity-turned-prime minister was ousted from office in 2022 through an opposition-led parliamentary vote of no-confidence. He has since faced scores of lawsuits, including for corruption, terrorism, and murder.

Khan and his party maintain that a conspiracy planned by the military at the behest of the United States had led to his ouster from office, charges rejected by Washington and subsequent governments in Islamabad.

The deposed leader denies any wrongdoing and alleges Pakistan’s powerful military has orchestrated the lawsuits to block his return to power.

PTI leaders, workers, and supporters have been subjected to a military-backed state crackdown for months in a bid to deter them from organizing political rallies or make them abandon Khan altogether.

His loyalist candidates won the largest number of seats in parliament in national elections February 8, despite the crackdown and multiple convictions in the lead-up to the vote, underscoring the incarcerated Khan’s growing popularity.

The results were marred by allegations of widespread electoral fraud, with several countries, including the U.S., calling for a full investigation into the irregularities.

The PTI maintains the rigging enabled the pro-military Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan People’s Party to form an alliance, which is set to create a minority coalition government later this week. The country’s Sharif and Bhutto dynasties lead the traditional ruling parties.
Pakistani journalist arrested for social posts against government officials (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera [2/27/2024 9:34 AM, Abid Hussain, 2060K, Neutral]
Pakistani journalist and video blogger Asad Ali Toor was arrested by federal authorities on Monday on charges of orchestrating a malicious campaign against the state and its officials, with the “objective to coerce, intimidate, and incite violence” against them through his social media platforms.

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) detained Toor for more than eight hours two days earlier, during which he was questioned on the same charges, according to his lawyers.

Imaan Mazari-Hazir, the counsel representing Toor, said that her client was brought to a court in Islamabad on Tuesday morning and was subsequently sent to custody for five days.

“The FIA asked for a 10-day remand, but the court limited it to five days. We will try to gain as much access to him during this period as is possible, and once it is over, we will try to seek bail for him,” she said.

Mazari-Hazir said that her client was cooperating fully with law enforcement officials. “He appeared before the FIA on February 23, even when he had not been duly served a notice to show his good faith. He was detained for eight hours. But he was sent another notice within 24 hours to appear on Monday,” she told Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera requested comments from Murtaza Solangi, the caretaker information minister, but did not receive a response from him.

In recent months, several of Toor’s social media posts and videos have been critical of government agencies, Pakistan’s military establishment and even the Supreme Court. He criticised Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa, especially after the top court upheld a decision by the Election Commission of Pakistan to ban former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf party from using its symbol, the cricket bat, in the country’s February election.

The FIA, in its first information report — a document that records the initial complaint against an accused person — does not mention any specific post by Toor, but his lawyers believed his critical views on social media were the trigger for the action against him.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent media watchdog working to protect press freedom worldwide, issued a statement condemning Toor’s arrest and demanded his immediate release.

“We are appalled by the arrest of Pakistani journalist Asad Ali Toor,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in a statement.

“Pakistani authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Toor and ensure that journalists do not face retaliation for their critical reporting on institutions, including the judiciary,” the CPJ official added.

On YouTube, Toor’s channel has more than 160,000 subscribers. He has more than 285,000 followers on X.

In January of this year, the FIA summoned dozens of journalists, including Toor, relating to an alleged campaign against judges of the Supreme Court.

Earlier, during the tenure of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government in 2021, Toor was attacked at his home by a number of people, whom he later alleged belonged to Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agencies.

Toor’s arrest has come at a time when global rights bodies have highlighted the deteriorating state of media freedoms in the country, with many journalists being abducted or arrested, while media coverage critical of state institutions has been muzzled, and social media platforms restricted.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), an international media rights group that works to safeguard the right to freedom of information, ranked Pakistan at 150th out of 180 countries in its latest press freedom ranking.

Pakistan’s February 8 elections were marred by widespread allegations of rigging and manipulation, with Khan’s PTI alleging its mandate was stolen.

On election day, mobile networks across the country were closed, citing “security concerns,” and days after the polls, access to X was also restricted in the country, a restriction that continues to date.

Prior to the elections, multiple journalists told Al Jazeera that they were asked to impose a near-blanket ban on covering the PTI’s campaign.

Political analyst Benazir Shah said that rather than protecting the fundamental rights of journalists, the state “twists vague and broadly written laws” to silence independent and critical voices.

“No matter who is in power in Pakistan, journalists and the media continue to be viewed as ‘enemies of the state’. What does change with each year though is the list of silent spectators from within the state, which increases, and now seems to include even those tasked to protect fundamental rights,” she told Al Jazeera.

Analyst and columnist Cyril Almedia also added that while social media is the last “relatively free space,” the state has been trying to create conditions that would lead to “further repression.”

“The sad truth is that there are no more than a handful of fundamentally democratic, principled voices left in Pakistan and [they are] isolated,” the analyst told Al Jazeera.
Imran Khan’s party asks IMF to consider Pakistan’s political stability in bailout talks, sources say (Reuters)
Reuters [2/28/2024 5:20 AM, Asif Shahzad, 5.2M, Neutral]
The party of Pakistan’s former prime minister, Imran Khan, has asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to factor in the country’s political stability in any further bailout talks, two people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

Khan’s party has sent a letter to the IMF detailing its position, two senior sources in Khan’s party with knowledge of the letter said.

Pakistan’s cash-strapped economy is struggling to recover from an economic crisis and secured a $3 billion bailout from the IMF last summer. Analysts say that a new government - which Khan’s opponents are expected to form after this month’s national election - may need to seek more funds from the global lender.
New Pakistani Government Seeks Another Bailout From IMF (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [2/27/2024 4:58 AM, Umair Jamal, 201K, Neutral]
Pakistan’s new coalition government has its work cut out on the economic front. As part of the second review of the current $3 billion bailout package, International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials are scheduled to visit Pakistan in March to review the implementation of the targets agreed during last year’s review with the Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar-led interim government.

Seemingly, the outgoing interim government has achieved nearly all of the targets set by the IMF during the second review for Pakistan to obtain the last $1.1 billion payment. In a report that the caretaker government sent to the international lender a few days ago, the Ministry of Finance confirmed that 25 of the 26 financial targets set by the IMF for the second economic review were met.

With the current IMF loan agreement coming to an end in the coming weeks, securing financing from multilateral and bilateral partners will be one of the most urgent issues on the agenda for the new government. It seems that the latter will begin preparing for talks on a significant new agreement worth $6 billion when the IMF delegation arrives in Pakistan next month.

However, navigating this financial landscape is anything but straightforward, as political controversies stemming from recent elections have created challenges.

Despite innumerable restrictions imposed on the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)’s participation in the election — among other things, it was denied the use of its traditional election symbol, the cricket bat, forcing its candidates to contest as independents — candidates it supported managed to secure the largest number of seats in the National Assembly. Even with its impressive showing, PTI lacks a majority, and a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)-Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) coalition is set to form the new federal government.

The PTI claims it would have performed better if the polls had not been rigged. It has promised to continue pursuing the case of election fraud in all pertinent local and international platforms.

Last week, former Prime Minister and PTI founder Imran Khan wrote a letter to the IMF appealing to the global lender not to finalize another loan package unless the recent election is audited. The PTI’s letter to the IMF has drawn heavy criticism in Pakistan for putting party interests ahead of those of the country.

Furthermore, while the letter’s substance may not have any effect on the IMF’s collaboration with the incoming government, it can be expected to annoy Pakistan’s influential military establishment, which hopes for a seamless loan negotiating process. This would only widen the divide between Khan and the military establishment, which already regards the PTI chief as untrustworthy and unreliable.

By writing a letter to the IMF at this point, the PTI has further eroded any chances of support it may have been anticipating from the international community.

The IMF has already expressed its eagerness to “work with the new government” in Pakistan. The lender has not commented on the letter from Khan about alleged election tampering.

It is not just the military establishment that distrusts Khan; the IMF is likely to feel the same way too. As prime minister, Khan chose to extend energy and gasoline subsidies in early 2022, breaking a previous agreement with the IMF. Ahead of the August 2022 IMF executive board meeting, the PTI leadership advised its then-provincial governments in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to renege on their promises of provincial surplus, a key requirement agreed upon with the lender. Surpluses are amounts that provinces do not spend from federal funds transferred to them.

Khan’s decision to go to the IMF to address a domestic problem has given an impression to the international community that the PTI founder would stop at nothing to defend himself and further his interests, even if it meant pushing the country closer to a default-like scenario.

Still, the PTI is a popular political party in Pakistan. It is expected to form the government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and might act as a spoiler to undermine the government at the federal level.

The IMF might discreetly request Pakistani officials to reach out to the PTI leadership to foster a consensus for the next major agreement. The coalition government has already referred to holding extensive talks with all parties to settle any disputes. However, Khan is unlikely to agree to such suggestions at this point, given his party’s marginalization. These scenarios might make Pakistan’s negotiations with the IMF more difficult and could strengthen the hand of the lender.

Pakistan would not have much room to make mistakes in the future beyond PTI-related issues. It would be imperative, for example, to watch the person the new government chooses to be the country’s next finance minister.

A high-ranking diplomatic source told The Diplomat on condition of anonymity that the IMF might not feel comfortable working with Ishaq Dar, who belongs to the PML-N and served as finance minister during former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s premiership.

Dar has long opposed devaluing the Pakistani rupee in relation to the U.S. dollar, a stance that the IMF has expressed major concerns about. He gained notoriety for vocally opposing the IMF’s requirements both secretly and publicly, which has in the past caused delays in closing accords with the international lender.

It is therefore possible the military will oppose Dar helming the finance ministry.

The new finance minister will probably have far stronger ties to the military and will be able to function more independently of the prime minister or other coalition partners. The choice is significant in light of Pakistan’s extreme economic hardships and debt situation.

The days ahead for the new government will be difficult. Not only will it need to emerge from the shadow of a controversial election and Khan’s allegations, but also it will have to make difficult decisions to secure a fresh financing arrangement.
Clash with Pakistan shows Iran must take its neighbors more seriously (Nikkei Asia – opinion)
Nikkei Asia [2/28/2024 4:00 AM, Vali Kaleji, 293K, Neutral]
Amid heightened tensions with both Israel and the U.S., particularly over its support for Houthi forces in Yemen that had been attacking shipping in the Red Sea, Iran lashed out with coordinated missile and drone strikes on targets in Syria, Iraq and Pakistan all on the same day last month in a demonstration of its military prowess.

But this show of strength did not work as planned.

Islamabad reacted to Iran’s cross-border strike on Baloch militant groups by recalling its ambassador from Tehran and launching its own air and artillery attacks against targets in Iran associated with groups seeking the independence of the Pakistani province of Balochistan.

Iraq, although a close ally of Tehran and well accustomed to Iranian actions against militants based in its Kurdish autonomous region, this time also did not let Tehran’s move pass quietly. It, too, recalled its ambassador and protested to the U.N. Security Council about Tehran’s violation of its territorial integrity.

While Syria did not respond to the attacks on its territory, the forceful reactions from Pakistan and Iraq are bound to lead to a rethink in Tehran. Given U.S. efforts to isolate Iran, Tehran cannot afford to jeopardize its friendly ties with Iraq and Pakistan, especially because Islamabad is Iran’s only nuclear-armed neighbor.

Yet Iran can also hardly sit still. Its three-pronged operation on Jan. 16 followed a series of attacks on border posts by Pakistani-based Baloch separatists, the bombing of a memorial ceremony for assassinated Gen. Qassem Soleimani and the killing of other Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders in Syria. The government felt under pressure from public opinion to deliver a powerful response to these various assaults.

No doubt Iran did not expect the reaction it got from Pakistan, the first known instance of a foreign military attack against Iranian territory since the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988.

Previously in response to attacks by Balochi militants, Tehran had engaged in limited police and security ground operations in Pakistani border areas with some coordination and tacit approval from Islamabad. This time, it seems Iran expected Pakistan at most to diplomatically protest its intervention and the violation of its territorial integrity.

But coming against the backdrop of a parliamentary election campaign in which the Pakistan military was keen to demonstrate its power to the Pakistani public, Islamabad needed to push back hard enough to keep Tehran from treating incursions into its territory as casually as it does those into Iraq and Syria.

So even though the Iranian strike only targeted Iranian rebels in sparsely populated rural areas along the border, Pakistan felt a need to respond in kind.

Going forward, Iran will have to adopt more serious security measures along its frontier with Pakistan. This is likely to include the construction of a border wall in some places and more border checkpoints.

It also seems probable that Iranian authorities might engage in a mass deportation of unauthorized Afghan and Pakistani immigrants from eastern provinces, in an echo of Islamabad’s move to oust 1.7 million undocumented Afghan refugees as a security threat. At any rate, tighter restrictions on immigrants’ employment and living arrangements can be expected in Iran.

Pakistan’s unexpected reaction perhaps might have also emboldened Baghdad to not let Iran’s maneuvers pass quietly this time. It seems that after years of impunity, Iran may no longer have free rein to launch rocket and mortar attacks in Iraqi Kurdistan. Instead, it will have to rely more heavily on the border agreement it signed a year ago with Iraq that requires Baghdad to prevent armed groups from launching attacks from Kurdistan.

For Iran then, last month’s events are likely to prove a watershed in how it deals with its neighbors. If Tehran wants its neighbors to take its concerns about cross-border infiltration seriously, it needs to engage with them directly rather than treat international frontiers in the same indifferent way as the militant groups it is struggling with.
India
US FDA to boost inspections of drug manufacturing units in India (Reuters)
Reuters [2/27/2024 11:45 AM, Rishika Sadam and Leroy Leo, 5239K, Neutral]
The U.S. drug regulator is set to increase the number of inspections at Indian drug manufacturing units in 2024 amid growing concerns over the quality of drugs, a top executive for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told Reuters.

The FDA conducted more than 200 inspections in 2023 in India, picking up after a lull in unannounced inspections during the pandemic.

"We are putting every effort into increasing the number of inspections ... (and) requesting more drug investigators to be stationed here," FDA Country Director (India) Sarah McMullen said on Tuesday.

The development comes as India’s $42-billion pharmaceuticals industry works to grow its global presence, with the government pushing drug producers to implement good manufacturing practices to match global standards.

The World Health Organization last year had linked the deaths of dozens of children in Gambia to India-made drugs.

The United States accounts for 30% of India’s total pharmaceutical products exports.

McMullen said the Indian pharma industry needs to invest more in automation for better compliance.

While the Indian government is investing in the growing pharmaceutical industry, what is also necessary is investment in growing the resources of the country’s drug regulatory body for better monitoring of the industry, McMullen added.
New sanctions threaten Russian oil sales to India (Reuters)
Reuters [2/28/2024 3:11 AM, Nidhi Verma and Florence Tan, 5.2M, Neutral]
Fresh U.S. sanctions on Moscow threaten to dent Russian oil sales to India, the biggest buyer of Russian seaborne crude, and complicate efforts by Indian state refiners to secure annual supply deals, three industry sources familiar with the matter said.

Washington on Friday imposed sanctions to mark the second anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and retaliate for the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

The sanctions target Russia’s leading tanker group, Sovcomflot, which Washington accused of being involved in violating the G7’s price cap on Russian oil, as well as 14 crude oil tankers tied to Sovcomflot.

Sources said Indian refiners are concerned the latest sanctions will create "challenges" in getting vessels for Russian oil and could drive up freight rates. That may narrow the discount for the oil, which is bought from traders and Russian companies on a delivered basis.

In addition, Moscow may have to push even more volumes through traders to shield from further sanctions risk, adding to uncertainties, the industry sources said, declining to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

India rarely bought Russian oil before 2022 due to high freight costs, but refiners in the world’s third-largest oil importing nation are now big buyers, benefitting from lower prices, after Europe banned Russian oil imports.

Russia emerged as India’s top oil supplier in 2023. Through term deals and spot market purchases, the South Asian nation imported about 1.66 million barrels per day of Russian oil in 2023 compared to an average 652,000 bpd in 2022.

State refiners Indian Oil Corp (IOC.NS), opens new tab, Bharat Petroleum Corp (BPCL) (BPCL.NS), opens new tab and Hindustan Petroleum Corp (HPCL) (HPCL.NS), opens new tab are in joint talks with Russian major Rosneft for an annual deal to secure a combined volume of up to 400,000 bpd of Russian oil, mainly Urals, for the fiscal year that starts on April 1, sources said.

Sources said final volumes under the planned term deals depend on payment terms and discounts offered by Russia.

Rosneft has offered a discount of $3-$3.50 per barrel to Dubai prices, two of the sources said, costlier than top refiner Indian Oil’s current deal with Rosneft, which ends on March 31, at a discount of $8-$9 to Dubai quotes on a cost and freight basis.

Refiners consider the proposed discount to be thin, given the uncertainties brought by sanctions, sources said.

Indian state refiners are not seeking supplies of Sokol grade crude under the planned term deal due to payment issues, they added.

The three refiners and Rosneft did not respond to requests for comment.

An Indian government source said India would continue buying Russian oil only if it is sold below the price cap in a non-sanctioned vessels.

The country’s oil ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
The US and EU-backed India-Middle East-Europe Corridor is in doubt because of the Israel-Hamas war. (Deutsche Welle)
Deutsche Welle [2/27/2024 7:21 AM, Arthur Sullivan, 2728K, Neutral]
At the G20 summit held in New Delhi in September 2023, India announced an ambitious venture called the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC).

Backed by the US, EU and Middle Eastern leaders such as Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, IMEC is a proposed ship and rail corridor that would connect India to the Middle East and Europe.

US President Joe Biden said the project would offer "endless opportunities." European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen called it "the most direct connection to date between India, the Arabian Gulf and Europe." Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said IMEC would form the "basis of world trade for hundreds of years to come."

However, the Israel-Hamas war has halted progress on IMEC, as have attacks on vessels in the Red Sea by Houthi rebels. The project’s future is now somewhat uncertain.

How has Israel’s war on Hamas impacted the project?

One of the selling points of IMEC is that it would help promote economic integration and partnership within the Middle East, connecting as it would the countries of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel.

However, such a vision depends on peace in the region and the Israel-Hamas war has massively upended the security situation. Added to that, fury in Saudi Arabia and the UAE over Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has undermined efforts to improve relations between Israel and some of its Arab neighbors.

Biden even suggested back in October that part of the reason why Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 was that they wanted to disrupt efforts made at "regional integration for Israel," with IMEC being one obvious recent example he had given very public backing to.

IMEC aims to connect goods, energy and data from India to Europe via the Middle East through rail and sea networks, pipelines and cables. One of the key parts is expected to be a rail network that would connect the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel.

Saudi Arabia has already committed to investing $20 billion (€18.4 billion) in IMEC, much of it on the rail network. However, it seems that IMEC’s fate is now tied to how the Israel-Hamas war develops, given the level of cooperation the project would require between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

Saudi Arabia said recently it is still interested in normalizing diplomatic relations with Israel once the war in Gaza ends, but said it would only do so if a deal leads to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

The security questions don’t end with the Israel-Hamas war. The wave of Houthi rebel attacks on shipping in the Red Sea recently has highlighted just how vulnerable trade can be to security concerns.

The IMEC would not travel through the Red Sea but its maritime route from India would go through the Strait of Hormuz, a highly sensitive chokepoint vulnerable to Iranian influence.

Are there other challenges for IMEC?

There are plenty of other questions about the viability of IMEC. One relates to Turkey. Ankara was quick to voice its opposition to IMEC from the start. Turkey is not included in the IMEC project and the country’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said after the announcement at the G20 that "there can be no corridor without Turkey."

The Turkish government is emphasizing its country’s traditional role as a bridge between eastern and western trade and is touting an alternative corridor, known as the Iraq Development Road. It says Iraq, Qatar and the UAE are involved in negotiations with it to establish a trade route from Turkey to the Persian Gulf.

Turkish opposition highlighted what the country’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan referred to as "geostrategic concerns." Some commentators have suggested that IMEC is as much political as economic, particularly given that it would appear to be designed to rival China’s Belt & Road Initiative.

There are also doubts about construction and financing. The project requires extensive cross-border investment and cooperation. In particular, the project’s green credentials have been widely signaled but there has still been no feasibility study regarding the construction of green hydrogen pipelines.

But is it all bad news for IMEC?

One thing is clear — regardless of the immediate viability of the project — India is working hard to develop relations in the Middle East.

Earlier this month, Indian Prime Minister Modi visited the UAE and Qatar as part of New Delhi’s continuing diplomatic strategy to boost ties with the Gulf Arab states.

While in the UAE, Modi signed a bilateral investment treaty to strengthen economic ties. The UAE is now India’s second biggest export market and in 2023, the countries signed a free trade deal aimed at boosting non-oil trade. The two sides agreed to quickly operationalize the ambitious economic corridor.

In another positive sign that the IMEC remains on the agenda, France recently appointed Gerard Mestrallet, former CEO of French energy company Engie, as its official envoy for the project. In an interview with Bloomberg, Mestrallet said he was keen for some tangible progress to be made soon.

"I’d like to convene the representatives of other IMEC member states in a gathering in the next two months," he said.
With handouts, piped water and cooking gas, India’s Modi woos women voters (Reuters)
Reuters [2/27/2024 10:38 PM, Shivangi Acharya, 5239K, Neutral]
Living in a slum in central India with her widowed mother and two young daughters, Nayantara Gupta says she owes her relative prosperity in recent years to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Gupta, a 28-year-old single mother, said she voted for the BJP in the last two general elections and plans to do the same in the next vote due by May, citing the party’s focus on women’s welfare, including cash handouts and domestic benefits such as piped water, 24/7 electricity and a cooking gas connection in her cramped home.

"He’s changed many things for us," Gupta said in the Madhya Pradesh state capital, Bhopal, one of 51 women Reuters spoke to in Madhya Pradesh and Haryana states, both in India’s heartland, about the upcoming election.

Gupta is not alone. Like her, more and more women have started to vote for the BJP as a result of a campaign of the Modi government to install piped water, power and sanitation in every home in the world’s most populous nation.

Traditionally Indian women were more inclined to vote for Congress, the main opposition party, in part because it gave a country short of female role models its first woman prime minister, Indira Gandhi.

The BJP, meanwhile, was born out of a men-only Hindu nationalist organisation and, with a patriarchal image, struggled to attract women. Modi has changed that in his 10 years in power and the increased support from women is an added assurance for a party that is widely expected to dominate the ballot box but faces disenchantment over rural economic distress, farmers’ protests, high unemployment and inflation.

Polling agency C-voter told Reuters its surveys predict 46% of India’s 472 million women voters would opt for the BJP-led alliance in the election against 43% men, which would help it get a healthy majority in India’s first-past-the-post polling system. The Election Commission says a higher percentage of women, as opposed to men, are likely to vote in this year’s election for the second time after the 2019 poll.

C-voter’s forecast suggests a big jump in female support for the BJP, extending a trend. In the last election five years ago, 36% of women voted for the BJP, up from 29% in 2014, according to a survey by pollsters Lokniti-CSDS for the Hindu daily.

The BJP’s ardent wooing of India’s Hindu majority and the country’s strong overall economic growth are also major vote-getters, but they play across genders.

After Modi inaugurated a grand temple to the Hindu god-king Ram on the site of a razed 16th-century mosque last month, opinion polls said the euphoria in the majority community would lead to an easy win for the BJP in the next election. Meanwhile, the Congress-led opposition alliance has struggled to stay together.

CRIME, POVERTY

Modi’s government however has a mixed record in tackling the horrible rate of crime against women - the latest data from the National Crime Records Bureau shows that on average 88 women are raped in India every day.

Still, only five of the women Reuters interviewed referred to such crimes and said the government could do more for their safety and security.

Tanya Sinha, a 26-year-old who works in Dubai and was visiting her home in Bhopal, said she would vote for Modi but wanted him to work more for women’s safety, without giving any specifics.

Congress, the only party to offer any significant opposition to the BJP, has said it is in the midst of an outreach programme across the country to understand women’s issues and that women as a whole were unhappy with the ruling party because of inflation and rural-urban economic disparities.

"Rising prices and unemployment are impacting women the most," said Alka Lamba, the party’s women wing chief. "And then there is the issue of safety. Women are dealing with exploitation and atrocities."

After falling or being stagnant since 2004, female employment rates in India have risen since 2019 due to a distress-led increase in self-employment, according to a recent study by the Azim Premji University.

Puja Dawar, a daily wage worker in Madhya Pradesh’s rural Goutampur village, said her only options for employment were tilling someone else’s farm or working at a local brick kiln, and the most either would pay would be $4 a day, less than two-thirds of the national average.

"For women, there is no work. Over a week or two, I find work as a labourer for one or two days, that only helps with daily expenses," Dawar said, speaking outside her thatched roof hut coated with mud and cow dung.

She declined to say which party she would vote for in the 2024 elections. "I don’t wish to oppose anyone," she said. "I just want my work and peace."

WOMEN LAWMAKERS

Although India has produced a female prime minister, two female presidents and the current finance minister is a woman, women make up only about one in 10 national and regional lawmakers.

The BJP has shepherded a bill to reserve 33% seats in the house and state assemblies for women, which will be effective only from the 2029 general elections.

Senior BJP leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who was the top elected official of Madhya Pradesh until December, said empowering women was at the "core of the BJP’s efforts and various government schemes have ensured women are not seen as a burden".

Traditionally, Indians have preferred sons, who they expect to be more economically productive than daughters.

Despite the crimes against women, rural distress and lack of representation, most of the women who spoke to Reuters said they were overall pleased with the BJP.

Nearly 40% said they were impressed with progress on infrastructure such as roads and railways during the BJP’s rule.

More than a third said they were also pleased that Modi came through on his party’s decades-long promise to build the Ram temple.

"It’s good for the Hindus that Modi has built the temple," said Preeti Bhardwaj, who runs a beauty parlour in Haryana.

"BJP has also brought about improvements in roads and other infrastructure. Women are now using cooking gas, receiving sewing machines. There is security for women, better than before."
India’s massive farmer protests spark police brutality claims (Nikkei Asia)
Nikkei Asia [2/28/2024 2:00 AM, Abrar Fayaz and Mehran Firdous, 293K, Neutral]
Hardeep Singh marched among a sea of fellow farmers toward India’s capital Delhi in what he thought was a peaceful protest. Then it descended into chaos.

Police lead shot and teargas rained down on protesters demonstrating for better conditions, and the 28-year-old Singh was wounded.

"I was hit in my right eye with the pellets, and I fell down right there," the farmer from India’s northern Punjab state said, pointing to the ground. "The pain in my right eye was so intense, it felt like someone had inserted a hot iron rod."

The searing pain was followed by devastating news at the hospital. Last week, doctors told Singh that his injuries were severe and it was unclear if he’d ever regain full vision in his injured eye.

Singh is one of scores injured -- with at least one farmer killed -- in a spasm of violence that erupted after agricultural workers launched a march from northern Punjab and Haryana states toward the capital Delhi in mid-February.

Police have denied abuse claims, but media reports said at least two officers were killed and dozens more were injured during the unrest. Punjab health officials have recorded 177 farmer and activist injuries since mid-February after farmers began their Delhi Chalo ("Let’s go to Delhi") march.

Taranjeet Singh also marched with Punjab farmers, vowing to pressure the government into meeting a list of demands, including guaranteed crop prices, debt relief and pensions for agricultural workers.

The group quickly found themselves under attack, Singh said.

"We were marching peacefully towards Delhi, but we were not aware that soon we would have to face rubber bullets and teargas," Singh, 34, told Nikkei Asia. "The police brutality has gotten so bad, it’s as if they’re confronting terrorists, not farmers."

The demonstrations come at a bad time for Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is seeking a third-straight term after India’s national elections in April and May. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has been at odds in recent years with farmers -- a key voting bloc wooed by all political parties. Protesters burned effigies of Modi and other ministers this month.

Amnesty International condemned the farmer’s death. Protesters are pledging to ramp up their movement after pausing for two days last week following the death from a head wound of 22-year-old Shubhkaran Singh that is believed to have been caused by a rubber bullet.

Since the unrest, Modi has said the lives of farmers are "our focus" -- possibly with an eye to the overdue modernizing of a sector that employs about half the workforce and accounts for about 15% of GDP.

Taranjeet Singh fears that the violence could escalate. He remembers massive farmer protests on the edges of Delhi in 2020 against proposed laws to liberalize the sector. The confrontation turned violent when some demonstrators staged a tractor rally, clashed with police and stormed the city’s historic Red Fort. The Modi government later backtracked on plans to open up the sector.

Singh worries that a protest movement largely sprung from Sikh-majority Punjab could heighten the backlash from Modi’s ruling party, which has previously faced accusations of oppressing India’s religious minorities. The government refutes such claims.

"Our Sikh identity is one of the key reasons behind the police brutality we face," the farmer said. "The Modi government is seen as anti-Sikh and anti-Muslim, aiming to eradicate us and turn the nation into a Hindu-majority state."

Shatrujeet Kapur, Haryana’s director general of police, insisted that law enforcers have employed "minimum force" and denied the use of pellet guns. These were first used by Indian authorities over a decade ago in disputed Kashmir, and allegedly again against farmers who had blocked the Punjab-Haryana border since the middle of this month.

One of those demonstrators, Baba Sukhdev Singh, said he will never back down even in the face of deadly reprisals. The 50-year-old farmer was injured in the leg by teargas shells fired at protesters trying to remove barricades that blocked their route to Delhi, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) away.

"We want to make it clear to the authorities that no matter how many of us die, we will not retreat," Singh told Nikkei. "We are prepared to lay down our lives. Every day, the blood of our innocent farmers is shed on the roads due to police action, and we won’t let that sacrifice go in vain."
Modi Announces Astronauts For India’s First Crewed Space Mission (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [2/27/2024 6:39 AM, Ragini Saxena, 5543K, Positive]
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the names of four astronauts selected for the country’s first crewed space mission, as the South Asian nation continues to deepen its prowess in the sector.

India plans to demonstrate its human spaceflight capabilities in a mission called Gaganyaan, scheduled to launch by 2025. The crew will be launched into an orbit 400 kilometers (248.55 miles) away for a three-day mission.

The astronauts — Group Captains Prashanth Nair, Ajit Krishnan, Angad Pratap, and Wing Commander Shubhanshu Shukla — are undergoing training, which includes flight simulations and physical fitness tests, at a facility in the southern city of Bengaluru, according to the Indian Space Research Organisation’s website.

While the first Indian to go into outer space, Rakesh Sharma, achieved the feat 40 years back, he had traveled aboard a Soviet rocket to the erstwhile USSR’s space station.

Next Milestone

The ambitious crewed mission marks the latest milestone in India’s efforts to bolster its space exploration program that aims to make a moon landing in 2040. India launched its first satellite in January to collect data on black holes, has already sent a probe to study the sun and became the first country to land its spacecraft near the lunar south pole last year after Russia failed in a similar attempt.

India’s other ambitions include setting up a space station by 2035 and a Venus orbiter as well as a Mars lander.

India last week amended the foreign direct investment limits for the space sector allowing companies to invest in manufacturing units and satellite services.

The global companies will get automatic approvals for owning as much as 74% stake in satellite manufacturing and data products, as well as 49% in rockets and associated subsystems, and space ports.
Modi says India’s first astronauts will inspire nation (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [2/27/2024 9:40 AM, Staff, 11975K, Positive]
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday toasted the four astronauts preparing for the nation’s first crewed orbital mission, saying the latest advance in spacefaring would inspire the next generation.

"The countdown of the rocket inspires thousands of children in India, and those making paper planes today dream of becoming scientists like you", Modi said.

The Gaganyaan -- or "Skycraft" -- mission is slated to launch the astronauts into Earth’s orbit in 2025, an important measure of the Indian Space Research Organisation’s technical capabilities.

"All of you are opening new doors of future possibilities," Modi told ISRO scientists on Tuesday.

Visiting the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in the southern state of Kerala, Modi presented "astronaut wings" to the four men: Ajit Krishnan, Prashanth Balakrishnan Nair, Angad Pratap and Shubhanshu Shukla.

"They are not just four names or individuals, they are four ‘shakti’ (the Hindu goddess of power) carrying the aspirations of 1.4 billion Indians into space," he added.

Gaganyaan is the first mission of its kind for India and comes with an estimated price tag of $1.08 billion, according to ISRO.

India plans to send the quartet beyond the reaches of Earth’s atmosphere for three days before bringing them back with a soft landing in its territorial waters.

Modi has previously announced plans to launch a space station by 2034, and to put people on the Moon by 2040.

In August, India became just the fourth nation to land an unmanned craft on the Moon, after Russia, the United States and China.

The following month, it launched a probe to observe the outermost layers of the Sun from solar orbit.

India’s space programme has grown considerably in size and momentum since it first sent a probe to orbit the Moon in 2008, and it has steadily matched the achievements of established spacefaring powers, at a fraction of the cost.

India can keep costs low by copying and adapting existing technology, and tapping an abundance of highly skilled engineers who earn a fraction of their foreign counterparts’ wages.
India Defends Agricultural, Fishing Subsidies That Rich Nations Want Curbed (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [2/27/2024 11:46 AM, Shruti Srivastava and Eric Martin, 5543K, Neutral]
India arrived at meetings of the World Trade Organization defending agricultural and fishing assistance that the most populous nation provides to ensure food security and jobs, setting the stage for a contentious second half of a four-day negotiating forum.

In a statement after a day that included talks on fisheries, India demanded that nations be allowed to provide subsidies for small-scale angling that occurs within areas of the sea that belong to sovereign nations, to help protect the livelihoods of 9 million families that depend on fishing. A separate release argued in favor of relaxing subsidy rules for public procurement of grains at pre-determined prices.

WTO trade ministers gathered this week in Abu Dhabi have been pushing to complete a crackdown on excessive fishing that builds on one reached at their last biennial meeting in 2022. WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has said subsidy limits that ensure fishery sustainability are important to 260 million people who depend on oceans for their livelihoods.

The government in New Delhi called for a focus on limiting state aid for distant-water fishing, where nations catch seafood beyond their own territories — a form of large-scale fishing that’s dominated by China, the European Union, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

“Any comprehensive agreement on fisheries subsidies should keep in mind the interests and welfare of the fishing community that depends on the marine resources for their livelihood and sustenance,” the Indian delegation said in a statement.

As most officials appeared at opening events of WTO’s 13th ministerial on Monday, many eagerly anticipated the arrival Tuesday of India’s commerce minister Piyush Goyal.

WTO rules require a consensus of all members, meaning a lone holdout among its more than 160 nations can block an agreement. That’s one reason why the Geneva-based institution has just two major multilateral deals including the original fisheries agreement in its nearly 30-year history.

Election Year

While a hard-line stance is a tactic India has used in the past to extract concessions on other trade issues, it’s still an important bellwether for the week’s WTO meeting given demands for the organization to be reformed. India’s positions are also important to watch given the country is among a number of big economies where elections are taking place this year.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi enjoys widespread popularity but farmers demanding guaranteed prices for their crops have staged protests in the north Indian states of Punjab and Haryana this month.

While opposing a second agreement on fishing subsidies, India also has yet to adopt the first agreement reached in 2022. Still short of ratification, the original pact — hailed by the WTO as a major advance for ocean sustainability — prohibits government support for illegal fishing, fishing of depleted stocks and fishing on the unregulated high seas.

Okonjo-Iweala on Monday praised the advance toward ratification, with 70 countries having taken sufficient domestic steps to recognize it. That leaves roughly 40 more for it to reach the two-thirds approval needed to enter force. She said she was “cautiously optimistic” about reaching an agreement on fisheries this week.

In an interview after the fisheries negotiations on Tuesday, Malaysia’s Trade Minister Zafrul Aziz said that if nations remain apart on the definitions for subsidies, the next stage of the agreement may not fully close until the next ministerial meeting, which in theory would be in two more years.

Malaysia, which is not a significant seafood exporter, has adopted the first fish agreement. “It’s about sustainability for future generations,” Zafrul said.
Medicine Gets Political in India as Ayurveda Booms Under Modi (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [2/27/2024 7:30 PM, Annie Massa, 5543K, Neutral]
Massage chairs and natural hair growth supplements. Ointment for scorpion bites that smells like garlic. A product called Kan Killer that promises to eliminate cancer without chemotherapy — all for about $65 a bottle.

For several days in December, hundreds of medical practitioners — and a few canny opportunists — gathered in southern India to sell their wares at a global convention dedicated to Ayurveda. Though the alternative medicine system has endured on the subcontinent for centuries, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is promoting a resurgence, spending hundreds of millions on research, touting Ayurvedic practices to a foreign audience and supporting conventions like this one in the state of Kerala.

There’s a fortune at stake. Within the next five years, the market for Indian Ayurvedic products is projected to top $20 billion, tripling its 2022 size. Celebrity yogis like Baba Ramdev and Sadhguru are driving up demand. Globally, the wellness industry is now worth more than $5 trillion. Consumers in Western markets are eager to snatch up products branded as Ayurvedic — a broad category that can include everything from herbal medicines to yoga and meditation.

Ramdev’s Patanjali Ayurved is closely held. But one portion of his empire, Patanjali Foods Ltd., has more than tripled in price since Patanjali took over an edible oil company to form the unit in 2019 — outpacing the broad Nifty 50 Index, which doubled in the same period.

“It took so long for global consensus and acceptance regarding Ayurveda because evidence is considered as the basis in modern science,” Modi said in a speech, calling the wider adoption of traditional medicine a key part of his plan to grow India’s economy.

Yet the backdrop in India is acutely political, carving a deep rift in the medical community. Ayurveda — which traces its roots to Hindu texts and translates to “science of life” — has found favor with Modi as another expression of his government’s Hindu-focused nationalism and his ambitions to take a more visible place on the global stage.

Doctors warn that reviving ancient forms of medicine under the banner of nationalism is a slippery slope. Though products promising quick cures to serious diseases lie on the fringes of Ayurveda, many health professionals argue that the system’s benefits are still imprecisely understood. Global institutions offer courses on Ayurvedic principles, but there’s no formal licensing regime in many countries to practice them. The US Food and Drug Administration doesn’t regulate the practice of Ayurvedic medicine, noting that some products don’t disclose the presence of lead or arsenic and items that profess to be curative can be illegally marketed.

Increasingly, Indian officials and Ayurvedic companies have forcefully countered critics, applying pressure in some cases through lawsuits. Ramdev, who is perceived to be an ally of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, has called Western medicine a “stupid and bankrupt science.” Patanjali’s chairman accused Ayurveda skeptics of being “part of the conspiracy to convert the entire country into Christianity.”

Dr. Sabba Mehmood, the co-founder of FirstCheck, an India-based site that debunks medical misinformation, said these messages are seeping into the public consciousness and creating a dangerous public safety risk. Last year, several people died in western India after consuming an over-the-counter Ayurvedic cough syrup contaminated with methyl alcohol, according to local news reports.

On Tuesday, India’s Supreme Court temporarily banned Patanjali from marketing its medical products, calling the company’s advertisements “misleading.”

“Doctors know there is a problem,” said Dr. Mehmood, who’s practiced medicine in India for around two decades. In more extreme cases, cancer patients have relied entirely on Ayurvedic remedies for treatment, she said. “They come after a year or so on herbal treatments and maybe their lifespan has decreased by that time.”

Patanjali didn’t reply to requests for comment.

Ayurveda’s history stretches back thousands of years, making it one of the oldest forms of healthcare. Adherents focus on balanced lifestyles, energy alignment, disease prevention and herbal cures — in other words, a panoramic approach to physical and mental wellbeing.

Ayurveda has similarities to traditional Chinese medicine, which often sees diseases as manifestations of a patient’s disrupted internal balance. TCM also takes a holistic approach, though critics have long argued that many cures and medicines lack rigorous and robust clinical evidence to prove their safety and efficacy.

Today, the term Ayurveda encompasses a tangled and often contradictory array of healing practices: home remedies and highly commercialized packaged goods; holistic lifestyle changes and quick-fix supplements; plant-based ingredients and heavy metals; hospitals staffed by trained professionals and spas that cater to foreign tourists seeking stress relief.

Ayurveda has international appeal — the same kind that brought ashtanga yoga from Mysore to Manhattan’s Equinox gyms. Videos about a medicinal herb called ashwagandha — similar to ginseng — are proliferating on TikTok, where users insist it helps them reduce anxiety and sleep better. A celebrity touch is pulling once-fringe treatments into the mainstream. Kourtney Kardashian said she gave up caffeine and sex on a Panchakarma cleanse, and the actress Gwyneth Paltrow’s wellness company Goop touts an Ayurvedic spa in Santa Monica.

Modi’s government has capitalized on the surge in interest, doing more to promote Ayurveda than perhaps any previous administration. Soon after taking office, the prime minister created Ayush, a ministry dedicated to reviving “the profound knowledge of our ancient systems of medicine.” Last year, the government increased spending on the Ayush ministry by 20% and created a special medical tourist visa for Ayurvedic clinics.

India also committed $250 million to a global institute for traditional medicine with the World Health Organization.

“The progression is there,” said Dr. Karanam Nalini, an Ayurvedic doctor with over two decades of experience. “It will dominate allopathy in certain fields,” she added, using a term that refers to methods of diagnosis and treatment typically associated with Western medicine.

India’s health and Ayush ministries didn’t respond to requests for comment.

But Ayurveda’s rising stock has raised concerns about the dark side of the business — including the legitimization of untested products and the close relationship between some traditional medicine practitioners and government officials.

One high-profile example is Ramdev, a yoga guru and bombastic television personality. Over the years, Ramdev cultivated a reputation as one of India’s most colorful Ayurvedic proponents, lacing his appeals with religious rhetoric, praising the prime minister in speeches and captivating the imagination of a Western audience in search of its version of the exotic.

His Patanjali received more than an estimated $46 million in discounts for land acquisitions in states controlled by Modi’s BJP, a Reuters investigation found in 2017. The company now makes money selling items as diverse as cardamom crisps and fertility-enhancing capsules made from resin found in Himalayan rocks. Ramdev regularly touts products to his more than 10 million subscribers on YouTube.

Doctors and citizens have contested many of Patanjali’s claims. In November, the Supreme Court ordered Patanjali to stop making false statements about the medical efficacy of its products, following a petition by the Indian Medical Association, the nation’s largest organization for physicians. In 2020, the government told Patanjali to cease marketing its “Coronil” treatment as a cure for Covid-19.

These legal challenges intertwine with a battle over how medicine should be practiced and taught in India. Doctors have raised alarms about Ayurvedic proponents practicing allopathic medicine without degrees. The problem is pervasive enough now that the Indian Medical Association runs an “anti quackery wing” to track down such doctors. A few years ago, IMA doctors held a hunger strike over a government directive to allow graduates of certain streams of Ayurveda to perform general surgeries.

This year, the Delhi High Court is hearing a case seeking to amend medical curricula in India. Petitioners want to replace a “colonial segregated way” of teaching medicine with an “Indian holistic integrated” approach that combines them. Ramdev’s Patanjali Research Institute is a party in the suit.

Jisha Krishnan, an editor at FirstCheck, the site that debunks false health claims, said social media has only added to confusion in India over which treatments are safe and which are untested.

“With any kind of misinformation, it’s about who has the loudest voice,” she said.

The IMA didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Speaking out against Ayurveda can carry professional and political risks.

From his clinic in the southern city of Kochi, Dr. Cyriac Abby Philips has styled himself as something of a whistle-blower and firebrand, amassing more than 200,000 followers on X by tweeting constantly about the dangers of traditional medicine.

On a recent day, his phone lit up with details about one of the more controversial items sold at December’s Ayurveda convention in Kerala: Kan Killer, a herbal supplement marketed as capable of curing cancer within six months. Philips said treatments like this one advance his view that Ayurveda is junk science. The government promotes the products to appeal to a Hindu base, he said, even if public health hangs in the balance.

“It’s an ancient practice that was borne out of culture, faith and religion,” Philips said of Ayurveda. “From a central government perspective, it’s all about nationalism.”

For many doctors, the central issue isn’t that Ayurvedic remedies are wholly ineffective. Some studies suggest that Ayurvedic treatments can reduce pain, according to the US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, though clinical trials are limited. C. Devidas Varier, the managing director of herbal remedy company Arya Vaidya Pharmacy, said Western medicine is anchored in an attitude of superiority that doesn’t necessarily align with product effectiveness.

“I would humbly request the modern medical community to come and understand Ayurveda before dismissing it,” he said.

But Philips echoed warnings from US health agencies and others that the products still aren’t regulated like pharmaceutical drugs. He said he’s treated patients who’ve taken supplements that include heavy metals in toxic amounts.

Last year, Philips’s account on X was briefly suspended after he criticized a popular liver supplement made by the retailer Himalaya Wellness Corp., which sued him for making defamatory statements. The lawsuit is ongoing. Philips recently wrote that he’s going to step back from social media to work on a book and may shift to having his updates “handled by a team.”

These concerns took a back seat at the Ayurveda convention, which drew thousands of visitors to a vast cricket stadium in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala’s capital.

Images of Modi and his deputies gazed out from conference ads. Hundreds of vendors jammed the corridors. Plant-based shawarma, Ayurvedic massage tables, steam bath chambers and a vast range of supplements promised to lengthen hair, clear lungs, increase sperm count and lower blood pressure.

Festival promotional materials trumpeted a “resurgent Ayurveda” theme. Speakers arrived from the US, the Netherlands, Latvia and Mauritius, with dozens more from all around India, including Jagdeep Dhankhar, the country’s vice president. The Ayush ministry commanded some of the most generous floor space, complete with a stage for yoga and cheerful potted plants adorning its perimeter.

At the festival, it seemed practically everything could fall under the Ayurveda umbrella: a 14-day retreat, a sea coconut displayed in a decorative box and even a caricature artist — who presumably has little to do with Ayurveda’s foundational Sanskrit texts. Visitors refueled on aloe vera juices and warm millet.

For anyone seeking slightly more indulgent fare, vendors also sold strawberry ice cream and fried snacks. They were there, too, a reminder that sometimes you can twist the meaning of alternative medicine into anything you want.
NSB
Why Bangladesh is running out of options in the face of extreme weather (The Guardian)
The Guardian [2/28/2024 4:00 AM, Thaslima Begum, 12.5M, Neutral]
As far back as she can remember, Shahanaz Ali has been running from cyclones. “Moving constantly from one place to another is exhausting,” says Ali. “Nowhere feels like home.” Her family first fled from their house in 1970, when Bangladesh was devastated by Cyclone Bhola – one of the deadliest cyclones in history.

Up to 500,000 people died, including Ali’s grandparents. The largely inadequate response of the ruling Pakistani government towards the cyclone’s Bengali victims in what was then East Pakistan triggered Bangladesh’s war of independence a year later.

Natural disasters continue to shape political and economic life in Bangladesh. Situated on the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta – the world’s largest – the small south Asian country’s unique geography and low-lying topography make it particularly vulnerable to climate change. Yet against the odds, Bangladeshis have adapted as best they can.

Now a new report by the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD), a leading research institute in Dhaka, warns that the country is reaching the limit of its ability to adapt to extreme weather.

Climate events in Bangladesh are increasing at such an alarming rate, it says, that current policies and adaptation strategies will soon not be enough to safeguard the country’s people, infrastructure and ecosystems.

Between 2000 and 2019, Bangladesh experienced 185 extreme weather events, including cyclones, heatwaves, flooding and droughts.

In 2005, Bangladesh was one of the first least-developed countries to develop a national programme of action and has now become recognised as a global leader in adaptation and resilience. Government policy and local initiatives have averted the worst effects and saved millions of lives; the death toll from cyclones alone has fallen from more than 300,000 during Cyclone Bhola in 1970 to 35 during Cyclone Sitrang in 2022.

Prof Mizan Khan, deputy director of ICCCAD and one of the lead authors of the report, says: “The research shows that by the end of the century, even under a very low-emissions scenario, Bangladesh could see a further 0.8C [1.44F] of warming compared with previous decades.

“Heavier rainfall could increase peak river flow by 16% relative to 1971–2000, raising the inevitable risk of flooding and causing further devastation than we are already seeing,” he says.

Despite Bangladesh’s progress in adapting, the report says significant gaps remain at grassroots level and in monitoring the policies’ effectiveness.

To help her community become more climate resilient, Ali, 36, who is now settled in Barishal, joined the Hatkhola Squad, a female-led disaster-response team, set up by the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society. Ahead of the cyclone season, the women go from house to house to help neighbours prepare and make sure they know when and how to safely evacuate.

The transformative, community-led approach of these women has inspired others to join. Nipa Khatun, 23, one of the younger members, sees it as an opportunity to challenge cultural stereotypes.

“It’s not common for women to help in such a physical way during an emergency,” she says. “I feel like I have much more respect now and am taken more seriously.”

But the women’s work is under threat. Due to limited funding, the Bangladesh Red Crescent has only been able to support 2,500 people in the community, despite a need to help many more.

The ICCCAD report, one of the first to look at the limits of adaptation in the country, concludes that Bangladesh’s ability to continue responding to the climate crisis requires multiple strands of action: national coordination and government investment; locally led adaptation; fair loss and damage funding; and a large-scale shift to secure, low-carbon energy.

“We are running out of time,” says Khan. “To address these challenges, Bangladesh must assess climate-change impacts from a human-vulnerability perspective and take immediate action. The poorest in the country are the most vulnerable as they have no cushion to withstand these adversities.”

He also argues that development partners need to step up financing for local adaptation.

The Bangladesh government spends roughly 7% of its annual budget on climate adaptation, about 75% of which comes from domestic sources. However, scaling up measures outlined in the National Adaptation Plan will require seven times the current spending.

During Cop28, global leaders agreed on a loss-and-damage deal, totalling more than $700m (£550m), to support nations facing the brunt of climate crisis. There are concerns, however, about the size of the fund and it being managed by the World Bank. Pledges are in the form of loans rather than grants, which will add to vulnerable countries’ already significant debt burdens.

Bangladesh has emphasised the fund needs to be based on grants to reflect developing countries’ needs in the face of the climate crisis. “The international community must understand there are limits to adaptation,” says Saber Chowdhury, Bangladesh’s environment minister.

“While we welcome the loss-and-damage fund, it is nowhere near what is needed. Along with raising more funding, it needs to raise its ambitions to ensure adaptation plans are effective in the long term.”

On the sidelines of Cop28, Bangladesh initiated talks on setting up a Climate Development Partnership Platform, the first of its kind in Asia, to bolster its mitigation and adaptation financing.

“We are not just victims of climate change – we are global leaders in the fight against it,” says Chowdhury, noting Bangladesh’s plans for 40% of its energy to come from renewables by 2041.

However, even with accelerated action, continued warming and extreme weather will put stress on Bangladesh’s adaptation efforts, making it harder to protect lives and livelihoods, and highlighting the need to step up international action.

“What’s happening in Bangladesh is not only limited to our borders,” says Chowdhury. “There will be spillover – it is not a question of where but when. This is a global crisis and we all need to come together and solve it faster than we are creating it.”
The party’s over for Russians in Sri Lanka after ‘whites only’ event fuels outrage (NBC News)
NBC News [2/28/2024 4:06 AM, Mithil Aggarwal and Caroline Radnofsky, Neutral]
The party may be over for thousands of Russian tourists who moved to Sri Lanka amid the war in Ukraine.

Authorities in the South Asian island nation said this week they were canceling long-term tourist visa extensions — a move that coincides with outrage over what appeared to be a “whites only” event organized by a Russian-run nightclub in a popular resort town.

But the debt-stricken island’s president raised doubts over whether his government would go through with the cancellations, which would threaten a much-needed source of tourist income.

Russian and Ukrainian tourists must leave Sri Lanka by March 7 after the expiration of their final free visa extension, according to a notice issued by the Tourism Development Authority. The Immigration Department had said last month that the visas were being extended due to the “non-operation of airlines in the region.”

However, President Ranil Wickremesinghe ordered an investigation into the notice, saying the visas could not be canceled without cabinet approval.

“The Govt hasn’t officially decided to revoke visa extensions previously granted to these tourists,” his office said Sunday in a post on X.

Facing sweeping travel restrictions after the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, many Russians flocked to Sri Lanka when it offered near-indefinite stays. Russia became Sri Lanka’s largest source of tourists after nearby India last year.

Nearly 200,000 Russians and 5,000 Ukrainians visited the country of 22 million last year, official Sri Lankan tourism department data showed.

It’s unclear how many of those remained in the country beyond the usual duration of a tourist visa, which is 30 days. But thousands are believed to have remained — including those seeking to avoid being drafted into the military — and some have set up restaurants and nightclubs.

It is also unclear whether the end of the visa extensions was related to the recent outcry, but one of those nightclubs was at the center of the outrage over a planned party.

A poster advertising a “White Party” last weekend at the Sarayka Lounge in Unawatuna, a coastal town about 3 miles from the southern tourist hub of Galle, specified a white dress code as is typical for such events.

But the poster, which was shared widely on social media and seen by NBC News, also included a line that said “Face Control: White,” drawing outrage from social media users who interpreted it to mean that only white people could attend the event.

Three Russian DJs were expected to play at the event, according to the poster.

In a post on Instagram last Friday, the bar said it had canceled the event and “will never support various racist statements or organizations.”

A user who claimed to be one of the party’s organizers apologized on Instagram, saying “There was no malice or racism in this.”

“We were sitting in a cafe and discussing that people living far from their homeland have a lot in common and it would be great to gather everyone in one place,” the user, @geo_ecstatic, said.

“We wanted to meet expats who have been living here for a long time and love Sri Lanka,” the user said, adding that he and his family had to leave the island due to abuse and threats arising from “this stupid idea of making a white party.”

In a statement about the “controversial night event,” the Russian Embassy in Colombo said, “according to unconfirmed data, the main promoter as well as the owners of a bar who agreed to accommodate the party are Russian citizens.”

Russia “strongly condemns all forms of racial discrimination,” it added, calling on its citizens to follow local laws and customs.

Sri Lanka has been struggling with an economic crisis since declaring bankruptcy two years ago with more than $83 billion in debt. More than half of that debt is owed to foreign creditors, with the worsening living conditions in the country leading to widespread protests and the ousting of then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2022.

Since then, the new administration has been pulling out all the stops to raise more cash, including a bailout by the International Monetary Fund and an increase in taxes and prices for electricity and fuel.

The increased cost of living has pushed some Sri Lankans to the streets again, with the police resorting to tear gas to quell a protest in the country’s capital, Colombo, last month.

Sri Lanka has also tapped into tourism, providing 30-day visas with multiple extensions of up to six months, with Russians and Ukrainians receiving even more due to the war in Ukraine.
Organiser of ‘white party’ in Sri Lanka apologises after backlash (BBC)
BBC [2/27/2024 11:39 PM, Kelly Ng, 14.2M, Neutral]
An organiser of a "white party" in Sri Lanka has apologised after the event sparked a backlash online.

The event’s advertisement specified a white dress code, but also had a line saying "Face control: White" - which was largely interpreted to mean the event was open only to white people.

An organiser later said the event was "a bad idea", adding that it was meant to bring together expatriates.

The party, which was due to take place last Saturday, was cancelled.
Backlash against the event was swift, with many on social media calling it "disgusting" and "racist".

"I know not all expats are like this... but this sort of thing should be stopped fast and stopped hard," said one local restaurant owner.

"How dare they come to a brown country and ban the people of that country," another social media user said on Facebook.

Writing on Instagram under the handle geo_ecstatic, a man who said he was an event organiser, said there was "no malice or racism" in planning the party.

"We wanted to meet expats who have been living here for a long time and love Sri Lanka. The team... supported me and a joint decision was made to quickly organise a party," he said, adding that he has since had to leave the country after receiving a barrage of abuse and threats.

"I didn’t expect this to be such a sensitive moment for a huge number of people. I admit that it was a bad idea... and I understand that we created it ourselves out of our stupidity. I deeply apologise to everyone whose feelings were hurt."

The event was due to be held in the Sarayka Lounge in the southern coastal town of Unawatuna. The venue later posted a statement saying the party had been cancelled, adding that its staff team " did not conduct a thorough-enough check" and have "severed ties" with the event planners.

"We have never supported and will never support various racist statements or organisations," they wrote.

The organiser as well as the owners of Sarayka Lounge are believed to be Russian citizens.

Rupasena Koswatta, president of an Unawatuna entrepreneurs’ association told BBC Sinhala many Russians have moved into Unawatuna, a coastal city just 5km (3.1mi) from Galle, in the last two years.

Many of the tourism businesses there are now owned by Russians in the area now known by many as "Little Moscow".

The Russian Embassy in Colombo later released a statement saying it "strongly condemns all forms of racial discrimination and nationalism" and urged citizens residing on the island to follow its laws and respect local customs.

Later on Sunday, Sri Lanka said it had ended long-term tourist visa extensions for Russians and Ukrainians. More than 288,000 Russians and nearly 20,000 Ukrainians have travelled to Sri Lanka since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, according to reports. But the country’s President Ranil Wickremesinghe later reportedly said the decision was made without prior Cabinet approval.
Central Asia
US Puts Additional Central Asian Companies on Russia Sanctions List (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [2/28/2024 12:00 AM, Catherine Putz, 201K, Neutral]
To mark the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last week and the recent death of Russia opposition politician Alexei Navalny, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced sanctions on almost 300 individuals and entities.

Embedded in the list were a handful of Central Asian companies. The latest round of sanctions designations included the Bishkek-based Obshchestvo S Ogranichennoy Otvetstvennostyu Ukon (Ukon). As Kloop reported, citing a Ministry of Justice database, Ukon was founded in August 2022, six months after the launch of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, by Gafar-Zadeh Mehdi Fikret Oglu. Registration details note the company’s main activity as “wholesale non-specialized trade.”

According to the U.S. Treasury Department’s sanctions, Ukon “has sent aircraft components and U.S.-origin aircraft parts in violation of U.S. export control regulations to Russia-based end-users.”

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) company PolarStar Logistics, which has branches in the UAE, Uzbekistan, and India, was also added to the sanctions list. The company, the U.S. Department of State said, “offers cargo shipping services from the UAE to Russia” and is listed as a S7 Airlines (Siberia Airlines) representative office. S7 Airlines was added to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) “Entity List” in June 2022 in an expansion of aviation-related export controls and sanctions.

Two Kazakh companies, Astana-based Da Group 22 and Almaty-based Elem Group were also included in the list. Registration details for both companies list them as being engaged in the trade of electronic and telecommunication equipment and parts. Da Group also, per registration information, produces circuit boards and Elem was additionally engaged in “forwarding services.”

The U.S. Department of State said that Da Group 22 was “receiving common high-priority items” from a Germany-based company, and was “sending common high-priority items” to a Russia-based company. “The end users of these common high-priority items include the Russian military and Russian space and defense manufacturers,” State noted.

Meanwhile, Elem Group “has supplied common high-priority items to Russia-based, U.S.-designated [Streloi Ekommerts],” itself a wholesaler of electronic equipment and parts.

According to the National Information and Analytical Center which provides a public registry of Kazakh companies both Da Group 22 and Elem Group were registered on March 14, 2022 – mere weeks after the Russian invasion began.

The Kazakh Ministry of Trade and Integration told TASS that it had been informed in advance that the companies would be listed as part of a “constructive dialogue.” The ministry also stated that as of May and June of 2023, respectively, the two companies had not carried out any import or export activities. The ministry also noted that Elem Group was in the process of liquidation.

While the number of Central Asian individuals and companies subject to sanctions stemming from the Russian war remains small, each additional designation underscores the region’s precarious position. Not only are Central Asia economies invariably impacted by sanctions targeting Russia, given the deep economic connections within the former Soviet space, but the war presented a unique opportunity for certain entrepreneurs interested in skirting sanctions, or at the very least in flirting with the possibility. It is notable that the newly sanctioned Central Asian companies (with the exception of the Uzbekistan-based office of PolarStar Logistics) were all registered after the start of the war.

Here we encounter the murky world of parallel imports and re-exports. Notably increased export and import figures in countries like Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan over the past two years are arguably the result of goods being imported into the Central Asia countries and then re-exported to Russia. These trade patterns have made Central Asia countries vulnerable to secondary sanctions. That said, the U.S. and EU, which are leading the sanctions regime against Russia, have been diligent in reaching out to Central Asian countries. This is reflected in Kazakh Ministry of Trade and Integration’s comments to TASS.

While Kazakhstan, like the rest of Central Asia, has not joined international sanctions against Russia, Astana has been adamant in stating, repeatedly, that it will not allow Kazakh territory to be used to circumvent sanctions. This sentiment has been echoed across the region.

Last year, in the wake of RFE/RL reporting on Kazakh and Kyrgyz companies exporting sanctioned dual-use goods to Russia and subsequent reporting by the Washington Post that the Biden administration was preparing sanctions on Kyrgyz companies, several Kyrgyz companies were sanctioned. Kyrgyz authorities responded quickly with the State Committee for National Security putting out a statement in which it said it “admits the possible involvement of private companies and firms… which, as part of their business and production activities, could be involved in violations of sanctions restrictions, possibly without knowing who actually can be the end consumer and user of the products supplied to them.” The statement added that the Kyrgyz state itself was not involved in violating sanctions.

Two years on, the war in Ukraine is slogging on and it’s clear that the U.S. and EU are watching closely and pulling on the loose threads – even those that tie back to Bishkek.
Paying Twice: Kazakhs Unhappy With Latest ‘Fix’ For Kazakhstan’s Health-Care ‘Hell’ (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [2/27/2024 1:08 PM, Khadisha Aqaeva and Chris Rickleton, 223K, Neutral]
Less than two years ago, after a trip to a state medical clinic in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, Gulnur Shayakhmetova was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor that would need extensive treatment.

Doubting the analysis, the 30-year-old went to a private clinic for a second opinion. Test results showed the initial diagnosis to be incorrect. While Shayakhmetova was relieved, she was also left fuming.

Thanks to an overhaul that entered into force in early 2020, working Kazakhs and their employers pay a mandatory payment worth up to 3 percent of their salaries in additional tax to cover them in the state’s Compulsory Social Medical Insurance (MEMS) plan.

The new tax was supposed to increase and improve medical coverage provided by state medical institutions, as well as allow investment into a health sector that officials have acknowledged is underfunded.

Instead, Shayakhmetova and other Kazakhs find themselves paying twice: once for MEMS and once to go to another doctor when the care provided by MEMS fails to meet their needs.

"They created a malfunctioning system to launder money," Shayakhmetova told RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service. "We supposedly have free medical care, but the equipment in the clinics is old and you wait in line for hours for tests."

Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev -- who oversaw the introduction of MEMS in the first year of his presidency -- has admitted that the results have thus far been disappointing.

Addressing lawmakers and officials on February 7 after appointing a new cabinet -- including a new health minister -- Toqaev pointed out that the health-care sector’s budget had doubled since MEMS was first introduced. "However, there has not yet been a significant improvement in the quality and accessibility of medical care," he argued.

New Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov reinforced that message in his first meeting with his cabinet later that week, noting that corruption and inefficiency within MEMS meant the policy needs "serious reconsideration" and "reformatting," while the health sector as a whole required "full digitization and transparency."

But so far there is no indication that Kazakh authorities are going to abandon MEMS.

To the contrary, draft amendments backed by the Health Ministry that may soon come to the legislature would increase mandatory payments covering medical care for Kazakhs earning over 850,000 tenges ($1,900), with the maximum allowable payments under the system rising by as much as five times.

And while that categorization limits blowback to those further from the breadline, the attempt to pump more money into a broken system is already generating plenty of anger.

No Likes, Many Dislikes

The period for public discussion of the draft law ended on February 7. On the government portal where it was posted for discussion, exactly zero registered users gave the law a Facebook-style "like," while more than 140 users gave it a thumbs down.

That the webpage has been viewed less than 8,000 times since it was posted on January 24 highlights the limited public engagement within the "public discussion" of laws in Kazakhstan. But the comments section bulged with hundreds of indignant remarks.

"I am categorically against [the amendments]. Our health-care [system] is not at the level to [justify] ripping off that kind of money from people," wrote one user, Aizhan Tazhinova, who related her experience of trying to get the electrocardiogram from a state clinic that was required to excuse her son from school sports.

"They said to my face, ‘Go do it at any private one.’ Whatever clinic you go to, you enter nine circles of hell. [The authorities] are just coming up with new ways of crawling into our pockets," she wrote.

Comments such as these were met with pasted responses from the Health Ministry to the effect that MEMS, while requiring improvements, was "fulfilling its main functions." The ministry also stressed that increased payments would only apply to 10 percent of the country’s workforce, with the remainder unaffected by the proposed tax.

The decision to increase obligations for higher earners makes political sense -- and not just because MEMS is "socially oriented," in the government’s words.

Kazakhstan’s worst independence-era unrest two years ago -- the Bloody January events that left at least 238 people dead and the regime hanging by a thread -- began with a New Year’s spike in the cost of liquefied petroleum gas.

Since then, the authorities have been cautious not to anger a cash-poor, inflation-weary population. When officials announced hikes in utility tariffs last year, they offset the measure with stipulations for financial assistance from provincial governments for the poorest residents.

Median monthly salaries in Kazakhstan hover around $560, while the minimum wage is less than $200 per month.

But the new legislation is clearly bad news for businesses, which typically bear the larger share of the burden in terms of covering their employees’ payments into the Fund for Social Medical Insurance (EMSK).

One rebuttal to the amendments during the public-discussion period was posted by the Republican Association of Mining and Metallurgical Enterprises, a lobby group that includes some of the country’s most powerful companies, where highly trained specialists are more likely to earn around or over the threshold envisaged in the amendments.

The association warned that the legislation would entail "a significant increase in the financial burden on employers, workers, and the self-employed population."

Underfunded Health Care

Kazakhstan’s health-care woes do not begin and end with MEMS.

Successive economic crises in the decade prior to the scheme’s introduction saw funding from the budget for the health-care sector sacrificed as other social spending -- such as handouts -- took precedence.

A report from the government’s official English-language publication, the Astana Times, in 2019 -- as the government prepared to roll out a MEMS pilot project in Qaraghandy Province -- noted that the proportion of the state budget allocated to health care fell from over 12 percent to just 9 percent between 2010 and 2017.

Quoted in the same report, then-Health Minister Elzhan Birtanov said that MEMS would help bolster the low wages of medical workers, some of whom were either leaving the profession or seeking jobs abroad. "We have to understand that the biggest problem for us now is the lack of staff; we should at least try not to worsen it," he said.

It was also acknowledged -- both by the government and the World Health Organization (WHO) -- that state medical facilities were offering less and less coverage, leading to a de facto rise in the number of treatments and services that citizens had to pay for out of their own pocket.

Even after MEMS, Kazakhstan’s health funding is still only around 3.8 percent of GDP -- below the minimum 5 percent of GDP advocated by the WHO.

The main problem with MEMS, by many accounts, is that the new money going into health care is simply getting lost as medical institutions claim money from the EMSK for unnecessary services.

Almaty resident Zhibek Batyrova, speaking to RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service, compared the system to an "organized mess."

"You can’t go to a neurologist right away -- you first need to make an appointment with a general practitioner, get a referral, wait in line, then go to the right specialist, and so on, in a circle. As a result, treatment is delayed for weeks," she said.

Shortly after RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service published its report on MEMS, the Health Ministry said the practice of requiring such referrals would end from the beginning of April -- one of several measures apparently aimed at decluttering patient care.

But there is also the problem of medical clinics claiming money for services they never offered in the first place.

According to EMSK, monitoring by the fund in 2022 revealed that these kinds of false claims cost the fund at least 400 million tenges in 2022 (nearly $900,000 at the time).

And this is very likely the tip of the iceberg, given that methods for detection often leave much to be desired.

In January of this year, the anti-corruption agency’s branch in Abai Province reported that several hospitals in the province were suspected of misusing funds after investigators said they compared the number of beds in the hospitals to the number of patients and randomly called about 100 patients to check on the services they had received.
Turkmenistan: Let them buy cake (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [2/27/2024 4:14 PM, Staff, 57.6k, Neutral]
International Women’s Day is coming, and as is customary, Turkmenistan’s government will mark the occasion with cash handouts.

The real dollar value of the 60 manat to be given to women on March 8 depends on the exchange rate. According to the official rate, this translates to $17. Black marketeers would offer closer to $3. As Russian state news RIA-Novosti helpfully explains, 60 manat these days will buy a cake and some candy.

At the February 23 Cabinet meeting, President Serdar Berdymukhamedov explained that the gift, a tradition established in the early 2000s, was a just reward for hard-working women “making a worthy contribution to the prosperity of the Fatherland.”

But according to Amsterdam-based Turkmen.news, military personnel are receiving less kind treatment. The outlet reported in a February 25 article that Defense Minister Begench Gundogdyev has canceled a system under which military officers with 10 or more years in the service took ownership of the apartments in which they live.

From now onward, military personnel will be provided accommodation only while they are in the army. In the event of resignation, dismissal or death, the family will be turfed out, Turkmen.news stated, citing a law enforcement source.

This edict has reportedly triggered a flood of resignations.

Since there are few other jobs going around, discharged military personnel may look, like many fellow citizens, abroad for better prospects. As Turkmen.news reported last month, migration service officials have for years at this point been trying to slow this rush for the doors by dragging out the process of issuing passports.

Not that the authorities acknowledge that there is any exodus. Quite the opposite.

On February 22, the former president (and father of the incumbent) National Leader Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov — his bespoke made-up title essentially makes him a co-president —delivered the rosiest of verdicts on the regime’s policies to the presidium of the Halk Maslahaty, the upper house of parliament, of which he is chair. He reprised, inter alia, the claim that Turkmenistan’s population has grown by 2 million people since 2008 to reach 7 million today.

“Demographic growth was achieved through a significant improvement in the well-being and standard of living of our citizens,” the government website quoted him as conveying.

In spite of global headwinds, gross domestic product growth has averaged over 6 percent since 2009, Berdymukhamedov the elder said, reprising a boast that even the painfully circumspect number-crunchers at the International Monetary Fund have now publicly conceded is almost certainly a lie.

These fantasies are presumably meant to serve in part to whet the appetite of foreign investors — few of whom are prepared to brave the opaque and corrupt conditions of Turkmenistan. Even the Berdymukhamedovs accept the fact that they have failed — not that they would use that verb — to create an appealing proposition for outsiders with money.

Berdymukhamedov senior insisted to his Halk Maslahaty charges that it is a priority for the government to draw up a legislative framework that will “protect and support” investors, combat the laundering of ill-gotten gains, optimize tax collection processes, and provide more robust intellectual property protections. He did not, oddly enough, address why so little of this has been done over the almost two decades in which he and now his son have been running the country.

The only sector that really generates much interest, predictably enough, is energy.

To that point, Ashgabat-based conference organizer Turkmen Forum announced last week that an international forum on attracting investment into Turkmenistan’s energy sector will be held on April 24-25 in Paris. That these kinds of events need to be held in a neutral location like the French capital, because it is so bureaucratically complicated for foreigners to secure visas to get into Turkmenistan in a timely fashion, tells its own story.

In more immediate business-related action, Ashgabat will on March 3-5 host a trade fair of goods from Afghanistan. This event appears to have been one outcome of a February 26 visit to Turkmenistan by Amir Khan Muttaqi, the foreign minister of the Taliban-run government in Kabul. According to the Turkmen Foreign Ministry, Muttaqi’s delegation included representatives of the Afghan Mining and Petroleum Ministry, Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat power company, and the Afghanistan Railway Authority, among others.

Conversations inevitably touched upon the trans-Afghan TAPI natural gas pipeline project, which Kabul is exceedingly impatient to get started with.

As India is the I in TAPI, the same topic naturally also came up on February 20, when President Berdymukhamedov accepted the credentials of Delhi’s newly appointed envoy to Ashgabat, Madhumita Hazarika Bhagat. A government website account of this exchange did not suggest anything useful was said, however.

Afghanistan is going to be around the top of Turkmenistan’s foreign policy agenda for some weeks to come in view of the planned fifth meeting of foreign ministers among the neighboring countries of Afghanistan. This format, which was created in the wake of the Taliban seizing power in Kabul, comprises seven countries: China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, all of which directly border Afghanistan, and, curiously enough, Russia, which does not. The last edition of this get-together was in April 2023 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

On February 23, deputy Turkmen Foreign Minister Akhmed Gurbanov met for talks in Ashgabat with China’s special envoy for Afghan affairs, Yue Xiaoyong, to coordinate in advance of the foreign minister confab.

It was stressed at the outset that it is perceived as imperative to maintain a line of dialogue with the Taliban regime in the interests of maintaining stability. This position is an implicit rebuke to the West, which has by and large publicly disdained talking to Kabul.

A further case that Turkmenistan is eager to advance in this multilateral format is that “the peace-building process in Afghanistan [must involve the] country in regional economic integration processes through the implementation of large infrastructure projects.”

In other words, if China is serious about Afghanistan’s future as a stable country, it is duty-bound to provide funding for, say, TAPI or the parallel TAP high-voltage power line project.
Twitter
Afghanistan
Abdul Qahar Balkhi
@QaharBalkhi
[2/27/2024 10:25 AM, 231.9K followers, 11 retweets, 80 likes]
The Head of ICRC in Afghanistan, Ms Katharina Ritz called on IEA-Deputy FM for Political Affairs, Alhaj Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai. During meeting, Ms Ritz highlighted long-standing efforts of ICRC in Afghanistan including demining, nutrition, medicine, water supply &

Abdul Qahar Balkhi
@QaharBalkhi
[2/27/2024 10:25 AM, 231.9K followers, 1 retweet, 2 likes]
healthcare, & reaffirming her commitment to supporting the aforementioned services in the future in more targeted manner. Additionally, Ms Ritz said that ICRC is currently engaged in a number of capacity building & training projects in coordination with the government.

Abdul Qahar Balkhi
@QaharBalkhi
[2/27/2024 10:25 AM, 231.9K followers, 1 retweet, 3 likes]
Calling the assistance of ICRC long-term & historical, DFM Stanekzai expressed his gratitude for their unwavering support & cooperation with Afghans during difficult times, & assured ICRC of full cooperation in their operations on behalf of IEA-MoFA.

M. Ashraf Haidari
@MAshrafHaidari
[2/27/2024 2:06 PM, 17.2K followers, 3 retweets, 7 likes]
Today marks the National Day in Support of ANDSF, whose countless sacrifices in defense of Afghanistan’s sovereignty, independence and freedom the Afghan people honor and will remember forever. In 2021, they were betrayed in the battlefield of democracy, freedom and justice against terrorism, totalitarianism, and gender apartheid -- tragically ruling Afghanistan and threatening regional stability and international peace today. @CENTCOM @GFAfghanistan @NATO
Pakistan
Hamid Mir
@HamidMirPAK
[2/28/2024 2:12 AM, 8.4M followers, 108 retweets, 375 likes]
Who built these roads? Who will get new contracts? Most of the roads were washed away in the floodwaters that cut off Ormara, Pasni, Jewani and Sarbandan from Gwadar,a portion of the coastal highway linking Gwadar with Karachi was also washed away. https://www.dawn.com/news/1817672

Hamid Mir
@HamidMirPAK
[2/27/2024 8:58 PM, 8.4M followers, 32 retweets, 137 likes]
Too many journalists are dying on the job. The People’s Tribunal is about to name and shame the killers. I wrote about this two years ago. People’s Tribunal is now investigating murder of many journalists. Same Tribunal can give justice to #ArshadSharif
India
Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/27/2024 11:51 PM, 95.7M followers, 2K retweets, 5.9K likes]
Speaking at inauguration and foundation stone laying ceremony of various development works in Thoothukudi.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/27/2024 9:45 PM, 95.7M followers, 4.7K retweets, 22K likes]
Received unparalleled affection in Palladam and Madurai. Looking forward to today’s programmes in Thoothukudi and Tirunelveli before heading to Yavatmal in Maharashtra.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/27/2024 9:35 PM, 95.7M followers, 3.3K retweets, 13K likes]
Greetings on National Science Day. Our Government is continuously working to encourage research and innovation among the youth. This is important to realise our dream of a Viksit Bharat.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/27/2024 8:41 AM, 95.7M followers, 5K retweets, 27K likes]
At the programme in Palladam, the people and our Party Karyakartas shared very special tokens of affection which I will greatly cherish. On behalf of farmers in Erode, a turmeric garland was presented. Our Government’s decision to set up a National Turmeric Board has received record applause from farmers. I also received a Toda tribal community Shawl. Our Government’s efforts to strengthen SHGs will make products like these popular globally. Equally touching was to receive a Jallikattu bull replica. Tamil Nadu has not forgotten how INC and DMK did nothing to protect Jallikattu while it was our NDA Government which ensured it continues with great fervour, in line with the glorious culture of Tamil Nadu.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/27/2024 8:13 AM, 95.7M followers, 2.3K retweets, 7.1K likes]
MSMEs are key players in propelling the automotive industry forward and are vital to the nation’s economic growth. Addressing a programme in Madurai.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/27/2024 5:09 AM, 95.7M followers, 10K retweets, 64K likes]
It was a very special moment for me to hand over wings to the four Indian astronaut-designates. They reflect the hopes, aspirations and optimism of 140 crore Indians. India is proud of Group Captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, Group Captain Ajit Krishnan, Group Captain Angad Pratap and Wing Commander Shubhanshu Shukla.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[2/28/2024 2:46 AM, 3M followers, 29 retweets, 324 likes]
Delighted to join my cabinet colleague @JoshiPralhad ji in Chikodi today to inaugurate the KLE School Building. Appreciate the work being done by the Karnatak Lingayat Education (KLE) Society under @prabhakarbkore’s lead to make our future generation world ready to take on the opportunities of AmritKaal.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[2/27/2024 8:21 AM, 3M followers, 330 retweets, 3.7K likes]
Happy to receive Foreign Secretary @sewa_lamsal of Nepal today in Delhi. Pleased to hear from her about progress in various aspects of our bilateral relations.

Tanvi Madan
@tanvi_madan
[2/27/2024 11:46 AM, 88K followers, 12 retweets, 20 likes]
My (uncorrected) transcription of Indian Defence Secretary’s comments a few days ago re China & US:
- northern neighbor a "bully"
- concern re add’l moves
- maybe 1st public official acknowledgement of US support to India in 2020 crisis
- hope for future US support in case needed

Tanvi Madan
@tanvi_madan
[2/27/2024 11:53 AM, 88K followers, 7 retweets, 35 likes]
I see a bunch of ppl in India criticizing the acceptance of US support. Regular reminder: security shouldn’t be sacrificed at the altar of (mythical) self-sufficiency This is something past govts hv recognized in India’s various wars, e.g. partnering w/ US, Soviet Union, Israel
NSB
Awami League
@albd1971
[2/27/2024 12:16 PM, 636.2K followers, 23 retweets, 67 likes]
HPM #SheikhHasina said @bd_police must play a proactive role in #AwamiLeague govt’s operation against #militancy, #terrorism, #drugs, and #corruption. "The peace and stability are paramount for achieving our developmental goals,” PM Sheikh Hasina stated. https://link.albd.org/hp5f5

Awami League
@albd1971
[2/27/2024 11:36 AM, 636.2K followers, 22 retweets, 56 likes]
State Minister for @MoPEMR, @NasrulHamid_MP, has sought @ITFCCORP’s cooperation to modernise the #power distribution and transmission system during his meeting with ITFC CEO Engr. @Hani54938063. The cooperation may extend to up to $500 million initially. https://link.albd.org/pfoon

Sabria Chowdhury Balland
@sabriaballand
[2/27/2024 11:57 AM, 5.1K followers]
The momentum and rapid spread of the "India Out" movement has brought about stone-cold silence of the friends of India in #Bangladesh. Even Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, who runs propaganda in favor of India, Israel, Zionism and Hindutva is not finding an ally to counter the India Out movement. "Not a single journalist or individual such as Shyamal Dutta, Noim Nizam, Nayeemul Islam Khan and others who are perceived as friends of India are not uttering a word against the ‘India Out’ movement. Even Awami League and its leaders, including State Minister for Information Dr. MA Arafat, Foreign Minister Dr. Hassan Mahmud or Awami League’s think tank CRI are absolutely silent." #IndiaOut https://eurasiareview.com/26022024-india-out-in-bangladesh-and-stone-cold-silence-of-friends-of-india-oped/

Sabria Chowdhury Balland
@sabriaballand
[2/27/2024 9:54 AM, 5.1K followers, 1 like]
Let’s call a spade a spade. Sheikh Hasina is likely to “sincerely thank” the #Bangladesh police for its commitment to her (in other words, RAW’s) authoritarian agenda. The extremely corrupt police in Bangladesh is instrumental in committing atrocities on civil society rather than serving it. Rather, it serves to maintain a dictatorship, which in turn serves a foreign hegemonic power. #IndiaOut ‘Sincerely thank police for their patience in tackling violence unleashed by BNP-Jamaat’: PM https://unb.com.bd/category/Bangladesh/pm-calls-for-robust-police-action-against-terrorism-corruption-and-drug-abuse/131613

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[2/28/2024 2:44 AM, 107.1K followers, 13 retweets, 13 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu met with the community of Komandoo Island in the North Miladhunmadulu Atoll, reiterating the Administration’s commitment to address the concerns the island’s community raised. The meeting was held at Sh. Atoll Education Centre.

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[2/28/2024 2:12 AM, 107.1K followers, 26 retweets, 26 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu arrived on Sh. Komandoo as part of his six-day visit to some islands of the HA, HDh, Sh and N atolls. Upon arrival, the island community warmly welcomed the President and his delegation.

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[2/28/2024 12:37 AM, 107.1K followers, 47 retweets, 56 likes]
President Dr @Mmuizzu met with the community of Funadhoo Island in the North Miladhunmadulu Atoll, where he affirmed the Administration’s commitment to fulfill the residents’ aspirations for development.

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[2/27/2024 11:41 AM, 107.1K followers, 72 retweets, 74 likes]
The First Lady emphasises on taking proactive measures to address the changing population dynamics in the Maldives https://presidency.gov.mv/Press/Article/30154

Moosa Zameer
@MoosaZameer
[2/28/2024 1:55 AM, 12.8K followers, 15 retweets, 23 likes]
I was delighted to meet the UNFPA Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific @PioSmith_UN, during his official visit to the Maldives. I thanked the @UNFPA for their continued support and assistance to the #Maldives in the areas of reproductive health, gender equality, population dynamics as well as adolescents and youth empowerment. I also took the opportunity to convey the commitment of President Dr. @MMuizzu towards enhancing collaboration with key partners in implementing the Government’s people-centric development agenda. @UNFPAMaldives @UNFPAAsiaPac

M U M Ali Sabry
@alisabrypc
[2/27/2024 11:55 PM, 5K followers, 7 retweets, 4 likes]
In my address to #HRC55 via a video message, I underlined #SriLanka’s continuing focus and tangible steps taken in the interest of national unity & #reconciliation, reaffirmed Sri Lanka’s commitment to engaging in constructive #HumanRights processes while rejecting politicized and unilateral measures that infringe upon the #sovereignty of Member States. I further urged the members of the Council not to allow “domestic vote bank politics” to overtake the important work of the Council. I stressed the fact that the manner in which the Council approaches the #humanitarian #crisis in #Gaza will be a litmus test to its credibility as the foremost international human rights body, and reiterated the importance of avoiding double standards being practiced in the pursuit of political agendas #UN_HRC #Geneva @SLUNGeneva @MFA_SriLanka

Ranil Wickremesinghe
@RW_UNP
[2/27/2024 11:39 AM, 317.3K followers, 30 retweets, 128 likes]
I initiated the “Presidential Academic Scholarship Programme” to prioritise the well-being and education of Sri Lankan children. My mission is to support 100,000 students from grades 1-11 using the President’s Fund. I believe in education’s power to transform and commit to nurturing our future talents. Stay updated on selection and details by following the President’s Fund on Facebook. Join me to empower our next generation together!
Central Asia
Chris Rickleton
@ChrisRickleton
[2/28/2024 12:29 AM, 7.2K followers, 9 retweets, 12 likes]
Russia taking "proactive measures" against "large pro-Western NGOs" in Central Asia, according to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Does that mean backing "foreign representatives" law in Kyrgyzstan?

MFA Tajikistan
@MOFA_Tajikistan
[2/27/2024 1:59 AM, 4.5K followers]
Meeting with the Head of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture https://mfa.tj/en/main/view/14481/meeting-with-the-head-of-iran-chamber-of-commerce-industries-mines-and-agriculture

MFA Tajikistan
@MOFA_Tajikistan
[2/27/2024 10:00 PM, 4.5K followers, 1 like]
Briefing on economic and social achievements of Tajikistan in 2023, investment and tourism opportunities of the country https://mfa.tj/en/main/view/14469/briefing-on-economic-and-social-achievements-of-tajikistan-in-2023-investment-and-tourism-opportunities-of-the-country

MFA Tajikistan
@MOFA_Tajikistan
[2/27/2024 5:42 AM, 4.5K followers, 3 retweets, 4 likes]
Meeting of the Minister of Foreign Affairs with the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Central Asia https://mfa.tj/en/main/view/14468/meeting-of-the-minister-of-foreign-affairs-with-the-special-representative-of-the-un-secretary-general-for-central-asia

MFA Tajikistan
@MOFA_Tajikistan
[2/27/2024 5:42 AM, 4.5K followers]
Second round of interdepartmental negotiations on the establishment of the SCO Anti-Drug Centre in the city of Dushanbe https://mfa.tj/en/main/view/14467/second-round-of-interdepartmental-negotiations-on-the-establishment-of-the-sco-anti-drug-centre-in-the-city-of-dushanbe

Bakhtiyor Saidov
@FM_Saidov
[2/27/2024 12:13 PM, 3.2K followers, 2 retweets, 5 likes]
A pleasure to meet Mr. Dato’ Mark Yeoh, Executive Director @ytlcommunity. We had a frank discussion on joint realizing several infrastructure projects in #Uzbekistan. Invited our friends at YTL Corporation to take part in upcoming business events in our country, including the Third #Tashkent International Investment Forum.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[2/28/2024 12:21 AM, 157.7K followers, 1 retweet, 6 likes]
On February 26, 2024 the #UN General Assembly unanimously adopted the resolution proclaiming 2027 as the International Year of Sustainable and Resilient Tourism. Initiated by Uzbekistan the resolution is based on the thesis put forward by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev at the UNWTO Assembly in Samarkand in 2023, which focuses on the tourism industry’s resilience and flexibility in facing the modern age’s emerging challenges and problems.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[2/27/2024 11:14 AM, 157.7K followers, 2 retweets, 13 likes]
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev reviewed document drafts aimed at enhancing Tashkent’s industry, services, and infrastructure. The meeting highlighted issues such as support for entrepreneurial development, better housing conditions for people, city infrastructure improvement, propositions for boosting the capital’s tourism services and infrastructure.

{End of Report}
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