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:
Thursday, May 23, 2024 6:30 AM ET

Afghanistan
A Taliban revenge killing prompts questions, removal of an acclaimed documentary (Washington Post)
Washington Post [5/22/2024 10:00 PM, Manuel Roig-Franzia and Hope Hodge Seck, 47820K, Neutral]
On a winter day not long ago, an Afghan man — a 21-year-old who’d once dazzled U.S. Special Forces with his ability to find roadside bombs — was stopped at a checkpoint by Taliban guards on his way to a bazaar.

They let him go, but within days, the Taliban seized him at his house, according to an interpreter who spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity to describe this sequence of events without imperiling his own family in Afghanistan.

In many ways the man was like the thousands of Afghans who’d worked for U.S. troops as interpreters and bomb-clearers but were left in peril after the 2021 U.S. withdrawal and the Afghan government’s fall to the Taliban. But this man — whom the Green Berets had nicknamed “Justin Bieber” because of his good looks and lustrous hair — was different in one crucial way.

His role aiding the Green Berets had been featured in an acclaimed National Geographic documentary, “Retrograde,” by director Matthew Heineman, which shows the man in a lingering close-up. Even more attention was drawn to him because he appears prominently in a clip from the documentary that rapidly spread through Afghanistan on TikTok in the weeks before he was captured.

Heineman and “Retrograde” producer Caitlin McNally made the decision to show close-ups of the man and other mine-clearers despite warnings from at least five people prior to “Retrograde’s” December 2022 debut on the National Geographic Channel and Hulu, according to Post interviews. Those people — three active-duty U.S. military personnel and two former Green Berets — said the scene in “Retrograde” would put the man and other Afghan contractors in the film in danger, warnings they issued at a time when hundreds of Taliban retribution killings of contractors and their families had already been documented.

After his release from Taliban custody, the interpreter said the man told him: “They showed me Retrogade Movie and said you have worked with foreign forces and also worked in the movie. ... They found me through Retrograde Movie.”

His captors plunged his head below water, nearly drowning him. They punched and kicked him. They beat him with wooden sticks. More than two weeks later his family found him lying in the street outside their home, he told the interpreter. (A family friend who had direct contact with the man, as well as a second interpreter, confirmed the account of his capture, according to text messages with extraction advocates related to humanitarian efforts that were reviewed by The Post.) A doctor told him “my lung is not working.”

Within weeks he was dead.

For some of those who say they issued warnings, the loss of the man the soldiers called Justin Bieber was a death foretold — and a tragedy that may be repeated. (The Post is not using his name to protect his family from potential further harm.) As many as eight other Afghans whose faces are shown in “Retrograde” remain in hiding in the region, according to the 1208 Foundation, a charitable organization that specializes in evacuating Afghans who cleared mines for U.S. forces.

“Retrograde” — which won three Emmy awards in 2023 as well as an Edward R. Murrow Award for feature documentary — has now disappeared. National Geographic quietly removed the documentary from all its platforms in April after The Post sought comment about whether its content may have put some of its subjects in danger. National Geographic, which produces documentaries as part of a joint agreement with Disney, said in a statement to The Post that it was pulling the film in “an abundance of caution,” because of “new attention to this film.”

“The film also showcased the vital work of Afghan soldiers and allies who operated alongside U.S. troops,” the statement says. “We were devastated to learn of the death of one of those brave Afghans and our heart goes out not only to his family but to all those still in danger as they fight against a brutal terrorist organization.”

Heineman and McNally declined to be interviewed. In response to written questions, they said they “have no recollection” of receiving specific warnings about the Afghan bomb-clearers after two prerelease reviews by the U.S. military or following a D.C. screening event held before the film’s debut that was attended by two former Green Berets who say they warned about the danger of showing the faces of bomb-clearers.

In a statement emailed to The Post after “Retrograde” was removed from streaming, Heineman and McNally called the man’s death “a heartbreaking tragedy.”

“The U.S. government’s precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan and the vengeful actions of the Taliban upon taking power — armed with detailed information identifying Afghans who worked with the U.S. government — led to the deaths of countless partners left behind. That is the tragic story that warrants attention,” the statement said. “But any attempt to blame ‘Retrograde’ because the film showed faces of individuals in war zones — as has long been standard in ethical conflict reporting — would be deeply wrong.”

Heineman and McNally also criticized National Geographic’s decision to remove “Retrograde” from its platforms.

“From the beginning, Nat Geo/Disney have been true partners to us. Despite a complex and ever-changing story, they greenlit, oversaw, thoroughly reviewed, and released ‘Retrograde,’” the statement said. “But their decision to remove the film from their platforms protects no one and accomplishes nothing other than undermining the vitality of long-established norms of journalism.”

Alex Gibney, an Oscar-winning documentarian who was executive producer of a 2017 film directed by Heineman, is also critical of National Geographic’s decision.

“This comes at a time when risk-averse entertainment companies are increasingly inclined to avert their eyes from current events that affect us all in favor of celebrity commercials and mindless true crime,” Gibney said.

As The Post was reporting this story, the interpreter’s account of Justin Bieber’s final days was referenced in a previously unreported March 27 letter that wasn’t released publicly to Secretary of State Antony Blinken from two House members — Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), and retired Green Beret and Afghanistan war veteran Michael Waltz (R-Fla.).

“The lack of obscured faces,” the congressmen wrote, “has transformed [‘Retrograde’] into a de facto target list, one which the Taliban has exploited, resulting in the confirmed torture and murder” of the man who was killed after appearing in the documentary. They urged the State Department to expedite visas for the men depicted in “Retrograde” who remain in Afghanistan, “given the immediate and severe threat to their lives.”

The death of the man featured in “Retrograde” raises thorny questions about the responsibilities of journalists and documentarians, particularly in conflict zones, who are faced with the difficult task of balancing the desire to tell complete and compelling stories with the potential dangers their work might create for subjects. In recent years, there has been some discussion in the industry and academia about the creation of a code of ethics or formal guidelines for documentary filmmakers, who often work without the oversight that is common at major news organizations.

“Retrograde,” which was filmed with military permission, is not the first National Geographic documentary involving filmmakers embedding with U.S. forces in Afghanistan. In 2007’s “Inside the Green Berets,” the narrator — Emmy-nominated filmmaker Steven Hoggard — tells the viewer: “The Taliban will kill anyone who speaks with or interprets for the Americans, and we’ve blurred the faces of anyone deemed at risk.”

In an email to The Post, Hoggard said he considered it “paramount” while working on his film to ensure that no one featured in the documentary was “hurt or killed after production.” Hoggard said he believes some people “might not fully comprehend the risk they are assuming just by being seen and heard. … Safeguarding folks who entrust us with their stories is, to me, a sacred kind of responsibility.”

The mine-clearer who was killed (a.k.a. Justin Bieber) survived the 16 months after the U.S. pullout in August 2021, but was seized within weeks of “Retrograde’s” TV release, according to a translation of the man’s account that was texted to 1208 by an interpreter and was confirmed in a Post interview with the interpreter. Since the man’s death, the filmmakers have made payments to his family, including at least one $150 payment in 2023, according to text messages at the time with Kasza. More recently, Heineman and McNally arranged through a different charity, Team Themis, for a grant to pay the family $800 per month in living expenses for six months starting in February this year, according to the charitable group.

Heineman and McNally contend that the Taliban would have had the means to identify the man even if he hadn’t appeared in the film, because the Taliban had numerous ways of identifying Afghans who worked with American forces, including using seized biometrics devices left behind by the U.S. military containing information about them. Some analysts have concluded those devices were only of limited use.

But in at least one instance, McNally told others that “Retrograde” would endanger an Afghan who wasn’t in the bomb-clearing group but also appeared in the documentary. About six weeks before the film premiered on the National Geographic Channel in December 2022, McNally sent a message to Thomas Kasza, a former Green Beret who runs the 1208 Foundation, saying that an Afghan military officer “who is featured quite a bit in the film is still stuck inside the country. We are very concerned for him especially once the film comes out.”

In the same message, McNally wrote that the man had worked with Green Berets “for years and is definitely in danger now.”

At 40, Heineman is one of only two people — along with Martin Scorsese — to be nominated for the Directors Guild of America awards as both a documentary (2015’s “Cartel Land”) and feature film director (for 2018’s “A Private War,” which starred Rosamund Pike as Marie Colvin, a journalist slain while covering civil war in Syria).

Documentarian Tom Yellin, who worked on Heineman’s “Cartel Land,” called the director a “thoughtful, focused, caring and careful journalist.”

“On our film,” Yellin said by text message, “we had many sensitive scenes that we reviewed in detail to ensure that we were handling them in ways that best told the story without putting people in harm’s way.”

“Retrograde” takes its name from the military term for a withdrawal from the front lines. In a late 2022 interview with a movie industry journalist’s streaming program titled “DP 30: The Oral History of Hollywood,” Heineman held forth on the importance of “the motif of faces” in the film. “Holding on faces, holding on reaction shots,” he said. “It was very much something that was contemplated, obviously, in the editing room.”

“Retrograde” was well-received by critics. The Guardian’s reviewer raved about its “hyper high-definition cinematography [that] is both beautiful in a savage way and adds immediacy to the viewing experience.” A Washington Post critic called it “an impressive and yet enormously depressing achievement.” The New York Times said it was “shrewdly observant.”

Heineman’s film crew first embedded in January 2021 with a group of Green Berets in Helmand province — the dangerous hub of the Taliban’s opium trade and the site of some of the most brutal and protracted battles of the 20-year war. The Green Berets trained Afghan National Army troops but also conducted their own operations with the paid help of two groups of Afghan bomb-clearers, a collection of contractors working independently from the Afghan army and known as the National Mine Removal Group, or NMRG.

Some of the Afghan mine-clearers were initially uneasy about being filmed but overcame their reluctance.

Charlie Crail, the 10th Special Forces Group media officer assigned to the project, said the mine-clearers were “fearless” and, when asked about being filmed, “all of them were like, ‘Yeah, we don’t care, that’s fine.’”

One of the commanders of the two NMRG groups shown in the film said in an April 22 statement that was forwarded to The Post by Heineman that he “authorized” the men being filmed and having their faces shown because “we saw the value for this story to be told.” Later, in response to questions from The Post, the commander — who spoke on the condition of anonymity, so as not to endanger relatives in Afghanistan — acknowledged that he was not in charge of the dead man’s group, but he said he had served as an adviser to it.

The conversations about whether the men could be filmed took place at a time when the mine-clearers and their U.S. allies still hoped that the Taliban would be defeated. More than 300 Afghans and their family members who had worked with the Americans had already been killed by the Taliban, according to a report published the year before “Retrograde” filming began by No One Left Behind, a charitable organization that assists in evacuating Afghan allies and helping them acquire U.S. visas.

The danger for those Afghans and their families “dramatically increased” after the U.S. withdrawal, No One Left Behind’s Andrew J. Sullivan testified during a congressional hearing in January.

Some of the Green Berets felt protective of their Afghan partners and were concerned about exposing them to danger and unsure whether they understood what was being asked of them, said a U.S. service member who was in Afghanistan at the time, and spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly.

“There were concerns from day one,” he said.

During filming in March 2021, the Green Berets in the documentary insisted that they be able to preview “Retrograde” and the Department of the Army granted them, in writing, an “assurance that the film would be screened heavily by the military and NatGeo in accordance with our requests,” the service member said. “It’s kind of a fallback that even though [filmmakers are] deviating from personnel security at the moment, that it would be caught and cleaned up later.”

The role of the Green Berets would be greatly diminished in “Retrograde” as U.S. forces withdrew and the film changed its narrative focus. The scene with the close-up that circulated on TikTok shows the Green Berets telling the bomb-clearers that they’re leaving, and includes comments from one of the Afghans saying they will be in danger if they return to their “normal lives.” The man who was killed nods in response.

The scene lasts just a few minutes of a 96-minute film, but it is a pivotal and quietly despairing prelude.

Before “Retrograde’s” release, the U.S. military got the preview it had been promised. They immediately saw issues.

“Concern about Afghan partners and faces being blurred was raised,” said Crail.

After screening the film, Crail, who has since retired, said he and another U.S. service member told McNally: “You guys need to do your due diligence before you release this movie to make sure as many of these guys are out [of Afghanistan] as possible.”

Military officials not only feared for the Afghans they’d hired but had also begun to worry that returning Green Beret team members who’d agreed to be in the film were at risk, even in the United States.

“The team members also have concerns over security because of the Taliban now being in charge in Kabul,” Maj. Peter Bogart, a U.S. Army communications officer assigned to the project, wrote in an email to a group of military public affairs officers. “They have concerns over their identity being shown in the film since it was not a routine rotation followed by continued ops, but now many of the targets are now part of the government. At this stage in the review process, can team members or family members withdraw their consent to be in the film?” (Eventually they decided not to make that request.)

The Taliban takeover had also heightened concerns among some of the Green Berets about their NMRG partners being shown in the film.

“It was a different risk perspective,” the filmmakers were told, according to a U.S. military officer’s account of the review process that was shared with Kasza after the man’s death, while they were seeking assistance from Disney in acquiring visas for men depicted in “Retrograde.”

Some of the military personnel who reviewed the film considered it their mandate to scan for anything that would compromise U.S. military interests. The contract between the military and Heineman’s company requires the filmmakers to remove “sensitive security-related or classified information.”

Military officers ultimately signed off on the film — a key point that Heineman and McNally say guided their decisions.

“The bottom line is that both the military public affairs officers and the Green Berets approved the final version of the film for release, which included faces of NMRG,” Heineman and McNally said in a written response to further questions from The Post.

The military screeners saw their sign-off differently. Their reading of the contract with Heineman’s production company was that it did not give them the right to demand changes related to Afghan contractors, according to a U.S. service member who provided an account of the sequence of events to Kasza. An internal U.S. military public affairs email about “Retrograde” states that “the US Army does not have editorial control of the documentary, but we can ask that scenes be deleted if we can justify how the scenes will be harmful to the unit or US Army.”

(Heineman and McNally did not address The Post’s written questions about the military’s interpretation of the contract.)

Still, the officials asked the filmmakers to take steps to protect the mine-clearers, who were now considered to be in much greater danger than when the project had begun, according to The Post’s interviews.

“The feedback given was that, you can blur it, you can cut ‘em, you can crop the scenes,” the U.S. service member who was in Afghanistan at the time of the filming said on the condition of anonymity beacuse he was not authorized to speak publicly. “Whatever is done the absolute minimum should just be blurring. Just fix it. We discussed this ad nauseam.”

McNally, the “Retrograde” producer, showed the film to Crail and a U.S. military commander, as well as Green Berets in the film. Crail recalled that she was noncommittal about making changes, such as blurring faces, though she was “definitely taking notes.”

At that point, a military screener concluded that “the decision had already been made,” according to another U.S. service member’s account of interactions with the filmmakers that was shared with Kasza and was reviewed by The Post on the condition that the service member not be named because of concerns that the service member could face retribution from the filmmakers or Disney. “Nothing was going to change.”

In October 2022, Thomas Kasza and a colleague from the 1208 Foundation attended an invitation-only screening of “Retrograde” at National Geographic’s Washington headquarters. They met McNally for pre-show drinks at a bar in the elegant Jefferson hotel nearby.

Kasza recalled that he and his friend were “starry eyed” that night, getting to hang out with Hollywood types. Kasza, now 35, had been a Green Beret and saw combat in Afghanistan. When he came home, the restlessness of the battlefield came with him, an intensity he channeled into the foundation’s effort to evacuate Afghans who worked with the United States. In “Retrograde,” Kasza and his colleague saw an opportunity to raise money.

The film did not disappoint in its depiction of the fall of Afghanistan, but the scene showing close-ups of the Afghan bomb-clearers gnawed at Kasza and his colleague, Dave, who agreed to be interviewed by The Post on the condition that only his first name be used so as not to compromise ongoing logistical work evacuating Afghans who worked with the U.S. military.

Kasza couldn’t help but worry that the film could essentially be handing “a hit list” to the Taliban.

That feeling of unease persisted as the evening spilled into an after-party at Old Ebbitt Grill, said Kasza.

Both Kasza and Dave vividly recalled pulling Heineman and McNally aside and expressing concerns that showing the faces of the Afghan bomb-clearers put them at risk. They remember urging the documentarians to take steps to help the men and their families leave Afghanistan. Heineman and McNally were opposed to obscuring faces and gave vague assurances about assistance evacuating the men, Kasza and Dave said, but the veterans were still hopeful at that point that the filmmakers would take their advice to heart. (In their written response to The Post regarding their lack of recollection about the conversation, Heineman and McNally also note that Kasza and Dave were “repeatedly thanking us and praising our work” after the screening.)

Despite the misgivings Kasza and Dave say they felt about showing the faces of Afghan bomb-clearers, they continued to publicly support the film, hoping it would help them raise funds for their charity, they said. In one text message that Kasza confirmed to The Post that he sent Heineman and McNally, he even said to the filmmakers that “Retrograde” was “about to be the hottest show in town and every Afghan centric org will be lining up to tie themselves to you guys.” Kasza attended more than a dozen screenings and occasionally praised the film on social media.

Dave also attended other screenings, including one in New York, where, he said, he attended a boisterous cocktail reception and expressed his concerns to Carolyn Bernstein, National Geographic’s executive vice president of global scripted content and documentary films. “I really think that showing their faces is a huge mistake, and I think it’s going to lead to people being injured or killed,” Dave recalled telling her. (Bernstein, who attended numerous screenings, does not recall the conversation, a National Geographic spokesman said.)

Warnings were also communicated by a high-ranking U.S. military officer to Disney’s global intelligence and threat analysis manager, according to text messages sent to Kasza during strategy discussions about seeking assistance from Disney in evacuating at-risk Afghans shown in “Retrograde.” (Disney owns Hulu; the National Geographic Channel is a joint venture between Disney and the National Geographic Society.) Crail, the Special Forces media escort, also said that a U.S. military screener warned Disney about blurring faces.

In a written statement, a National Geographic spokesman vigorously rebutted the officer’s account of the warnings, saying that “at no time … was anything related to blurring faces of NMRG discussed. Any reporting to the contrary is simply not true, and we suspect is a mis-relaying of a conversation.”

Days after “Retrograde’s” TV premiere, McNally began sending text messages to Kasza raising some alarms about repercussions, including passing along insights from a “mil intel dude” who ominously warned: “Afghanistan culture is huge on revenge.”

In her messages, McNally didn’t say whether she believed the warning, but she relayed fresh concerns from men who had appeared in the film and were now contacting Afghans in the United States and other places to say they were in danger.

McNally next alerted Kasza by text message that a pirated clip of the scene featuring the Afghan NMRG was circulating on TikTok in Afghanistan. She sent him an audio recording of a message left for her in broken English by one of the NMRG featured in the film who’d managed to get out of Afghanistan and was hearing from others in the film who were still there.

“My soldiers say to me, ‘You guys make my life more danger so I need your guy’s help,’” the man said. “So this is big problem. Everyone is watching that video.”

At a secret location in Afghanistan, the TikTok video landed on the phone of one of the mine-clearers in the film, sent by a former colleague who was worried about him. (The man, who later managed to escape Afghanistan after a long ordeal, agreed to be interviewed on the condition of anonymity to protect the safety of family members in the region.)

In a tearful interview with The Post, the man recalled being told: “Watch out. Be careful. Everyone can find you.”

A realization dawned on him: “Now you can find me on Google. I thought it was the last day of my life.”

On Jan. 17, 2023, not quite a month after “Retrograde’s” premiere, an email made its way to Heineman’s production company: “I had a side role in the film Retrograde and appeared in very serious scenes. I need Mr. Matthew Heineman’s Email for some serious reason … I need to talk directly with Mr. Heineman. it will be your kindness.”

The email was from the man called Justin Bieber, translated by a person who said he was a family friend. After the email was received, McNally again reached out to Kasza for help. Eventually, the man managed to get across the border into Pakistan, where he underwent four surgeries.

Photos texted to the 1208 Foundation by a person who spent time with the man in his final days show the crude nature of the medical treatment that failed to save his life. In one, he sits on a bench with tubes jutting out from under a blanket on his lap to two plastic containers on a tiled patio filled with blood-red fluid. In others, stitches close wounds that dotted along his torso; the longest traces a path that starts at his spine and travels across his rib cage.

When word about the man’s death made it to one of the U.S. service members who was in Afghanistan at the time of the filming, he “was heartbroken … heartbroken because they had trusted us and we had reluctantly trusted National Geographic. But there wasn’t the morality, the common sense, demonstrated to tone back the focus to obscure identities or to negate their exposure.”

Several journalists who have worked in conflict zones came to Heineman’s defense after he told them that this story was being prepared, among them Jane Ferguson, an award-winning “PBS NewsHour” journalist with extensive experience in Afghanistan.

“The reality is that, you know, if we’re now saying that anybody who has ever filmed anybody from any of the security forces in Afghanistan, who was ever filmed, we are suddenly liable for and responsible for the Taliban’s response, I don’t really understand how that is a practical or even rational evaluation, given that every news organization in America has hours and hours and hours of footage on the internet as readily available anywhere,” Ferguson said.

Crail — the military media escort — sees existential matters at play that go beyond journalism ethics, or the decisions made by one filmmaking duo: “The bottom line is that every Afghan who ever worked to support Western efforts in that country in any capacity was written off and abandoned by the US Government and, by and large, by the American people the moment the president announced withdrawal,” he said in an email to The Post. “I fully believe that no amount of blurred faces or obscured [IDs on uniforms] would have saved a single individual we as a people left behind.”

National Geographic was not informed by the documentarians about the man’s death until months after it happened and was unaware of money paid by the filmmakers to the family of the dead man until receiving questions about it from The Post. A National Geographic spokesman said he knew of no other example of payments being made to someone who died after appearing in one of its documentaries.

A series of texts among Heineman, McNally and Kasza show how they clashed over the best way to help the man’s family. The relationship between Kasza and Heineman grew contentious and the director and producer have come to believe that Kasza’s criticism of “Retrograde” is driven by “personal animosity” — a charge Kasza denies.

Among the things Kasza had wanted, for months, was help securing approvals for Afghan mine-clearers portrayed in the film, who are eligible for resettlement in the United States through a heavily backlogged Special Immigrant Visa program created to acknowledge the risks they’d undertaken. But the visa process — which was designed as an incentive for Afghans to work with U.S. forces — takes an average of 403 days to complete.

Now that National Geographic has pulled “Retrograde” from its platforms, Kasza sees another opening to get what he’s been pushing for: not only help with visas, but also assistance evacuating the mine-clearers in the documentary — though it’s unclear how that would be accomplished.

“We still want Disney and Matt Heineman to do the right thing and get our guys out,” Kasza said. “The risk is still there.”

Kasza also is starting to get some traction on Capitol Hill. On Jan. 31 of this year, he appeared at a barely noticed hearing before a subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. One of the congressmen who heard his testimony that day was Waltz, the House member who is now asking the State Department to expedite visas for Afghan contractors featured in “Retrograde” and has pointed an accusatory finger at the documentary.

Before he testified, Kasza shared with the subcommittee a written statement from a family member of the man who’d died after appearing in “Retrograde.” It said the man’s colleagues “now live in constant fear, knowing they could face the same brutal fate.”

Kasza also cast blame on “Retrograde” on behalf of his 1208 Foundation, saying in his own written statement to the subcommittee that the film contributed to “a chain of events” that led to the man’s death.

In his mind as he wrote those words were at least eight Afghan mine-clearers who appeared in the film. They still are out there in the Afghanistan region, Kasza believes, still hiding, still in peril.
Afghan evacuee vetting process ‘fragmented’ with ‘vulnerabilities,’ watchdog warns (FOX News)
FOX News [5/22/2024 2:08 PM, Adam Shaw, 49149K, Neutral]
A report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general is faulting the government’s parole processes surrounding the resettling of tens of thousands of Afghan evacuees after the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.

"DHS has a multifaceted but fragmented process for identifying and resolving issues for noncitizens with derogatory information, including [Operation Allies Welcome] parolees. This siloed approach creates potential gaps in DHS components’ responsibility for terminating parole, initiating removal proceedings, or monitoring parole expiration," the DHS Office of Inspector General [OIG] report says.

Of the 97,000 evacuees who came to the U.S. in the wake of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, 79% (about 77,000) were granted humanitarian parole into the United States for two years. Parole is a congressionally granted authority that allows the government to permit entry to noncitizens for either urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.

During that parole process, Afghans were screened, vetted and inspected by federal agencies, including a review of any derogatory information that may ultimately lead to a rejection of parole – whether it be national security concerns, criminal convictions or something else.

But the report found that the three main DHS components – Customs and Border Protection (CBP), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) – have "separate but interconnected processes for identifying and resolving derogatory information for OAW parolees.

"We found vulnerabilities in the USCIS and ICE processes for resolving derogatory information," the report said.

Specifically, it found an enforcement gap for when parolees are denied benefits, where inadmissibility for benefits does not lead to removal proceedings. It also found criteria that did not align between agencies, with changes to enforcement priorities that may result in different thresholds for action.

It also found a "complex" process for returning OAW parolees to Afghanistan that depends on a third-party country. Without the cooperation of that country, the United Arab Emirates, the ability to deport Afghans would be in jeopardy, "likely causing significant delays in an already complex process."

Additionally, the OIG found that DHS did not have a process for monitoring the expiration of the two-year parole period and guidelines for determining "re-parole" for parolees are "undefined."

"CBP, USCIS, and ICE officials uniformly believed this was not their responsibility," the report said.

"Although CBP granted the original humanitarian parole for evacuees during OAW, CBP officials told us that once they paroled an OAW evacuee, USCIS and ICE would monitor the parole status of individual parolees. However, both USCIS and ICE officials confirmed they are not monitoring the end of parole for individual OAW parolees," the report said.

The OIG recommended USCIS develop guidelines on terminating parole and making referrals to ICE. Other recommendations include reviews of records, clarity of DHS responsibility for parole reauthorization, and guidelines for how to deal with derogatory information.

In a response to the report, DHS concurred with the recommendations but defended its approach to resettling Afghans.

"During this unprecedented whole-of-government effort, the United States government facilitated the relocation of Afghans whose lives were at risk, while prioritizing the maintenance of the national security and public safety of the United States," it said.

However, it said the OIG’s report "includes information that does not sufficiently describe the Department’s policies and processes for identifying and resolving derogatory information" for parolees.

It pointed to what it says are inadequacies in the report, including that the USCIS manual already includes guidelines on parole termination, and that DHS already has access to information regarding parole expiration.

It is the latest report to draw an issue with the vetting process. A Pentagon inspector general report issued in 2022 found that officials identified at least 50 Afghan evacuees who were brought to the United States in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan whose information indicated "potentially significant security concerns" – and were unable to locate dozens of those who it said had derogatory information that would make them ineligible for parole.
From Zambia to Afghanistan, WFP warns El Nino’s extreme weather is causing a surge in hunger (AP)
AP [5/22/2024 8:51 PM, Gerald Imray, 12262K, Negative]
Extreme weather attributed to the El Nino phenomenon is causing a surge in hunger in several countries, including Zambia and Afghanistan, the UN’s World Food Programme said Wednesday, and called on donors for much-needed help.

El Niño is a natural, temporary and occasional warming of part of the Pacific that shifts global weather patterns, and studies say that as the world warms, they may get stronger.

Tens of millions of people in southern Africa rely on the weather to grow food to feed themselves.

In a statement, the WFP warned that southern Africa was the “epicenter of the crisis” after a cycle of floods and drought has battered the region over the last three years. Three countries, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia, are the worst affected and have seen between 40-80% of their staple corn crops wiped out by drought this season, leaving millions impacted, according to the UN food agency.

The WFP said executive director Cindy McCain had traveled to Zambia and seen how “severe drought has wiped out harvests in a region where 70% of the population relies on agriculture to survive.”

“We can’t ask millions to wait for the next harvest season — a year from now — to put food on their tables,” McCain said in a statement. “These families need our support today while we help to build a more resilient future.”

WFP said its “teams have started to respond but US$409 million are needed for six months to assist 4.8 million people in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.”

Other countries, including Congo and Afghanistan, are facing similar problems due to changing weather conditions which have led to destroyed crops, livestock deaths and displaced people, causing a surge in hunger, the agency said in a separate statement.

This comes as hunger crises caused by conflict in Gaza and Sudan are already stretching the agency’s aid capacity.

The WFP’s call for aid came days after the regional Southern African Development Community made a plea for help after a special virtual meeting of leaders and government officials to discuss the impact of the extreme weather.

In a joint statement, the southern African countries said the region needed $5.5 billion to help more than 61 million people.

There had been a “multifaceted and cascading impact of the El Nino-induced drought and floods across multiple sectors,” the regional bloc said, noting how it had caused other problems, such as contributing to large and deadly outbreaks of the water-born cholera disease. Countries that depend on hydroelectric generators, like Zambia, are struggling to produce enough electricity because of the drought.

Alongside El Nino, the southern African region has recently seen a series of tropical cyclones that scientists said were likely made stronger and wetter by human-caused climate change and the increase in global temperatures.

While the African continent contributes the least to climate change, it is expected to suffer the most. Poorer countries are generally not as well-equipped to deal with the impact.

Even before the floods and drought, food insecurity and malnutrition were already at alarming levels in Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia and humanitarian assistance had stalled because of funding shortages for aid, WFP said.

The three countries have all declared national disasters over this year’s drought, and others have provided equally grim assessments.

The United Nations humanitarian agency said this month that around half of Zimbabwe’s population of 15 million needed “lifesaving and life-sustaining” help because of the drought.

Last week, the Action Against Hunger non-profit warned that “a hunger crisis may be imminent” in Kenya in East Africa after catastrophic floods displaced more than 250,000 people.
I’m an American tourist visiting Taliban-controlled Afghanistan - here’s what it’s like (Daily Mail)
Daily Mail [5/22/2024 2:33 PM, Emma Saletta, 82990K, Positive]
An American tourist who visited Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is sharing insight into his experience - along with three tips for others who may want to plan their own visit.

Kansas City native Eli Snyder, 25, posted a video on TikTok revealing what tourists must do in order to safely visit Afghanistan after he stayed in the country for 10 days in January.

Speaking with DailyMail.com, the University of Michigan graduate - who quit his US-based job to travel full time - shared his motivation for the trip.

‘I wanted to visit Afghanistan for several reasons. I live for visiting places as dissimilar as possible from how I’ve grown up, in suburban America outside of Kansas City. Sometimes this means visiting a dangerous place, but it remains true, as I’d much rather visit Pyongyang than Winnipeg,’ he said.

‘Afghanistan is repeatedly on the list of Top 10 Fav Countries of travelers who have visited every country! I’ve heard the best things about the hospitality, nature, and food. I plan to visit every country in the world.’

Snyder wrote in his video description that his trip was ‘scary’ but absolutely worth it.

His May 20 video has received over one million views, and over 75,000 TikTokers have commented on it.

The backpacker, who is known for his travel videos, has posted three other TikToks about his Afghanistan trip this month, giving viewers a peek into what he saw.

Snyder began recording his Afghanistan adventures shortly after he entered the country with 22-year-old German traveler Valentin Oeckl, who he says is one of the closest friends he’s made since he started traveling full-time.

He visited Kabul, Bamiyan & Band-e-Amir, Mazar-i-Sharif, and Balkh during his stay.

The TikToker, who referred to his Afghanistan adventure as his ‘most ambitious trip yet’ in an Instagram post, wanted to visit the country for multiple reasons.

‘Afghanistan is repeatedly on the list of Top 10 Favorite Countries of travelers who have visited every country. I’ve heard the best things about the hospitality, nature, and food,’ he told DailyMail.com.

‘Afghanistan isn’t a country you visit for Tourist Attractions per se, but a country where you can walk out of your doorstep and be immediately stimulated by the ongoing ebb and flow of daily life.’

The backpacker revealed that his most memorable moment was when he and Oeckl crossed the Torkham border.

‘We were stamped out of Afghanistan, had walked through the long corridor of barbed wire fences, and found ourselves alone in the Afghanistan immigration office,’ Snyder wrote.

‘We handed over our passports to the Taliban official, who stamped us into the country. There was an eerie silence and stillness in that moment, and those simple three words will forever be engraved in my mind.’

Snyder generally felt safe during his trip, but he did have a ‘hairy moment’ in Kabul.

‘We didn’t have our permits and were walking to the Ministry of Information & Culture,’ he wrote.

‘We were apprehended, and they were stern with us for not having our permits, but mostly they were just curious to see two tourists walking around Kabul without a guide.’

Although he enjoyed the vacation, Snyder revealed that navigating Afghanistan without a tour guide was a challenge.

‘The issue is that guides are thousands of dollars, due to the low demand, and the fact that people will pay anything for safety. ‘Unfortunately it was out of our budget, so Valentin and I went alone,’ he wrote.

Despite the price for a tour guide, Snyder suggested that tourists who enter Afghanistan have a tour guide with them.

According to Snyder, ‘Traveling with a guide opens the doors to women, gays, POCs, everyone to visit Afghanistan. Only the most experienced traveler should consider traveling that country without a guide.’

The backpacker, who has not gone back to Afghanistan since his 10-day stay in January, now has crucial tips for anyone looking to visit the country.

One tip Snyder mentioned in his May 20 TikTok is that travelers must get a visa before traveling out of the country.

‘Once the government switched, most Afghan embassies closed. However, there are a few Taliban consulates,’ he said in his video.

‘The most expensive visas are upwards of $300, and the cheapest is just $1900 in Peshawar, Pakistan.’

Once the traveler gets their visa, they can enter the country by flying into Kabul or crossing a land border.

He went on to recommend that tourists cross the Torkham border to enter the country.

Snyder then noted in his video that ‘the most crucial step’ in entering Afghanistan is to make sure one has all of their permits and that a traveler can go to jail if they don’t have them.

Snyder is not looking to slow down his travels, and he revealed that Oeckl will join him on more trips.

‘That trip made us so so close and I wouldn’t have felt comfortable doing it without him,’ Snyder wrote.

‘Now We FaceTime once a week I would say, and have travels planned to Germany, Liechtenstein, and Syria before the end of the year.’
Pakistan
Pakistan claims killing dozens of Afghan-based ‘terrorists’ in recent operations (VOA)
VOA [5/22/2024 8:04 AM, Ayaz Gul, 4186K, Negative]
Pakistan’s military said Wednesday that its operations against a recent surge in terrorist attacks from Afghanistan, and cross-border militant infiltration attempts, have resulted in the killings of nearly 30 “terrorists" in the last month.

The announcement came a day after a U.S. research group said in a report that "Afghanistan has become a breeding ground for terrorist activities” since the Taliban regained power in 2021.

While sharing details of its ongoing counterterrorism actions, the Pakistani military said it was focused on parts of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan border provinces. It noted that one of the operations a week ago also led to the death of an army major.

“Of late, Pakistan has witnessed a surge in terrorist incidents orchestrated from Afghan soil, wherein terrorists from Afghanistan attempt to infiltrate through the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and target security forces as well as innocent civilians,” the statement said.

Islamabad renewed its call for Kabul “to ensure effective border management” on the Afghan side, saying the Taliban government “is expected to fulfill its obligations and deny the use of Afghan soil by terrorists for perpetuating acts of terrorism against Pakistan.”

There was no immediate reaction from de facto Afghan authorities to Pakistan’s assertions. The Taliban have rejected previous such allegations, saying they are not allowing anyone to use Afghan territory to threaten neighboring countries or beyond.

Pakistan maintains that fugitive commanders and combatants of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, a designated global terrorist group, are using havens in Afghanistan to launch deadly cross-border attacks against Pakistanis, including security forces.

The Washington-based Center for a New American Security released its report Tuesday, saying the TTP and other regional militant groups “are active and face few constraints on their activities from the Taliban—with whom they share core ideological beliefs.”

The study warned that terrorist threats emanating from Afghanistan “are intensifying and an Afghan-based Islamic State affiliate, the Islamic State-Khorasan, or IS-K, “constitutes the main international concern.”

It also cited a recent United Nations report that highlighted the Taliban’s close ties to al-Qaida operatives in Afghanistan, noting that “al-Qaida leaders are now part of the Taliban’s administrative structure and are constructing their own training camps in the country.”

On May 10, the United States hosted a bilateral counterterrorism dialogue with Pakistan, where the two sides agreed to intensify collaboration in the fight against the TTP and IS-K.

A post-meeting joint statement said the two countries “recognize that a partnership to counter” the TTP and IS-K and other regional terrorist groups “will advance security in the region and help “address transnational terrorism threats.”
Pakistan hit by second wave of extreme heat this month (VOA)
VOA [5/22/2024 12:41 PM, Sarah Zaman, 4186K, Negative]
With one end of a rope tied to a tree and the other in her hand, Zareena Bibi steps into the canal that cuts through Lahore, Pakistan’s major eastern metropolis. Bibi does not know how to swim, but with the mercury rising, a dip in the muddy water of the tree-lined canal is the only way for her to cool off with her kids.

“It is such a relief. How do I describe? It feels very good,” Bidi told VOA. “We were so hot, children were crying so we came to bathe in the canal,” she said, complaining of a lack of electricity and running water at home.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department, or PMD, has predicted heat wave conditions until May 27 in most of the country, with parts of Punjab and Sindh — the two most populous provinces — slated to experience extreme heat.

“May is usually a hot month. But this time we are expecting temperatures to hit 50 to 51 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in some parts,” Mahr Sahibzad Khan, director general of the Pakistan Meteorological Department, told VOA. “The sudden rise in temperatures has forced us to alert everyone.”

The PMD expects daytime temperatures to soar by 6 to 8 degrees Celsius above May’s average. Khan, however, told VOA he did not expect the severe heat to be deadly.

Still, authorities in Punjab closed schools for the week. Earlier, they reduced school timing and delayed board exams.

Provincial disaster management authorities in Punjab and Sindh have ordered hospitals to set up heat wave units to treat people for heat-related illnesses like dehydration and heatstroke.

In 2022 and 2018, unusually high temperatures between March and May killed dozens, mostly in Sindh. In 2015, more than a thousand people in the southern province perished due to heat-related illnesses.

The high temperatures not only affect lives, but livelihoods as well.

Rana Asif, a farmer with land in Okara, a city in Punjab, is watering his rice and corn crops more frequently this week to keep them from drying.

“We are forced to water our crops daily with cool, fresh water from the ground,” Rana, who usually waters his fields every other day, told VOA. “This is driving my cost up.”

Extreme heat in South Asia during the pre-monsoon season is becoming more frequent, according to the World Weather Attribution group of scientists. According to its research, climate change is making heat waves in Asia more frequent and extreme.

The latest spell of high heat, the second this month according to PMD, comes on the heels of the wettest April that Pakistan recorded in six decades. The above-average rainfall killed dozens and destroyed vast areas of farmland.

Khan, too, held climate change responsible for the extreme spikes in temperature.

“High pressure and clear skies intensify the impact of the sun’s rays. … because of climate change, this phenomenon feels more intense,” Khan said.

While Pakistan contributes extremely little to climate change, it is among countries most vulnerable to the impact of changing weather patterns. However, Khan also blamed Pakistan’s urban sprawl for the miserable weather.

“The bigger problem is that cities are expanding horizontally. This is leading to the erosion of green areas. Even grass has a role,” Khan said. “You are losing that [green cover] and cities are expanding. Of course, that is causing problems.”

Despite high heat accelerating glacial melt, Khan said his department is not expecting floods anytime soon.

“We don’t expect flooding as our reservoirs have plenty of room at the moment. Even if more water comes down we have space to store it,” Khan said, cautioning that “if the monsoon component is added to it and temperatures also run high then we can have flooding.”

In 2022, Pakistan suffered catastrophic flooding as unusually heavy rains, blamed largely on climate change, submerged nearly a third of the country and caused $30 billion in damage.

Authorities are urging people to stay indoors and hydrated during the hottest hours of the day this week. But Khursheeda Bibi, who commutes for nearly 1.5 hours every day to her job as a cleaning lady at a private hospital, said she must step out to earn a living for her children.

“It’s so difficult to travel,” Bibi, a widow, told VOA. “But when I think that I have to do it for my children, then the heat doesn’t feel so bad.”

The PMD expects the heat wave to subside by May 28. However, another spell of extreme heat is slated to hit early June.
India
Is Modi Worried? India’s Long-Deflated Opposition Finds Some Momentum. (New York Times)
New York Times [5/23/2024 1:25 AM, Mujib Mashal and Pragati K.B., 831K, Neutral]
Prime Minister Narendra Modi entered India’s general election projecting supreme confidence. “Ab ki baar, 400 paar” went his party’s slogan, meaning this time his side was gunning to surpass 400 seats in the lower house of Parliament, a staggering majority.

But as the seven-week voting period enters its final stretch, with results expected on June 4, India is witnessing something unusual from its powerful leader. It is seeing him sweat.

As Mr. Modi crisscrosses the country for rallies in 100-degree heat, he has often appeared on the defensive, and sometimes rattled. He has frequently set aside his party’s main campaign message — that India is rising under his leadership — to counter his opponents’ portrayal of him as favoring business and caste elites. He has resorted to stoking anti-Muslim sentiments to fend off attempts to split his Hindu support base, only to deny his own words later.

Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., is still a heavy favorite. But it is finding that the political opposition, counted out after big losses to Mr. Modi in the previous two national elections, has some fight left in it.

The opposition has found traction in challenging Mr. Modi’s control over the national narrative. With the broadcast media cowed by him, opposition leaders have turned to online platforms to find an audience for a pitch focused on economic and social justice, painting the prime minister as a primary culprit in India’s growing inequality.

Before the election, often-bickering opposition parties united in a grand alliance to confront a shared threat: what they call Mr. Modi’s mission to cripple them and remake the country into one-party rule. The alliance lost precious time in the months before the vote, bogged down by internal differences. But it has largely held together despite Mr. Modi’s efforts to lure away some of its members and sideline others with legal actions.

The alliance hopes that this translates into an improved electoral showing, after scattered votes for opposition parties in the 2019 election worked to Mr. Modi’s advantage. To have any hope of cutting significantly into the governing party’s existing strong majority in Parliament, the opposition will have to flip a large number of seats in the more populous north, where the B.J.P. is well entrenched, and hold its ground in the more prosperous south.

“The opposition realized it was now or never,” said Arati Jerath, a political analyst in New Delhi. “It had to fight Modi with all the weapons it could muster or face certain death.”

Analysts say elections that focus on local issues favor the opposition. This spring, Mr. Modi has again made a parliamentary election, contested across more than 540 seats, into a presidential-style national referendum on his own huge popularity and his achievements.

But it has become clear that, a decade into his rule, his ability to steer elections away from local concerns — and cover for his party’s parochial struggles and infighting — is waning. The opposition has tried to take advantage with an energized ground game.

In the lead-up to the vote, Mr. Modi intensified a political crackdown. Chief ministers of two opposition-controlled states were thrown in jail, and the bank accounts of the Indian National Congress, the main opposition party, were essentially frozen. “But people started campaigning door to door, village to village, state to state. So that has become really a groundwork for the opposition,” Mallikarjun Kharge, the president of the Congress party, said in an interview.

“Now they are frustrated,” he added, referring to the B.J.P.

The Congress party is trying to pull itself out of an immense hole. The rise of caste-based regional parties marginalized the once-dominant Congress in India’s electorally crucial north, and Mr. Modi’s ascendence set it back further. Mr. Modi, who had spent a lifetime working his way up from a humble background, easily cast the face of the Congress, Rahul Gandhi, as a detached, lightweight beneficiary of dynastic politics.

Just how far the Congress is trying to distance itself from that impression is evident in its election manifesto — both in form and substance.

The party’s 2019 manifesto had a fresh-faced Mr. Gandhi front and center, with a message of jobs and economic development. In the 2024 document, he wears a graying beard, a nod to the time he spent connecting with rural India during two cross-country journeys since 2022, one of them covering 2,000 miles by foot.

If that was not enough, next to him is the 81-year-old Mr. Kharge, elected in 2022 as the Congress president. His half a century in politics, and his background as a Dalit at the bottom of India’s rigid caste hierarchy, helps offset Mr. Modi’s personal story.

The Congress’s campaign promises — from cash transfers to poor women to a “guarantee of first jobs” for young people through one-year paid apprenticeships — shows that it has learned from its successes in India’s southern states, said Sugata Srinivasaraju, the author of a book on Mr. Gandhi’s struggles in leading his party.

“This is good,” Mr. Srinivasaraju said. “But the Congress does not have any emotional or cultural argument to counter” the B.J.P., with its Hindu-nationalist ideology.

The closest the Congress has come is its effort to fuse two issues: longstanding caste inequality and rising unemployment.

India’s Constitution sets aside about half of government jobs and seats in higher education for the middle and lower ranks in the caste system. With the economy struggling to create enough private-sector jobs, these government positions are seen as crucial for any hope of economic mobility.

The Congress’s call for a census of Indians by caste — there has been no official national data on the size of each caste for decades — appears to be striking a chord. The party says such an exercise would ensure that marginalized Indians get their rightful share of slots.

That push is also furthering two charges aimed at Mr. Modi: that he has overseen an economy that benefits only billionaires, and that his party has an upper-caste bias. While it is true that the B.J.P. was once an upper-caste, urban party, Mr. Modi has broadened its base by bringing in lower castes. But his response to the charge suggests he is nervous that the label may stick.

“He’s for the rich,” Mr. Kharge said at a large rally in Mumbai. “He has done nothing for the poor.”

Behind Mr. Kharge were the leaders of several parties in the alliance, each of whom would draw on a grievance to depict Mr. Modi as dangerous for India.

One of them, Arvind Kejriwal, made a particularly personal case that Mr. Modi is trying to turn the country into something like Russia under President Vladimir V. Putin — “one nation, one leader.”

“I am coming straight from jail,” Mr. Kejriwal began his speech.

His Aam Aadmi Party holds power in the Delhi region and in the northern state of Punjab. Its expansion is a threat to Mr. Modi, whose government arrested Mr. Kejriwal over corruption allegations just before the election, creating the absurd reality in which India’s capital was being run from a jail cell.

Mr. Kejriwal managed to get a three-week bail during the campaigning. As he jumps from rally to rally across the country, his connection with crowds makes clear why Mr. Modi would have liked to keep him behind bars.

In Mumbai, he painted India under Mr. Modi as a dystopia where anyone who gets in the prime minister’s way will be locked up. Mr. Kejriwal said he had been kept under the surveillance of multiple cameras in jail — “watching what time I wake up, what time I go to the bathroom, how long I sit on the toilet.”

Then he made his final appeal. This election, he said, is a vote for either keeping him in jail or restoring his freedom. He will be watching the results on June 4 from his cell.

“You can write me letters,” he said. “Cell No. 25, Jail No. 2, Tihar Jail.”
Cash-Filled Suitcases Fuel India’s $16 Billion Election (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [5/22/2024 8:00 PM, Anto Antony and Swati Gupta, 24454K, Negative]
As the Nellai Express Train stopped at Tambaram railway station in southern India at 8:30 p.m. on April 6, six government officials waiting in the shadows behind the steel pillars on the platform rushed into the coach marked A1.

Within minutes, they had arrested three young men lugging five trolley bags filled with neat bundles of 500 rupee notes, according to an official who was part of the operation. In total, they were carrying about $500,000 to allegedly pull in votes for a candidate up for election to the lower house of parliament, the officials later said without naming the politician. A code of conduct bans any transactions - monetary or otherwise - which could be used to sway voters.

As this country of 1.4 billion continues to vote, the vast amounts of money being spent during these elections is particularly contentious, with political parties accusing each other of illegal spending. Analysts say that the funding is mostly opaque, largely unaccounted for and the country’s polling bodies — despite some success — remain generally incapable of policing the vast amounts of cash being spent.

Indian authorities say they’ve so far seized about $1.1 billion worth of illicit money, drugs and other goods in their crackdown on illegal vote inducements.

During Indian elections “the candidates and political parties end up using unaccounted money, which they get in hoards from all kinds of sources,” said Jagdeep S. Chhokar, founder of the New Delhi-based Association for Democratic Reforms.

Total campaign spending for the federal elections is estimated to be more than $16.2 billion, according to N. Bhaskara Rao, chairman of the New Delhi-based Centre for Media Studies. One of the few estimates available, it includes both undeclared and reported funding. This year’s amount is more than double the group’s projected 2019 outlay and much higher than the $6.5 billion that OpenSecrets.org estimates was spent on 2020 Presidential race in the US.

India has political parties across the country and there are thousands of candidates running for election. Spokespeople for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its main rival, the Indian National Congress, didn’t respond to requests for comment for this article. Both parties have publicly said they follow all rules on funding.

Problems around unreported money are widespread and cut across party lines, Chhokar and other analysts say.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi made unsubstantiated allegations that the Congress party received illegal cash from billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, escalating his rhetoric in the midst of heated campaigning. Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge hit back on social media, saying Modi was only displaying fear and “attacking his own friends.” Representatives for Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd. and Adani Group weren’t available to comment when contacted by Bloomberg News.

Managing Finance

India’s Supreme Court has also waded into the debate. In February, it banned all political funding through anonymous donation instruments called electoral bonds. The court said these bonds, which protected the identity of donors and their relationship with a particular political party, violated the right to information of citizens. The BJP has been ruling India for a decade and is in power in about half of the 28 states, giving it access to the highest amount of election financing, as was shown by the recently disclosed data on electoral bonds.

Parties are legally allowed to raise money through donations from individuals and companies.

Expenses for serious contenders across parties in most constituencies range from 50 million rupees to 400 million rupees ($598,800 to $4.8 million) each, depending on the states, according to the people. That’s opposed to a legal spending limit of 9.5 million rupees per candidate. Under the law, there is no limit on what parties can spend on elections when the outlay isn’t focused on an individual candidate. So, a lot of overheads get added to party accounts.

Activities like mobilizing grass-level workers, offering voters freebies and holding political rallies are expensive affairs and candidates with greater financial resources have a better chance of winning the elections, according to Chhokar.

The Congress has been on the back foot. Its treasury had only about $160 million at its disposal to finance the election as of early April, people familiar with the matter said. It was dealt a further blow earlier this year when the Income Tax Department froze some Congress bank accounts, citing discrepancies in the returns filed by the party. The Congress accused the Modi government of trying to cripple the party financially.

Modi’s BJP has been particularly savvy about managing election money, engaging a professional wealth management firm to help, according to party officials. The Congress, meanwhile, is investing in only 140 of 543 seats where they see a chance of putting up credible competition, according to election managers for the party.

Stepped up Efforts

This year, enforcement agencies in India have stepped up efforts to limit illegal money, with the Income Tax Department and the Directorate of Enforcement conducting frequent raids.

Even hawala operator networks, who move unaccounted money around in India’s informal, unregulated system, are showing reluctance to move cash until the elections are over, according to party officials across the political spectrum. That’s due to tighter scrutiny by money laundering and income tax authorities, they said. Even so, those efforts are working only partially due to difficulties in curbing the vast amount of unaccounted funds in the economy often labeled black money, an election commission official said.

“The money seized is hardly 5% of the total unaccounted money spent on campaign expenditures in the last federal election,” said Rao. “However, the media is happy that more is spent as they get more advertisements and candidates are happy that parties or corporations spend more money on them. Election management firms are happy as they get more money. Overall, this is the happiest season for many in five years.”
India’s poll panel orders Modi’s BJP, opposition Congress to show restraint in campaign (Reuters)
Reuters [5/22/2024 10:36 AM, Shivam Patel, 82990K, Negative]
India’s election panel on Wednesday ordered the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and opposition Congress to exercise restraint in their campaigns, after both had reported the other for making divisive speeches during India’s vote.

The panel said the parties’ defences for the speeches by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi were "not tenable" and issued notices to the presidents of both groups.

In their complaints to the Election Commission, the BJP accused Gandhi and Congress accused Modi of making divisive speeches on religion, caste and linguistic issues.

India is holding the world’s largest election over seven phases, with votes due to be counted on June 4.

The Congress accused Modi of seeking votes in the name of religion by saying in recent speeches that Congress would seize and redistribute the wealth of India’s majority Hindus among minority Muslims, whom he referred to as "infiltrators" and those who have "more children" last month.

Modi later denied targeting Muslims in his campaign. Congress denied making any election promise on wealth redistribution.

The commission directed BJP and its star campaigners to "refrain from any campaigning" along religious or communal lines.

About 80% of India’s 1.4 billion people are Hindus but it also has the world’s third largest Muslim population of roughly 200 million people.

The BJP accused Gandhi and Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge of creating enmity among disadvantaged Hindu and tribal groups by saying that the BJP discriminates against them and would abolish the Indian constitution if it wins the election.

The commission directed that Congress campaigners should not give "false impression" that the constitution could be "abolished or sold".

It also said in notices to the two parties that it found their defences on these speeches "not tenable", adding that it noted with "concern" that their campaigners had continued to make such speeches.
It ordered the parties to "refrain from making any statement" prohibited under the election Model Code of Conduct.
Will anti-Pakistan rhetoric influence India’s elections? (Deutsche Welle)
Deutsche Welle [5/22/2024 9:02 AM, Murali Krishnan, 15611K, Negative]
Old video footage featuring controversial comments made by Mani Shankar Aiyar, a veteran leader of the opposition Indian National Congress (INC) party, have recently resurfaced — raising eyebrows as India’s elections enter their final two phases.

In the footage, Aiyar described Pakistanis as the "biggest asset of India" and recommended that India should resume dialog with Pakistan.

His views were echoed by Farooq Abdullah, the former chief minister of the Muslim-majority state Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan plays into India’s elections

The video’s reappearance provided Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the leaders of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) an opportunity to paint the Congress party as "soft" on Pakistan at the height of election season.

"If Pakistan is not wearing bangles, we will make them wear bangles," Modi said in a scathing attack at a rally in Bihar last week. "They don’t have flour, they do not have electricity, now I have come to know that they even have a scarcity of bangles."

Modi had said that his government’s approach to tackling terror had ushered in a sea change compared to what had taken place during Congress’ years in power.

"During the Congress government, the news headlines were of India handing over another dossier to Pakistan about terror activities," Modi said at an election rally in the Latur constituency in India’s western state of Maharashtra.

"Today, India doesn’t send dossiers. Today, India kills terrorists on its own turf," added Modi.

Anti-Pakistan sentiments have so far not flared during the election season, however, India’s neighbor and rival has now become somewhat of a opportune punching bag for politicians.

Over the past few weeks, political parties have exchanged sharp barbs on Pakistan, despite the fact that foreign policy issues have not figured prominently in the campaign so far.

"It [Pakistan] remains an emotive issue for India. After years of suffering cross-border terrorism and Pakistan-sponsored militancy in Kashmir, including the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks and the Pulwama attack on paramilitary troopers in 2019, it leaves an indelible scar on the Indian psyche," Shazia Ilmi, a spokesperson for Modi’s BJP, told DW.

"The remarks made by Mani Shankar Aiyer and Farooq Abdullah are contentious and condemnable," added Ilmi.

National security discourse

In 2019, when Modi won his second consecutive term in office, the BJP’s campaign focused heavily on Pakistan, an important electoral issue at the time.

Months before the 2019 vote, a suicide bomber had attacked a convoy of vehicles carrying Indian paramilitary forces in Indian-administered Kashmir, killing 46 soldiers.

India responded by launching warplanes in Balakot, deep inside Pakistan, where it claimed to have killed militants who had been planning to strike targets in India.

Ajay Bisaria, India’s former high commissioner to Pakistan, told DW that the current electoral discourse is more about a posture on national security than about Pakistan policy.

"In 2019, we saw a strong national security-based campaign by the BJP, after the Pulwama attacks and the Balakot airstrikes by India," said Bisaria.

"This time, we see no comparable national security issue, except that this time around, the ruling dispensation is justifiably claiming credit for both its Kashmir and Pakistan policies," the former envoy added.

Political bluster

Article 370 of the Indian constitution allowed Jammu and Kashmir to have its own constitution and a degree of internal autonomy. However, the Indian government revoked this status in 2019 and divided the state into two union territories — the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the Union Territory of Ladakh — directly governed by New Delhi.

"The Balakot airstrikes and [India’s] article 370 moves can now be reviewed five years later and a reasonable claim be made that Balakot set up credible deterrence against terrorism and the article 370 abrogation set Jammu and Kashmir on a peace trajectory," said Bisaria.

At recent election rallies, BJP leaders Amit Shah, India’s home minister; and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath doubled down, emphasizing that a reelected BJP government would take the additional step of "taking back" Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Their statements were in response to recent violent protests witnessed in several parts of Pakistan-administered Kashmir over soaring food and energy costs amid a severe economic crisis.

"Congress leaders like Mani Shankar Aiyar say it should not be done as they have an atom bomb," Shah said, referring to the protests. "But let me say that ‘Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK)’ is part of India and we will take it."

"Clearly, reclaiming PoK is not an immediate issue but the unrest in the region is a stimulus to restate a known position and to underline the power differential between the countries," added Bisaria.

Obsession with Pakistan or electioneering?

Strategic expert C. Raja Mohan, a senior fellow of the Asia Society Policy Institute, said Modi has managed to change the terms of engagement with Pakistan.

"It is unfortunate that Modi chose to combine his vigorous response to heaping contempt on Pakistan by pointing to its current economic crisis," Raja Mohan told DW.

"Through the campaign, the prime minister and his Cabinet colleagues have flaunted their new willingness to get inside Pakistan and target the terrorists."

"The needless verbal aggression against Pakistan comes at a time when the new Pakistan government, led by the Sharif brothers — Nawaz and Shehbaz — are sending interesting signals on improving ties with India," Mohan added.

However, Mohan was quick to point out that Modi and his right-wing BJP might hope that their interlocutors in Pakistan will understand that the high-pitched rhetoric is just part of electioneering and does not reflect policy intentions.

Reacting to various statements made by Indian leaders including Modi, Pakistan’s Foreign Office said these reflected an unhealthy and entrenched obsession with Pakistan and revealed a deliberate intent to exploit hyper-nationalism for electoral gains.

"These also signify a desperate attempt to deflect attention from mounting domestic and international criticism," Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mumtaz Zahra Baloch told a weekly press briefing when asked about statements being made during the run-up to elections.
India central bank’s record dividend to government may reduce fiscal gap (Reuters)
Reuters [5/22/2024 10:15 AM, Swati Bhat and Nikunj Ohri, 42129K, Positive]
The board of India’s central bank approved a record surplus transfer of 2.11 trillion rupees ($25.3 billion) to the government for the fiscal year that ended in March, sharply above analysts’ and government projections.

The government had budgeted a dividend of 1.02 trillion rupees from the Reserve Bank of India, state-run banks and other financial institutions, interim budget estimates for the fiscal year 2024/25 show.

For FY23, the RBI transferred 874 billion rupees to the government.

"RBI dividend is good for the fiscal position of the government," Finance Secretary T V Somanathan said.

The higher dividend from the RBI will further improve the government’s cash position. It has been buying back bonds to infuse cash into the banking system, but a third consecutive buyback on Tuesday saw little success among investors.

"We will only buy those bonds back which come with yields which we like. We will keep doing things pragmatically to manage our cash," Somanathan said.

India will decide on lowering both fiscal deficit and market borrowing in the full-year budget after the formation of a new government, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

A marathon national election is set to conclude on June 1, with counting on June 4. The date for the budget will only be announced after a government is formed.

Upasna Bhardwaj, chief economist at Kotak Mahindra Bank, said the "whopping dividend" was likely to be the result of higher interest rates on domestic and foreign securities, significantly higher gross sales of foreign exchange, and the low impact of the central bank’s liquidity operations.

"We expect such a windfall to help fiscal deficit ease by 0.4% in FY25. Scope for lower borrowing being announced in the upcoming budget will now provide significant respite to the bond markets," she added.

India’s benchmark 10-year bond yield dropped five basis points to 6.99% after the announcement, its lowest level in nearly a year.

The bank’s board reviewed the global and domestic economic scenario, including risks to the outlook, the statement added.

The RBI board also decided to raise the contingency risk buffer (CRB) to 6.5% from 6% previously as the economy remains robust and resilient, it said.

"The higher dividend represents additional fiscal revenue of 0.4% of GDP," Gaura Sen Gupta, an economist with IDFC First Bank, wrote in emailed comments.

"Incorporating potential shortfall in disinvestment receipts and more moderate tax collection growth than budgeted, FY25 fiscal deficit could undershoot budget estimate by 0.2% of GDP" Sen Gupta wrote.

Analysts had expected a surplus transfer in the range of 750 billion rupees to 1.2 trillion rupees.

"This gives the government significant elbow-room to manage any welfare spending and sustain capex spending, even if the disinvestment receipts fall short," said Garima Kapoor, an economist and senior vice president at Elara Capital.

Aditi Nayar, economist at rating agency ICRA, said increasing the funds available for capex would boost the quality of the fiscal deficit. But she said additional spending may be difficult to realise within the eight-or-so months left in the fiscal year after the final budget is presented.
In India’s heat, Delhi labourers toil in ‘red hot’ conditions (Reuters)
Reuters [5/23/2024 12:44 AM, Chris Thomas and Priyanshu Singh, 5.2M, Neutral]
Working on a highway project in one of India’s hottest areas this summer, Banwari Singh handles iron bars that he says often turn "red hot".

Temperatures hit 47.8 degrees Celsius (118 degrees Fahrenheit) last Sunday, among the highest recorded in India this year, in Najafgarh, an area on the outskirts of New Delhi where Singh works.

"This is among the hottest it has been in this area," Singh, in checked trousers, a half-sleeved shirt, a bright orange safety vest and a hard-top hat, said.

"But we have no option. If we want to eat, we have to work whatever the conditions are," said the 40-year-old, resting near a pillar he is helping to build.

The northwest of India is experiencing an unusually hot summer and the national weather office has forecast three times the usual number of heatwave days this May. Experts say climate change adds fuel to the heat.

Delhi shut schools earlier this week as temperatures rose. Voters in India’s national election face the prospect of queuing this weekend in the sweltering heat.

Singh and other labourers, who earn around 500 rupees to 700 rupees ($6-$8.4) a day, say they dread the heat and some fall sick as a result of the hot conditions.

Water is available for workers to douse themselves regularly to beat the heat and some buy cool drinks from a makeshift shop nearby.

The deputy project manager, Vinay Sahani, said the company provides water for workers, and sometimes lemonade, and asks workers to rest after noon when temperatures peak. Work can resume after sundown, he said.

Sumit Goswami, 21, who had to take time off this week after a heat-related illness, said he has worked in hot conditions before.

"But this year it has become extreme," he said. "Still, we have to continue because we have to support the family."
India Could Become Venezuela on the Ganges (Wall Street Journal – opinion)
Wall Street Journal [5/22/2024 5:14 PM, Sadanand Dhume, 810K, Neutral]
If you get queasy seeing politicians try to buy voters with promises of freebies, avert your eyes from India’s current elections. Handouts dominate the economic message of both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition Congress Party. But one side will turn your stomach a good deal more than the other.

Naked populism has become the common political language in India. If the country is ever to catch up with prosperous East Asian economies, it needs to stop driving away wealth creators. But no Indian politician is willing to point out hard economic truths—such as that an estimated 0.3% of people pay 80% of income taxes, or that at least 30,000 millionaires have left India since 2016 for friendlier climes.

It could get worse. Congress under de facto leader Rahul Gandhi has taken a hard left turn. An opposition victory could turn the world’s fifth-largest economy into Venezuela on the Ganges.

One recent ad captures Congress’s radical pitch to voters. A troupe of female BJP workers, identifiable by their saffron scarves, show up at a poor villager’s house to round up female voters for an election rally for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (The ad doesn’t mention Mr. Modi by name.) It turns out that all the women whom the BJP workers want to gather for the rally have instead queued up to receive 100,000 rupees (about $1,200) from the Congress Party. One villager declares this largess is her “right.” In the end, the BJP workers join the line for the promised check.

Congress’s redistributionist fantasy goes much further than promising every poor woman a monthly stipend. The party’s platform cites the leftist French economist Thomas Piketty and claims that India under Mr. Modi “is more unequal than even under the British Raj.” Congress promises, among other things, to double the amount of free grain the federal government provides poor families, immediately hire three million new government workers, and end a program that shortens military service terms to reduce the burden of pensions on the army.

The party filters all this through a DEI-style identity politics that pits roughly the 70% of the population made up of so-called lower castes against the 30% composed of upper castes. On the campaign trail, Mr. Gandhi promises that his revolution will begin with a caste census to determine the country’s precise social composition. He also proposes a wealth survey to “find out how much injustice has been done.” He regularly rails against big businesses and promises to dole out cash to tens of millions of people.

The alternative to this subcontinental Hugo Chávez isn’t exactly an Indian Margaret Thatcher. The BJP platform emphasizes the party’s record of delivering handouts to the poor and “Modi’s guarantee” that this will continue. Highlights include free wheat or rice for 800 million Indians since the pandemic began, 500 million bank accounts for the poor, 34 trillion rupees (around $408 billion at current exchange rates) worth of welfare payments, free health insurance of 500,000 rupees to 340 million people, and free cooking-gas connections for 100 million women.

In the past, Mr. Modi has boasted about how spiritually rewarding it is for a person “in an AC room” to pay for his welfare programs. In 2019, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proudly imposed steep new taxes on the so-called superrich. Mr. Modi’s crackpot “demonetization” policy in 2016 nuked nearly 90% of Indian currency bills by value overnight, ostensibly to punish hoarders of “black money,” or allegedly untaxed income.

For all that, it would be wrong to equate Mr. Modi with Mr. Gandhi. The prime minister at least sees a role for business in modernizing India. In a recent interview with the Hindi news channel Aaj Tak, Mr. Modi said India should respect wealth creators instead of castigating them, and that in a poor country like India it is normal for some people to get rich before others.

This pragmatic streak makes the BJP far less of a risk to the country than Congress. Shruti Rajagopalan, an economist at George Mason University, points out that despite splurging on welfare, Mr. Modi “has been one of India’s most fiscally prudent prime ministers.” She commends the government’s effort to control deficits during the pandemic. The government estimates the fiscal deficit for the current fiscal year will be 5.1% of gross domestic product.

After 10 years in office Mr. Modi represents continuity—a combination of extensive government handouts, an impressive infrastructure build-out, and tariffs and incentives to attract investments. It’s fair to question this policy mix, but most investors will take it any day over the wild notions of a Congress Party unmoored from common sense.
India’s Election Has a Transparency Problem (Bloomberg – opinion)
Bloomberg [5/22/2024 9:00 PM, Andy Mukherjee, 24454K, Negative]
If the nervousness in the stock market is anything to go by, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bid for a third term doesn’t appear to be as secure as it did earlier this year. But regardless of who wins when ballots are counted June 4, the country’s besieged democracy is the biggest loser. And the blame for that falls squarely on the organization responsible for ensuring a free and fair poll: the Election Commission of India.

Conducted over six weeks in seven phases amid a debilitating heat wave, the vote has been the most hate-filled since India held its first general election as an independent republic in 1951-52. Instead of focusing on their own policies, Modi and his Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party have run a polarizing campaign that — in the process of attacking his political opponents — vilified the Muslim community, India’s largest religious minority.

Despite complaints from Rahul Gandhi’s Congress Party and other opposition groupings, the election commission has done precious little to restrain the prime minister or act decisively on media reports of blatant voter suppression during polling, especially in BJP-controlled Uttar Pradesh, India’s most-populous state. Nor has it released complete polling data, as it did in 2019.

The election has drawn international admiration, the government said in a press release. Delegates from Chile, Georgia, Maldives, Namibia, Papua New Guinea and Uzbekistan witnessed some of the May 7 polling in Uttar Pradesh. They were also taken on a tour of the Taj Mahal.

Behind the veneer of transparency, however, lies near-complete opacity. Civil-society groups have dragged the election watchdog to India’s Supreme Court, which last week asked the commission to answer a simple question: Why can’t it publicly release data on the number of people who have voted?

Considering that all of India’s voting is electronic, this information is readily available. Indeed, it is required to be handed over to the agents of all candidates in each of the country’s 1.2 million polling booths after the last ballots are cast. Why not upload scanned copies of this information, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud asked the commission. That way, the votes cast can be crosschecked against the votes counted. The poll body said in its reply Wednesday that public disclosure “may cause confusion in the minds of the voters” when postal ballots are added to the mix. Hearings in the case will continue Friday.

The absolute number of voters has become a crucial issue. Unlike in 2019, the election manager has so far only disclosed percentages. On April 19, the first day of polling, the commission announced that, tentatively, over 60% of eligible electors had voted, without sharing the data behind the calculations. After 10 days of intense pressure from the media and political parties, it released final figures that showed a voting percentage of 66%, with no explanation for the increase. The data for the second phase also showed a similar bump between provisional and final figures. Once again, no absolute figures were provided.

A sprawling geography does pose challenges. Each parliamentary constituency has more than 2,000 polling booths, on average. Late-arriving data from remote stations or re-polls may alter turnout calculations. But a 6 percentage point increase? In response to the Congress Party’s questions, the commission wrote it a letter stating that its voter turnout app was adequately reflecting updated information at all times. The election body also sought to show that polling figures were updated in previous years as well. However, even the data for 2019 show a maximum difference of 3.4 percentage points between same-day figures and a final tally done a few days later.

This time around, the gap between the initial and final estimates amounts to an increase of more than 10 million votes in just the first four rounds. (A fifth phase of voting took place Monday.) Even if you discount the change in turnout calculations as innocuous, what is truly bizarre is the reluctance to share the absolute numbers. In its letter to the Congress Party, the commission said that it was “not legally bound to publish any voter turnout data” for a constituency, state or phase of election. When investigative reporter Poonam Agarwal asked for this data using a right-to-information application, she was told the commission doesn’t have the stats.

None of this inspires confidence. India’s 2024 elections got underway with unanswered questions around electronic voting machines. A Supreme Court bench dismissed civil-society groups’ demand for 100% matching of the paper slips that are briefly shown to voters behind a glass display with the actual votes recorded by the machines. Since then, however, the way the commission has conducted the polls has done little to boost either its own authority, or the credibility of India’s democracy.

The need of the hour is institutional overhaul, starting with staffing and how election commissioners are appointed. But government officials are focused on image management: They have commissioned a local think tank to publish its own democracy ratings after the country’s 2021 demotion to “electoral autocracy” by the V-Dem Institute, an independent research unit at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

As Tamil Nadu politician Palanivel Thiaga Rajan wrote recently, “We have not invested enough attention, importance, money, or time into the electoral process that forms the bedrock of a functional democracy.” The 2024 polls have laid bare the consequences of this willful neglect, which must be urgently addressed for a nearly 1 billion-strong electorate to continue to believe that it still has the power of vote over its rulers.
A weaker Modi may not be too bad for India (Reuters – opinion)
Reuters [5/23/2024 12:49 AM, Shritama Bose, 5.2M, Neutral]
Sentiment is a fickle thing. A few months ago, business leaders talked up a thumping win for Narendra Modi in India’s national election. After five of seven rounds of polling which began on April 19, some uncertainty is creeping in about what will emerge when votes are counted on June 4. Stock market volatility is at a 23-month high and foreign investors are selling, opens new tab. There may not be too much to fear, though, if the prime minister’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party returns to power with a reduced backing.

The BJP launched its campaign with a promise to better its 2019 tally of 303 seats in the 545-member lower house of parliament. Once polling started, reports of low voter turnout made the BJP’s target of a rare 400-seat super-majority seem a stretch. Focus returned to whether voters would punish the government of the world’s fifth largest economy for stubbornly high inflation and its struggle to create sufficient high-quality jobs.

One of three political configurations will emerge. In the first, which the shadow betting market predicts and stocks are largely pricing in, the BJP scores a simple majority for a third successive term. In the other scenarios, coalition governments emerge led either by the BJP or the opposition Indian National Congress. Benchmark stock indices would likely fall if Modi is forced to ally, or correct sharply if he’s out altogether.

The nature of Modi’s return matters because investors associate his decade in power with stability and a strong hand; they fear rampant corruption and slow policy-making as trappings of coalition rule. These issues dogged a Congress-led administration between 2009 and 2014. Political alliances always demand policy compromises too.

While there is minimal risk of landmark financial reforms including a nationwide tax and bankruptcy code being reversed by any major party, new growth-fuelling initiatives on land, labour and crop procurement may fall off the agenda if the BJP loses its majority.

There are implications for the public purse too. Any seat count well below the halfway mark could force Modi to raise spending to address financial distress among constituents his allies represent, including farmers and rural households whose incomes are squeezed. In that scenario, investors would remain jittery at least until July when the new government outlines its budget. The government may need companies to chip in more on investment if it is to both maintain GDP growth, at 8.4% in the October to December quarter, and honour a pledge to trim borrowing.

A slightly diminished BJP may not be all bad, however. Greater participation of other parties in governance could have a unifying effect with states in southern and eastern India where Modi’s party is less popular. If the BJP’s muscular and Hindu nationalist rhetoric reduces, those who worry about religious minorities and press freedom may be more willing to invest in the country for the long term. Modi is likely to return but if he does emerge weaker from the election, it won’t necessarily spell a weaker India.

CONTEXT NEWS

Traders in India’s stock markets are turning to illegal election-betting platforms for clues to the outcome of the ongoing general election, Reuters reported on May 22, citing investors and unnamed bookies.

The shadow betting market now predicts Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party will win just under 300 of parliament’s 543 seats when votes are counted on June 4, enough to maintain a majority but far off from the super majority of close to 400 it sought, the report added.

The BJP won 303 seats in the 2019 election, with the party surpassing the minimum 272 required to achieve a majority itself. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance won 352 seats.

Volatility in Indian equity markets rose to a 23-month high in intraday trade on May 21 ahead of election results on June 4 and amid selling by foreign investors.
NSB
Missing Bangladeshi lawmaker found murdered in India, minister says (Reuters)
Reuters [5/22/2024 10:22 AM, Staff, 45791K, Negative]
A member of Bangladesh’s ruling party was found murdered in the Indian city of Kolkata on Wednesday morning, more than a week after he went missing, Bangladeshi Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said.

Anwarul Azim Anar, 56, who won his third consecutive term in a constituency in the border district of Jhenaidah from the Awami League party, went missing on May 13, a day after going to India for medical treatment, according to his relatives.

Khan told reporters that three Bangladeshis were arrested over the lawmaker’s death.
Bangladesh police and Kolkata police were conducting a joint probe and could not "disclose all information at the moment for the sake of the investigation," he said.

Indian police told Reuters on Wednesday that a murder case had been registered in the matter and the lawmaker’s body was yet to be recovered.

"We have secured video footage from the housing complex where he was staying during the visit...some blood stains were also seen during the investigation," said Akhilesh Chaturvedi, a senior police officer in the state of West Bengal, where Kolkata is located.

Another senior police officer, who requested anonymity, said the assailants "may be" linked to terror outfits.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina expressed her condolences and deep grief over the lawmaker’s death.
Teesta River Project Pushes Bangladesh Into China-India Cold War (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [5/22/2024 8:42 AM, Kamal Uddin Mazumder, 847K, Neutral]
Bangladesh faces a delicate diplomatic dilemma as it navigates competing interests from India and China in the Teesta River project. On the one hand, India’s interest in the project stems from strategic security concerns, seeking to maintain influence in the region and ensure stability along its borders. On the other hand, China’s involvement offers economic benefits and potential infrastructure development, but it also raises concerns about geopolitical implications and security risks for India. The challenge for Bangladesh lies in balancing these interests while safeguarding its sovereignty, security, and development priorities.

Bangladesh’s projected Teesta River Comprehensive Management and Restoration Project, estimated to cost $1 billion, has long piqued China’s interest. Beijing has submitted an official proposal to carry out this project, and an agreement is expected to be signed during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s upcoming visit to China. Against this backdrop, India recently sent its foreign secretary, Vinay Mohan Kwatra, to Bangladesh to keep China away from the project. During the trip, Kwatra offered Indian funding for the Teesta project, putting Dhaka in a tight spot.

In recent years, both China and India have been engaged in a tussle over expanding their influence in Bangladesh, which India sees as its zone of influence. Bangladesh’s development projects have also reflected this Sino-Indian competition. For example, some years ago, Bangladesh canceled the Sonadia deep sea port project in the Bay of Bengal near Cox’s Bazar that China was keen to construct, reportedly due to India’s discomfort about Beijing’s growing presence in such a strategically important area of the Indo-Pacific. It has also been argued that Beijing has shelved some projects in Bangladesh that were expected to enhance the country’s connectivity with India. Now the Teesta project is the latest iteration of this geopolitical competition.

Geographical, strategic, and geopolitical factors drive India’s keen interest in engaging with the Teesta River project. It has serious security concerns over China’s involvement in a project that is close to the vulnerable “Chicken Neck” corridor, an area of high strategic importance because it connects India’s Northeast with the rest of the country. Another key concern for India is the potential reduction of Bangladesh’s dependency on India across various sectors. For its part, China views the project as an opportunity to expand its presence in South Asia and challenge India’s dominance in the region.

Although Bangladesh-India relations have reached the “highest level of friendship” over the past decade and a half, water-sharing on the Teesta River has remained a vexing issue. India’s failure to resolve the Teesta River water issue over the decades served to heighten Dhaka’s impatience over the future of river-related initiatives. When both countries were on the verge of signing the Teesta water-sharing agreement in 2011, India’s then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh moved away from it due to the objection of West Bengal’s chief minister, Mamata Banerjee. After that, in almost every bilateral meeting with Bangladesh, India committed to signing the deal, but to date it has not been formalized.

Under such circumstances, India surprisingly shifted its stance to offer to fund the Teesta River project instead of signing the Teesta treaty, which will ensure a fair share of water for Dhaka. Now, it raises the question why India wants to finance the project instead of ensuring Bangladesh’s access to water. The answer is spreading in the air: India’s counteroffer is a strategic maneuver to prevent Chinese involvement, akin to the Sonadia project.

The Teesta River project has far-reaching implications for Bangladesh and its relations with India and China. While maintaining neutrality is crucial for Bangladesh’s foreign policy, the Teesta project poses a challenge as it may force Bangladesh to take sides or risk alienating key partners. Engaging with India could reinforce bilateral relations and address immediate security concerns, but at the risk of alienating China and potentially missing out on economic opportunities. Conversely, embracing China’s involvement may yield economic benefits but could strain relations with India.

Hasina may decide that India cannot realistically replace China in the project, given the former’s strict loan terms, sluggishness in fund disbursements and project execution, as well as questionable technological capacity to implement such a large-scale project. Moreover, if Hasina yanks the Teesta project away from Beijing after doing the same thing with the Sonadia port, it is likely to strain her ties severely with Beijing, Dhaka’s number one trade and defense partner.

It is estimated that the proposed Teesta project will bring revolutionary changes to the lives of the most poverty-stricken people in the country’s northwestern region. Why should India’s concerns on the project overrule Bangladesh’s national interest? Again, the question must be answered as to how the Chinese engineers and technicians who will be stationed in the project area, which is several kilometers inward from the Bangladesh-India border, will pose a threat to India’s state security.

No doubt, the successful implementation of the Teesta River project requires Bangladesh’s nuanced diplomacy, careful negotiation, and strategic decision-making. Dhaka has no other option than to leverage its diplomatic channels to engage constructively with the two Asian giants – India and China – to ensure that neither feels slighted when Hasina’s government takes a final decision on the Teesta barrage project in line with Bangladesh’s interests and priorities.
Sri Lanka: Crackdown Over Civil War Anniversary (Human Rights Watch)
Human Rights Watch [5/23/2024 12:30 AM, Staff, 2.4M, Neutral]
Sri Lankan authorities have threatened and detained Tamils commemorating those who died or went missing in the country’s civil war, Human Rights Watch said today. On May 17, 2024, the United Nations human rights office issued a report calling for international prosecutions and other accountability measures to address the thousands of unresolved cases of enforced disappearances in the war, which ended on May 18, 2009.

“The Sri Lankan government is in denial about atrocities its forces committed during the civil war, so it tries to silence victims and their communities instead of providing truth, justice, and reparations,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “It’s clear that more international action is needed to bring relief to victims and prevent a recurrence of abuses.”

Prior to the May 18 anniversary, police in Sri Lanka’s north and east attempted to disrupt commemoration events. In Trincomalee, they detained four people for seven days for serving “kanji,” a rice porridge symbolic of the starvation conditions many civilians suffered at the end of the war. The authorities also obtained court orders to prevent some relatives of forcibly disappeared people and others from attending events. At some locations, police intervened to prevent events from proceeding, or to block people from reaching them.

In the war’s final months in 2009, the Sri Lankan military bombarded “no fire zones” it had designated, killing tens of thousands of Tamil civilians, while the retreating separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) used civilians as human shields. After the LTTE’s final defeat, the Sri Lankan army forcibly disappeared an unknown number of people; many are believed to have been extrajudicially executed.

Enforced disappearances are defined under international law as the arrest or detention of a person by the authorities followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty, or to reveal the person’s fate or whereabouts.

On May 17 the UN Sri Lanka Accountability Project, established in 2021 to collect evidence of international crimes for use in future prosecutions, published a report on enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka. It found that in 15 years there has been no “tangible progress in realizing victims’ rights,” and therefore “there remains a real risk of recurrence.”

The Accountability Project said that foreign governments should “use all available forms of leverage” to press the Sri Lankan authorities to ensure truth, justice, and reparations for victims. It also calls for “investigations and prosecution [in foreign courts] using universal jurisdiction,” and “the appropriate imposition of targeted sanctions.”

Under the legal principle of universal jurisdiction, countries can prosecute individuals for serious international crimes committed elsewhere. While no country has yet issued an arrest warrant in relation to enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka, prosecutors from several countries have contacted the Accountability Project seeking evidence that may support future cases.

Since the 1970s, tens of thousands of people have been “disappeared” in Sri Lanka, about 90 percent of them believed to have been abducted by state security forces. The Sri Lankan government has previously acknowledged that between 1988 and 1990 alone around 27,000 people were forcibly disappeared. Victims include people deemed to be members or supporters of opposition armed groups, as well as journalists, and human rights defenders.

Many relatives of the disappeared, often their mothers and wives, have campaigned for years to press the government to provide information about what happened to them and to see those responsible brought to justice. The relatives often face harassment and surveillance from security and intelligence agencies.

A woman campaigning for justice for her husband, who disappeared in 2000, told Human Rights Watch in 2023 that, “Since my husband was abducted, I lost my freedom to do routine activities.… Even if I go to the market or temple, [security officers] ask, ‘Where are you going?’”

In September 2023, a judge fled the country, having received death threats after ordering the investigation of a mass grave that had recently been accidentally uncovered. Among those appointed in recent years as commissioners of the Office of Missing Persons, the government agency that is supposed to establish what happened to the disappeared, was a former senior police officer who had responsibility for units accused of carrying out enforced disappearances.

Although reported disappearances have declined in recent years, in the absence of reform or accountability, the practice remains entrenched within security forces. On May 14, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka asked the attorney general to investigate evidence that police had held a man in secret detention in April, assaulted him, and threatened to kill him.

The Sri Lankan government should immediately carry out the UN report’s recommendations, Human Rights Watch said, including acknowledging the scale of enforced disappearances, pursuing prompt and credible investigations, seeking international technical assistance to investigate mass graves, establishing an independent prosecutorial authority, and repealing legislation that enables abuses, including the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Foreign governments and UN agencies should also implement the report’s recommendations, including “using all forms of leverage” to press the Sri Lankan government to act, providing technical assistance for exhumations, pursuing prosecutions abroad under universal jurisdiction, and stricter vetting of Sri Lankan personal involved in UN peacekeeping operations, Human Rights Watch said. “Sri Lanka has a horrific record on enforced disappearances that causes profound suffering to victims’ families and puts the country at risk of future violations,” Pearson said. “It is vitally important for the UN Human Rights Council to renew the Sri Lanka Accountability Project’s mandate in September, and for prosecutors around the world to make use of the evidence gathered to bring those responsible to justice.”
Central Asia
Kazakhstan: Government is developing new procurement standards to help mitigate environmental challenges (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [5/22/2024 4:14 PM, Nurgali Rakhmanov, Aida Bapakhova, and Dinara Kanibay, 57.6K, Neutral]
Kazakhstan is considering new procurement standards to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of state spending while aiming to minimize the environmental harm of public works and services.

Government contracts for goods, works and services totaled about $19.7 billion in 2023. In the past, environmental concerns didn’t figure much in state spending. But now, officials are starting to confront the need to address the Soviet legacy of environmental degradation, including the radiation caused by nuclear testing and fuel processing, the shrinking of the Aral Sea and a host of smaller, but still serious challenges. Global warming threatens to exacerbate existing problems and create new ones, including a growing water shortage.

In late 2022, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev directed the government to develop new “green friendly” procurement rules. The Finance Ministry later developed a draft framework in which quality control and environmental impact, in addition to cost, are factored into the awarding of government contracts.

On May 15 of this year, the lower house of the Kazakh parliament, the Mazhilis, approved the Finance Ministry-drafted bill in its second reading. Proponents hope the new rules can receive parliamentary approval and a presidential signature by July 1, but acknowledge that timeline may not be met.

In February 2024, Kazakhstan joined the European Union’s SWITCH-Asia program, under which Astana can receive international expert support for the implementation of sustainable/green public procurement mechanisms. SWITCH-Asia grants encourage companies and governments to implement “cleaner technologies and more sustainable industrial practices” across a variety of sectors, including agriculture, textiles, freight transit and tourism. The program also has a component designed to encourage residential buildings more energy efficient.

SWITCH program representatives say that when making procurement decisions, officials often focus on obtaining goods and services at the lowest cost. But doing so can have longer-term consequences for society and the environment. Program experts help officials see the bigger picture.

“Any product or service that people purchase has unintended, negative impacts. … The government, as the largest consumer in the country, has opportunities to reduce these negative impacts by demanding sustainable and greener products,” said Sanjay Kumar, a senior expert on green public procurement for the program.

“There is a need to make a shift from current practices and adopt a policy that encourages integrating environmental and social sustainability criteria and requirements into purchasing decisions,” Kumar added. “Such a new policy will help the government achieve long-term socioeconomic growth and mitigate environmental challenges.”

Those challenges are growing with each passing year. For example, the volume of hazardous waste generated in Kazakhstan from all economic sectors – from mining and manufacturing to agriculture, healthcare and transport – increased by 84 percent in 2022, compared to the previous year’s total.

Some government agencies are implementing green measures already. Nurbibi Aldanova, a Trade Ministry official, reported at a SWITCH-Asia meeting in March that Kazakhstan is developing new standards for waste utilization, environmental labeling, and environmental management as part of a government strategy to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. New procurement requirements will reflect those standards.

At the same meeting, Enlik Mukanova, an expert at the Ministry of Industry and Construction, said amendments adopted in 2022 mandate state agencies to procure durable goods with high energy efficiency ratings. The system is far from perfect, however. A recent audit of over 3,000 items procured by government agencies, including refrigerators, televisions and air conditioners, found that only 63 percent met energy-efficiency requirements.

SWITCH-Asia program representatives will help familiarize Kazakh procurement officials at a variety of state agencies with global green standards, aiming to ensure that goals outlined in pending legislation are met in practice.
Extremism Trial Of Kazakh Journalist Resumes (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [5/22/2024 9:51 AM, Staff, 1299K, Negative]
The trial of independent Kazakh journalist Duman Mukhammedkarim, who is accused of financing an extremist group and participating in a banned group’s activities, resumed on May 22 after a pause of more than 100 days.

Mukhammedkarim’s lawyer, Ghalym Nurpeiisov, told RFE/RL that the trial resumed after investigators concluded that his client’s complaint about being tortured by jail guards was "baseless."

About 20 people came to the court in the southern town of Qonaev to support Mukhammedkarim but were not allowed to enter the building as the trial is being held behind closed doors.

Mukhammedkarim, whose Ne Deidi? (What Do They Say?) YouTube channel is extremely popular in Kazakhstan, was sent to pretrial detention in June 2023 over an online interview he did with the fugitive banker and outspoken critic of the Kazakh government, Mukhtar Ablyazov.

Ablyazov’s Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) movement was labeled extremist and banned in the country in March 2018.

Mukhammedkarim’s trial started on February 12 but was postponed after he complained of being beaten by jail guards, prompting prosecutors to launch a probe into the matter.

The journalist has held at least two hunger strikes demanding that his trial be open to the public and protesting against being held behind bars for such a long period when his trial was on hold.

If convicted, Mukhammedkarim could be sentenced to up to 12 years in prison.

Domestic and international rights organizations have urged Kazakh authorities to drop all charges against Mukhammedkarim and immediately release him.

Kazakh rights defenders have recognized Mukhammedkarim as a "political prisoner."

Rights watchdogs have criticized the authorities in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic for persecuting dissent, but Astana has shrugged the criticism off, saying there are no political prisoners in the country.

Kazakhstan was ruled by authoritarian President Nursultan Nazarbaev from its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 until current President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev succeeded him in 2019.

Over the past three decades, several opposition figures have been killed and many jailed or forced to flee the country.

Toqaev, who broadened his powers after Nazarbaev and his family left the oil-rich country’s political scene following the deadly, unprecedented anti-government protests in January 2022, has promised political reforms and more freedoms for citizens.

However, many in Kazakhstan consider the reforms announced by Toqaev to be cosmetic, as a crackdown on dissent has continued even after the president announced his "New Kazakhstan" program.
How a Domestic Violence Trial Ended Kazakhstan’s Political Nihilism (Foreign Policy)
Foreign Policy [5/22/2024 6:05 AM, Botakoz Kassymbekova and Erica Marat, 1897K, Neutral]
Over the past month, the public in Kazakhstan has been closely following the jury trial of Kuandyk Bishimbayev, who was accused of brutally beating and killing his wife, Saltanat Nukenova. While formally the trial was about domestic violence, it captivated the public and mobilized many sectors of society due to its political significance.

The trial found Bishimbayev, a former Kazakh finance minister, who was previously convicted of bribery and embezzlement, guilty of torturing and murdering Nukenova. Bishimbayev was sentenced to 24 years in prison, while his accomplice and family member Bakhytzhan Baizhanov received four years behind bars.

Broadcast live, the trial sparked intense public discussions across generations, regardless of social class or political allegiances. Since the early 2010s, Kazakhstan’s activists have increasingly relied on social media to bridge vast distances across the country. Dozens of influencer accounts meticulously analyzed witness testimonies and the accused’s responses to prosecutor questioning.

Kazakh diaspora activists and international feminist groups held protests in London, Berlin, Warsaw, New York, and Riga. The guilty verdict is being celebrated internationally as well. “The kids in my neighborhood run around screaming ‘24!’, ‘24!’ First, I didn’t understand and then I got it,” one political activist in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, wrote.

The trial is a pivotal moment in transforming the public view of violence against women across Kazakhstan. More women, including spouses of government officials, came out publicly with stories of domestic violence. At least in one such case, which concerned Saken Mamash, a Kazakh diplomat in the United Arab Emirates, a criminal investigation was launched into allegations of torture that could lead to years of imprisonment.

The public is closely watching the unfolding of this case and focusing attention on reports of police refusing to intervene when called for help; artists are incorporating images of women suffering from domestic violence in public exhibitions; and feminist civil society groups are now increasingly joined by their male allies in publicly calling for protection from violence for women and children in Kazakhstan.

Perhaps most importantly, the trial is a symbol of how former government officials can be held accountable.

High-level corruption was a key grievance during the nationwide unrest in January 2022 that lasted for days and only stopped after the government killed more than 200 people and injured thousands more. Since then, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has promised to build a “new Kazakhstan” along with political and economic reform, but distrust in the government remains. Bishimbayev, who was previously pardoned by former President Nursultan Nazarbayev, embodies such lack of accountability that allows elites to amass resources and power. Many had feared that Bishimbayev’s connection to the government would result in a shorter sentence.

Although Bishimbayev was not a government official and was forbidden to hold high official posts, he begged for forgiveness from Tokayev, signaling loyalty to the president. But Tokayev publicly stated that the interest of the nation was more important for him than personal relations or loyalty of officials.

Tokayev was marking himself off from Nazarbayev’s personalized regime, which was highly unpopular. The trial was a test of Tokayev’s promise to elevate national interests over personal connections. The outcome was a surprise even for feminist activists in Kazakhstan, some of whom rallied for life imprisonment for Bishimbayev. The public reaction on social media was largely positive.

Just as Tokayev used the unsubstantiated claim of “20,000 foreign-trained terrorists” instigating the January 2022 chaos as a reason for his harsh response, Bishimbayev fiercely maintained his innocence in court, at times blaming Nukenova for being “hysterical” and “frivolous,” accusing her of adultery. Bishimbayev admitted that his actions caused her death but insisted that he was facing “emotional turmoil” after the couple had a long argument. He tried to implicate Nukenova for causing his mental health struggles and provoking his aggression. Just as many in Kazakhstan refused to believe Tokayev’s interpretation of the 2022 violence, Bishimbayev’s victim-blaming tactics also fell flat.

The trial is the first of its kind to litigate the legitimacy of violence in Kazakhstan. Many victims of the January 2022 violence never saw law enforcement officials held accountable. Among those killed were children and young people whose families were denied the right to channel their grief publicly. Given the unexpected public interest in the case, the government faced the risk of renewed protests. Last month, in response to an online petition garnering more than 150,000 signatures in support of increasing penalties for domestic violence, Kazakhstan adopted “Saltanat’s Law.”

The public pressure on Tokayev was formidable: It targeted his own notion of “New Kazakhstan”; being seen as protecting people like Bishimbayev risked resembling the “old Kazakhstan” under Nazarbayev. Many in Kazakhstan, especially women, said they were ready to protest in the event of an acquittal.

It is a major reversal just seven years after Kazakhstan effectively decriminalized domestic violence, joining countries such as Belarus and Russia in having little to no protections in place. In neighboring Kyrgyzstan, families of girls and women kidnapped into marriage still often refuse to take them back, fearing public shaming.

The trial also tested the efficiency of the judicial reform in Kazakhstan. The jury, comprising 10 people with two alternates, decided the verdict, but the judge seemed to lean toward the accused. An unlikely hero emerged: Aizhai Aimaganova, a female prosecutor, who firmly pressed the accused with pointed questions. In her final address to the jury, she linked the magnitude of Nukenova’s case with the national consciousness and powerfully cited “Words of Edification” by Abai Kunanbaev, a 19th-century enlightenment intellectual who united liberals and conservatives in Kazakhstan. After the end of the trial, Aimaganova said she would continue her job as a prosecutor, calling on more women to report cases of domestic abuse.

Finally, the trial drew the attention of millions of Russian-speaking audiences in neighboring countries, including Azerbaijan, Mongolia, and Russia. Russian socialite Ksenia Sobchak and Russian opposition TV channel Dozhd reported on the case to their audiences. Kazakhstan’s adoption of Saltanat’s Law takes the country in the opposite direction of Russia, which decriminalized most forms of domestic violence in 2017 for the supposed protection of so-called traditional family values. Increasingly, Russia—which once presented itself as a model of development for Central Asian states to aspire to—is perceived as backward compared with Kazakhstan.

Nukenova’s death highlighted the power imbalance between powerful men and those whose freedoms can be taken away in an instant. She left a trail of Instagram images of her happier days as a young woman living a lavish life. The involvement of the victim’s family is symbolic for Kazakh society, and their decision to mobilize society around the case has broken the stigma for victims of violence. Only two out of every 10 victims of domestic violence file a case against their offenders in Kazakhstan, while the United Nations estimates that more than 400 women die in the country every year from spousal abuse.

Although the trial’s ending offered closure for the public, the hard work in enforcing laws against domestic violence continues. As with other cases of similar mobilization against violence against women in India, Mexico, and Turkey, legal proceedings can bring temporary relief. But beyond condemnations of this one incident, courts and public officials are likely to continue to blame victims and accuse some women of inviting male violence. Less privileged women abused by their family members won’t gain the same level of public attention.

The lasting legacy of Nukenova’s case is likely to be the expansion of civic consciousness among Kazakhs. Since the government denied justice to the victims of the January 2022 protests, many citizens had been mired in political nihilism and fear that the protests were in vain. The trial snapped them out of their despair and has become a symbol of hope that the law can lead to justice—not just be used by the government to repress dissent.
6 Kyrgyz, 4 Foreign Nationals Detained Over Mob Attacks In Bishkek That Triggered Exodus (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [5/22/2024 12:28 PM, Staff, 1299K, Negative]
The Kyrgyz Interior Ministry said on May 22 that six Kyrgyz and four foreign citizens had been detained on suspicion of being involved in a brawl that sparked mob attacks on foreign students in Bishkek, triggering a mass exodus of Pakistani students from the Central Asian nation.

According to the ministry, nine investigations have been launched into hooliganism, robbery, mass disorder, and inciting ethnic hatred. Thirty-three people were injured in the violence, the ministry added.

Hundreds of Pakistani students have left Kyrgyzstan since the May 18 violence, which was triggered by the appearance on social media of a video purportedly showing a group of "people of Asian appearance" harassing foreign students on the night of May 13.

The group then pursued the students to their dormitory, where at least one foreigner was assaulted by several men and dragged along the floor.

Kyrgyz officials said later that the foreigners involved in the brawl on video were Egyptians.

The Kyrgyz government has vowed to pursue those responsible for the violence.

Still, it appeared to lay the blame for the attack on illegal migrants, saying authorities had been taking "decisive measures to suppress illegal migration and expel undesirable persons from Kyrgyzstan."

On May 22, Kyrgyzstan’s State Committee for National Security (UKMK) said in a statement that five Egyptian citizens were arrested on charges of extortion, illegal drug possession, and violating immigration laws.

A day earlier, the UKMK said six Pakistani nationals were detained overnight while trying to illegally enter Kyrgyzstan from Kazakhstan.

Just three days before the violence, the UKMK detained 28 Pakistani nationals for "working illegally" in a sewing shop in Bishkek.

The same day, Bishkek city police shut down delivery services conducted by more than 400 foreign students, mostly from Pakistan, on motorcycles and scooters, citing traffic safety concerns.
China EV makers Xpeng, Li Auto shift focus to Mideast and Central Asia (Nikkei Asia)
Nikkei Asia [5/22/2024 9:22 PM, Marrian Zhou, 2197K, Negative]
Chinese electric-vehicle makers Xpeng and Li Auto say they are focused on growing in the Middle East and elsewhere outside the U.S. following Washington’s announcement of a 100% punitive tariff on Chinese-made electric cars.

Such Chinese EV makers as Nio had talked last year of entering the U.S., while competitively slashing prices in a crowded home market. U.S. President Joe Biden has announced major increases in tariffs on Chinese goods, including EVs, to prevent cheap imports from flooding the country. Meanwhile, the European Union has launched a probe into whether tariffs should be implemented to protect European producers from cheaper Chinese EVs.

This has led some Chinese companies to rethink their strategies as they expect to deliver more vehicles than in the previous quarter.

Li Auto Senior Vice President Zou Liangjun said on an earnings call Monday that the company will accelerate the establishment of after-sales service networks for users overseas and is creating them in Central Asia and the Middle East this year. But he made clear that the U.S. is not a target.

"We will select appropriate dealers for market expansion in overseas countries and regions outside Western Europe and North America," Zou told analysts and reporters. "Given the adjustments of this year’s sales target, we will focus our efforts in the domestic market this year."

Xpeng Chairman and CEO He Xiaopeng said the company plans to expand its overseas sales network from Nordic countries to 20-plus countries worldwide this year while omitting any mention of the U.S.

In the first half of 2024, Xpeng established partnerships with leading auto dealership groups in Western Europe, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Australia, He said, adding that new sales stores have also opened with these partnerships.

"We will expedite our overseas expansion this year -- exports will be become an important driver in vehicle sales and profit growth," He said on the earnings call.

Xpeng raked in 6.55 billion yuan ($905 million) in total revenue for the first three months of the year, up 62.3% compared with a year earlier and beating analyst estimates of 6.17 billion yuan. It reported a net loss of 1.37 billion yuan on a higher cost of sales, but the net loss narrowed from the 2.34 billion of the same period last year.

The Chinese EV maker delivered 21,821 vehicles from January to March, up 19.7% on the year, and expects to deliver 29,000 to 32,000 in the current quarter. The company’s gross margin reached 12.9% in the first quarter, compared with 1.7% in the same period last year and 6.2% in the previous quarter.

China’s EV industry is going through a price war as automakers battle to offer cars at deep discounts to gain market share in a crowded field. Li Auto announced price cuts in April after Tesla and BYD announced their own earlier this year.

Li Auto’s net profit declined 36.7% on the year to 591.1 million yuan for January to March, owing to higher operating costs. Total revenue of 25.6 billion yuan missed an estimate of 26.7 billion yuan by analysts surveyed by LSEG.

The decline was impacted partially by "lower-than-expected order intake in March," Chief Financial Officer Li Tie said on the earnings call.

"We have admittedly encountered multiple challenges since the start of the year, from both internal operations and changes in the external environment," Chairman and CEO Li Xiang of Li Auto said on the earnings call. "In response, we immediately took action and swiftly implemented adjustments across our business, including an organizational restructure and workflow optimization," he said.

The company delivered 80,400 vehicles in the first quarter and expects second-quarter deliveries of 105,000 to 110,000, with a goal of total revenue between 29.9 billion yuan and 31.4 billion yuan.
Twitter
Afghanistan
SIGAR
@SIGARHQ
[5/23/2024 4:01 PM, 170.3K followers, 1 retweet, 5 likes]
(1/3) FYs 2021 & 2022 foreign tax reports for 9 awards #StateDept provided to us indicated implementing partners didn’t pay taxes. However, implementing partners who submitted foreign tax reports to State & responded to our questionnaire reported paying taxes, fees, duties,

SIGAR
@SIGARHQ
[5/23/2024 4:01 PM, 170.3K followers, 2 likes]
(2/3) utilities. In total, #StateDept’s implementing partners that responded to SIGAR stated they paid $2.18 million in taxes, fees, duties, & utilities to Taliban-controlled govt of #AFG. While not all taxes, fees, duties, & utilities reported to us by respondents required to...

SIGAR
@SIGARHQ
[5/23/2024 4:01 PM, 170.3K followers, 2 likes]
(3/3)…be reported to #StateDept, they show that not all payments on U.S. funded assistance are captured by current reporting requirements https://sigar.mil/pdf/audits/SIGAR-24-22-AR.pdf#page=23
Pakistan
Shehbaz Sharif
@CMShehbaz
[5/23/2024 1:08 AM, 6.7M followers, 79 retweets, 196 likes]
On this Vesakh Day, we extend warm wishes to our Buddhist friends worldwide. May this day bring peace, prosperity, and harmony to all. Let’s celebrate our shared heritage and continue working towards mutual respect and understanding.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Pakistan
@ForeignOfficePk
[5/22/2024 11:31 PM, 478.7K followers, 6 retweets, 16 likes]
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar @MIshaqDar50 visited Bishkek, the Kyrgyz Republic on 22 May 2024 to ensure the well-being of Pakistani community including students and workers. Here is a brief recap of the visit https://x.com/i/status/1793484884998344903

Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Pakistan
@ForeignOfficePk
[5/22/2024 11:02 AM, 478.7K followers, 10 retweets, 29 likes]
Foreign Secretary Muhammad Syrus Sajjad Qazi @syrusqazi today held a meeting with the visiting SAARC Secretary General, Mohammad Golam Sarwar. The current dynamics of SAARC and the possibility of revitalizing the organization were extensively discussed. The Foreign Secretary also hosted a lunch in the honour of Secretary General.

Imran Khan
@ImranKhanPTI
[5/22/2024 10:26 AM, 20.6M followers, 11K retweets, 20K likes]
Founding Chairman Imran Khan’s message (22.05.2024) “During past two darkest years in Pakistan’s history, PTI’s political persecution was carried on with complete impunity. We were subjected to the prohibited war tool of collective punishment— our houses trespassed, our people killed and tortured, our businesses destroyed, even the elderly and children were not spared. For the sake of Pakistan, we have been very patient so far. But ENOUGH IS ENOUGH NOW!! The heinous attack on Rauf Hassan is very instigating and further demonstrates that the powerful are unwilling to accept dissent, preferring to resort to cowardly tactics rather than addressing the underlying problems. I have repeatedly also emphasised that economic stability cannot be achieved without having political stability, and the last two years have shown how the economic conditions of the common man have worsened when a performing govt was ousted by the military establishment and their puppets were installed. My message for my nation: we must now be ready to practically struggle against this fascist mafia. I instruct all of you— my central party leadership, central, provincial and local party organisation, members, workers, supporters and the common man to wait for my street agitation call.

Madiha Afzal
@MadihaAfzal
[5/22/2024 11:53 AM, 42.7K followers, 15 retweets, 76 likes]
The new Pakistani government has constituted its Economic Advisory Council -- most notable: there are no women on it.
India
Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[5/23/2024 12:16 AM, 97.9M followers, 2.3K retweets, 9.6K likes]
Sharing my interview with @EconomicTimes on various issues, notably the economic transformation in India and the strong potential in our country for growth as well as investment.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[5/22/2024 12:27 PM, 97.9M followers, 4.3K retweets, 24K likes]
During today’s rally in Delhi, met a delegation of Sikh community leaders, including members of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee. Our Party will always work for the welfare of the Sikh community. We cherish the ideals of the Sikh Gurus and the community’s service to humanity.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[5/22/2024 9:04 AM, 97.9M followers, 3.6K retweets, 11K likes]
Addressing a huge rally in Dwarka. BJP is committed to the comprehensive development of Delhi.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[5/22/2024 7:03 AM, 97.9M followers, 6.6K retweets, 37K likes]
Coming to Shravasti is special and that too on the eve of Buddha Purnima. While on the way to rally, caught a glimpse of the iconic Mahamongkolchai Temple and monastery. May the blessings of Lord Buddha always remain upon us.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[5/22/2024 9:44 AM, 3.1M followers, 134 retweets, 785 likes]
Addressed a @phdchamber gathering today in New Delhi on Viksit Bharat@2047. Heartening to hear appreciation for the transformation of the last decade. Shared how strong leadership and good judgement has steered us through many crises in that period. As a nation, we must grow for today and leapfrog for tomorrow to realize our goals and aspirations .

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[5/22/2024 7:41 AM, 3.1M followers, 147 retweets, 561 likes]
Speaking at @phdchamber, New Delhi. https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1vOxwjknpZWJB

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[5/22/2024 4:45 AM, 3.1M followers, 612 retweets, 6.8K likes]
Pleased to receive Chief of Army Staff General Manoj Pande for a courtesy call this afternoon.

Sadanand Dhume
@dhume
[5/22/2024 4:55 PM, 171.9K followers, 23 retweets, 36 likes]
Rahul Gandhi’s anti-business philosophy and redistributionist fantasies could turn India into Venezuela on the Ganges. [My take] v @WSJopinion https://wsj.com/articles/india-could-become-venezuela-on-the-ganges-national-election-e138a7d2?st=ncrdkvndg5dmrf6&reflink=mobilewebshare_permalink

Sadanand Dhume
@dhume
[5/23/2024 1:06 AM, 171.9K followers, 5 retweets, 57 likes]
In general, Indian political Twitter has too much “X candidate is great, Y is awful,” and not enough “X is pretty bad, but Y is even worse.”
NSB
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bangladesh
@BDMOFA
[5/22/2024 4:00 PM, 36.5K followers, 3 retweets, 24 likes]
Bangladesh marks a milestone in the fight against violent extremism, graduating from GCERF support to a self-sustaining PVE approach.’Whole of society’ efforts to PVE by Bangladesh Govt. highly lauded by speakers, panelists & experts @Seminar on ‘PVE in Bangladesh: Graduation & Sustainability.

Awami League
@albd1971
[5/23/2024 2:26 AM, 637.8K followers, 2 retweets, 4 likes]
Finance SM Waseqa Ayesha Khan MP (@ctgchatter) said innovations under the Financial Institutions Division would ensure smart #financialservices to people. She applauded the digital initiatives taken by the financial institutions in #Bangladesh. https://bssnews.net/business/190475

Awami League
@albd1971
[5/23/2024 12:44 AM, 637.8K followers, 13 retweets, 26 likes]
HPM #SheikhHasina expressed frustration to @SenatorWong that the developed countries are not fulfilling their commitments on #climatechange issues. Both the leaders had a meeting on 21st May. PM also reiterated Bangladesh’s effort to resolve #Rohingya crisis. https://link.albd.org/sa2hn

Awami League
@albd1971
[5/22/2024 11:28 AM, 637.8K followers, 35 retweets, 82 likes]
On the occasion of the #BuddhaPurnima, Prime Minister #SheikhHasina in separate messages greeted the members of the #Buddhist community as well as the countrymen. In her message, PM said, "Our guarantees #equalrights to people of all #religions and #castes. We believe religion is for individuals and festivals for all." https://link.albd.org/jip1j

Awami League
@albd1971
[5/22/2024 6:04 AM, 637.8K followers, 19 retweets, 43 likes]
The #EuropeanUnion is providing €175,000 equivalent to over Tk2.22 crore in humanitarian funding to support the most vulnerable people exposed to the severe #heatwave #Bangladesh is facing. https://dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/347076/eu-grants-over-2c-for-heatwave-relief-in @EUinBangladesh @EU_Commission @BDRCS

Sabria Chowdhury Balland
@sabriaballand
[5/22/2024 12:35 PM, 5.2K followers, 3 likes]
Former army chief Aziz Ahmed, subject of All the Prime Minister’s Men, was involved ‘in significant corruption’, US State Department says. US blacklists ex-#Bangladesh general named in Al Jazeera investigation https://aje.io/twzqg9 via @AJEnglish

Amnesty International South Asia, Regional Office
@amnestysasia
[5/22/2024 8:50 PM, 80.6K followers, 13 retweets, 15 likes]
Bangladesh: More than 100 indigenous Bawm people have been arbitrarily arrested since 7 April, as part of a military crackdown in the Chittagong Hill Tracts against an armed group called Kuki Chin National Front. Bawn students who were visiting home for Eid holidays, women nursing young toddlers and a pregnant woman are among the arrested. Amnesty International calls on the government of Bangladesh to immediately end the crackdown on Bawm people and release all those who have been arbitrarily arrested. Sign our Urgent Action and call on the government to end this persecution on Bawm people. https://amnesty.org/en/documents/asa13/8076/2024/en/

Moosa Zameer
@MoosaZameer
[5/22/2024 12:29 PM, 13.3K followers, 33 retweets, 61 likes]
Congratulations to @AlinyMohamed on presenting his credentials to the UN Secretary General @antonioguterres as the Permanent Representative of Maldives to the United Nations. Ali Naseer Mohamed is a seasoned diplomat with years of experience in the multilateral arena. I am confident of his ability to advance the Maldives interests and priorities at the United Nations. @MVPMNY

Harsha de Silva
@HarshadeSilvaMP
[5/22/2024 6:25 PM, 357.2K followers, 28 retweets, 84 likes]
#COPF approved critical #PublicDebtManagement Bill today! This creates a debt office in the MoF, regulates Govt debt, & ensures accountability. Stops SOEs from burdening taxpayers with risky borrowing & forces reform or closure. Strengthens #oversight to prevent future crises.

Ranil Wickremesinghe
@RW_UNP
[5/22/2024 9:30 PM, 318.3K followers, 16 retweets, 99 likes]
Let us keep in mind that the primary aim of the Vesak festival is to foster spiritual growth and character development in a world rapidly advancing physically. I wish everyone a blessed Vesak festival.

Ranil Wickremesinghe
@RW_UNP
[5/22/2024 3:03 PM, 318.3K followers, 10 retweets, 74 likes]
Yesterday, I had the honour of inaugurating the new headquarters of the Sri Lanka Ex-Servicemen’s Association in Akuregoda. This is one step of several in our commitment to improving the welfare of our retired war heroes. Next in line will include granting freehold land deeds to residents of War Hero Villages under the “Urumaya” National Programme, establishing the Sri Lanka Institute of Strategic Studies to advance our defence education, and introducing Special Provisions for the Defence Act and legalising the National Defence Council. I have also directed the Ministry of Defence and the Ranaviru Seva Authority to develop and implement welfare programmes that specifically cater to the needs of our veterans and provide opportunities to earn a sustainable income.
Central Asia
Saida Mirziyoyeva
@SMirziyoyeva
[5/22/2024 12:41 PM, 17.9K followers, 4 retweets, 21 likes]
Today, we met with @UnderSecStateJ Uzra Zeya, to discuss pressing issues, including freedom of speech and the media. It takes time for the media to become strong and independent. One thing is clear: there is no turning back, and this is the stance of our leadership.

Saida Mirziyoyeva
@SMirziyoyeva
[5/22/2024 10:55 AM, 17.9K followers, 8 retweets, 75 likes]
Yesterday, our President made several critical decisions introducing long-awaited reforms in #healthcare This year, we are introducing state #healthinsurance, electronic medication prescriptions, optimization of ambulance services, and continuing to promote a healthy lifestyle

Bakhtiyor Saidov
@FM_Saidov
[5/22/2024 8:13 AM, 3.5K followers, 7 retweets, 13 likes]
Welcomed @StateDept Under-Secretary H.E. Uzra Zeya today @UzbekMFA. We have discussed a number of acute topics on our bilateral agenda, agreed to further continue our efforts towards enriching #Uzbekistan and the U.S. close cooperation in all spheres, especially aimed at creating the most favorable conditions for our people.

Leila Nazgul Seiitbek
@l_seiitbek
[5/22/2024 4:20 PM, 3.6K followers, 6 retweets, 6 likes]
Tajik authorities are confiscating homes and evicting families of Tajik dissidents living abroad to shut them up. Tajik regime must be sanctioned for its decades-long blatant abuses.

Leila Nazgul Seiitbek
@l_seiitbek
[5/22/2024 10:05 AM, 3.6K followers, 5 retweets, 10 likes]
Appeal of the Kyrgyz political prisoners. Ahead of the signing of the Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, we would like to remind the @eu_eeas that any agreements with Kyrgyzstan must be predicate on the release of all political prisoners, and the repeal of repressive legislation. https://freedomforeurasia.org/kyrgyzstan-statement-of-the-kempirabad-political-prisoners/

{End of Report}
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