SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS
Prepared for the U.S. Department of State
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
TO: | SCA & Staff |
DATE: | Friday, May 31, 2024 6:30 AM ET |
Afghanistan
Which Countries Have Relations With The Taliban’s Unrecognized Government? (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [5/30/2024 11:21 AM, Abubakar Siddique, 1299K, Neutral]
No country in the world formally recognizes the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan, where the extremist group seized power in 2021.But some countries operate embassies in Kabul and have accepted diplomats appointed by the Taliban, which controls Afghan missions in some 14 nations in the region.Russia is the latest country that is set to expand diplomatic ties with the militants. Moscow appears poised to delist the Taliban from its list of terrorist groups."This could be a step toward the Taliban gaining regional legitimacy," said Graeme Smith, a senior Afghanistan analyst at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.Many countries have tied recognition to the Taliban establishing an inclusive government, ensuring women’s rights, and breaking ties with extremist groups -- issues that the militants have refused to budge on.But Afghanistan’s neighbors, concerned about security, trade, migration, and drug trafficking, have been more open to establishing ties with the Taliban, said Smith.The militants face major hurdles in gaining international legitimacy, and many Afghan missions around the world are still run by diplomats appointed by the former internationally recognized Afghan government.But the hard-line Islamist group appears to be making headway in its strategy to gain recognition from countries in Afghanistan’s backyard.RussiaRussia is one of the few countries that has maintained its embassy in Kabul. In April 2022, Russia handed over the Afghan Embassy in Moscow to the militants, becoming the latest country to accredit Taliban-appointed diplomats without officially recognizing the Taliban-led government. Commenting on removing the Taliban from Russia’s list of terrorist organizations, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on May 28 that Moscow should "build relations" with the group.ChinaIn January, Chinese President Xi Jinping formally accepted the credentials of a Taliban-appointed ambassador, becoming the first head of state to do so. The Chinese Foreign Ministry clarified the move did not mean Beijing officially recognized the Taliban-led government. But the militants celebrated the move as a major diplomatic victory.PakistanThe Taliban gained control of the Afghan Embassy in Islamabad in October 2021. It was one of the first Afghan missions the group took over after regaining power. Pakistan is a longtime ally of the Taliban, although the sides have fallen out recently over the militants’ alleged support for the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan extremist group.IranTehran also kept its embassy in Kabul open after the Taliban seized control of the capital. Iran formally handed over the Afghan Embassy to the Taliban in February 2023. Former foes, Iran and the Taliban have forged close ties despite sporadic border clashes.IndiaNew Delhi reopened its embassy in Kabul last year. But Afghan diplomatic missions in India are in limbo as diplomats appointed by the former Afghan government have tried to stave off Taliban attempts to take over the embassy and two consulates.KazakhstanIn December, Astana removed the Taliban from its list of terrorist groups. That came months after Kazakhstan accepted a new Afghan ambassador appointed by the Taliban.UzbekistanTashkent engaged the Taliban soon after the militants returned to power. In February, the Taliban appointed a diplomat to take charge of the Afghan Embassy in the Uzbek capital.TurkmenistanAshgabat accepted a Taliban ambassador in March 2022. The sides have worked closely on regional energy and transport projects. But there have been sporadic tensions and border clashes.TajikistanThe Taliban controls the Afghan consulate in the eastern Tajik city of Khorog. But the embassy is run by the ambassador appointed by the ex-Afghan government. Tajikistan is the only neighboring country to publicly oppose the Taliban’s return to power, and Dushanbe has hosted some of the leaders of the National Resistance Front, an anti-Taliban resistance group.AzerbaijanBaku officially reopened its embassy in Kabul in March, following through on a pledge made last year. But it is not clear if there are any Taliban diplomats present in Azerbaijan.TurkeyThe Afghan Embassy in Ankara is controlled by the ambassador appointed by the ex-Afghan government. But the consulate in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, is run by the Taliban. Several exiled Afghan political leaders are believed to reside in Turkey, including former Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum.QatarDoha has hosted a Taliban political office since 2013. The Qatari capital was the scene of negotiations between Taliban and U.S. officials that paved the way for the complete withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan in 2021. Qatar has engaged with the Taliban at the highest level and remains a key international interlocutor for its government, which controls the Afghan Embassy in Doha.Saudi ArabiaRiyadh maintains an embassy in Kabul and continues to offer consular services for Afghans, thousands of whom work in the kingdom as laborers. After the Taliban takeover, Riyadh helped establish an Organization of Islamic Countries mission in Kabul. It is unclear if the Taliban controls all Afghan diplomatic missions in the oil-rich country.United Arab EmiratesAbu Dhabi also maintains an embassy in Kabul. The Taliban has appointed diplomats to the Afghan Embassy in Abu Dhabi and the consulate in Dubai. Pakistan
Pakistan sends official to Kabul for talks with the Afghan Taliban on a deadly March suicide attack (AP)
AP [5/30/2024 4:11 PM, Staff, 39876K, Negative]
Pakistan has sent an official to Kabul to share the findings of its investigation into a suicide bombing in March that killed five Chinese engineers and a Pakistani driver with Afghanistan’s Taliban government, the foreign ministry said Thursday.Pakistan says the attack was planned in Afghanistan and that the bomber was an Afghan citizen, alleging that the Afghan Taliban administration should be held accountable for the attack. Afghanistan’s Taliban government has denied it was in any way responsible.According to a statement, Khurram Agha, a top bureaucrat at the Interior Ministry in Islamabad, shared the findings with Afghanistan’s deputy interior minister, Muhammad Nabi Omari. It said Agha traveled to Afghanistan’s capital under Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s instructions.The March 26 attack took place as the group of Chinese were heading to Dasu Dam, the biggest hydropower project in Pakistan, where they worked.The statement also said Pakistan has sought Afghanistan’s assistance in apprehending the perpetrators.As for the talks in Kabul, the ministry said the “Afghan side reiterated its commitment to prevent the use of Afghan soil for any terrorist activity against other countries, including Pakistan.” It also added that the Taliban “agreed to examine the findings” of the Pakistani probe.No further details were immediately available.Thousands of Chinese nationals work in Pakistan on projects relating to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which includes a multitude of megaprojects such as road construction, power plants and agriculture. Pakistan shares probe findings with Afghan Taliban on attack against Chinese nationals (VOA)
VOA [5/30/2024 5:50 PM, Ayaz Gul, 4186K, Neutral]
A high-level Pakistani delegation met with Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities on Thursday and urged “decisive action” against militants who allegedly used Afghan soil to orchestrate cross-border attacks, including a recent suicide car bombing that killed five Chinese engineers.Kabul hosted the meeting several days after Islamabad revealed it had apprehended about a dozen suspects in connection with the deadly assault on Chinese civilians in March, saying an Afghan national carried out the bombing with the support of his handlers sheltering in Afghanistan. The victims were working on a China-funded hydropower project in northwestern Pakistan.Officials said Deputy Taliban Interior Minister Muhammad Nabi Omari and his Pakistani counterpart, Muhammad Khurram Agha, led their respective delegations at Thursday’s meeting in the Afghan capital.A post-visit Pakistani Foreign Ministry statement said discussions focused on the March 26 “terrorist attack” against Chinese nationals. It added that the Pakistani side shared the findings of their investigation into the bombing with Taliban officials and “sought Afghanistan’s assistance in apprehending the perpetrators.” The Afghan side “agreed to examine the findings of the investigation and expressed the resolve to work with the Pakistan side to take the investigation to its logical conclusion,” the statement added.Officials privy to the talks told VOA that the Pakistani side highlighted the involvement of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, in the attack on Chinese workers and other acts of terrorism being committed against Pakistan.“Mr. Khurram Agha talked about the attack on the 26th of March this year … and hoped for the Afghan government’s help in the security sector,” Abdul Mateen Qani, Taliban Interior Ministry spokesman, said while sharing details of Thursday’s meeting between the two countries.He quoted Omari as describing the “terrorist attack” on Chinese nationals “as a tragic incident.” The minister stated, "Our intentions and actions are to promote peace in the region for the benefit of ourselves and everyone.”Omari renewed Afghanistan’s commitment “to not allowing others to use its territory against anyone, and we wish the same from others.”TTP, a globally designated terrorist organization, has for years waged deadly attacks in Pakistan, targeting security forces and civilians.Officials in Islamabad maintain that fugitive TTP leaders and combatants relocated to sanctuaries in Afghanistan after the Taliban retook control of the country nearly three years ago and have since intensified cross-border attacks with “greater operational freedom.”Taliban authorities reject the charges, saying neither TTP nor any other militant group is based on Afghan soil.“The two sides agreed to remain engaged to confront the threat posed by terrorism to regional countries and to address the concerns raised by Pakistan,” said the Pakistani statement Thursday.The Pakistani military said Thursday that a meeting of its leadership reviewed the security situation and the threat of terrorism emanating from Afghan soil.“The forum expressed serious concerns over continued cross-border violations from Afghanistan and terrorism being orchestrated using Afghan soil, noting that Pakistan’s adversaries were using Afghanistan to target security forces and innocent civilians inside Pakistan,” said a post-meeting military statement. Pakistan arrests 11 militants in deadly attack on Chinese engineers (VOA)
VOA [5/30/2024 8:26 PM, Arshad Hussain, 4186K, Negative]
Eleven militants accused of being involved in carrying out the deadly March suicide attack on Chinese engineers are in custody, according to Pakistani officials.Following the arrests, Beijing urged Islamabad to continue the investigation. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Monday that China was attaching great importance to the progress made by Pakistan."China supports Pakistan in continuing to get to the full bottom of what happened and hunting down and bringing to justice all the perpetrators," she said.The suicide attack killed five Chinese engineers on March 26 along with their Pakistani driver. They were on their way to work at the largest dam at Dasu in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistani officials said. A suicide bomber rammed a vehicle filled with explosives into their convoy.Pakistan blames Afghanistan as a launching pad for militants who attack Pakistan – an accusation the Taliban has repeatedly denied. Islamabad said the suicide bomber who targeted the Chinese engineers was an Afghan national."The attack on the Chinese engineers at Shangla (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) is not the only attack. There are several attacks that are carried out by Afghan nationals in Pakistan, their dead bodies were there, and they were identified as Afghans," Abdullah Khan, an Islamabad-based researcher for the Pakistan Institute of Conflict and Security Studies, told VOA.Mounting security threats have prompted Pakistani officials to introduce security protocols requiring residential addresses of Chinese nationals and information about their mobility in the country.Baloch separatist groups and Islamist militants have been targeting Chinese interests and personnel in Pakistan’s resources-rich southwestern Balochistan and northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces. Militants associated with the Baloch separatist groups have claimed past attacks on Chinese nationals and interests.Earlier this month, the army said its troops were carrying out 100 intelligence-based operations daily, as part of its fight against terrorism.Militants associated with radical Islamists groups claimed an attack in 2021 targeting a bus carrying workers to the same hydropower project. The attack killed 13 people, including at least nine Chinese nationals. The two Islamist militants accused of the crime were sentenced to death for that attack.No group has accepted the responsibility for the latest suicide attack on the Chinese engineers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Pakistan announced on May 23 the government will pay $2.58 million to the victims of the March attack.Pakistan is host to Chinese workers connected to Beijing’s mega projects under the umbrella of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), an initiative with $62 billion in overall Chinese investments. Pakistani officials say the pace on the Chinese projects has slowed in recent years.Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif will be visiting Beijing the first week of June to persuade China to revive CPEC, according to media reports. Pakistan PM Sharif to visit China June 4-8, foreign ministry says (Reuters)
Reuters [5/31/2024 3:39 AM, Gibran Peshimam, 5.2M, Neutral]
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will visit China from June 4 to 8 on the invitation of President Xi Jinping, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said on Friday.
Chinese investment and financial support since 2013 have been key for the South Asian nation’s struggling economy, including the rolling over of loans so that Islamabad is able to meet external financing needs at a time foreign reserves are critically low.
The trip will seek to upgrade cooperation under the multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is a key part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, the foreign office spokesman Mumtaz Baloch said in a press briefing.
"An important aspect of the prime minister’s visit will be meetings with corporate executives of leading Chinese companies dealing with oil and gas, energy, ICT and emerging technologies," Baloch said.
Sharif will meet President Xi and hold delegation level talks with Premier Li Qiang, Baloch added.
China has also invested billions in various power projects and road networks in Pakistan under the $65 billion CPEC plan, but the implementation of various projects has slowed in recent months.
Chinese citizens and interests have been regularly attacked in Pakistan by militants, the most recent of which was the killing of six Chinese engineers in a suicide bombing in March. The engineers were working on a dam in northern Pakistan.
Beijing has pressed Pakistan to guarantee the safety of Chinese organisations and personnel working there.
The announcement of Sharif’s visit comes days after Pakistan announced it had arrested 11 Islamist militants involved in the bombing. Islamabad has said the militants operate out of Afghanistan, but Kabul has rejected the charges. Pakistan’s former prime minister Khan tells court that recently held vote was stolen from his party (AP)
AP [5/30/2024 11:14 AM, Munir Ahmed, 27514K, Negative]
Pakistan’s imprisoned former prime minister Imran Khan addressed court officials Thursday and said that parliamentary elections held earlier this year were stolen from his party, which he claimed is being victimized.There was no immediate comment from the government about Khan’s allegation. Before his arrest, Khan had accused the Election Commission of Pakistan of converting the success of his party into a defeat. The commission has repeatedly denied allegations of fraud in the Feb. 8 elections.“It was the biggest robbery that was committed on the public mandate,” Khan said in remarks to the Supreme Court via video link.It was his second such appearance since he began serving a three-year sentence for corruption in August, and it was the first time Khan was heard in open court.The hearing before the high court in Islamabad concerned Khan’s appeal in a case dealing with graft laws, which were changed in 2022 and which the former premier has said were aimed at keeping him behind bars.Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party received the most seats in the Feb. 8 election but it lacked a simple majority to rule. Khan’s party refused to form a coalition government, paving the pay for his political rivals, including the party of another former premier, Nawaz Sharif, to form the government.Khan, a former cricket star turned Islamist politician who served as prime minister from 2018 was ousted in a no-confidence vote in April 2022. However, he remains a popular opposition figure and millions of his supporters have been waiting to see him since August, when he was arrested after a court sentenced him for corruption.His appearance before the court on Thursday was not livestreamed on a court order. It deprived Khan’s millions of supporters of a chance to see him.During the court hearing, Khan told the judges he had been held in solitary confinement at a prison in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, where he is currently serving multiple prison terms.Khan also complained that he was neither given the required material to prepare arguments nor allowed to meet with his lawyers. However, Chief Justice Qazi Faez Esa stopped him from making comments about the elections, saying it is a different matter and the court was hearing a case relating to changes in the graft laws.The case was later adjourned for a week and the court directed authorities to allow Khan to meet with his lawyer. Pakistan election was ‘biggest robbery’, says ex-PM Imran Khan (Reuters)
Reuters [5/30/2024 7:32 AM, Asif Shahzad, 45791K, Negative]
Pakistan’s jailed former prime minister Imran Khan said on Thursday February’s national election was stolen from his party, describing it as the "biggest robbery of a public mandate".Khan, speaking in the Supreme Court via video link from Adyala jail in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, said he was being held in solitary confinement.His remarks were the first to be heard in open court since he was jailed in August."My party is being victimised. There have been gross human rights violations," Khan said. "The February 8 election was the biggest robbery of a public mandate."The Election Commission has denied the election was rigged.Khan, a 71-year-old cricketer-turned-politician, was jailed on corruption charges. He is also fighting dozens of other cases.He and his Pakistan Tehree-e-Insaf Party (PTI) say the charges were politically motivated to thwart his return to power.Candidates backed by Khan won the most seats in February’s election but fell short of a majority required to form a government. His opponent Shehbaz Sharif became prime minister in a coalition government with several other parties.Khan was allowed by the top court to appear and plead petitions he had filed against amendments in the country’s anti-graft laws, which he claims was made to favour corrupt politicians.The court, however, turned down his request to live-stream the proceedings. It said it was not a public interest case, according to a Reuters reporter inside the court room.Khan has previously been speaking to a select group of reporters who are allowed to cover his closed-door trials conducted inside the jail.His aides have been conveying his messages after visiting him and his social media accounts remain active, but it is unclear who is operating them.He has faced numerous cases since his ouster in 2022 in a parliamentary vote of confidence, which he alleged was backed by the powerful military after he had fallen out with the army generals.The army denies the accusations. Killings, disappearances, new law rock Pakistan’s media (VOA)
VOA [5/30/2024 8:07 PM, Liam Scott, 4186K, Negative]
The shadow of five journalist killings since the start of the year is hanging over Pakistan’s media.Karachi-based journalist Amber Rahim Shamsi says the violence has created a sense of numbness among the country’s reporters."I don’t know if it’s about fear as much as normalization,” she told VOA. “That kind of numbness, to me, is more worrying than an open expression of fear.”Of the killings so far this year, four took place this month, including a bombing in Balochistan province that killed journalist Muhammad Siddique Mengal. The deaths make May the deadliest month on record for journalists in Pakistan, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ.The killings come amid increased risks for Pakistan’s already beleaguered media.Also in May, watchdogs reported on two cases of reporters being disappeared; a press club raid in the city of Quetta; the detention of two reporters for objecting to the raid; and the passing by Punjab’s provincial government of a defamation law that critics warn could be used to stifle the media.‘Dissent is being criminalized’
“The space for freedom of expression is shrinking, and dissent is being criminalized,” Iqbal Khattak, the Pakistan representative for Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, told VOA from the capital, Islamabad.Pakistan’s journalists already work under significant pressure. Despite a historically vibrant media landscape, watchdogs say that reporters are forced to walk a fine line because of the limited space for criticism of the country’s powerful military and intelligence agencies.The Inter-Services Intelligence agency in particular has for years been accused by rights groups of forcibly disappearing or even killing critical reporters.Pakistan’s Washington embassy and Foreign Ministry did not reply to VOA’s emails requesting comment.Some analysts say the recent surge in attacks may be a byproduct of the political turmoil that has gripped Pakistan since former Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted two years ago.
“With political insecurity comes greater pressure on the media,” Khattak said.Up until March of this year, no journalists had been killed in Pakistan since 2021. But the CPJ has recorded dozens of cases of journalists singled out for attack or killed on risky assignments since it started keeping track in 1992.A lack of justice — or impunity — in targeted cases exacerbates the problem, experts say. Of the 37 cases where CPJ confirmed the journalists were directly slain for their work, 34 cases remain unresolved.In Pakistan, impunity reigns when it comes to journalist killings because the government doesn’t care about holding the perpetrators accountable, according to Saroop Ijaz, who works on Pakistan at Human Rights Watch.“Journalists are viewed as adversaries, as opponents,” Ijaz told VOA from Lahore.Reporters and news outlets are also facing heightened pressure of legal threats.Analysts are concerned by a defamation law that Punjab’s provincial government adopted earlier this month.The law’s supporters say it will help combat the spread of disinformation.But critics are concerned about the harsh penalties, including fines and the threat of entire outlets being shut down. They also warn of potential for abuse, with a coalition of Pakistani media organizations calling it a “black law” for press freedom.On the surface, the law sounds like a good thing because it ostensibly aims to reduce the spread of fake news, according to Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington. But in practice, the law will likely be used to target opposition voices, he said.“Who makes the decision about what is fake news?” Kugelman said. “I fear that it can be used as a pretext to essentially go after anyone who happens to say or write or broadcast anything that happens to be inconvenient or critical.”Under the law, court proceedings would also be kept secret, which journalist Munizae Jahangir said she finds concerning.“Are these kangaroo courts? Are we going back to the times of martial law?” she told VOA from Islamabad.Jahangir, who hosts the current affairs program “Spot Light” for the Pakistani news channel Aaj TV, serves as co-chair of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.Chilling effectThe law may also compound self-censorship. Some red lines shift based on the political tides of the moment, according to Pakistani journalists and experts, but criticism of the country’s military and intelligence agencies, and of Islam, are understood to be off limits.“Pakistan is really like a minefield,” Jahangir said. “You do not know what the no-go areas are. You do not know once you put your foot somewhere what’s going to explode, what’s going to happen to you next. You just have to figure it out.”Shamsi, who has worked for outlets including the BBC World Service and Dawn, said she worries about the next generation of journalists in Pakistan. “They haven’t known anything else,” she said, referring to the poor press freedom landscape.But she finds optimism in the robust history of resistance among Pakistani media in the face of severe safety threats.Jahangir agreed. “We have to tell the truth no matter how high the price may be,” she said. “Journalists in Pakistan have always pushed the envelope.” Pakistan Says 4 Citizens Killed After Iranian Border Guards Open Fire (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [5/30/2024 12:13 PM, Staff, 1299K, Negative]
Iranian border guards opened fire on a vehicle carrying Pakistani citizens near the border village of Mashkel in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan Province, killing four people and injuring two others.Omar Jamali, the deputy commissioner of Pakistan’s Washuk district, confirmed the shooting in the Washuk region, close to the border where violence often erupts.Sahibzada Asfand, a government administrator, said the circumstances that prompted the gunfire remain unclear.Neither Tehran nor the Pakistani Foreign Ministry have commented on the incident.The shooting comes amid already strained relations between Iran and Pakistan, which have seen a significant escalation in incidents between the two countries.In January, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) launched an attack in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province, killing two children.Tehran claimed it was targeting the Sunni Baluch militant group Jaish al-Adl, which is designated as a terrorist entity by both Iran and the United States.In a retaliatory move, Pakistani warplanes conducted air strikes on alleged militant targets in Iran on January 18, resulting in at least nine deaths, including six children and two women. This marked a severe escalation in the conflict between the two nations.In an effort to de-escalate the situation, the late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi visited Pakistan in early May.His visit was aimed at mending relations through diplomatic engagements, described as critical for normalizing ties between Tehran and Islamabad.Raisi died on May 19 in a helicopter accident.The military actions in January targeted separatist factions. Islamabad attacked bases of the Baluch Liberation Front and the Baluchistan Liberation Army, while Tehran focused on the militant group Jaish al-Adl.These groups operate in the mineral-rich, underdeveloped provinces of Balochistan in Pakistan and Sistan-Baluchistan in Iran, regions long plagued by instability.The porous, 900-kilometer border between Iran and Pakistan has been difficult to control, allowing various militant groups, particularly those with Baluch nationalist ideologies, to operate in the area. India
India’s Extreme Heat Leaves at Least 29 Dead, Local Media Say (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [5/31/2024 2:38 AM, Dan Strumpf and Swati Gupta, 5.5M, Negative]
A scorching heat wave in India killed at least 29 people in two states, according to local media reports, as temperatures neared records across much of the country.
In the eastern state of Odisha, 10 people died of suspected heat stroke in the city of Rourkela on Thursday, NDTV reported, citing hospital officials it didn’t identify. Meanwhile, 19 people died in Bihar state from the recent heat wave, according to Times Now.
The deaths are the latest toll from India’s extreme heat wave, which has sent temperatures soaring above 50C (122F) across parts of the country. They hit a high of 52.9C at one observatory in New Delhi on Wednesday, sending peak electricity demand surging in the country’s capital.
State officials from Bihar and Odisha couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. An official from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare didn’t confirm the deaths but said the ministry had been carrying out awareness activities related to the heat.
The searing heat has overwhelmed authorities in many Indian cities and complicated the management of India’s massive six-week election, which finishes with a seventh and final phase of voting on Saturday.
The Press Trust of India on Friday reported four polling officials died due to high temperatures in the city of Arrah, in Bihar, citing a regional official. At least 15 dead in eastern India over 24 hours as temperatures soar (Reuters)
Reuters [5/31/2024 4:00 AM, Jatindra Dash, 5.2M, Negative]
At least 15 people have died of suspected heatstroke in India’s eastern states of Bihar and Odisha on Thursday, authorities said, with the region gripped in a debilitating heatwave expected to continue until Saturday.
India has been experiencing a blisteringly hot summer and a part of capital Delhi recorded the country’s highest ever temperature at 52.9 degrees Celsius (127.22°F) this week, though that may be revised with the weather department checking the sensors of the weather station that registered the reading.
While temperatures in northwestern and central India are expected to fall in the coming days, the prevailing heatwave over east India is likely to continue for two days, said the India Meteorological Department (IMD), which declares a heatwave when the temperature is 4.5 C to 6.4 C higher than normal.
The deaths of 10 people were reported in the government hospital in Odisha’s Rourkela region on Thursday, authorities told Reuters, while five deaths were reported in Bihar’s Aurangabad city due to "sunstroke".
"About seven more people died on their way to the hospital yesterday but the exact cause of their death will be known after the autopsy," Aurangabad District Collector Shrikant Shastree told Reuters.
The Odisha government has prohibited outdoor activities for its employees between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. when temperatures peak.
Three people died of suspected heatstroke in Jharkhand state, neighbouring Bihar, local media reported.
In Delhi, where high temperatures have been causing birds and wild monkeys to faint or fall sick, the city zoo is relying on pools and sprinklers to bring relief to its 1,200 occupants.
"We have shifted to summer management diet, which includes a more liquid diet as well as all the seasonal fruits and vegetables which contain more water," Sanjeet Kumar, director of the zoo, told news agency ANI.
Delhi, where the temperature is expected to touch 43 C on Friday, recorded its first heat-related death this week and is facing an acute water shortage.
Billions across Asia, including in India’s neighbouring Pakistan, have been grappling with soaring temperatures- a trend scientists say has been worsened by human-driven climate change.
India, which is holding its national elections amidst the heat, is the world’s third-biggest greenhouse gas emitter but has set a target of becoming a net-zero emitter by 2070.
While heat is affecting some of the country, the northeastern states of Manipur and Assam have been battered by heavy rainfall after Cyclone Remal, with several areas inundated on Friday.
Monsoon rains also hit the coast of the country’s southernmost Kerala state on Thursday, two days earlier than expected. India court urges national emergency declaration for heatwaves (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [5/30/2024 4:14 PM, Staff, 456K, Neutral]
An Indian court has urged the government to declare a national emergency over the country’s ongoing heatwave, saying that hundreds of people had died during weeks of extreme weather.
India is enduring a crushing heatwave with temperatures in several cities sizzling well above 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).
The High Court in the western state of Rajasthan, which has suffered through some of the hottest weather in recent days, said authorities had failed to take appropriate steps to protect the public from the heat.
"Due to extreme weather conditions in the form of (the) heatwave, hundreds of people have lost their lives this month," the court said Thursday.
"We do not have a planet B which we can move onto... If we do not take strict action now, we will lose the chance of seeing out future generations flourish forever."
The court directed the state government to set up compensation funds for relatives of any person who dies as a result of heat ailments.
Ruling on the current heatwave and such events in the future, it also said India should begin declaring them "national calamities".
This would allow the mobilisation of emergency relief in a similar manner to floods, cyclones and natural disasters.
India is no stranger to searing summer temperatures but years of scientific research have found climate change is causing heatwaves to become longer, more frequent and more intense.
As temperatures in the capital New Delhi shot up this week, power usage in the city of an estimated 30 million people surged to a record high on Wednesday.
Researchers say human-induced climate change has driven the devastating heat impact in India and should be taken as a warning.
The world’s most populous nation is the third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases but has committed to achieving a net zero emissions economy by 2070 -- two decades after most of the industrialised West.
For now, it is overwhelmingly reliant on coal for power generation.
The government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is seeking a third term in ongoing elections, says the fossil fuel remains central to meeting India’s rising energy needs and lifting millions out of poverty. ‘Unlivable’: Delhi’s residents struggle to cope in record-breaking heat (The Guardian)
The Guardian [5/30/2024 12:05 PM, Hannah Ellis-Petersen, 83625K, Negative]
As the water tanker drove into a crowded Delhi neighbourhood, a ruckus erupted. Dozens of residents ran frantically behind it, brandishing buckets, bottles and hoses, and jumped on top of it to get even a drip of what was stored inside. Temperatures that day had soared to 49C (120F), the hottest day on record – and in many places across India’s vast capital, home to more than 29 million people, water had run out.Every morning, Tripti, a social health worker who lives in the impoverished enclave of Vivekanand Camp, is among those who has to stand under the blazing sun with buckets and pots, waiting desperately for the water tanker to arrive.“People have to wait for two to three hours in the queue for just for the couple of buckets of water,” she said. “The increasing temperature has made it worse. As the heat is increasing, we need more water but the supply is in fact decreasing. We are suffering badly and heat is making it impossible to live.”Delhi is no stranger to heat. Its summers always bring stiflingly hot temperatures and the rich confine themselves to their air-conditioned homes, while poor households gather beneath fans and cover themselves with wet rags.The consensus among experts and residents is that the summer temperatures are now regularly rising far above the norm as India bears the brunt of the climate crisis. A heatwave has enveloped much of north India in May – this week temperatures consecutively rose above 45C – making conditions unbearable and even life threatening for the millions who cannot afford to cool themselves down or are forced to work outside in construction or labouring jobs. Some parts of the city recorded temperatures as high as 52C on Wednesday, though officials later said that may have been a faulty reading.Chronic water shortages have blighted the city over the past few days as the authorities were unable to meet rising demand, causing mass suffering among poor people, who often have no way to cool down other than by dousing themselves in water or using it in air coolers. The Delhi government said it had set up a heatwave “war room” that would dispatch water tankers to wherever they were needed.Conditions have been worsened by lengthy power cuts across the capital after millions began running air conditioners, pushing electricity demand to an all-time high. Nitin Singh, 45, a lawyer who resides in the Lajpat Nagar neighbourhood, described the devastating impact of the daily power outages in a home he shares with his young children and an ailing 81-year-old father. Since the heatwave had hit, he said, Delhi had become “unliveable”.“My home has three air conditioners, but frequent power outages have left me helpless,” said Singh. “A two-hour power outage last night compelled me to reserve a hotel room for my sick father and kids. My wife and I spent the majority of the night on our home’s terrace, and we had trouble falling asleep even for a few hours.”Mohammad Ashraf Khan, 37, who runs an air conditioner rental shop in the Okhla area, said that since temperatures went above 45C his phone had been buzzing off the hook. He usually rents out 80 air conditioners every season, but this year the demand increased to 130.“There have been more and more complaints this year about overheating and malfunctioning air conditioners,” he said. “This awful heat makes even the standard air conditioners insufficient.”Yet air conditioners are still largely a luxury commodity. Among those who did not survive the extreme conditions was a 40-year-old migrant labourer who worked in a factory in Delhi. He died on Wednesday after his body temperature rose 5C higher than normal. “He was living in a room with no cooler or fan and developed a very high fever … his body temperature shot up above 107F [41.5C],” his doctor told Indian media.Some wealthier residents have been doing what they can to help those unable to get respite. In a south Delhi neighbourhood, Nisha Aggarwal always observes an old tradition of placing big clay pots filled with water on the pavement outside her house to allow passersby to slake their thirst. Most summers, her security guard refills the pots once a day but “it’s been so hot the past fortnight he’s been refilling them several times a day”, she said.Probir Ram, a security guard, was among those forced to sit beneath the baking sun in order to make his day’s wages. His request for a water cooler in his stiflingly hot cabin was refused by his employer. Bathed in sweat, his shirt drenched, Ram looked miserable. “I’m convinced this heat will continue,” he said with a sigh. “People like me won’t be able to cope. We’ll just die earlier. What else?” Scorching Heat Blights India’s Road to Riches (Bloomberg – opinion)
Bloomberg [5/30/2024 5:00 PM, David Fickling, 24454K, Neutral]
It can often seem a triumph that India exists at all.By some miracle of human ingenuity and industry, a land area barely bigger than Argentina with less water than Colombia is able to support nearly a fifth of the world’s population. The record-breaking temperatures above 52 degrees Celsius (125.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in the capital New Delhi this week are a warning sign, however. The magic spell that has sustained this achievement is coming close to breaking.That’s an issue not just for those sweltering on the streets of the world’s second-biggest city, but for the path to wealth that 1.4 billion people hope to follow. India has a far poorer natural endowment of land than Europe, North America and China, the continental economies that preceded it on the road to riches. Even the fragile benefits that its citizens have managed to eke out of this unpromising soil might now be slipping further away, as climate change exposes its deep fragility and washes away the foundations of growth.Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pitch in the election that ends Saturday is that his Bharatiya Janata Party has made the country the fastest-growing Group of 20 economy. “India is on the path to becoming a developed nation,” he told a rally this week in West Bengal, a region where the BJP has historically performed poorly.The problem with that vision is that much of the work needed to reach that destination is at the mercy of the weather. India has the world’s biggest farm sector after China, and economic growth is at the mercy of the southwest monsoon rains that drench the country from June to September.You can now add the effect of pre-monsoon heatwaves to that. Scorching temperatures from March to May blight crops, such as during a 2022 hot spell which reduced wheat output by about 4.5%. Produce that has been farmed can end up spoiled, as heat and humidity and the lack of refrigeration leave it rotting before it can reach households. The price of vegetables has increased at double-digit rates in eight out of the past 10 months, piling pressure on living costs and forcing consumers to depend on cheaper, less healthy nutrition.The rains that mark the breaking of the heatwave can bring their own problems. Warmer air holds more moisture, raising the risk of downpours so severe that they flood fields and wash away crops. Hailstorms, which can destroy entire fields in a matter of minutes, appear to be growing more frequent: One recent study in Kashmir found 27 such disasters in 2022, compared to two in 2007.It’s not just plant life that suffers. While factory and office workers can go through the day in air-conditioned comfort regardless of the temperature outside, about 93% of India’s labor force is in less organized jobs where no employer guarantees decent working conditions. When the mercury heads above 40C, farmers and urban laborers have little option but to down tools or face potentially catastrophic heatstroke.That hampers the vast amount of construction work that development will require. Upper middle-income nations (the club which India would like to join) typically derive about a third of economic growth from fixed-capital formation — building things, in simple terms. India trails Vietnam and Bangladesh on this measure, and is light years behind China.As of late 2022, India was reckoned to have only about 30% of the urban infrastructure it will need by the end of the decade. The sodden monsoon is already a soft period for construction work, since cement needs dry air to set properly. Three consecutive years of record heatwaves mean that the hot summer months from March to June are increasingly affected, too, further squeezing the period when building sites can operate effectively.India is responsible for very little of the carbon emissions that are rapidly making its climate unbearable — but it must take responsibility for the future.Cheap solar power has only recently started showing signs of being installed at the rates needed to hit the government’s renewable power targets. Despite higher costs, China connected about 4.5 gigawatts of panels for every gigawatt India did in the first quarter of this year.Public charging stations for the electric vehicles that could help clean up the choking pollution of India’s cities and reduce its dependence on imported oil are too few and far between. The 12,146 in operation to date are equivalent to less than 1% of what the country will need by 2030.Every side of politics wants India to become the affluent nation its people aspire to. The bridge to that destination, however, is weakened with every scorching summer and exceptional monsoon. For a country that hopes over the coming decade to industrialize without carbonizing, the risk is that it may end up in the worst of both worlds: trapped in a carbon-intensive past, prevented by its own scorching heat from building the economy of the future. Millions of Indians Living Abroad Have a Say in the Election, Even if They Can’t Vote (New York Times)
New York Times [5/30/2024 4:14 PM, John Yoon, 831K, Neutral]
The dishes at a community center potluck for Indian expatriates near Washington, D.C., ranged from chana masala, a popular northern Indian chickpea curry, to idli, a southern Indian rice cake.
The guests’ views on India’s general election were equally varied. Some praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s economic achievements. Supporters of candidates challenging Mr. Modi’s party criticized what they saw as his disregard for minorities and democratic norms.“What is the vision for India in 2024?” the host, Somu Kumar, a manager at a cloud computing company, said recently of that winter potluck. “That gets a lot of people excited to talk.”
India’s 35 million-member diaspora, roughly equivalent in population to Delhi’s metropolitan area, represents a tiny minority compared with the nearly one billion people who are eligible to take part in a six-week voting process that ends on Saturday. Expatriate Indians also cannot cast absentee ballots under India’s electoral laws.
But the diaspora is heavily courted by India’s main political parties. Many of its members are from the country’s political and business elites, and voters back home want to know what they think.“When a person is abroad, people take interest and believe what they say is right,” said Adapa Prasad, the president of the American branch of Mr. Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. The result, he said, is that the 10,000 or so B.J.P. volunteers in the United States alone can reach tens of thousands of voters.
This spring, Indians around the world have been hosting gatherings and rallies for their preferred political parties. Many Indians abroad are proud of India’s rise and associate Mr. Modi with it. So much of the recent activity has supported his bid for a third term.
In the United States, which the Indian government says is home to more than five million people of Indian origin, there have been pro-Modi rallies at Times Square, the Washington Monument, the Golden Gate Bridge and other landmarks. “Save India,” some of the pro-Modi posters said.
Pro-Modi groups have also set up phone banks and held other events. In a Chicago suburb last month, Modi supporters wearing the B.J.P.’s saffron tassels lit a bonfire next to a Hindu school as part of a sacred fire ritual. India’s Hindu majority is a key constituency for Mr. Modi, who has been criticized for normalizing Hindu-nationalist policies in a country born as a secular republic.
In Australia, a caravan of cars draped in saffron flags stretched for miles through Sydney in April. In Germany, Modi supporters who own restaurants in Berlin and Munich have been hosting gatherings for B.J.P. supporters, said Arun Varma, an entrepreneur who founded an e-commerce brand there.
And in Britain, people have been visiting Hindu temples, as well as mosques and churches, to offer prayers for Mr. Modi’s electoral success, said Neil Lal, the chairman and president of the Indian Council of Scotland and the United Kingdom.“The election is the talk of the town,” Mr. Lal said from London.
Mr. Modi has actively cultivated the diaspora’s support over the years, in part by filling stadiums around the world for rallies. A 2020 study by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank in Washington, found that a majority of Indians abroad supported him over his rivals.
Milan Vaishnav, a political scientist at Carnegie who studies India’s diaspora, said that expatriate Indians were a marginal force in Indian politics and that their campaign donations, while difficult to quantify, were small compared with the billions of dollars raised at home.“But gatherings of the diaspora have helped the B.J.P. create an image of global popularity,” he said.
The B.J.P. isn’t the only party active outside India. The overseas arm of its main rival, the Indian National Congress, organizes events, distributes campaign posters and helps to place columns in newspapers. The Aam Aadmi Party, which is part of a parliamentary coalition led by the Congress Party, has overseas members who run phone banks and spread friendly memes about its candidates.
Mr. Kumar, an Aam Aadmi supporter, said there was growing concern in the diaspora about a potential third Modi term. He said expatriates watching India worry about the recent marginalization of religious minorities, the assassination of a separatist and the jailings of opposition politicians.
Some of the people who attend his potlucks, many of whom he plays cricket with, are stalwart Modi backers. Others are onetime Modi supporters who now question whether he should be re-elected.“I hope this also translates back toward India,” Mr. Kumar said.
Outside of the main parties, independent activists who live abroad have criticized the government in ways that would be difficult in India, where Mr. Modi’s government has cracked down on dissent and jailed opposition leaders.
One of those activists, Suresh Ediga, an Indian expatriate in New Jersey, organizes meetings on election reform and runs a blog that fact checks Indian politicians.“Independent institutions have collapsed under Modi,” he said. “That is more alarming than anything else.”
While many in the diaspora have thrown themselves into campaigning, others have taken a more hands-off approach.
Lion Hina Trivedi, a prominent social worker from Gujarat, the Indian state where Mr. Modi served as chief minister from 2001 to 2014, has known him for decades and met him on his trips to Washington. She said that after more than 45 years in Chicago, she was now more invested in her American community.
But she still urges the Indians she knows to travel back home to vote, recalling her father’s advice: “Never forget about India.”“You should go,” she tells them. “Your voice matters.” India’s Former Prime Minister Slams Modi for ‘Hateful’ Language (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [5/30/2024 5:37 AM, Swati Gupta, 24454K, Negative]
India’s former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh criticized Narendra Modi’s comments on the election campaign trail as divisive and urged voters to cast their ballots against his “despotic regime.”
“No prime minister in the past has uttered such hateful, unparliamentary and coarse terms, meant to target either a specific section of the society or the opposition,” Singh wrote in an open letter released by the Indian National Congress, the country’s main opposition party, on Thursday. Singh retired from politics in March, with the ex-prime minister rarely making direct attacks against Modi.Singh, 91, was the country’s leader in a Congress-led government for a decade until 2014, when Modi swept to power with his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. Critics have accused Modi of using anti-Muslim language on the campaign trail this year, fueling communal tensions. Modi and the BJP have denied the allegations.“In the impending last phase of voting, we have one final chance to ensure that democracy and our constitution are protected from the repeated assaults of a despotic regime, trying to unleash dictatorship in India,” Singh wrote in the letter, which was released in English and Punjabi languages. The northern Indian state of Punjab goes to the polls in the final round of India’s elections on June 1. Nationwide results are due to be released on June 4.Shazia Ilmi, a spokesperson for the BJP, dismissed Singh’s comments, saying Modi has been “vilified, abused and demonized and has had expletives used against him in a way never done in Indian politics.”Singh, the architect of India’s economic reforms in 1991 when he was finance minister, also criticized the economic track record of the BJP-led government, highlighting issues of joblessness, wage disparities and falling farmer incomes.Modi has been campaigning this week in Punjab state, where as recently as February, farmer protests had erupted again. Singh accused Modi of failing to fulfill his promise to double farmers’ income. India’s gruelling, acrimonious election campaign comes to an end (Reuters)
Reuters [5/30/2024 11:14 AM, Shilpa Jamkhandikar, 45791K, Neutral]
More than two months of gruelling and acrimonious campaigning in India’s general election that played out in sweltering heat ended on Thursday, two days before the final phase of polling, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency will cast its votes.India began voting in seven phases in the world’s largest election on April 19 and it is set to conclude on June 1. Votes will be counted on June 4 although television channels conduct exit polls and project results after voting ends.Modi, who is seeking a record-equalling third straight term and is widely expected to win, began his re-election campaign by focusing on his achievements over the last 10 years but soon switched to mostly targeting the opposition by accusing them of favouring India’s minority Muslims.This change of tack, analysts said, was likely aimed at firing up his Hindu nationalist base after a low turnout in the first phase sparked concerns that supporters of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were not voting.India’s election rules stop campaigning about 36 hours before voting begins.Modi addressed one rally in the northern state of Punjab on Thursday, while his main opponent, the Congress party’s Rahul Gandhi, spoke at rallies in the states of Odisha and Punjab."It is clear from the overwhelming support of people ... that there is going to be an unprecedented victory" for BJP and the alliance it leads, Modi posted on X minutes before campaigning ended.Modi will spend the next two days meditating at the southernmost tip of India at an island memorial for Hindu philosopher Swami Vivekananda, located at where the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean converge.Opposition parties criticised his decision, saying it was a form of campaigning as his meditation would be shown on TV and so was in breach of the rules, with the Congress complaining to the Election Commission."This is a blatant violation of the code of conduct. We don’t mind if he goes to meditate anywhere after June 1," Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh said.Modi meditated at a cave in the Himalayas two days before the last phase of voting in 2019, an election BJP won resoundingly.While opinion polls say his popularity has not waned, his opponents have criticised him for his divisive politics and on issues such as unemployment, inflation and rural distress."No PM, in the past, has uttered hateful, unparliamentary, and coarse terms ... meant to target either a specific section of society or opposition," former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a letter to voters in Punjab on Thursday. Sikh separatist contests India election from jail, a worry for government (Reuters)
Reuters [5/30/2024 11:04 PM, Shivam Patel, 45791K, Negative]
A jailed Sikh separatist leader is contesting India’s general election from prison and drawing good support, his campaign managers said, in what could become a concern for New Delhi which has sought to stamp out any revival of Sikh militancy.Amritpal Singh, 31, is detained in a high-security prison in Assam, nearly 3,000 km (1,865 miles) from his Khadoor Sahib constituency in Punjab state, where villages and towns are dotted with posters depicting him with swords and bullet-proof vests.Singh was arrested last year and jailed under a tough security law after he and hundreds of his supporters stormed a police station with swords and firearms, demanding the release of one of his aides.A win for him in an election to parliament could give Singh some legitimacy and spark concerns of a revival of a militancy that killed tens of thousands of people in the 1970s and 1980s."People will make their decision on June 1," Singh’s father Tarsem, 61, said referring to the voting in the constituency on Saturday. "They will send an important message to those who have maligned his image, to those who are defaming our community and our Punjab."Tarsem Singh spoke inside a Sikh temple set beside wheat fields and a river canal. Portraits of Sikhs who were killed during the militancy in Punjab, called "martyrs" by Singh’s supporters, were pinned on the walls.Sikhs are the majority community in Punjab but they constitute just 2% of India’s 1.4 billion people. Sikh militants began agitating for an independent homeland in the 1970s but the insurgency was largely suppressed by the early 1990s with harsh crackdowns.However, Sikh separatism has made global headlines in the last year as Canada and the United States have accused India of being involved in assassination plots against Sikhs in those countries, charges New Delhi has denied.Singh said in a 2023 interview that he was seeking a separate homeland for Sikhs and the people of Punjab, where the religion was founded more than 500 years ago.SINGH’S ‘TSUNAMI’To be sure, Singh’s campaign is focused on fighting Punjab’s drug problem, freeing former Sikh militants from prison and protecting the Sikh identity in Hindu majority India. His father and aides are careful to avoid any mention of the idea of a Sikh homeland."There is a tsunami in the name of Amritpal Singh, anyone who stands against him will be swept off," said Imaan Singh Khara, 27, Singh’s lawyer.Community leaders pushed Singh to contest from Khadoor Sahib, a historical centre for Sikhs on the border with Pakistan, despite his initial hesitation, his aides said. Indian law allows undertrials to contest polls.Singh is contesting as an independent and his main rivals - also all Sikhs - belong to the opposition Congress party, the Sikh-centric Shiromani Akali Dal, Punjab’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).Amritpal Singh may have some support but not enough to win, said BJP candidate Manjit Singh Manna. "People have seen the militancy days, they don’t want those days to return," Manna said.Demand for a separate Sikh nation has more support abroad, but a rise in support for Singh risks giving new legs to extremist politics at a time when mainstream parties are wrapped in their own rivalries, analysts say."Once you weaken the moderates, people get articulation through these fringe radicals, which is a danger signal," said Pramod Kumar, chairperson of the Institute for Development and Communication, based in the city of Chandigarh."Amritpal may win, in a four-cornered contest he may win." For islanders, India’s election is about climate change, survival (Reuters)
Reuters [5/30/2024 10:00 AM, Sudipto Ganguly, 45791K, Neutral]
As voters across India cast their ballots in the general election on issues ranging from the cost of living to jobs and religion, the residents of a tiny, ecologically sensitive island have only one concern: Survival.The residents of Ghoramara in the Sundarbans delta on the Bay of Bengal are fighting to save their homes from disappearing into the sea in the face of rising sea levels and increasingly fierce storms, putting climate change front and centre for politicians trying to win their vote.Home to more than 4.5 million people, the Sundarbans is the largest mangrove forest in the world and regarded as a climate change hotspot as the planet gets warmer. The region is shared by India and Bangladesh.“For us, the protection of the island is the main issue in this election,” said Bimal Patra, 60, one of just over 3,700 registered voters in Ghoramara, an island in the delta.India is holding a massive general election over seven weeks. The people of Ghoramara go to the polls on Saturday, the final day of voting, as part of the Mathurapur constituency.The plight of the island’s inhabitants highlights the broader concerns about the impact of climate change on the environment and the urgency for solutions.Situated 150 kilometres (94 miles) south of Kolkata, media has dubbed Ghoramara the ‘sinking island’. It has lost nearly half of its area to soil erosion in the last two decades and could completely disappear within a few decades more if a solution is not found. In the decade to 2020, the population has fallen to around 4,000 from 7,000.“We want the banks reinforced with stone boulders or rehabilitation in other places. Probably rehabilitation is the only answer,” said Patra, who once had acres of land that have now been lost to the sea.Patra said his house was once a kilometre from the river’s edge but now stands just 150 metres away.Way of lifeResearchers say as climate change has forced a rise in sea surface temperatures, seasonal, cyclonic storms barrelling in from the Bay of Bengal have become more fierce and frequent, particularly in the last decade.The island’s inhabitants were once predominantly dependent on agriculture, with most families farming rice and betel leaves. But cyclones in 2020 and 2021 flooded the fields with water high in saline, leaving the soil barren.As people have migrated away from the island, especially youths, transport links with the mainland have fallen to just five ferries a day.Patra lives alone. His wife works as a nursemaid in Kolkata, his two daughters, who are married, and his teacher son live on the mainland.“It’s encouraging to see people in this rural area prioritising this issue (environment). It’s unfortunate that no one is listening to them,” said Sugata Hazra, the former head of the school of oceanographic studies at Jadavpur University in Kolkata.“Cities across India are already facing drinking water scarcity. They (urban dwellers) should be more conscious of (the) environment and make it a primary issue alongside the economy and jobs.”Some Ghoramara residents have planted mangrove saplings to try to reduce waterfront erosion, while the local administration displays notices across the island banning single-use plastic and polystyrene. A solid waste management system has been put in place.Candidates from both Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Trinamool Congress party (TMC), which won the 2019 polls for Mathurapur, visited the island recently.“I am aware of their main issue, which is erosion,” said BJP candidate Ashok Purkait, promising to find a permanent fix.The TMC-run state government recently announced a project, supported by the World Bank, to strengthen the embankments of the islands in Sundarbans.“Our priority is rehabilitation. People cannot survive an entire lifetime fighting natural disasters,” said Bankim Hazra, the state’s minister for the Sundarbans.Many villagers are sceptical the promises will turn into action, but Patra hopes for the best.“Elections may not be a celebration for us, but it still brings hope and everyone here actively participates in the voting process,” he said. Wall Street Lands on India, Looking for Profits It Can’t Find in China (New York Times)
New York Times [5/31/2024 2:53 AM, Alex Travelli, 831K, Neutral]
Mumbai, India’s financial capital, has seen a lot of new faces over the past year. The heads of global banks have been trooping through, visiting its stock exchanges, buying property and hiring new staff.
A postpandemic boom has pushed the value of India’s stock market to about $5 trillion, putting it neck and neck with Hong Kong’s. India’s economy is among the fastest growing in the world. Wall Street can’t ignore India anymore.
The point of entry is Mumbai, a port city of 26 million people, counting its suburbs. Mumbai has been given a makeover: Suspension bridges span its seaways, as well as its infamous slums, and new metro lines have been carved beneath its Art Deco and Indo-Saracenic facades and rumbling commuter railways.
Mumbai has been India’s commercial hub for eight decades, but it was relatively unfamiliar to global finance until the past two years.
Now North American pension managers, sovereign wealth funds from the Persian Gulf and Singapore, Japanese banks and private equity firms are clamoring for a piece of India’s growth. Old hands and novices alike can rattle off reasons India’s rise is inevitable.
Making money will be easier said than done, not least because Indian investors got here first. Compared with Indian companies’ current profits, their stock prices are high.
Foreign investors have yet to throw in their full financial weight. Mumbai’s markets were jittery in May, as Narendra Modi, the pro-business prime minister, fought for re-election. He is expected to win, but uncertainties have made far-flung investors feel cautious.
Despite all the hot money pouring into the Mumbai markets, India remains a tricky place for foreign companies to navigate, making direct investment risky. Demand for spending by India’s potentially vast base of consumers has been lagging expectations — the top of the income ladder is spending more than ever, while hundreds of millions of people are stuck near the bottom.
The simple reason for investors’ enthusiasm is India’s economy, which has strengths other big emerging economies are currently lacking. Foreign clients, an Indian bank executive said, “gravitate to India because it is showing reliable growth, its currency is stable, it’s showing fiscal discipline.” He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he works closely with the government.
If India looks better to global investors, China and Russia look worse. China’s miraculous growth engine is sputtering, after three decades at full throttle, with threats of trade wars becoming routine. And Russia was effectively crossed off some lists of viable emerging economies after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the sanctions imposed on it by the United States, Europe and their allies.
That is one reason, the banker said, investors pushed Wall Street to make it easier to bet big sums of money on India.
The MSCI, an influential stock index of emerging markets started by Morgan Stanley, has increased India’s weighting to more than 18 percent, from 8 percent in 2020, while reducing China’s representation. It’s not just stocks: In June, JPMorgan Chase will add Indian government bonds to its emerging-markets index. Both changes mean that mutual funds are buying more Indian financial assets.
Aashish Agarwal, India country head for the investment bank Jefferies, has been doing deals in Mumbai for more than 20 years. He said the case for investing in India was a no-brainer: Indian stocks are outperforming China’s. India’s markets also draw on a wider range of companies than many other emerging economies, he said.“You can’t think of Korea without Samsung, or Latin America without commodities,” Mr. Agarwal said. “India, as an index, is arguably the most balanced you might find outside of the U.S.”
The view looks equally sunny to Kevin Carter from Lafayette, Calif. He founded an investment firm, called EMQQ Global, that sells exchange-traded funds, which make it easy for ordinary people to invest in emerging markets. The value of one fund that focuses on India’s internet and e-commerce sectors has grown nearly 40 percent in the past year.
India, he said, has the makings of what historically has helped emerging markets to succeed: a large population, especially of young people, and economic growth that is causing people to spend more.”You can’t think of Korea without Samsung, or Latin America without commodities,” Mr. Agarwal said. “India, as an index, is arguably the most balanced you might find outside of the U.S.”The view looks equally sunny to Kevin Carter from Lafayette, Calif. He founded an investment firm, called EMQQ Global, that sells exchange-traded funds, which make it easy for ordinary people to invest in emerging markets. The value of one fund that focuses on India’s internet and e-commerce sectors has grown nearly 40 percent in the past year.
India, he said, has the makings of what historically has helped emerging markets to succeed: a large population, especially of young people, and economic growth that is causing people to spend more.
With 1.4 billion people and counting, India is the world’s most populous country. Most Indians are working age or will be soon, unlike residents of Europe or East Asia. India’s economic growth rate, hovering around 7 percent, compares favorably with a world average of 3.2.
For some investors, there is an air of déjà vu. They remember a time almost 15 years ago when India was last thought to be ready to overtake China’s rate of economic growth.
Those who bought the India hype then ended up disappointed. From 2008 to 2020, China’s per-capita income quadrupled while India’s grew by 2.5 times. That left India poor compared with the rest of the world.
The latest calculation by the International Monetary Fund placed India at 138 in national rankings of income, between the Republic of Congo and Nicaragua. China was in 65th place. But India is moving up, a lot faster than China can.
Along the way, India is spending heavily on public infrastructure, a hallmark of Mr. Modi’s policies in 10 years in office.
In Mumbai itself, there were just three skyscrapers in 2008 — it will have sprouted hundreds by the end of this year. The city’s center of gravity has shifted from its downtown to the purpose-built Bandra Kurla Complex, or BKC, a midtown sprawl of concrete spaghetti. The One BKC tower, home to Bank of America and Switzerland’s insurance giant Swiss Re, as well as many others, was bought by Blackstone, the world’s biggest private-equity group, for a reported $300 million in 2019.
Mumbai, of course, is also home to the stock market, which has attracted the savings of India’s own rapidly expanding investor class. Banks have made it easier for middle-income Indian families to invest directly. So many newbie investors have lost money on the risky trading of derivatives — investment securities tied to other securities — that the regulators want to rein them back in.
A stiffer test for India’s economy will be whether it can draw more foreign direct investment — the buying up of whole chunks of private businesses by investors or companies.
Nivruti Rai, managing director of Invest India, a joint venture between the commerce ministry and private chambers of commerce, is trying to ease the way. Ms. Rai is well positioned for the job, having spent nearly 30 years at Intel, spanning India and America.“I am a woman, I come from tech, from a multinational,” she said, “and I’m based in India. All this sends a message.”
More longer-term foreign funding would help strengthen and stabilize the Indian rupee. Investors who make such financial commitments also tend to bring technical expertise.“We may be missing on capital and, in some places, we may be missing on technology,” she said.
Ms. Rai has a lofty target — $100 billion in foreign direct investment. That’s higher than what India drew in 2021, which was a record, and much higher than it is now. The inflow sank 16.8 percent last year to just over $28 billion. Foreign investment shrank in many spots around the world in 2023, but India, like China, was hit especially hard. Ms. Rai nonetheless foresees a new cycle of investment activity centered on Indian companies in health care technology, clean energy and artificial intelligence.
Mr. Modi has promised a tenfold increase in India’s economy by 2047, in time for the 100th anniversary of its independence. To get there, Ms. Rai noted, the country will need an even faster rate of growth, and that means more of “these investors that we’re trying to draw in.” Bus crashes into gorge in India-controlled Kashmir, killing at least 21 people (AP)
AP [5/30/2024 9:49 AM, Staff, 27514K, Negative]
A bus carrying Hindu pilgrims skidded and rolled into a deep gorge on a mountainous highway in Indian-controlled Kashmir on Thursday, killing at least 21 people, officials said.Health official Akhnoor Saleem Khan said 35 passengers were injured in the accident and some of them were in serious condition.The crash happened in the Jammu region when the bus plunged 150 feet (45.7 meters) into the gorge. The cause of the bus crash was being investigated.State transportation chief Rajinder Singh said the bus was carrying pilgrims to the Shiv Khori temple in the Reasi area of Jammu.India has some of the highest road death rates in the world, with hundreds of thousands of people killed and injured annually. Most crashes are blamed on reckless driving, poorly maintained roads and aging vehicles.In 2022, a century-old cable suspension bridge collapsed into a river in the western Indian state of Gujarat, sending hundreds plunging into the water and killing at least 132 in one of the worst accidents in the country in the past decade. NSB
Gunmen murder Rohingya teacher and student in Bangladesh (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [5/30/2024 6:52 AM, Staff, 82990K, Negative]
Gunmen in Bangladesh have killed a teacher and a student in a Rohingya refugee camp for refusing to return to Myanmar to fight, their parents said Thursday.Hundreds of Rohingya boys and young men have been seized from refugee camps in Bangladesh, where they had sought safety after Myanmar’s military drove about 750,000 members of the persecuted Muslim minority out of the country in 2017.Now Rohingya militants working with the Myanmar junta are recruiting the refugees, according to camp residents, UN reports and analysts.The militants say their fellow Rohingya need to ally with Myanmar’s army -- the same forces who drove them into exile -- to face a common enemy in another Myanmar rebel force, the Arakan Army (AA).Police said the two men, student Nur Absar, 22, and teacher Nur Faisal, 21, were killed by "unknown assailants" in Kutupalong camp in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district."One died on the spot, another died in hospital," said Arefin Jewel, a police spokesman in Kutupalong."We are investigating whether it is a case of forced recruitment".But Faisal’s father blamed the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO)."The RSO went to my son’s school and wanted to recruit him," Zakir Ahmed, 45, told AFP. "My son refused."Ahmed said his son had also been working as a community guard to stop the gunmen who prowled the camps to press-gang youths."He was also working as a night guard to save other young Rohingya from forced recruitment by armed groups," he said."RSO gunmen shot them. RSO killed my son."Aman Ullah, 40, the father of student Nur Absar, also blamed the RSO."They tried to recruit him," Ullah said. "They have become the name of terror here".Thomas Kean from the International Crisis Group think-tank told AFP the "tragic killings only highlight the growing threat that refugees face from Rohingya armed groups"."For years now the groups have largely been allowed to operate with impunity, and refugees are really at breaking point," he added.Kean said his research showed that since March "thousands of refugees" had been recruited by Rohingya armed groups and sent to Myanmar.The Rohingya fighters are battling alongside Myanmar’s regular army in Rakhine State.They are fighting forces including the AA, which says it wants greater autonomy for the ethnic Rakhine population in the state, which is also home to around 600,000 Rohingya.This month the AA took control of Buthidaung, a Rohingya-majority town not far from Bangladesh.Several Rohingya diaspora groups claimed that fighters forced Rohingya to flee, then looted and burned their homes -- claims the AA called "propaganda".According to a report by the United Nations refugee agency seen by AFP, at least 1,870 refugees -- more than a quarter of them children or youths -- were recruited into the armed groups during a two-month period between March and May.More than three-quarters were taken by force, the UN report said, including by "abduction, kidnapping and coercion".The UN children’s fund said it was "appalled" by the attack."UNICEF strongly condemns any attack against schools... which must always be a safe space for children, and for the staff delivering this essential service," country chief Sheldon Yett said. Maldives Halts Coastal Development Projects (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [5/30/2024 6:45 AM, Ahmed Naish, 847K, Neutral]
The Maldives has halted coastal development projects in the face of a potentially catastrophic mass coral bleaching event.On May 9, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ordered the suspension of activities such as dredging, reclamation, and sand pumping until June 10 to minimize “further anthropogenic stress on our coral reefs.” The agency hoped mitigation measures could “help reefs cope with or recover from coral bleaching events and build resilience against future disturbances related to climate change.”The climate crisis poses an existential threat to the 1,192 islands of the Maldives archipelago that stand just one meter above sea level, President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu reiterated that in an op-ed for the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper on Saturday, highlighting record-breaking heat and more frequent and powerful storms as visible impacts in the present day.Advocating on behalf of small island developing states (SIDS) ahead of an upcoming U.N. conference, Muizzu appealed for new criteria to fund climate resiliency for vulnerable island nations that are ineligible for cheaper financing reserved for low-income countries.Muizzu touted the creation of Hulhumalé, a reclaimed artificial island near the densely-packed capital Malé elevated two meters above sea level, as a model for adaptation.“It was a lifeline, a blueprint for survival that has since evolved into a thriving urban center. Similarly, our upcoming project, Ras Malé, aims to be the Indian Ocean’s first eco-city, raised three meters above sea level. This is true climate adaptation if ever I saw it,” he argued, criticizing the refusal of climate financiers and multilateral banks to fund such projects classed as infrastructure work.However land reclamation poses a controversial dilemma for the Maldives. The process of dredging up sand from the ocean floor and piling it on shallow lagoons damages sensitive coral reef ecosystems and defenses. Environmental groups decried widespread reclamation in recent years as “ecocide” that causes irreversible destruction.But with land accounting for just one percent of the country’s 90,000 square kilometer territory, successive governments have maintained the need for additional land to build housing, infrastructure, and safer higher ground.“The Maldives appears to be stuck between a rock and a hard place,” David R. Boyd, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the right to a healthy environment, observed after a visit in April.“It is untenable to do nothing to protect these extraordinarily vulnerable islands from the existential threat of rising sea levels. Yet reclamation is also highly problematic, damaging nature’s defense mechanisms, jeopardizing marine biodiversity, and sabotaging the ecosystems that attract millions of tourists annually,”The U.N. expert conceded that land reclamation done sustainably could build resilience but advised that it “should be distinguished from projects done for luxury tourism.” The Maldives Association of Tourism Industry, a powerful group representing resort operators, urged compliance with the EPA’s suspension of coastal development work.In his op-ed, Muizzu lauded the decision to pause development projects over coral bleaching, as his administration is taking environmental stewardship as a serious responsibility.But it emerged last week that the reclamation of a lagoon was continuing with a special permit granted for a $343 million resort project by Qatar’s Estithmar Holding. An exception was made for the developer to avoid paying large sums to contractors as daily penalties for delays, Environment Minister Thoriq Ibrahim told local media.The first Maldives property of the ultra-luxury Rosewood brand is part of a new trend of resorts developed on reclaimed islands. In recent years, the tourism industry has been evolving from the traditional “one-island, one-resort” model to integrated multi-resort destinations on clusters of manmade islands.Meanwhile, the EPA was also looking into reports of noncompliance with the order to stop dredging and reclamation.“There’s not much that can be done to combat bleaching… The only thing that can be done is to reduce the amount of stress that humans put on the corals during bleaching,” EPA Director General Ibrahim Naeem told the media.Caused by a naturally occurring phenomenon called El Niño that leads to warmer waters, bleaching occurs when the symbiotic relationship between corals and a micro-alga called zooxanthellae is disrupted, forcing the coral to expel the food source and turn white. Bleached coral could starve and die.The Maldives recovered relatively quickly after previous bleaching events. But the current El Niño could be “the worst bleaching event in the history of the planet,” Derek Manzello, the coordinator of U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch, which serves as the global monitoring authority on coral bleaching risk, told Reuters.The problem is exacerbated by average temperatures rising over 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels over the past year. If the rise of 1.5C persists, scientists estimate that 90 percent of the world’s corals could be lost.Following his visit in April, Boyd, the U.N. special rapporteur, warned that the Maldives faces “a potentially dystopian future” because of the climate emergency wrought by wealthy industrialized nations.Long before the islands disappear under the waves, “the Maldives could become virtually uninhabitable due to the combined impacts of sea level rise, severe heat, floods, coastal erosion, [and] increased frequency of extreme weather events,” he said. Colombo and Moscow discuss the issue of Sri Lankans fighting alongside Russians in Ukraine (AP)
AP [5/30/2024 10:36 AM, Krishan Francis, 456K, Neutral]
Sri Lanka and Russia are starting talks Thursday to resolve the issue of Sri Lankans fighting alongside Russians in the war against Ukraine, after at least 16 people were reported missing in action.
Junior Foreign Minister Tharaka Balasuriya said that the Sri Lankans, mostly retired soldiers, had been duped into traveling to Russia with promises of good salaries and privileges including Russian citizenship.“The situation in Russia is very unfortunate,” Balasuriya told reporters, adding that he is working with the defense ministry to ascertain the number of people fighting in Russia.“We have received 455 complaints; we feel the number could be much higher.”“They have been duped by certain nefarious agents, some of these people have been arrested. People who have left for Russia have been promised certain salaries and privileges including citizenship,” Balasuriya said.
The agents who recruited Sri Lankans had told them that they will not be used for fighting but there are now daily complaints that they are being sent to the war front in Ukraine, the minister said.
Russian ambassador to Sri Lanka Levan S. Dzhagaryan said that talks in Moscow will be the first step to resolve the issue.“My president, my president Putin clarified many times that (if) any foreigner would like to voluntarily, I underline, voluntarily join Russian armed forces there is no objection, because look on the (other) side how many mercenaries are fighting for Ukraine, from different countries...” said Dzhagaryan.
Sri Lanka maintained a large army over the past 40 years because of a long civil war which ended in 2009. Every year thousands of soldiers retire from service.
An unprecedented economic crisis since 2022 has forced many people to seek jobs overseas and there have been widespread reports of human trafficking and cheating by fake job agents. Sri Lanka tightens controls to stop men being duped into Ukraine fighting (Reuters)
Reuters [5/30/2024 9:38 AM, Uditha Jayasinghe, 45791K, Negative]
Sri Lanka will tighten controls to try to stop its men being lured to Russia to fight in Ukraine with often false promises of salaries and benefits, a minister said on Thursday.Colombo will also send a delegation to Moscow in June to bring back dozens of Sri Lankans already fighting in the front line who want to come home, some of them wounded, State Minister for Foreign Affairs Tharaka Balasuriya told reporters.Countries across the region, including India and Nepal, have raised the alarm about their men being persuaded to travel to fight for Russia in Ukraine with offers of salaries, visas and sometimes university places.Russia’s ambassador to Sri Lanka, Levan S. Dzhagaryan, told the press conference on Thursday his embassy would cooperate with the efforts to stop Sri Lankans travelling illegally to Russia. He said his government was not involved in the recruitment offers.Under the new controls, men will have to produce a "no-objection" document from the Sri Lankan defence ministry when they apply for a tourist visa to Russia, Tharaka Balasuriya told reporters."I get about ten calls a day from people about this issue. We have reports of people being promised pay but it’s not credited to their accounts," the minister said."Some people have taken loans to go and aren’t able to pay them back. They are facing many hardships and we want to find a way to bring them back," he added.Campaigns on social media platform WhatsApp have targeted former members of Sri Lanka’s military, according to the Sri Lanka’s defence ministry.Families of Sri Lankans who have travelled to Russia have lodged 455 complaints with the Colombo government, and the actual number of people involved could be higher, Balasuriya said.At least 37 Sri Lankans have been wounded in Ukraine and 16 others are missing, according to foreign ministry data.The online recruitment campaigns have been tempting to many as Sri Lanka struggles to emerge from its worst financial crisis in more than seven decades. Poverty rates have doubled from pre-pandemic levels.Many military personnel retired from active service after Sri Lanka ended a 26-year civil war between separatist Tamil insurgents and government forces in 2009. Sri Lanka seeks release of ex-soldiers in Russia and Ukraine (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [5/30/2024 6:57 AM, Staff, 82990K, Negative]
Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry said Thursday it is seeking the release of hundreds of its ex-soldiers fighting for Russia as well as around a dozen prisoners of war in Ukraine.Sri Lanka opened an inquiry this month into illegal recruitment for the conflict, identifying 455 ex-soldiers who had gone to fight for Russia.Colombo is sending a delegation to Russia in June to negotiate their discharge, including 37 wounded Sri Lankans, Tharaka Balasuriya, state minister for foreign affairs, told reporters.Tens of thousands of Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine since the invasion began more than two years ago, according to an investigation by the BBC Russian Service and news outlet Mediazona, and Moscow has been on a global quest for more troops.President Ranil Wickremesinghe is also due to speak with his Ukrainian counterpart to plead for the release of "10 to 12 Sri Lankan POWs", Balasuriya added."We are trying to get them released," he said.At least 16 Sri Lankans have been killed in Ukraine while fighting alongside Russian troops, parliament was told this month."We want to stop Sri Lankans going to Russia and Ukraine," Balasuriya said alongside the Russian ambassador to Colombo.Balasuriya said many had been duped into believing they would receive high salaries, land and the right to settle in Russia.Sri Lankan police have arrested two retired generals for illegally acting as recruiting agents for Russian mercenary firms.Russian ambassador Levan S. Dzhagaryan, speaking alongside Balasuriya, said Moscow was investigating but declined to give details."Why you are talking only about Russia?" he asked reporters. "Why don’t you talk about Ukraine?"Asked how many visas had been granted to Sri Lankans in recent months, Dzhagaryan said it "was a lot".Soldiers from Sri Lanka’s neighbours India and Nepal have also joined the fight, with several confirmed deaths."If Sri Lankans are under threat and are in a dangerous situation, the duty of the government ... is to ensure that they are safely returned back," Balasuriya said. Central Asia
Former Almaty Police Deputy Head Detained in January 2022 Torture Case (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [5/30/2024 1:25 PM, Catherine Putz, 847K, Negative]
In the course of investigating allegations of torture during the January 2022 events – which came come to be called Bloody January or “Qandy Qantar” in Kazakh – Kazakhstan’s General Prosecutor’s Office announced the detention of Berik Abilbekov, the former deputy head of the Almaty Police Department, on May 28. The office provided few details, stating only that Abilbekov had been detained in relation to a criminal case regarding “the use of torture against citizens in January 2022 in a special detention center located in the village of Koshmambet, Karasai district, Almaty region.”Orda.kz reports that Abilbekov has been detained specifically in connection to the case of Kyrgyz jazz musician Vikram Ruzakhunov. Ruzakhunov’s ordeal in January 2022 shed dramatic light on the Kazakh authorities’ disregard of human rights, due process, the truth, and common sense in the panicked days after countrywide protests erupted into violence. With President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev railing in televised addresses about “20,000 bandits,” “foreign fighters,” and “terrorists” supposedly wreaking havoc in Kazakhstan, the country’s law enforcement bodies went out and found some. As I wrote at the time: On January 9, Kazakh television station Khabar 24 showed a video of man, with a puffy, cut, and bruised face, confessing to having taken $200 and a plane ticket to travel to Kazakhstan to protest. The man says he is unemployed in the video. But those hooked into Bishkek’s small but mighty jazz scene recognized the man as a well-known jazz pianist who frequently traveled to Almaty for concerts. Ruzakhunov’s family told Kyrgyz media that Ruzakhunov had traveled to Almaty on January 2 for a concert. Ruzakhunov was released and returned to Kyrgyzstan. In an interview with Vlast.kz in September 2023 he recounted that after he returned to Bishkek he was advised to keep his mouth shut. As a result of the torture he experienced, Ruzakhunov had broken ribs, damaged lungs, and a concussion. “But after I went through all this, all this pain, I rethought what had happened and began giving interviews,” he said.In the Vlast interview, Ruzakhunov explains how the experience transformed him.
“Before the events that happened in Kazakhstan, I had no idea that this was happening, and that this could happen to me – that they could seize me on the road somewhere, hold me, then take me to an unknown direction and do whatever they want to me.”In the more than two years since, Ruzakhunov has become increasingly relentless in pressing for justice. Criminal cases related to the torture he, and others, experienced were opened in February 2022 but made little progress at first. In May 2022, one of Ruzakhunov’s lawyers told Orda.kz that her client was afraid to go back to Almaty, even to participate in the investigation. It was temporarily suspended for a lack of suspects. By September 2022, however, Ruzakhunov did go back – and he identified 10 police officers who beat him.But again, the case moved slowly. In his September 2023 Vlast interview, Ruzakhunov was clear-eyed about the pace.
“Although there is plenty of evidence… the system protects its people. The system will not hand over its people, because otherwise it will begin to collapse and mistrust will arise.” He noted at the time that many of those involved retained their official positions. In April 2024, Ruzakhunov reported via social media that four police officers had been arrested in a case that had grown to include not just him but 21 other victims.
“The Prosecutor General’s Office assured us that it would bring the case to its logical conclusion, and the detention of the first 4 criminals in uniform is just the beginning. The rest will also be overtaken by karma,” Ruzakhunov wrote.Karma, it seems, came for Abilbekov this week. It’s yet to be seen if justice will be ultimately served.According to official government figures, 238 people were killed during the early January 2022 events, and thousands detained. Activists and journalists have called those figures into question. Twitter
Afghanistan
SIGAR@SIGARHQ
[5/30/2024 7:00 AM, 170.4K followers, 11 retweets, 15 likes]
(1/2) U.S. appropriated/otherwise made available $17.19 billion in assistance to #AFG & Afghan refugees, since Aug 2021. This includes more than $2.80 billion in U.S. appropriations for #AFG assistance, largely for humanitarian & development aid, & $3.50 billion transferred to…
SIGAR@SIGARHQ
[5/30/2024 7:00 AM, 170.4K followers, 1 like]
(2/2)…Afghan Fund that is intended to protect macro financial stability on behalf of the Afghan people and could, in the long-term, include recapitalizing Afghanistan’s central bank, should the conditions materialize https://sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/2024-04-30qr-intro-section1.pdf#page=11 Muhammad Jalal@MJalalAf
[5/30/2024 8:30 AM, 115.5K followers, 6 retweets, 41 likes]
The first deputy of the Ministry of Interior Affairs-IEA in his meeting with the Pakistani delegation in Kabul: Our intentions and actions are to promote peace in the region for the benefit of ourselves and everyone. The “Bisham terrorist attack" was a tragic incident.
Muhammad Jalal@MJalalAf
[5/30/2024 8:20 AM, 115.5K followers, 15 retweets, 118 likes]
The first deputy of the Ministry of Interior Affairs-IEA, Mawlawi Muhammad Nabi Omari met with the visiting delegation from Pakistan led by Secretary Interior, Muhammad Khurram Agha in Kabul earlier today.
UN Women Afghanistan@unwomenafghan
[5/31/2024 12:00 AM, 20.9K followers, 5 retweets, 20 likes]
Afghan women’s fight for freedom and equality spans generations. Explore the scope and severity of the restrictions on women & girls’ access to public space and public life in #Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover, illustrations by @MonaChalabi: http://unwo.men/G1Bs50RgHPH Pakistan
Government of Pakistan@GovtofPakistan
[5/31/2024 12:45 AM, 3.1M followers, 13 retweets, 24 likes]
Islamabad: Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif chairs a review meeting on preparation of his upcoming visit to China.
Anas Mallick@AnasMallick
[5/31/2024 2:42 AM, 73.1K followers, 3 retweets, 12 likes]
Its Official, Prime Minister @CMShehbaz to visit China from 4th till 8th of June on the invite of President Xi and Chinese Premier, announces @ForeignOfficePk in her weekly briefing. #Pakistan #China
Anas Mallick@AnasMallick
[5/30/2024 3:07 PM, 73.1K followers, 7 retweets, 59 likes]
Pakistan has shared the findings of the Besham Attack with Afghanistan’s Taliban govt and has sought Afghan sides assistance in apprehending those behind, Pakistan’s Sect Interior in one day visit to Afghanistan met Deputy Afghan Interim Interior Minister to share the findings.
Madiha Afzal@MadihaAfzal
[5/30/2024 2:57 PM, 42.7K followers, 5 retweets, 47 likes]
The zero-sum game of Pakistani politics -- the military establishment vs Imran Khan -- did not end with the election, contrary to what some may have thought.Madiha Afzal@MadihaAfzal
[5/30/2024 9:20 AM, 42.7K followers, 17 retweets, 107 likes]
At commanders’ conference at GHQ today, references to "politically motivated digital terrorism." Looks like the Twitter ban will continue, and more. India
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[5/30/2024 3:56 AM, 98.1M followers, 2.9K retweets, 20K likes]
Happy Goa Statehood Day! India is proud of the vibrant culture, rich heritage and breathtaking beauty of Goa. The state’s commitment to preserving its natural beauty while embracing modernity sets a remarkable example for sustainable development. We will continue to support and promote Goa’s growth and prosperity. May the state achieve new heights in every field.
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[5/30/2024 3:49 AM, 98.1M followers, 16K retweets, 85K likes]
A remarkable feat which will make the entire nation proud! The successful launch of Agnibaan rocket powered by world’s first single-piece 3D printed semi-cryogenic engine is a momentous occasion for India’s space sector and a testament to the remarkable ingenuity of our Yuva Shakti. My best wishes to the @AgnikulCosmos team for their future endeavours.
Vice-President of India@VPIndia
[5/30/2024 8:29 AM, 1.5M followers, 15 retweets, 178 likes]
Deeply saddened to learn about the tragic bus accident in Akhnoor region of Jammu Kashmir. My heartfelt condolences to the grieving families, and prayers for speedy recovery of the injured.
Vice-President of India@VPIndia
[5/30/2024 4:34 AM, 1.5M followers, 26 retweets, 216 likes]
Distressed by the loss of lives in a tragic fire cracker explosion incident during Chandan Yatra in Puri, Odisha. My deepest condolences to the bereaved families in this hour of grief, and prayers for the speedy recovery of the injured.
Randhir Jaiswal@MEAIndia
[5/31/2024 2:01 AM, 2.3M followers, 114 retweets, 606 likes]
Indian women leading on all fronts - proud moment for India! UNSG @antonioguterres honoured Indian peacekeeper, Major Radhika Sen with the ‘UN Military Gender Advocate of the Year’ Award. Our peacekeepers continue to contribute to global peace & security through their steadfast commitment & courage. NSB
Awami League@albd1971
[5/30/2024 6:31 AM, 638.1K followers, 40 retweets, 131 likes] Prime Minister #SheikhHasina today visited the areas in Patuakhali affected by #CycloneRemal. She also distributed relief materials among the people affected by the cyclone. Later, she attended a public rally. #CycloneRemalUpdate #Bangladesh Video: @joy_yeasin
The President’s Office, Maldives@presidencymv
[5/30/2024 7:19 AM, 108.4K followers, 125 retweets, 128 likes]
During his national statement at the First Plenary of the 4th International Conference on SIDS, President Dr. Muizzu highlighted the inherent features of Ras Male’, as the Maldives’ biggest-ever new eco city. #SIDS4 #MaldivesAtSIDS4 #SmallIslands
The President’s Office, Maldives@presidencymv
[5/30/2024 3:29 AM, 108.4K followers, 98 retweets, 102 likes]
High-level foreign dignitaries President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu met with on the sidelines of the SIDS4 Conference in Antigua and Barbuda. For the latest on #MaldivesAtSIDS4: https://presidency.gov.mv/SIDS4/ #SIDS4 #MaldivesAtSIDS4 #SmallIslands
Moosa Zameer@MoosaZameer
[5/31/2024 12:28 AM, 13.3K followers, 13 retweets, 25 likes]
Arrived in #Maldives with President Dr @MMuizzu after the conclusion of #SIDS4, with renewed hope for a resilient, inclusive and prosperous future for #SIDS. The President’s overarching message struck a chord - SIDS must be in the driver’s seat. We must own our development journeys. We ask our partners state and productive capacities. And facilitate easier access to financing. This must be the basis of our partnerships going forward. #Maldives will work with all SIDS to fully implement the Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS. #MaldivesAtSIDS4
Moosa Zameer@MoosaZameer
[5/30/2024 1:47 AM, 13.3K followers, 57 retweets, 87 likes]
I was delighted to deliver opening remarks at the #SIDS4 side event "The Pivotal Role of Public-Private Partnerships for Climate Resilience in SIDS: Lessons from Maldives" organised by @MoEnvmv. President Dr @MMuizzu delivered keynote remarks and several high-level members of the #Maldives delegation to SIDS4 offered their insights on the importance of public-private partnerships for strong climate action. We were also happy to see the Secretary General of @UNCTAD, @RGrynspan and Ronald Jackson, Head of Disaster Risk Reduction, Recovery, and Resilience Building Team, Crisis Bureau of @UNDP. #MaldivesAtSIDS4 Central Asia
MFA Kazakhstan@MFA_KZ
[5/30/2024 3:54 AM, 50.9K followers, 11 retweets, 14 likes]
Kazakh delegation headed by MOFA Kazakhstan Murat Nurtleu took part in III Ministerial Conference “Central Asia+Italy” Parties discussed topical issues of regional agenda, cooperation in fight against terrorism & drug trafficking, transportation &etc. http://gov.kz/memleket/entities/mfa/press/news/details/781667?lang=en
MFA Kazakhstan@MFA_KZ
[5/30/2024 3:35 AM, 50.9K followers, 5 retweets, 11 likes]
At the initiative of the Kazakh side, consultations of the foreign ministers of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan were held in Rome within the framework of the III Ministerial Conference “Central Asia – Italy”. http://gov.kz/memleket/entities/mfa/press/news/details/781667?lang=en MFA Tajikistan@MOFA_Tajikistan
[5/30/2024 11:57 PM, 4.8K followers, 3 retweets]
Meeting with the President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development https://mfa.tj/en/main/view/15136/meeting-with-the-president-of-the-international-fund-for-agricultural-development
Edward Lemon@EdwardLemon3
[5/30/2024 11:36 AM, 11.5K followers, 9 retweets, 34 likes]
I think it is worth watching Turkmenistan more closely. My main takeaway from a brief visit this month was that things are slowly changing. More evidence here as the government meets with @hrw. Cautious optimism is warranted.Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service@president_uz
[5/30/2024 3:44 PM, 179.8K followers, 2 retweets, 19 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev held a dialogue with @ICESCO_En’s Director General, @SalimAlmalik, to deliberate on collaborative efforts in the fields of science, culture, education, and tourism. Salim Al-Malik lauded #Uzbekistan for its commitment to preserving and promoting its cultural legacy. President Mirziyoyev recognized the active cooperation and suggested novel undertakings, including the establishment of a regional ICESCO office in Uzbekistan.
Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service@president_uz
[5/30/2024 2:43 PM, 179.8K followers, 9 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev examined a presentation that outlined proposals for improving energy efficiency in different sectors of the economy. The material presented in-depth analysis of proposed energy conservation goals and the actions needed for their fulfilment. It also featured the introduction of a new order for energy audits of consumers, stipulating that such audits are to be conducted strictly following international standards.{End of Report} To subscribe to the SCA Morning Press Clips, please email SCA-PressOfficers@state.gov. Please do not reply directly to this email.