SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS
Prepared for the U.S. Department of State
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
TO: | SCA & Staff |
DATE: | Tuesday, November 12, 2024 6:30 AM ET |
Afghanistan
Taliban Eyes Trump Reset With $9 Billion in Reserves at Stake (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [11/12/2024 2:30 AM, Eltaf Najafizada, 5.5M, Neutral]
The Taliban-led government in Afghanistan said it wants a fresh start with the US under President-elect Donald Trump and secure long-sought access to more than $9 billion of the nation’s foreign exchange reserves seized three years ago.“We seek a new chapter of relations with the Trump administration and want the coming Trump administration to reciprocate this,” the head of the Taliban’s political office in Qatar, Mohammad Suhail Shaheen, said via text message. “We want all the Da Afghanistan Bank reserves to be unfrozen and returned to us,” he added, referring to the nation’s central bank.
It’s not clear how realistic the Taliban’s hopes for an improved relationship really are. The Trump administration brokered the original 2020 agreement with the Taliban for US forces to withdraw, sending then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to negotiate directly with the group’s leadership in Qatar. But the botched withdrawal of US forces under President Joe Biden in 2021 was frequently raised by Trump on the campaign trail.
Trump’s pick for national security advisor, Mike Waltz, is a veteran of the Afghan war from his days as a Green Beret. That history could also impact the next administration’s views of the Taliban.
Establishing normal relations with the US would help the Taliban’s efforts to get international recognition for its pariah government, and the funds would be a huge relief for the cash-strapped Taliban, which has been battling to rebuild an economy devastated by sanctions and the loss of international aid.
The US and its Western allies had previously said they want to see the Taliban address human rights issues in Afghanistan and to ensure no terror groups flourish in the country before any significant engagement. But the human rights situation has only deteriorated in recent years, with the Taliban ramping up ever-more severe restrictions on women.
Biden ordered the freezing of more than $7 billion in Afghanistan government reserves held in the US since August 2021 and has refused to recognize the Taliban as the country’s official rulers. Several US allies followed suit on $2 billion deposited in their financial systems.
Biden later agreed to release $3.5 billion in assets and transfer it to an independent Afghan Fund in Switzerland to boost the nation’s economy while keeping the cash out of the hands of the Taliban, with the remaining half left for the families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to pursue in court. It is unknown how the Afghan Fund operates or handles financial transactions when the country is cut off from the global financial system.
While a handful of countries, including China, Pakistan and Russia, have accepted Taliban diplomats, they don’t formally recognize the government, which has been condemned internationally for repeated human rights violations. China was the first nation to grant diplomatic credentials to the Taliban last year. Afghanistan attends U.N. climate talks for first time since Taliban return to power (AP)
AP [11/11/2024 1:01 PM, Sibi Arasu, 12468K, Neutral]
For the first time since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, Afghanistan on Monday sent a delegation to the United Nations climate talks in a bid to garner help in dealing with global warming.
Matuil Haq Khalis, who’s head of the country’s environment protection agency, told The Associated Press that Afghanistan needs international support to deal with extreme weather like erratic rainfall, prolonged droughts and flash floods.
"All the countries must join hands and tackle the problem of climate change," said Khalis, speaking through a translator at the talks, taking place this year in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Afghanistan has been hard hit by climate change, with a recent assessment by climate experts ranking it the sixth most climate vulnerable country in the world.
In March, northern Afghanistan experienced heavy rains resulting in flash floods, killing over 300 people. Climate scientists have found that extreme rainfall has gotten 25 percent heavier over the last 40 years in the country.
Khalis said Afghanistan has prepared national action plans to deal with climate change and will be updating its climate goals within the next few months. He said the country has great potential for wind and solar power but needs international to develop it.
He added that the Afghan delegation was grateful to the Azerbaijani government for inviting them. The delegation will have an observer status at the talks, as the Taliban do not have official recognition as the government of Afghanistan.
Joanna Depledge, a climate historian at the University of Cambridge in England, said Afghanistan should be able to attend.
"By virtue of being a global forum, there are a whole host of politically unsavoury states with all kinds of appalling records of one sort or another that attend. Where would we draw the line?" she said.
Responding to a question about the U.N. assessment that women are more vulnerable than men to climate impacts, Khalis said that "climate change impact doesn’t have any boundaries, it can have its impact on women, children, men, plants or animals, so it requires collective work to tackle this issue.".
Khalis said he has requested bilateral talks with a range of countries, including the United States and would be happy to sit down with them if the request is accepted.
"We were not part of the last three conferences … but we are happy that this time we are here and we will be able to deliver the message of Afghan people with the international community," said Khalis. Taliban administration officials to attend UN climate conference in Azerbaijan (Reuters)
Reuters [11/10/2024 8:47 AM, Mohammad Yunus Yawar, Charlotte Greenfield, and Gloria Dickie, 37270K, Negative]
Afghan Taliban officials will attend a major United Nations climate conference that starts next week, the Afghan Foreign Ministry said on Sunday, the first time they have attended since the former insurgents took power in 2021.
The COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku will be among the highest-profile multilateral events attended by Taliban administration officials since they took control in Kabul after 20 years of fighting NATO-backed forces.
The U.N. has not allowed the Taliban to take up Afghanistan’s seat at the General Assembly, and Afghanistan’s government is not formally recognised by U.N. member states, largely due to the Taliban’s restrictions on women’s education and freedom of movement.
Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said officials from the National Environmental Protection Agency had arrived in Azerbaijan to attend the COP conference. The Taliban took over the agency when they returned to power as U.S.-led forces withdrew.
Taliban officials have taken part in U.N.-organised meetings on Afghanistan in Doha, and Taliban ministers have attended forums in China and Central Asia in the past two years.
But the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Bureau of the COP has deferred consideration of Afghanistan’s participation since 2021, in effect freezing the country out of the talks.
Afghan NGOs have also struggled to attend the climate negotiations in recent years.
Host Azerbaijan invited the Afghan environment agency officials to COP29 as observers, enabling them to "potentially participate in periphery discussions and potentially hold bilateral meetings," a diplomatic source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Because the Taliban are not formally recognised within the U.N. system as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, the source said, the officials cannot receive credentials to take part in the proceedings of full member states.
Azerbaijan’s COP29 presidency declined to comment.
The Taliban has closed schools and universities to female students over the age of around 12. It also announced a set of wide-ranging morality laws this year that require women to cover their faces in public and restrict their travel outside the home without a male guardian.
The Taliban says it respects women’s rights in accordance with its interpretation of Islamic law.
Afghanistan is considered one of the countries worst affected by climate change. Flash floods have killed hundreds this year, and the heavily agriculture-dependent country has suffered through one of the worst droughts in decades. Many subsistence farmers, who make up much of the population, face deepening food insecurity.
Some advocates have criticised international isolation of the Taliban, saying it only hurts the Afghan people.
"Afghanistan is one of the countries that is really left behind on the needs that it has," said Habib Mayar, deputy general secretary of the g7+, an intergovernmental organisation of countries affected by conflict.
"It is a double price that they are paying," Mayar said. "There is lack of attention, lack of connection with the international community, and then there are increasing humanitarian needs.". Afghan Women Not Barred From Speaking To Each Other: Morality Ministry (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [11/9/2024 6:05 AM, Staff, 1251K, Neutral]
Women in Afghanistan are not forbidden from speaking to each other, the Taliban government’s morality ministry told AFP on Saturday, denying recent media reports of a ban.Afghan media based outside the country and international outlets have in recent weeks reported a ban on women hearing other women’s voices, based on an audio recording of the head of the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (PVPV), Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, about rules of prayer.PVPV spokesman Saiful Islam Khyber said the reports were "brainless" and "illogical", in a voice recording confirmed by AFP."A woman can talk to another woman, women need to interact with one another in society, women do have their needs," he said.He added, however, that there were exceptions according to Islamic law, such as those described by Hanafi that women should use hand gestures instead of raising their voices to communicate with other women while praying.Women in Afghanistan are barred from singing or reciting poetry aloud in public, according to a recent "vice and virtue" law detailing sweeping codes of behaviour, including that women’s voices should be "concealed" along with their bodies when outside their homes.Women’s voices have also been banned from television and radio broadcasts in some provinces.The law codified many rules the Taliban government has imposed based on their strict interpretation of Islamic law since they came to power in 2021, with women bearing the brunt of restrictions the United Nations has called "gender apartheid".The Taliban authorities have banned education after secondary school for girls and women, also barring them from various jobs as well as parks and other public places.The Taliban government has said all Afghan citizens’ rights are guaranteed under Islamic law. Pakistan
Train Station Suicide Bombing Leaves Dozens Dead or Wounded in Pakistan (New York Times)
New York Times [11/9/2024 4:14 PM, Zia ur-Rehman, 831K, Negative]
At least two dozen people were killed and more than 40 others wounded in a suicide bombing at a train station in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta on Saturday morning, officials said.
The attack, in Balochistan Province, is the latest in a series of violent episodes in the region, which borders Iran and Afghanistan and is home to major Chinese-led projects such as a strategic port. The province is also home to insurgent separatist groups, notably the Baloch Liberation Army, which claimed responsibility for Saturday’s bombing.
Police and railway officials said that the explosion occurred on a train platform around 9 a.m., a time when the station is typically crowded with passengers, many traveling north to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, via the garrison city of Rawalpindi.
Shahid Rind, a spokesman for the Balochistan government, said preliminary investigations indicated that it was a suicide bombing. Casualties included passengers, law enforcement personnel and railway workers, he said.
The powerful blast was heard throughout the city, according to residents, and television footage from the station showed significant damage to the platform.
Witnesses described the scene just after the explosion as chaos. “Heart-wrenching cries and screams filled the air, and human remains were scattered across the area,” said Muhammad Kaleem, a local trader who had gone to the station to buy tickets for his family. “I am grateful to God to have escaped unharmed.”
Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, denounced the bombing, saying in a statement that terrorists who harmed innocent people would pay a heavy price, and that the nation’s security forces were determined to eliminate “the menace of terrorism.”
The Baloch Liberation Army, a banned ethnic separatist group that regularly attacks Pakistani military personnel and Chinese nationals, claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack in a statement, and said that the suicide bomber used for the violence had targeted army personnel who were gathered at the railway station.
The Pakistani military did not immediately release an official statement.
Last month, the banned group claimed responsibility for another deadly bombing, that one aimed at a convoy carrying Chinese nationals outside the busy international airport in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city.
In August, a series of attacks by the group on police stations, railway lines and highways in the province led to the deaths of dozens of people.
Terrorist violence and counterterrorism operations surged 90 percent in Pakistan in the third quarter of this year compared with a year earlier, the Center for Research and Security Studies, an Islamabad-based think tank, reported last month. Almost 97 percent of the 722 deaths attributed to the violence in that period were in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the highest rate in a decade. Pakistan suspends railway services in the country’s southwest after deadly train station bombing (AP)
AP [11/11/2024 5:55 AM, Abdul Sattar, 12468K, Negative]
Pakistan’s railways suspended all train services on Monday to and from a restive southwestern province where a suicide bombing at a train station over the weekend killed 26 people, including soldiers and railway staff.The train services would be suspended for four days for security reasons, according to a statement from Pakistan Railways.The attack, claimed by the separatist Baloch Liberation Army struck the station in the city of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, on Saturday. At lest 62 people were also wounded in the bombing, officials said.The provincial government also declared a three-day mourning period in solidarity with the families of the victims and said that security has been stepped up and vowed to hit back “with full force” against the separatists, according to Sarfraz Bugti, the province’s chief minister.Bugti spoke after meeting with Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, who traveled to Quetta on Sunday to be briefed about the situation. Naqvi’s office said in a statement that authorities would “take decisive steps to crush the terrorists” and support the local Balochistan government in dealing with the “scourge of terrorism.” Train services are a major part of Balochistan’s economy — hundreds of people travel to and from Quetta to other parts of the country every day. Trains also transport food and other items.Saturday’s attack took place when about 100 passengers were waiting for a train to leave the Quetta station for the garrison city of Rawalpindi, police had said. In its claim of responsibility, the separatist BLA said it targeted Pakistani troops.The attack was the deadliest since August, when separatists killed more than 50 people in multiple coordinated attacks on passengers buses, police and security forces across Balochistan.The oil- and mineral-rich Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest but also least populated province. It is a hub for the country’s ethnic Baloch minority whose members say they face discrimination and exploitation by the central government.Balochistan has for years been the scene of a long-running insurgency, with several separatist groups staging attacks, targeting mainly security forces in their quest for independence. The province also has an array of militant groups that are active there.The separatists also target Chinese nationals working in Pakistan as part of Beijing’s multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, an initiative that has built power plants, roads, railroads and ports around the world and is a major part of China’s push to play a larger role in global affairsLast month, a suicide bomber dispatched by the BLA targeted a convoy with Chinese nationals outside the country’s largest airport in the port city of Karachi, the capital of Sindh province, killing two Chinese workers and wounding eight people.Authorities subsequently claimed they arrested the mastermind of that Oct. 6 attack in a raid in Balochistan.Ziaul Hassan, the interior minister in southern Sindh province, told reporters on Monday that police arrested also three other suspects, including a woman, over their direct involvement in the Karachi attack. He identified the alleged mastermind only as Javed, without explaining if that was a real name, a pseudonym or why he wasn’t giving a full name. Hassan also said more arrests were planned and that police were assisted by security camera footage in their investigation.According to the minister, the car used in the Oct. 6 attack was brought to the city from Balochistan province.Hassan said an investigation was still underway over last week’s shooting attack that wounded two Chinese workers at a textile mill in Karachi. At least 24 killed in Pakistan train station bomb blast, police say (Reuters)
Reuters [11/9/2024 11:58 AM, Saleem Ahmed, 37270K, Negative]
At least 24 people were killed and more than 40 injured in a bomb blast on Saturday at a railway station in the city of Quetta in southwestern Pakistan, police and other officials said.Quetta is the capital of Balochistan province, which is grappling with a surge in strikes by separatist ethnic militants that has raised security concerns for projects aiming to develop the province’s untapped mineral resources.Inspector general of police for Balochistan Mouzzam Jah Ansari said 24 people have died so far from the blast at the railway station, which is usually busy early in the day when the explosion took place."The target was army personnel from the Infantry School," he said, with many of the injured in critical condition.Quetta Commissioner Hamza Shafqat said 16 soldiers were among the dead.The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), a separatist militant group, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement emailed to Reuters.The BLA seeks independence for Balochistan, a province of about 15 million people that borders Afghanistan to the north and Iran to the west. The BLA is the biggest of several ethnic insurgent groups battling the government, saying it unfairly exploits the province’s rich gas and mineral resources."So far 44 injured people have been brought to civil hospital," Wasim Baig, a hospital spokesperson, told Reuters.Senior superintendent of police operations, Muhammad Baloch, said the blast seemed to be a suicide bomb and that investigations were underway for more information."The blast took place inside the railway station when the Peshawar-bound express was about to leave for its destination," Baloch said.In August, at least 73 people were killed in Balochistan after separatist militants attacked police stations, railway lines and highways.The assaults in August were the most widespread in years by militants fighting a decades-long insurgency to win secession for the province, home to major China-led projects such as a port and a gold and copper mine. IMF holds unusual talks with Pakistan over $7 bln bailout (Reuters)
Reuters [11/12/2024 2:16 AM, Asif Shahzad, 5.2M, Neutral]
The International Monetary Fund’s Pakistan mission chief Nathan Porter on Tuesday opened unusual talks with Pakistan over a $7 billion bailout approved by its board in September, the finance ministry and sources said.
The unscheduled visit of the IMF mission and talks beginning with meeting the country’s finance team are too early for first review of the IMF’s Extended Fund Facility (EFF), which is due in the first quarter of 2025.
The chiefs of Pakistan’s central bank and federal board of revenue also attended the meeting besides other officials from both the sides, the statement said.The ministry and the IMF have not officially released details of the visit.
Sources in the finance ministry said the Nov 11-15 visit will discuss recent developments and program performance to date, adding the mission was not part of the first review.
The sources declined to be identified as they were not authorised to speak with the media.
Pakistan has been struggling with boom-and-bust economic cycles for decades, leading to 23 IMF bailouts since 1958.
The sources said the main agenda of the visit was to take a stock of the country’s fiscal deficit, which included a nearly 190 billion rupees ($685 million) shortfall in the revenue collection in first quarter of the current fiscal year.
They said external financing gap of $2.5 billion which the South Asian nation needs for the current fiscal year, which runs to June 30, 2025, will also be discussed by the mission.
A failed attempt by Pakistan to sell its national airline, a major setback to plans to privatise all loss-making state-owned enterprises, will also be discussed along with power and gas sectors losses, they said.
At a staff level agreement in July, Islamabad had given sureties to arrange for external financing through bilateral and multilateral funding lenders, on top of roll overs of loans from friendly countries including China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
In response to a query about a fresh Pakistani request for Chinese loan extensions, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said in a WhatsApp text that, "All roll overs have been assured." Beijing pushes to join security efforts for citizens in Pakistan, sources say (Reuters)
Reuters [11/12/2024 4:16 AM, Asif Shahzad, 5.2M, Neutral]
Beijing is pushing Pakistan to allow its own security staff to provide protection to thousands of Chinese citizens working in the South Asian nation, during talks after a car bombing in Karachi that was seen as a major security breach, sources said.Last month’s airport bombing in the southern port city that killed two Chinese engineers returning to work on a project after a holiday in Thailand was the latest in a string of attacks on Beijing’s interests in Pakistan.The attacks, and Islamabad’s failure to deter them, have angered China, which has pushed Pakistan to begin formal negotiations for a joint security management system.Five Pakistani security and government sources with direct knowledge of the previously unreported negotiations and demands spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, as the talks are sensitive."They (Chinese) want to bring in their own security," said one official, who sat in on a recent meeting, adding that Pakistan had not so far agreed to such a step.It was not clear whether Beijing wants to bring in state or private security personnel for the task. Neither Beijing nor Islamabad confirmed the talks officially.
The source, and two other officials, said there was a consensus on setting up a joint security management system, and that Pakistan was amenable to Chinese officials sitting in on security meetings and co-ordination.
But there was no agreement on their participating in security arrangements on the ground.
The first official said Pakistan had asked China for help in improving its intelligence and surveillance capabilities instead of direct involvement.
A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry told Reuters it was not familiar with talks on a joint security scheme, but added, "China will continue to strengthen co-operation with Pakistan and make joint efforts to do its utmost to maintain the security of Chinese personnel, projects and institutions."Inter-Services Public Relations, the information wing of the Pakistan army, declined to comment. The interior and planning ministries did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
In a statement last week, Pakistan’s interior ministry said both sides agreed to develop a joint strategy to prevent similar incidents in the future.
‘GRAVE SECURITY BREACH’
The nature of the Karachi bombing has angered Beijing, which is now pushing harder to achieve a long standing demand to control security arrangements for its citizens.
A pick-up truck rigged with nearly 100 kg (220 lbs) of explosives waited unchecked for about 40 minutes near the outermost security cordon of the heavily guarded airport before its driver rammed it into a vehicle carrying Chinese engineers, officials said.
"It was a grave security breach," admitted one of the officials investigating the bombing, which came just a week before Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s visit to Islamabad, the first such trip in a decade.
The official said investigators believe the attackers had "inside help" in securing details of the itinerary and route of the engineers, who had returned from a month off in Thailand.
They were to be escorted back to a power plant set up as part of plans for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
Longtime Pakistan ally China has thousands of nationals working on projects grouped under the CPEC, a $65-billion investment in President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative, which seeks to expand China’s global reach by road, rail and sea.
‘CHINESE FRUSTRATIONS’
Publicly China has mostly backed Pakistan’s arrangements, even as it calls for enhanced security.
Privately, Beijing has expressed frustration. At one recent meeting, the Chinese side provided evidence that Pakistan had failed to follow security protocols agreed on twice in recent months, three officials said.
Such protocols usually feature high standards for deployment and movement of Chinese officials.
Chinese nationals have been in the crosshairs of separatist militants who see Beijing as helping Pakistan exploit minerals in the underdeveloped southwestern province of Balochistan, where China has a strategic port and mining interests.
Thousands of Pakistani security officers from the army, police and a dedicated force called the Special Protection Unit are posted to guard Chinese nationals.
Only China’s embassy in Islamabad and its consulates are allowed Chinese official security personnel, the Pakistani officials said.
Pakistan’s Chinese Solar-Panel Boom Risks New Debt Crisis (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [11/11/2024 6:20 AM, Daud Khattak and Reid Standish, 235K, Neutral]
As world leaders gather in Azerbaijan’s capital for the annual United Nations climate conference to plan transitioning away from fossil fuel, policymakers will also address the unforeseen obstacles the green transition might bring.
One such scenario is playing out in Pakistan, where soaring electricity prices have made Pakistan’s state-owned power supply among the most expensive in South Asia and pushed cash-strapped households and businesses to find relief from rising costs and rolling blackouts by using low-cost Chinese solar panels.
But the flood of ultracheap solar power -- which has seen Pakistan acquire $1.4 billion worth of Chinese-made solar panels and become the world’s third-largest buyer in the first half of 2024 -- also risks exacerbating Pakistan’s battered power sector, with a debt exceeding $9 billion and falling grid consumption that could move it toward a new fiscal crisis.
For Nasar Khan, a small business owner from the northern town of Yar Hussain, the switch to solar has eased the sky-high electricity costs that have strained his finances in recent years. The green energy source has lowered his monthly bill by nearly a third, close to what he paid five years ago before a spike in prices triggered by soaring global commodity prices. Those savings, he says, have caught the eye of his neighbors and even his cousin, on whose house he is helping to install Chinese-made solar panels.
"The state power rates have become unaffordable for consumers," Khan told RFE/RL. "Everyone who can [afford to] is now trying to switch to solar."
Khan and his neighbors in Yar Hussian are hardly the only ones. Across the country of 240 million people, shimmering blue panels dot the rooftops of cities and cover factory buildings as the mass adoption of solar panels sweeps Pakistanis looking to blunt the impact of soaring state energy tariffs.
While this may be good news for the environment and global efforts to adopt cleaner forms of energy production, the shift could bring new headaches for the government as demand for energy from the state power grid shrinks and Islamabad juggles its tenuous financial outlook with the corresponding drop in revenue.
Kaiser Bengali, an economist who worked as an adviser to the chief minister of Pakistan’s southeastern Sindh Province, says the influx of Chinese panels has sparked an episode of "circular debt" where those left reliant on the expensive state power grid need to choose between saving money to switch to solar or refuse to pay their bills -- which could, in turn, spark a cascade of unpaid debt from one government company to another.
"[This] means there is a water-supply company that is providing water to us and, of course, they use power, because water has to be pumped," Bengali told RFE/RL. "But if people don’t pay their water bills then the water company can’t pay the electricity company. And because the electricity company is using gas, they can’t pay the gas company, and so on."
Consumption of electricity from the national grid fell by 10 percent in 2023 compared to the previous year amid rising electricity prices and this decrease could deepen as Islamabad faces pressure to increase electricity prices in budget-balancing moves to repay a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Pakistanis Looking Off Grid
Against this backdrop, Pakistanis are adapting however they can.
It’s not clear exactly how many people are switching to solar panels as an alternative source of electricity. Some households have opted for simple set-ups for their own needs, while others have invested large sums in hopes of selling the energy to the national grid.
Abrar Khan, from the Swabi district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, says he has been fitting solar-panel systems on houses and businesses for 20 years, but the energy crisis and falling trust in the government’s ability to resolve it has triggered a major uptick in installations.
"Domestic and industrial users were fed up with high rates and frequent power outages," he told RFE/RL. "This is why this year and the past year the demand for solar systems has increased enormously."
The roots of Pakistan’s power-sector crisis go back decades but picked up steam in 1994 when Islamabad offered lucrative deals to foreign investors to build power plants as the government and its rapidly growing population pursued economic growth.
Called independent power producers (IPPs), these operators secured liberal provisions from the government in the form of sovereign-backed, dollar-indexed returns and commitments to pay for even unused electricity.
Financing mostly flowed to the coal-fired or gas-fueled plants, which left electricity prices largely tied to fluctuations in the global market for fossil fuels, with power tariffs in Pakistan more than doubling in the past three years alone.
The government also scaled-back subsidies and passed the capacity payments made to power producers to consumers, a bane for large sections of society in a developing country like Pakistan where roughly 40 percent of the population lives below the UN-defined poverty line.
Industrial groups complain that energy costs are double those of businesses in India and Bangladesh, and some factories have been forced to shut down.
"Whoever’s business is surviving -- [and] I am among them -- it’s because of using these solar-energy systems," Ijaz Bacha, a factory owner and spokesman for the marble industry in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, told RFE/RL.
Marble processing is a major industry in the province, and Bacha says between 30 percent and 40 percent of manufacturers there have gone out of business in the past two years.
Bacha says the electricity bill for his facility has dropped significantly since he switched to solar, with his monthly bill going from 2 million rupees ($7,300) to 1.2 million rupees ($4,300). He adds that those savings have kept his business afloat but were only possible thanks to a 25 million rupee ($90,000) investment, a sum many Pakistani business owners would have difficulty raising.
"I believe that in the next year, the majority of the industries [in Pakistan] will switch to solar because survival is impossible without it," Bacha said.
Grappling With Uncertainty
In navigating the intertwined debt and energy problems, consumers say they’re dealing with policy whiplash.
In 2017, Pakistan started a system for "net metering" where people can sell excess electricity produced by their solar panels back to the national grid. But in March, the government indicated it wanted to end the net-metering policy to meet IMF criteria for state spending as it tries to stabilize its economy.
Despite concern from the federal government, the provincial governments of Punjab -- home to more than half of the country’s population -- and Sindh (more than 50 million people) are now offering free or subsidized solar panels to help low-income households.
The federal government is also renegotiating debts, with the hope of stabilizing the grid and reducing its reliance on fossil fuels.
Pakistani Energy Minister Awais Leghari told the Financial Times in September that the government was renegotiating with Chinese and domestic investors over power-sector debts and exploring ways to privatize certain companies.
But the minister also expressed concern that the continued interest and use of solar panels risks making the grid "unaffordable" due to a sustained loss of paying customers.
"Demand is shrinking off the grid. That’s a big concern for us," he said. Pakistan limits outdoor activities, market hours to curb air pollution-related illness (Reuters)
Reuters [11/11/2024 6:09 AM, Mubasher Bukhari, 60726K, Neutral]
Pakistan’s Punjab province banned most outdoor activities and ordered shops, markets and malls in some areas to close early from Monday to curb illnesses caused by intense air pollution.
The province has closed educational institutions and public spaces like parks and zoos until Nov. 17 in places including Lahore, the world’s most polluted city in terms of air quality, according to Swiss group IQAir’s live ratings.
The districts of Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad and Gujranwala have seen an unprecedented rise in patients with respiratory diseases, eye and throat irritation, and pink eye disease, the Punjab government said in an order issued late on Sunday.
The new restrictions will also remain in force until Nov. 17.
"The spread of conjunctivitis/ pink eye disease due to bacterial or viral infection, smoke, dust or chemical exposure is posing a serious and imminent threat to public health," the Punjab government said.
While outdoor activities including sports events, exhibitions and festivals, and dining at restaurants have been prohibited, "unavoidable religious rites" are exempt from this direction, the order said.
Outlets like pharmacies, oil depots, dairy shops and fruit and vegetable shops have similarly been exempted from the directions to close by 8 p.m. local time.
Lahore’s air quality remained hazardous on Monday, with an index score of more than 600, according to IQAir, but this was significantly lower than the 1,900 that it touched in places earlier this month.
A score of 0-50 is considered good.
UNICEF on Monday also called for greater efforts to reduce pollution and protect children’s health in Punjab, saying that more than 11 million children under five years of age are in danger as they breathe the toxic air.
"In addition, schools in smog-affected areas have been closed...the learning of almost 16 million children in Punjab has been disrupted," said Abdullah Fadil, UNICEF Representative in the country.
"Pakistan, already in the grips of an education emergency...cannot afford more learning losses," he said.Several parts of South Asia are engulfed by a toxic haze each winter as cold air traps dust, emissions and smoke from farm fires.
Punjab has blamed its toxic air this year on pollution wafting in from India, where northern parts have also been battling hazardous air, and has said it will take the issue up with the neighbouring country through its foreign ministry.
India’s Supreme Court on Monday directed the Delhi government to decide by Nov. 25 on imposing a perpetual ban on firecrackers, legal news portal Bar and Bench reported.
Firecrackers set off by revellers on Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights celebrated on Oct. 31 this year despite a ban, have aggravated the region’s pollution problem. India
India says not nervous about working with Trump (BBC)
BBC [11/11/2024 1:46 AM, Meryl Sebastian, 67197K, Neutral]
India has said it is not nervous about working with Donald Trump, as the former US president is set to return to office for a second term after his win in the recently held election.Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said on Sunday that many countries were nervous about a [Trump-led] US, but added that "India was not one of them".Prime Minister Narendra Modi shared cordial relations with Trump during his first term between 2017 and 2021.But India also faced a bitter tariff war with the Trump administration that affected businesses on both sides.India has enjoyed bipartisan support in the US, working well with both Republican and Democrat presidents over the years.Different administrations in Washington have long viewed India as a counterweight to China.Speaking at an event on Sunday, Jaishankar added that Delhi had no reasons to worry that India-US relations would not prosper under Trump."Modi was among the first three calls, I think, that President [elect] Trump took," the minister said.But the traffic war is likely to loom over the relationship.The president-elect in October had called Modi a "great leader" but also accused India of charging excessive tariffs.Analysts say it will be interesting to watch if the bonhomie between the leaders can help overcome trade differences between the two countries.Trump and Modi have often expressed admiration for each other in the past.In 2019, the two leaders heaped praise on each other during a joint appearance at an Indian-American community event called "Howdy, Modi!" hosted in the Indian prime minister’s honour in Texas.The event, attended by nearly 50,000 people, was billed as one of the largest receptions for a foreign leader in the US.The next year, during Trump’s first official visit to India, Modi hosted him at his home state in Gujarat where he organised a 125,000-strong rally at the world’s biggest cricket stadium.But despite these big events, the relationship also suffered setbacks.During his first term, Trump ended preferential trade status for India amid a bitter tariff war between the two countries.Denial rate for H-1B visas also rose from 6% in 2016 to 21% in 2019, data from the US Department of Labour showed. A majority of these visas are granted to Indian tech workers.Meanwhile, Jaishankar also argued that the balance of power between the East and West was shifting but added that older industrialised economies like the US were still very important."They are big markets, strong technology centres, hubs for innovation. So let’s recognise the shift, but let’s not get carried away and kind of overstate it and distort our own understanding of the world," he said. India bets on Modi-Trump warmth to navigate choppy future with US (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera [11/9/2024 10:02 PM, Yashraj Sharma, 25768K, Neutral]
During his campaign for re-election, Donald Trump repeatedly threatened major tariffs on imports from a range of countries. Beijing bore the brunt of his attention — he threatened a 60 percent tariff on Chinese products. But India was a major target, too — he described the country as a “major charger” of tariffs, and promised to do the same in return.Now, as Trump prepares to take office again after a stunning win over Vice President Kamala Harris in the US presidential election, his plans for trade barriers and his anti-immigrant rhetoric threaten to inject tensions into bilateral relations with India.The US is India’s largest export destination and consistently ranks among its top two trade partners.“India-US relations could actually get strained if all these election promises that Trump made are implemented,” said Biswajit Dhar, a distinguished professor at the Council for Social Development, New Delhi. “If he goes through with them, this will be very, very bad news for India.”But there is a ray of hope said Dhar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal “bonhomie” with Trump could help New Delhi navigate an otherwise bumpy road ahead.Trade tariffsUS-India trade last year amounted to nearly $120bn, with a surplus of $30bn for India. Bilateral trade has shot up by 92 percent in the last decade. Now, Trump’s “America First” agenda — which aims to offset domestic tax cuts by imposing higher tariffs on imports — could disrupt that relationship.While higher tariffs may end up raising the cost of imported goods for US customers, it could also hurt key Indian export-oriented industries, from information technology and cars to pharmaceuticals.Analysts at the London School of Economics have predicted a GDP loss of 0.03 percent for India, and 0.68 percent reduction for China. “India would be among the hardest hit because the US is our largest market. That’s the source of our biggest concern,” said Dhar, the international trade expert. “During the first term, Trump got into this whole ‘protectionist mode’, but upon his return this time, he will come knowing that he has gotten a mandate for these policies.”Underlying trade tensions between the US and India, because of the imbalance in their trade — with India the dominant exporter — have largely stayed under wraps for the last four years under the Biden administration, said Michael Kugelman, director of the Washington, DC-based Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute. “But the tensions could rise to the surface now and explode in the new Trump administration.”Walter Ladwig, a senior international relations lecturer at King’s College, London, agreed that “trade has always been a difficult issue in bilateral relations” and remained “front and centre” during the earlier Trump years.Unlike Biden’s “friend-shoring approach” for key high-tech items like semiconductors, Ladwig said, “It is hard to see Trump supporting efforts to build such items anywhere outside the US.” Friend-shoring refers to the concept of encouraging companies to move from rival countries like China to friendly nations.Trump’s anti-immigration policyAs India tries to build strong ties with a new Trump administration, it will be confronted by an unlikely reality, said Anil Trigunayat, a senior Indian diplomat who has served as an Indian trade representative in New York: “America is trying to grow more isolationists and at the same time, Delhi is trying to grow more globally cooperative.”Trump’s first shot at the US presidency was marked by anxiety for H-1B visa holders, a programme for skilled foreign professionals seeking employment in the country. Indians represent the majority of these visa holders, accounting for 72.3 percent in the last year. Chinese workers are a distant second, with 11.7 percent.The denial rate for H-1B petitions rose from 6 percent in 2015 to 24 percent in 2018, a year after Trump took office, and further shot to 30 percent in 2020 after the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Trump’s tough talk on immigration could also strain ties, said Dhar. “Whenever the immigration issue becomes shrill in the political rhetoric, Indian workers will need to brace for immediate impact,” he said.Still, Trump 2.0 won’t be the same as his first term, said Trigunayat — in part because India now knows what to expect from him. “I don’t think the Indian foreign policy establishment is blinded by the fact that Trump also has his priorities,” said Trigunayat. “We will continue to have some issues, especially concerning trade market access and the H-1B visas and immigration issues.”The bonhomie and China factorMost experts however believe the larger bilateral relationship between the US and India will continue to grow, regardless of who is in power in either Washington or New Delhi. “Modi has developed a personal relationship with Trump over the last decade … that is his style of diplomacy,” said Harsh Pant, vice president for studies and foreign policy at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), a New Delhi-based think tank. “This will pay Modi dividends when it comes to a person like Trump that ultimately relies on his personal instinct.”Ladwig of King’s College agreed that the “good equation between Trump and Modi” should help bilateral ties.According to Ladwig and Kugelman, uncomfortable questions about India’s decline in democratic indices and on protecting minority rights will be “less frequently raised” by Washington under Trump.Trump’s return to office could also reduce pressure on India to move away from its historical friendship with Russia amid Moscow’s war on Ukraine.India’s trade with Russia reached an all-time high this year, amounting to $65.6bn — but the US recently sanctioned a series of Indian companies for ostensibly aiding Russia’s war effort.Trump, however, has pushed for an end to the war in Ukraine, and is known to favour diplomacy rather than military confrontation with Russia. “Some of the tensions that have plagued the [US-India] relationship in recent years will recede and that includes the Russia factor,” said Kugelman.Meanwhile, shared concerns about China’s increasingly assertive role in the Asia Pacific region will continue to serve as a glue between India and the US under Trump, say experts. Trump and a ‘rogue state’
Over the past year, the bilateral relationship has stumbled over allegations by US prosecutors that Indian agents had attempted to assassinate a US-based Sikh separatist. Though experts believe that Trump will not “call out India in a big way”, the possibility of his administration letting go of the alleged targeting of a citizen on US soil is bleak.
“Trump projects himself as a nationalist and given his politics, he would seemingly gain political mileage out of being very public about his concerns,” said Kugelman. “Not Russia, China, or trade, but the ‘murder for hire’ allegation has been the biggest tension point in the relationship.”
“This might prove to be a rude awakening for India,” Kugelman added.
However, Pant of ORF said he believes that “if India managed this crisis under Biden, it’s likely that you are going to manage this much better under Trump.”
Today, “diplomacy to a large extent is conducted on an interpersonal basis at the highest level,” said Trigunayat, the senior Indian diplomat. “And Modi’s good relation with Trump will be a good and rare access point in the White House.”
Is a ‘Green’ Revolution Poisoning India’s Capital? (New York Times)
New York Times [11/9/2024 4:14 PM, Maria Abi-Habib, 831K, Negative]
The trucks have lumbered through the capital for years, dumping loads of hot, acrid ash from thousands of tons of incinerated garbage close to playgrounds and schools.
Residents in the soot-stained homes nearby know what to expect: stinging eyes, constant migraines, hacking coughs of black spittle and shallow, labored breaths.
Burning the garbage was supposed to help solve one of Delhi’s most startling environmental crises: the giant mountains of trash that soar nearly 200 feet into the air and eclipse the capital’s skyline — putrid, 20-story slopes of waste that collapse and crush people, or catch fire in noxious blazes that last for days.
The government pushed a revolutionary plan. It promised to incinerate the trash safely in a state-of-the-art plant, turning the waste into electricity in an ingenious bid to tackle two major problems at once.
Instead, the government’s answer to its bursting landfills and boundless need for energy is exposing as many as one million people to toxic smoke and ash, according to air and soil samples collected by The New York Times over a five-year period.
Residents call it a mass poisoning.
We tested the smoke: Lead, arsenic and other toxic substances rain down on surrounding neighborhoods.
The ashes, still filled with hazardous pollutants, then get hauled away in trucks.
We followed the trucks for years — and found them illegally dumping the ashes in crowded neighborhoods like this one, next to schools, parks and homes.
We tested the ashes — and found toxic substances way above safety standards.
We also dug into the soil — and found that a schoolyard and a park were sitting right on top of toxic ash.
Children play in ashes as trucks come to dump more. The chemicals and heavy metals in the air and soil can cause birth defects, cancer and other life-threatening conditions.
Doctors and residents nearby point to a rise in miscarriages, lesions on their skin and frantic trips to the hospital gasping for air.
Both the smoke billowing from the plant and the ashes dumped near homes have been found to be toxic, and Indian officials are well aware of the dangers.
Internal government reports found that the plant pumped as much as 10 times the legal amount of dioxins — a key ingredient in the notorious Agent Orange herbicide deployed by the U.S. military in the Vietnam War — into the skies above Delhi.
Yet the government has doubled down on its strategy nonetheless, breaking the law by dumping toxic ash right near homes and vowing to build similar facilities in dozens of cities where tens of millions of people live.
Having surpassed China as the world’s most populous nation, India has nearly 60 cities with one million residents or more, making “waste to energy” plants like the one in Delhi a model of what the government calls its “Green Growth” future.
The plant, run with one of India’s biggest family business empires, even managed to get certified by the United Nations in 2011, earning the right to sell carbon credits on the global market because it uses trash, instead of fossil fuels, to generate electricity.
The problem is, many current and former workers at the plant say, there is nothing green about it.“The plant was never regulated, and the government knows,” Rakesh Kumar Aggarwal, a former manager at the plant, told The Times before he died in 2020, months after we started reporting this article and collecting samples for testing. He said basic safety measures were routinely skipped to save money and emissions from the facility went untreated, spewing dangerous chemicals into the heart of Delhi.“On paper, it looks fine, it’s burning tons of trash each day,” he added. “But it’s killing people.”
Independent lab tests commissioned by The Times found that in the central Delhi neighborhood where the plant sits, the average amount of hazardous chemicals and heavy metals in the air drastically exceeded safety standards.
The Times collected about 150 air and soil samples from 2019 through 2023 around the plant, in neighborhoods where the ash was illegally dumped and in other parts of the capital. We worked with experts at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, one of the country’s premier universities, to test the samples, and analyzed the findings with scientists at Johns Hopkins University.
Experts called the levels of heavy metals we found alarming. In all, as many as one million people live in what scientists considered the possible contamination zones.“I am the living example,” said Shailendra Bhadoriya, a cardiologist who moved into a leafy neighborhood in 2011. He loved its proximity to good schools and parks for his young children, and wanted to be able to walk to work at the Fortis Escorts Heart Institute, one of the largest cardiac hospitals in Asia, where he directed the intensive care unit.
He described watching the waste-to-energy plant being built about 150 yards from his home. Then, soon after it opened in 2012, Dr. Bhadoriya said, he noticed something worrisome: He and his family were constantly sick. His neighbors started to complain, too.
Within a year, Dr. Bhadoriya said, he and his daughter had become severely asthmatic, requiring frenzied visits to the hospital as they struggled to breathe. Outside, black soot spewing from the plant’s smokestack fell from the sky like a filthy rain, he said, coating parked cars, balconies and playgrounds.
Over the five years that The Times followed Dr. Bhadoriya, his health deteriorated significantly. He looked as if he had aged 20 years, his frame doubling over, his cheeks sinking in. His skin grew blotchy with dark spots and boils, possible signs of heavy metal and other chemical poisoning, experts consulted by The Times said. He and his daughter spent long sessions splayed out on the family couch, breathing through nebulizers, their eyes red and bulging.“I am living a compromised life,” said Dr. Bhadoriya. He knows he should move, he added, but he feels obligated to be close to his patients.
Neeta Mishra, a gynecologist who has lived and worked in the neighborhood since 1999, said she had watched birth defects and miscarriages rise in the community since the plant opened.“I tell any pregnant patient to get out of this neighborhood,” she said. “When patients go away, they are better. When they come back, they are worse.”
In one of the most unequal cities in the world, the problems stalk the wealthy and poor alike. The facility, named the Timarpur-Okhla Waste to Energy Plant, sits squarely in the center of the capital and burns as much as 3,000 tons of garbage a day, generating a small amount of electricity for a power-starved country.
Its smoke belches across sought-after neighborhoods that host some of the country’s most prestigious hospitals, schools and even a Ferrari dealership. And despite rules that prohibit the ash from being dumped in residential areas, open-bed trucks — often bearing the Delhi municipal government’s logo — have carted thousands of tons of incinerated trash to poorer neighborhoods on the capital’s outskirts for years. The wind kicks up their uncovered loads along the way.
Many of the trucks have climbed to the top of a knoll overlooking hundreds of homes, a playground and a Hindu temple. From there, the soot has come hurtling down toward the neighborhood below in black clouds, seeping into homes and settling like a gritty blanket that coats just about everything — floors, laundry, groceries, children’s toys.“The dust is like a bedsheet,” said Rohit Mishra, 19, wiping down his desk and schoolbooks. Plumes of soot swirled in the air of his home. His mother sweeps and sweeps again — a “Groundhog Day” of dirt and grime. Still, the family is plagued by hacking coughs of black phlegm, the color of their lives since the trucks started coming.
There is so much ash that the government has even leveled it, with a school, a clinic, a wedding hall and a park built atop the poisonous ground. Incongruously, one of the dump sites is in an “eco park.”“They say in the future, they will plant trees there, that it will be beautiful,” Yashpal Singh, 45, said of the dump site that overlooks his neighborhood.
Kafeel Ahmen, a neighbor, was skeptical.“We will only be able to enjoy that garden if we are alive to see it,” he said of the illnesses in his neighborhood.
When the plant opened, the government promised an innovative solution to a seemingly intractable problem. Delhi’s trash mountains and landfills are so enormous that they spanned more than 150 acres last year, with waste weighing about 16 million tons — the equivalent of more than 40 Empire State Buildings. Large birds circle the peaks like a scene out of the apocalypse.
The solution brought together some of India’s most powerful players across business and politics. The Indian government partnered with a company controlled by the Jindal family, one of the nation’s most prominent, with operations that stretch from coal mines in Australia and South Africa to steel plants in Ohio and Texas. The business school at the University of Texas at Dallas is named after one of the four Jindal brothers who help control the family businesses.
The arrangement was fairly straightforward: The company that runs the plant received land and the promise of a $2 million government grant to help build the facility. Delhi’s municipal government supplies the plant with garbage to burn, and then the electricity gets sold back to the capital’s grid.
The Jindal family empire struck the deal under the former government, and it continues to wield influence with the current prime minister, Narendra Modi. One of the Jindal brothers helped broker a rare meeting in 2015 between Mr. Modi and Pakistan’s prime minister, an extraordinary encounter between leaders of enemy nations, officials involved in the event said. Another brother represents Mr. Modi’s party in Parliament.
The Modi administration has praised India’s foray into burning trash for energy. In the nation’s push to open more, the Jindal family’s dizzying web of businesses, which often refers to itself as the O.P. Jindal Group, has been awarded several more plants, making it the biggest national player by far.
Turning waste into energy is not new. The technology is used in American and European cities like Miami and Paris, where it powers the Louvre. Many experts say the approach will only become more necessary as the world churns out ever more trash and landfills ravenously consume valuable land.
But current and former workers at the plant in Delhi say that some of the basic steps needed to operate safely have been skipped from the very beginning for a simple reason — to cut costs.
Without the proper controls and oversight, they and other experts say, such plants are essentially open-pit garbage fires.
Thanos Bourtsalas, the acting director of Columbia University’s Earth Engineering Center, said he toured the Okhla plant in 2017 and quickly grew alarmed at how many of the basic precautions needed to reduce pollution were being ignored.“I was very concerned by what I saw,” said Dr. Bourtsalas, rattling off a litany of substances and steps needed to prevent toxic emissions that the plant had skipped.“When I asked why they weren’t using those materials, they said they do sometimes, maybe once every two weeks to save money,” he said. “These materials need to be continuously injected. They are the main systems to control air pollution.”
Despite Dr. Bourtsalas’ concerns, the plant’s website portrayed him as a fervent champion. A photograph of him still appears on it, right next to a quote in which Dr. Bourtsalas supposedly calls the plant a “Great Step towards Sustainability” — an accolade he denies ever giving.
Dr. Bourtsalas said he was shocked to learn that he was on the website — and that his warnings were being portrayed as an endorsement.“I warned them that what they were doing was dangerous,” he said. “Repeatedly.”
The Jindal empire had promised a best-in-class path to green energy. Speaking to an Indian newspaper as the Okhla plant was being built in 2011, Allard Nooy, then the chief executive of a Jindal-controlled subsidiary that oversees the plant, promised to monitor toxic emissions carefully.“We will initiate those tests, hand to heart,” Mr. Nooy was quoted as saying at the time. “You have to appreciate that we are not a fly-by-night operator. We are the Jindals, India’s fourth-largest conglomerate.”
Mr. Nooy did not respond to requests for comment.
Officially, the government was also regulating the plant to make sure it operated safely. But former workers said they regularly got tipped off when inspectors were coming, so that they could spin up the necessary safety measures before regulators arrived and make it look as though the plant always functioned by the book.“We would get a notification from the pollution boards that they were coming and start using” the necessary measures to mitigate emissions, said Mr. Aggarwal, the former plant manager.“But we never used it normally,” he added, declining to say whether regulators had been bribed.
The deception came down to basic economics, managers said: The plant was not as profitable as expected.When a Jindal-controlled subsidiary got the contract in 2008, it seemed poised to cash in on an expansive international carbon credit market managed by the United Nations. The arrangement enabled countries and companies that wanted to offset their own carbon emissions to buy credits from other projects that produced renewable energy.
According to an internal assessment obtained by The Times, the plant could expect to make $2 million off the carbon market when it opened in 2012.
But right before the plant came online, the market crashed.
In 2011, the carbon credit market peaked at $176 billion. When the plant opened the next year, the market had lost nearly two-thirds of its value.
Suddenly, the plant’s whole economic model had been upended.“When the Okhla project was being developed, the carbon market was booming at that time; it was one of the revenue drivers for the project,” said Neelesh Gupta, a former manager at the Jindal-controlled subsidiary that operates the plant. He resigned in 2021.
The market’s collapse “made the project unviable,” he said.
So, the plant operators started cutting corners to save money, according to Dr. Bourtsalas, Mr. Aggarwal and two former senior employees. Managers stopped buying enough of the emission-cleaning materials needed to operate safely, they said.
Other vital precautions have been flouted as well, The Times found.
For one, the “consent to operate” — terms that govern the plant’s operations — makes it clear that the trash is supposed to be sorted first. That prevents potential hazards, like batteries, harmful plastics and electronic waste, from being burned and emitting heavy metals into the air.
But as we followed the trucks from the plant to the dump sites and collected samples, we saw parts of batteries, pipes, wires, a melted cellphone and other obvious pieces of metal and electronics, suggesting that the plant was not sorting its trash properly before burning it.
Beyond that, many of the ashes from incinerated trash are considered so toxic that most European waste-to-energy plants mix them with cement before transporting them, so they don’t escape. They are then dumped in scientifically-engineered landfills or giant cement vats designed to prevent them from getting into the soil and leaching into groundwater.
The Indian government appears to take none of these precautions.
We watched Delhi municipal trucks drop truckload after truckload of loose ash right near homes, schools, a temple and a clinic, ignoring the rules that govern the plant and violating explicit orders by the nation’s top environmental regulators to stop dumping toxic ash near residents.
In one neighborhood, Tajpur Pahari, apartment buildings surround a wide quarry about 60 feet deep, right next to the so-called eco park where residents gather to exercise, play and worship. Trucks from the plant poured ashes into the quarry for years, finally stopping in 2023 after they had filled up the cavernous pit.
We took more than 70 soil samples from Tajpur Pahari in 2022 and 2023. The results showed that levels of cadmium — a dangerous heavy metal often found in batteries — were eight times higher than the E.P.A.’s hazard limit, on average. We also found dangerous concentrations of lead in the soil.
There was so much metal that impoverished families, known locally as ragpickers, sorted through the ash to salvage whatever they could, retching on the fumes as they worked. Covered in soot, they clutched dirty scarves to their noses as the trucks dumped steaming loads around them. They stepped back and let the ash cool before sifting through it with crudely made magnets, fishing out metal scraps to sell.“This is not the place to dump; there is groundwater,” said Tejdeep Singh, who retired in 2022 from India’s Ministry of Water as a senior scientist after 34 years.“I don’t know who told them to dump there,” he said of the eco park. “But the country is run by bureaucrats, not the technocrats with knowledge.”
As the neighborhood woke up each day, residents crossed the small road to the dumpsite, power-walking around the park for their morning exercise. Commuters trudged through ash piles to get to work. By the afternoon, excited children streamed out of the schools to play cricket in the park.
Ominder Singh, who helped manage the Tajpur Pahari dump site for several years, said he always approached the fresh ash piles with caution, the acrid fumes giving him a gnawing headache that didn’t go away. But he needed the job, he said.“Look at this place,” he said, motioning toward the ragpickers. “Now you know what poverty means.”
In another Delhi suburb where the ash has been dumped — called Khadda Colony, where Mr. Mishra, the student, lives with his family — our test results were similar. The soot from the trucks had spread so far and wide throughout the area that we took one sample off the hood of a parked car that had been completely covered in ash. It contained cadmium levels nearly four times the E.P.A. threshold.
Amit Kumar, a spokesman for Delhi’s municipality, denied that any ash was ever dumped in residential areas, claiming it went to landfills instead.
But we followed dozens of dump trucks from the Okhla plant over a period of three years. We watched them wend through the capital and drop loads in residential neighborhoods, only a few dozen feet from homes.
To make doubly sure the ash had come from the Okhla plant, we asked the drivers to show us their paperwork, which bore the logo of a Jindal-controlled subsidiary and confirmed that their loads had come from the facility. Beyond that, managers at the dump sites said that only trucks from the plant were allowed to dump there.
Despite repeated requests for comment over several years, the nation’s Ministry of Environment and the main environmental regulatory agency declined to comment. Jindal-controlled companies that own and oversee the plant, both directly and indirectly, declined to comment as well.
In March of this year, the government opened Delhi’s first scientifically engineered dump, enabling the capital to manage the ash in a safer way. But residents say the toxic ash from previous dumping still coats nearly every facet of their lives, and in July they received a new shock: The government allowed the plant to ramp up its operations significantly, giving it the right to burn about 1,000 more tons of trash a day.“More people could become sick,” said Keeve Nachman, one of the Johns Hopkins scientists who helped analyze test results. “Based on reports of various illnesses in the community, these health effects should be taken seriously.”
The kinds of hazards that have been found in the plant’s emissions can be long lasting. Dioxins continue to contaminate Vietnam’s soil and rivers decades after the war there, with severe health consequences like birth defects.
Desperate residents sued to stop the plant in India’s Supreme Court, but the case has been delayed for years. They also wrote the United Nations to protest the carbon credits the plant was receiving, listing the ways in which the plant was skirting regulations. They say the U.N. ignored them.
A U.N. spokesperson said it was the responsibility of the Indian government, not the United Nations, to ensure the plant was meeting environmental regulations.
Experts said the United Nations simply did not have the bandwidth to monitor the many companies whose supposedly green emissions made up the carbon credit market. Buyers eventually discovered that many projects, including in India, were not actually environmentally friendly, contributing to the market’s collapse.
Indian regulators also said they had their hands full. The Central Pollution Control Board, the nation’s top environmental regulator, employs a staff of around 400 to monitor a country of about 1.4 billion, compared with the E.P.A. in the United States, which employs nearly 17,000 for a nation with roughly a quarter as many people.“A lot of things should be done,” said Deepak Kumar Singh, a director at the Delhi Pollution Control Committee, the main environmental regulator for the capital and its surroundings. “The frequency of monitoring should be more, inspections of the plant should be more.”
But, he said, the city’s problems stretched far beyond the Okhla plant. Delhi is the world’s most polluted capital, with only a handful of days each year considered in the “healthy” range by air quality experts.“You have to understand,” Mr. Singh pleaded. “We have three scientists monitoring air and water pollution for all of Delhi’s industries,” making it all but impossible to adequately regulate one of the biggest, busiest cities in the world.
Many experts contend that the government is worsening, and at times actively hiding, the problem. Dismayed by India’s reputation for having dozens of the world’s 50 most polluted cities, the government has not only added layers of red tape that make it harder for researchers to test the capital’s air quality, but it has also harassed and arrested environmentalists for raising concerns, scientists say.
Judges and regulators have occasionally thrown obstacles in front of the Okhla plant over its environmental breaches, but not for long.
A 2015 ruling by the National Green Tribunal, India’s top environmental court, found that the data released by the Okhla plant “seems to not be representative of actual emissions.”
Two years after that, the tribunal ruled against the plant again for continuing to violate regulations, but allowed it to keep running.
Also in 2017, India’s Environment Ministry hired experts from the German government’s development agency, known as GIZ, to evaluate the plant.
In an internal report obtained by The Times, the German experts found that the plant was emitting toxic substances and not monitoring emissions properly, echoing the tribunal’s ruling.“The plant violated the permitted emission limit values during consideration most of the time,” the report said.
The hulking facility was originally built to churn out 16 megawatts of electricity but sought to expand. India’s Environment Ministry initially thwarted the request, citing concerns that the plant was not monitoring its emissions accurately; that it was too close to residential neighborhoods; and that residents had complained that it was releasing dangerous amounts of pollutants into the air.
Residents argue that, given the plant’s egregious safety record, it should be shut down. But to them, the government seems more concerned with the aesthetics of Delhi’s trash mountains — considered a national humiliation — than with the sicknesses ripping through their families.
Boils and cuts speckle the hands of Varna Sri Raman, possible signs of dioxin poisoning, according to experts consulted by The Times. An economist and writer of children’s books, Ms. Sri Raman said she can barely type on her computer to work on research papers or the children’s tales she loves writing.
Ms. Sri Raman and her husband had purchased their home in the neighborhood of Sukhdev Vihar, thinking that the bird sanctuary next door would provide some relief from Delhi’s infamous smog.“But now we have this toxic monster that is breathing this stuff out, choking us everyday,” Ms. Sri Raman said. Her garden rooftop overlooks the plant, about 100 yards away.
Her 11-year-old son has had severe, persistent bronchitis ever since he was 2, when they moved to the neighborhood, she said.“If you speak to my son, he’ll say he has had a bad cold since 2018,” she said, adding that nebulizers have become a crutch in their household, as they have for many neighbors.
The trash kept getting burned, even as violations piled up. In March 2020, regulators found the Okhla plant was releasing three times the permissible limits of dioxins and furans, another toxic substance.
Then in September 2020, regulators found that the problem had gotten worse: The plant was emitting 10 times the permissible limit of dioxins and furans.
Even so, the government has continued to bet on the Jindal empire, promising it some $12.5 million in government grants to build a second plant in the capital — and backing it with great political fanfare.
In the fall of 2022, as one of the family-controlled businesses inaugurated its second waste-to-energy plant in Delhi, an extremely powerful politician, Amit Shah, the home affairs minister and right-hand man of Prime Minister Modi, gave the opening speech, lauding the effort to get rid of Delhi’s trash mountains, a major voter concern.
The economic landscape for these waste-to-energy plants has also changed. A Jindal-controlled subsidiary sold more than $400,000 of carbon credits in 2022 from its waste-to-energy plants, according to the company’s financial statements, and it may cash in on more in the years to come.
Despite the carbon market’s collapse a decade ago, it is now booming once more, rising to $949 billion in 2023, up from $277 billion in 2020.
This September, the U.S. government issued its first-ever federal guidelines for investing in carbon credits, which is expected to boost the market. China opened up a carbon credit market earlier this year, and India is seeking to create its own.“Money is flowing through these markets, but it’s very difficult to measure how much of it really ends up financing climate action, or to make sure the green projects are really green,” said Gilles Dufrasne, a policy expert on global carbon markets at Carbon Market Watch, a watchdog.
Ms. Sri Raman believes the Okhla plant is slowly killing her family, but she feels trapped. The family invested its life savings in the house and would have to sell at a huge loss. The neighborhood is now infamous for two things: the Okhla plant and the sick people around it.
Last year, an explosion shook one of the plant’s boilers and ash rained down on her neighborhood for 24 hours, she and other residents said.
While protests were once common against the plant, the government has clamped down on all demonstrations in Delhi in recent years. The neighborhood is mixed, Muslim and Hindu, and the government’s Hindu-nationalist agenda has often pitted the religious groups against each other across India, making it harder to join together to stop the pollution, Ms. Sri Raman and other residents say.“The state that this country is in right now, it’s impossible to get Hindus to join with Muslims to fight,” Ms. Sri Raman said. “But Jindal’s pollution doesn’t affect me any different than a Muslim mother.”“We both need to protect our families, to live,” she said. Parts of Manipur state in northeast India shut down after 10 people killed by security forces (AP)
AP [11/12/2024 2:15 AM, Staff, 456K, Negative]
Ethnic organizations in parts of India’s violence-wracked northeastern state shut schools and businesses Tuesday, protesting the killings of 10 people by paramilitary soldiers.
They called for an 11-hour shutdown in the hill districts of Manipur from 5 a.m. Tuesday. Heavy gunfire was reported overnight in the periphery of the hills and the Imphal Valley.
Life was paralyzed in the area, with schools and businesses closed and people staying indoors. There were no vehicles on the road.
The Manipur state police said those killed Monday were “armed militants” and the soldiers fired at them after they attacked their post near the district town of Jiribam on Monday.
One soldier with a bullet injury was evacuated to a hospital for treatment, the police said in a statement.
However, the Tribal Leaders’ Forum said all those killed were local village volunteers belonging to the Hmar ethnic group who were patrolling the area to protect tribal villages following a recent armed attack that killed a woman.
A police statement said the paramilitary soldiers fiercely retaliated against the militants’ attack, and a heavy exchange of heavy gunfire lasted 45 minutes.“A search of the area resulted in the recovery of 10 bodies of armed militants as well as sophisticated automatic weapons,″ the statement said.
Manipur state has been bristling with ethnic violence since May last year between the majority Meiteis and the minority Kuki-Zo ethnic group. The Meiteis, who are predominantly Hindus, live in the capital Imphal region of the state and the nearby districts, while the Kuki-Zos live in the hilly areas.
Around 250 people have been killed and 60,000 displaced since the ethnic violence started last year.
The Meiteis demand that they be listed as a Scheduled Tribe, which would bring them more benefits, such as quotas in jobs and educational institutions. That categorization would also bar non-Meiteis from buying land in the Meiteis strongholds in the Imphal Valley.
The Kukis oppose this, saying benefits like reservation are given only to tribal groups because they are considered backward economically and in the field of education. The Kukis said the Meiteis are a developed community and, therefore, should not be listed as a Scheduled Tribe. Trial starts over rape, murder of junior doctor in India’s Kolkata (Reuters)
Reuters [11/11/2024 6:43 AM, Subrata Nag Choudhary, 60726K, Negative]
A court in the eastern state of West Bengal began the trial on Monday of a police volunteer accused of raping and murdering a doctor at a government hospital in August, a case that has sparked outrage over the lack of safety for women in India.The woman’s body was found in a classroom at the R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in the state capital Kolkata on Aug. 9, federal police said. They also said they had arrested a police volunteer, Sanjay Roy, for the crime.Charges were drawn up last week, while Roy said he was "completely innocent" and was being framed, local media reported.The legal case has reignited criticism of India’s poor record on women’s safety despite the introduction of tougher laws following the 2012 gang rape and murder of a woman on a moving bus in New Delhi.It also shines a light on the poor infrastructure and security at government hospitals in India, many of which lack basic facilities including CCTV cameras and security personnel.Around 128 witnesses will be examined during the trial, court sources told Reuters, with hearings taking place on a daily basis as authorities look to fast-track the high-profile case. They will not be open to the public.One source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the father of the woman doctor, the alleged victim, gave evidence on Monday.In addition to the defendant Roy, India’s federal police said they arrested the officer in charge of the local police station and the superintendent of the hospital for allegedly tampering with evidence and financial irregularities.West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee met protesters last month and accepted most of their demands, doctors seeking reforms said, but they added they would track progress on her assurances and maintain pressure for change. Peru sees free trade pact with India in 2025, trade minister says (Reuters)
Reuters [11/9/2024 9:39 AM, Marco Aquino, 88008K, Positive]
Peru aims to finalize negotiations for a free trade agreement with India in 2025 and is advancing talks to have a similar trade pact with Indonesia in the future, said Peruvian Minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism Ursula Leon.
A new pact with India would enable the South American country to have free trade with the world’s top two most populous nations, as Peru has had free trade with China since 2009.
Leon said negotiations with India had stretched to eight rounds and had to be paused previously during the country’s elections earlier in 2024.
"We hope to advance the negotiations now that we have resumed and that next year in 2025, we can have a free trade agreement with India," Leon said at an interview at her office on Friday.
Trade between Peru and India has increased in recent years on gold sales from the Andean country. Peruvian exports to India were worth about $3.5 billion between January and September of this year, an increase of 77% from the same period a year earlier, according to Peruvian government data.
Peru, the world’s third largest copper producer, is also negotiating a free trade agreement with Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world with a population of more than 280 million people.
Leon said Peru hopes to push forward negotiations with Indonesia during next week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) to be held in Lima.
"I think we can show, facing APEC, a substantial advance in this free trade agreement with Indonesia," Leon said.
Peru will also sign an updated free trade agreement with China, Peru’s foreign minister said on Friday.
Peru wants to forge with Brazil an agreement to strengthen economic ties, which has been pending anti-corruption protocol since 2016, and eventually have a free trade pact, Leon said.
"After everything that has happened in recent years with some Brazilian companies, it is very important to have the anti-corruption clause within the text of the agreement," Leon said. The Savior of ‘Satanic Verses’ in India: Bureaucratic Ineptitude (New York Times)
New York Times [11/8/2024 4:14 PM, Victoria Kim and Pragati K.B., 831K, Neutral]
Before the Iranian fatwa condemning the writer to death, before all the protests and burnings of his book and before the stabbing death of his translator, there was India’s customs notification No. 405/12/88-CUS-III.
India, the writer Salman Rushdie’s home country, became the first place to impose restrictions on his novel “The Satanic Verses” in 1988, just nine days after its initial publication in Britain, because of concerns that some orthodox Muslims would find parts of the book blasphemous. The Indian government issued a bureaucratic order through the Ministry of Finance, Department of Revenue, banning imports of the book.“Many people around the world will find it strange that it is the finance ministry that gets to decide what Indian readers may or may not read,” Mr. Rushdie wrote at the time.
This week, the 36-year ban came to an unceremonious end for a fittingly pedantic reason: The original order, from Oct. 5, 1988, is nowhere to be found.
Delhi’s high court ruled that it had no choice but to vacate the ban and allow imports of the book, given that the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs could not produce a copy of the order.“What emerges is that none of the respondents could produce the said notification dated 05.10.1988 with which the petitioner is purportedly aggrieved,” the court wrote in its decision, dated Tuesday. “We have no other option except to presume that no such notification exists, and therefore, we cannot examine the validity thereof.”
The petitioner, Sandipan Khan, a 50-year-old living in Delhi and Kolkata, said he became curious about the novel in 2017 and went to bookstores in search of it. He was told that there was some kind of ban and that it wasn’t available in the country.“When something is banned, it piques your interest,” he said in an interview. “Why was a book by an eminent writer, a Booker Prize winner, banned?”
Wanting to find out why the book was banned, Mr. Khan filed a public information request with one ministry, only to have his request sent to another, then another, before he ultimately was told that the order wasn’t available. When he mentioned the ordeal to a friend who happened to be an attorney, the friend suggested they file a petition challenging the constitutionality of the ban, Mr. Khan said.
After the initial petition was filed in 2019, the bureaucratic labyrinth continued — the case kept dragging on as customs officials searched for the document, said the attorney, Uddyam Mukherjee.
In the end, the officials came up short, and the court never got to weighing the question of whether a ban would be a violation of India’s Constitution, Mr. Mukherjee said.“We can’t call it a freedom of expression judgment,” he said. “The judgment stemmed from the bureaucracy’s inefficiency in producing the document.”
It’s not clear if the lifting of the customs ban means the book will be available on shelves in India any time soon. New bureaucratic restrictions could be imposed, and book reviewers said getting shipments of books in India can be an onerous process with many pitfalls.
The book has also been available to readers in India through a variety of websites — but downloading it would have technically violated the ban. Mr. Khan said he didn’t want to break the law to surreptitiously read the book.
There has never been a legal ban against the book being published in India, as there had been in other countries, including Bangladesh, Sudan and Sri Lanka. Penguin India, the local arm of the book’s British publisher, decided at the time not to locally publish the book, which fictionalizes parts of the life of the Prophet Muhammad, after a literary adviser raised concerns that it could be taken as offensive.The ban touched off heated debates in India at the time about whether politicians were pandering to Muslim voters, and about the freedom of expression. The book’s publication in the United States in early 1989 led to far more violent protests across the world. Several people were killed in riots in Mumbai and other parts of India.
Mr. Rushdie has denied the book was about the Prophet Muhammad or about Islam, writing that it was rather “about migration, metamorphosis, divided selves, love, death, London and Bombay.” In a letter published in The New York Times in 1988 addressed to then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, he bemoaned his book “being used as a political football” and argued that the ban was anti-democratic and an embarrassment for India’s democracy.
Representatives of Mr. Rushdie did not immediately respond to requests for comment. After the publication of his memoir recounting the 2022 knife attack that left him blind in one eye and nearly killed him, Mr. Rushdie said he never saw himself as a symbol. “I’m just me. I’m just somebody who’s trying to be a writer, trying to do his best. And that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be,” he said.
As for Mr. Khan, he said he is in no hurry seven years after first taking an interest the book. He has yet to place an order.“I will consult with my lawyer first,” he said. “Plus, it is open to anyone else in the country now to place the order.” NSB
Bangladesh asks Interpol for help in arresting ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina (AP)
AP [11/12/2024 4:05 AM, Julhas Alam, 456K, Negative]
A special tribunal in Bangladesh on Tuesday asked the international police organization Interpol to issue a red notice for the arrest of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in connection with the deaths of hundreds of protesters during a mass uprising against her.Hasina fled to India on Aug. 5 with her close aides and former ministers, ending a 15-year rule.Nobel Peace laurate Muhammad Yunus took over as the interim leader of the South Asian nation on Aug. 8, and later reconstituted the tribunal that once handled charges of crimes against humanity during the country’s 1971 independence war against Pakistan.B.M. Sultan Mahmud, a prosecutor at the tribunal, told The Associated Press that they wrote to Interpol through the police chief seeking assistance from the France-based organization in the arrest of Hasina and others.The Yunus-led government has promised to try Hasina and said that it would seek her extradition from India. Rivals of ousted Bangladesh leader Sheikh Hasina foil her party’s attempt to hold a rally (AP)
AP [11/10/2024 11:21 PM, Julhas Alam, 31638K, Neutral]
Rivals of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday thwarted a plan by her Awami League party to hold a rally in Bangladesh’s capital, seen as a potential first effort to make a comeback on the streets since she fled the country in August amid a mass uprising.
The rally in Dhaka by Hasina’s party was to commemorate the death of a party activist on Nov. 10, 1987, which had sparked a mass protest against former military dictator H.M. Ershad. He was eventually ousted from office, ending his nine-year rule in 1990.
The day is commemorated as "democracy day." In 1991, Bangladesh switched to a parliamentary democracy from a presidential form of government, and since then Hasina and her rival, former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, became the most powerful political figures in the country.
On Sunday, activists of the party headed by Zia, Hasina’s main rival, and also members of the conservative Jamaat-e-Islami party took to the streets of Dhaka, filling up much of the area where the rally was scheduled to take place.
Others, including hundreds of student protesters, also announced that they wouldn’t allow Hasina’s supporters to stand on the streets and hold the rally. The protesters said that they think Hasina’s party was trying to make a comeback by holding a rally on the streets on Sunday. The protesters from the Anti-discrimination Student Movement, a group that led the mass uprising in July-August, aggressively hunted for supporters of Hasina.
Groups of people surrounded the Awami League party’s headquarters near the Noor Hossain Square in Dhaka where Hasina’s supporters were supposed to gather to hold the rally.
Security was tight in the area, but witnesses and local media said that the protesters attacked several supporters of Hasina when they attempted to reach there and chanted slogans in favor of the fallen leader.
The Awami League party said that many of their activists were detained by police as they came under attacks.
Tensions ran high throughout Sunday with the anti-Hasina protesters saying that they wouldn’t allow the party to hold any public rally under any circumstances. The Awami League party questioned the notion, saying it is against the spirit of democracy and the constitutional right to assembly.
The Awami League party posted a number of videos on Facebook on Sunday showing its supporters being manhandled. Its party headquarters had earlier been vandalized following Hasina’s fall on Aug. 5, and on Sunday it was empty and there were signs of destruction. Outside, control was in the hands of Hasina’s opponents.
The political chaos in the South Asian nation went on as Zia’s party was seeking quick reforms and a new election from an interim government headed by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus. The party believes it will be able to form the new government in the absence of Hasina’s party, while its other allies are also struggling.
As the interim government ends its three months in office, people remain concerned over high commodity prices, law and order, mob justice and the rise of Islamist forces once suppressed by Hasina’s regime. The international community also remains wary about alleged attacks on minority groups, especially Hindus that make up about 8% of the country’s 170 million people.
The Yunus-led government said it would seek extradition of Hasina and her close associates as they face charges of crimes against humanity involving deaths of hundreds of protesters during the uprising.
On Sunday, Bangladesh’s Law Adviser Asif Nazrul said the interim government would ask Interpol to issue red notices seeking the arrest and repatriation of fugitives allegedly responsible for the deaths of people during the mass uprising.
"We will … prioritize bringing them back from wherever they are hiding," he told reporters in Dhaka. Bangladesh Faces Reduced Power Supplies Even After Adani Payment (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [11/9/2024 4:05 AM, Arun Devnath and Sanjai P R, 27782K, Neutral]
Bangladesh faces a continuing shortage of electricity, increasing the risk of blackouts, even after making a partial payment to a power plant in India that slashed supply because of unpaid bills.Adani Power Ltd. has received a letter of credit for $170 million, easing pressure from lenders, two officials said, declining to be identified as internal discussions continue. The partial payment doesn’t resolve the crisis, but the company won’t halt supplies for now, pending talks with the lenders of the Godda thermal plant in Jharkhand, the officials said.“Payments should have been made by this time,” Ahsan H Mansur, governor of Bangladesh Bank said in a phone interview on Friday. The central bank “issued an instruction for the payment” earlier this week, Mansur said.Electricity supplies from the plant, which had accounted for about 10% of Bangladesh’s total, were reduced to about 500 megawatts on Thursday, after being halved to about 700 megawatts earlier, according to Power Grid Bangladesh data. Adani Power, controlled by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, cut supplies after overdue payments crossed $850 million.Outages could fan discontent as the nation grapples with a financial crisis after weeks of violent protests overthrew Sheikh Hasina’s government earlier this year. It also adds to headwinds faced by the interim government, led by Muhammad Yunus, that’s already tackling billions of dollars in arrears. Mostofa Sarwar Farooki Takes Charge at Bangladesh’s Ministry of Cultural Affairs (Variety)
Variety [11/11/2024 12:52 AM, Naman Ramachandran, 60726K, Positive]
Celebrated Bangladeshi filmmaker Mostofa Sarwar Farooki has been put in charge of his country’s Ministry of Cultural Affairs.In August, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus was appointed to lead Bangladesh’s interim government following Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s flight from the country amid mass protests. As it is an interim government, Yunus serves as Chief Advisor, rather than as Prime Minister. Farooki, though effectively the Culture Minister, has the formal title of Cultural Advisor.Yunus expanded his cabinet on Sunday. Farooki was among those who were sworn in on Sunday evening. He is Bangladesh’s best-known filmmaker internationally. His films have represented Bangladesh at the Oscars three times. “I was initially hesitating to say yes to this. However since Bangladesh is going through a rebuilding process, one part of my heart was saying ‘Let’s try and see if some changes can be made.’ I was also tempted by the possibility of working with Nobel laureate Professor Yunus who is heading our government right now. So finally I agreed,” Farooki told Variety.Another factor in Farooki accepting the role was the experience of South Korean auteur Lee Chang-dong, who served as the country’s Minister of Culture and Tourism from 2003-2004.“Also I took courage from another favorite filmmaker Lee Chang-dong who was a minister too,” Farooki said. “I thought ‘Okay, if he could come back and continue his independent thinking, I can survive too maybe.’ However, to make it clear, in our government system, the Culture Minister can do very little in the film sector. However I will try and see if we still can leave an impact through our multi-disciplinary Shilpokola Academy which is under my ministry.”The unrest in Bangladesh began in July and centered on demands to end a quota system reserving up to 30% of government jobs for relatives of 1971 independence war veterans. Protesters argued the system is discriminatory and instead seek a merit-based alternative. In response, the then government shut down the internet and deployed armed forces who opened fire on the protestors, killing scores.The protests then evolved into a broader anti-government movement with demonstrators calling for an end to Hasina’s 15-year rule., leading her to eventually flee the country.“The July revolution presented us an opportunity to rebuild. If we can do it properly, it will be the most appropriate tribute to thousands of people who lost their lives, many more thousands who lost their eyes or limbs forever,” Farooki said.Farooki had previously described the events to Variety as “amazing” and Monday as the “second independence for Bangladeshi people.” The country had gained independence from Pakistan in 1971. “The most beautiful part of this movement is that people from all walks of life participated, led by Gen Z youth,” Farooki had said. “English medium, Bangla medium, Arabic medium, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, all participated in the movement.”
“It’s an unbelievable feeling,” Farooki had added. “People are enjoying. I hope we move towards a beautiful, democratic society where there is freedom of expression, fair justice for all and no corruption. And where there will be artistic freedom and people can make whatever films they want without barriers and not have to worry from the script stage, ‘Can I show this?’”Farooki now has the opportunity to make a difference in the sector. Buddhist Bhutan to build ‘mindfulness city’ to woo investment, create jobs (Reuters)
Reuters [11/11/2024 5:53 AM, Gopal Sharma and YP Rajesh, 2376K, Positive]
Bhutan, the Himalayan kingdom that brought the world the concept of gross national happiness, is set to build a "mindfulness city" and began raising funds on Monday to help start the ambitious project.The "Gelephu Mindfulness City" (GMC) will lie in a special administrative region with separate rules and laws that will aim to be an economic corridor linking South Asia to Southeast Asia, officials said.The city will promote walking and cycling to reduce emissions, green spaces for meditation and relaxation, mindfulness-based education, public community activities, healthcare and wellness centres, and eco-tourism.GMC will be spread over an area of more than 2,500 sq km (965 sq miles) on the border with giant neighbour India and offer space to businesses in finance, tourism, green energy, technology, healthcare, agriculture, aviation, logistics, education and spirituality.A Bhutanese sovereign development body announced on Monday the launch of a fixed-term deposit programme to raise funds from non-resident Bhutanese to help build an international airport and other foundational infrastructure in GMC."This is more than a financial opportunity; it is a call to contribute to and actively shape our shared vision for a thriving, mindful, and resilient Bhutan," Ujjwal Dahal, CEO of sovereign body Gelephu Investment and Development Corporation, said in a statement.The GMC website last week said it was launching a 10-year "Nation Building Bond" to raise $100 million. But GMC officials told Reuters on Monday that there was no bond issuance to private individuals nor was there a set fund-raising target for the entire exercise, without elaborating.GMC’s goal is to attract investment, develop skills and create jobs in the Buddhist-majority country known for its Gross National Happiness (GNH) index - an economic gauge that counts factors ignored by gross domestic product measures, such as recreation, emotional well-being and the environment.A country of less than 800,000 people wedged between Asian giants India and China, Bhutan has been struggling to boost its $3 billion economy which is heavily reliant on aid, hydropower and tourism, and was badly hit by COVID-19 restrictions.Employment woes, with youth unemployment touching nearly 30% in 2022, triggered an exodus of young people seeking opportunities abroad, with thousands moving to Australia alone.DECADES LONG PROJECTGMC will be built in phases and is expected to be completed in 21 years, officials said, with private partners investing in roads, bridges, an airport, houses, schools, hospitals and businesses.Authorities expect about 150,000 people to live there in the first 7-10 years and more than one million when it is complete.The brainchild of King Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck, GMC was proposed last year as a city that would encompass "conscious and sustainable businesses, inspired by Buddhist spiritual heritage" and anchored on the values of GNH."Mindfulness is at the core of our values-based city and aligns with the ethos and identity of our nation," said Rabsel Dorji, a senior GMC official.The GMC website says the project is based on Bhutan’s Buddhist heritage and culture, its stress on happiness, well-being and mindfulness. It also incorporates eco-friendly architecture in what is the world’s first carbon-negative country - one that absorbs more carbon than it produces.India, Bhutan’s biggest economic and trade partner as well as donor, is supportive of the project and would extend its roads and railway network to the border to connect GMC, officials said.GMC is a "smart move" but connectivity could pose a serious challenge to landlocked Bhutan, said Surya Raj Acharya, an infrastructure and urban planning expert in neighbouring Nepal."Developing the city as a competitive production hub also depends on connectivity to global logistics," Acharya said, adding that access to ports will depend on Indian infrastructure."It should also be attractive to international investors. These are factors not under Bhutan’s control," he said. Nepali PM to Travel to China on First Bilateral Visit (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [11/11/2024 2:36 AM, Sudha Ramachandran, 1198K, Neutral]
Nepali Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli is scheduled to visit China on December 2-6.New Delhi has traditionally been the first port of call for newly sworn-in Nepali prime ministers. However, with the invitation from India not materializing in the four months since Oli became prime minister, and with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi accepting Oli’s invitation to visit Nepal but not showing up in Kathmandu yet, the Nepali prime minister decided to accept China’s invitation. He will head to Beijing first.Oli is chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) and is widely perceived, in New Delhi, Beijing, and Kathmandu to be “pro-China.” His China visit will add to that perception.His visit will focus “on implementing the agreements reached during the state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Nepal, as well the deals signed during the China visit of Nepali presidents and prime ministers,” Pradeep Gyawali, deputy secretary general of the UML, said last week. Nepal and China have signed scores of agreements in recent years, though few of these have been implemented.Another item on Oli’s agenda in Beijing is the loan taken for the construction of Pokhara International Airport. Nepal borrowed $216 million from China’s Exim Bank for the project, but the airport has failed to generate much revenue. With repayment of the loan scheduled to start in 2026, the Oli government is keen to get China to convert the loan into a grant.Then there is the question of implementation of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects. As one Nepali government official told The Diplomat, “Not a single BRI project has been executed in the seven years since Nepal joined BRI.”There are several reasons for the lack of progress in BRI projects. One is Nepali apprehension over “overborrowing from China and getting caught in a debt trap,” the official said. The economic crisis in Sri Lanka, which was in part the outcome of large Chinese loans incurred on BRI projects that turned out to be “white elephants,” has served as a cautionary tale for Nepal. “Pressure from India,” which apprehends China’s mounting influence in Nepal via BRI projects has also prompted “Nepali politicians and officials to go slow on finalizing and implementing BRI projects,” the Nepali official said.Oli is a strong champion of China and BRI. In 2018, he proposed 35 projects to the Chinese to be executed under BRI, which the Chinese subsequently slashed to nine. BRI is a deeply contentious subject in Nepal; unlike the communist parties, the Nepali Congress (NC) is “not too keen on BRI partly because it involves high-interest Chinese loans. The NC prefers grants and concessionary loans to finance BRI projects,” the Nepali official said. Importantly, the NC is close to India and therefore “more amenable to India’s demands to ease off on cooperation with China.”The NC is now the CPN-UML’s coalition partner. Building a consensus position on BRI projects ahead of Oli’s visit is therefore essential as Nepal and China are keen to sign an implementation plan.China had proposed an implementation plan in early 2020. However, differences over how to take BRI forward have kept the plan hanging, a former Nepali diplomat told The Diplomat. The Oli government has now formed a joint political mechanism to build consensus on the BRI implementation plan. The fact that the NC’s Arzu Rana Deuba is foreign minister will facilitate the consensus building at home, she added.India will be closely monitoring Oli’s visit to China.Oli’s previous prime ministerial terms saw a marked warming in Nepal’s relations with China, which resulted in a decline in the landlocked Himalayan country’s dependence on India. Nepal’s first-ever fuel supply agreement with China, which broke India’s monopoly over fuel trade with Nepal, was signed in October 2015 during Oli’s first term. Months later, in March 2016, a Transit and Transportation agreement was signed, which included a connectivity plan for a high-speed railway from Kathmandu to the Chinese border. In August 2019, Oli signed a protocol on implementing the Trade and Transit Agreement, which provided Nepal with access to seven Chinese sea and land ports for third-country trade.Not surprisingly, Oli’s prime ministerial terms have seen a fraying of India-Nepal ties. India’s months-long blockade of Nepal in 2015-2016 dominated Oli’s first term.The Indian establishment is “deeply suspicious of Oli’s intentions and this is not without reason,” an official in India’s Ministry of External Affairs said, pointing to his stoking of “anti-India sentiment to burnish his Nepali nationalist credentials to cover up his own lapses in governance.” Oli has repeatedly provoked India by raking up controversial issues.In 2020, for example, the Oli government amended the Constitution to change Nepal’s official map to include Limpiyadhura, Kalapani, and Lipulekh – disputed territories at the India-Nepal-China trijunction that have been under Indian control for decades – as part of Nepali territory.In addition to accusing India of conspiring to topple his government, he has stoked anti-India violence in Nepal.Oli has persisted with fueling contentious issues with India in his current term as well.Although it was under his predecessor Pushpa Kamal Dahal that the Nepali government decided to use an image of the controversial 2020 Nepali map on its redesigned 100 rupee note, the Oli government could have put the decision on the back burner. Instead, it has fueled Delhi’s ire early in his fourth term by awarding the contract for printing this currency note to the Chinese.Indian traders, who have hitherto accepted Nepali currency in their daily business with Nepali nationals, have warned that they will not accept the new controversial currency notes. This is likely to impact border trade.Oli’s repeated riling of India, especially with regard to Limpiyadhura, Kalapani, and Lipulekh, is bound to have pleased the Chinese as it not only adds to India’s border woes but also, importantly for China, these territories lie at the India-Nepal-China trijunction.India believes that Oli has repeatedly raised the border issue at China’s prodding. Back in June 2020, when Nepal objected to India building a road to Lipulekh Pass, India’s then Army Chief Gen. M M Navarane said “There is reason to believe that they (Nepal) might have raised this issue at the behest of someone else.” He was hinting at a possible Chinese role.Oli has been careful to not raise the issue of Chinese encroachments into Nepali territory. In 2020, the Oli government dismissed allegations of Chinese encroachment in Nepal’s Humla district, claiming that the buildings were on China’s side of the border.Oli’s India baiting on the territorial dispute may endear him to the Chinese. It may result in him sealing more deals with Beijing during his upcoming visit.However, as Sanjeev Satgainya points out in an opinion piece in Kathmandu Post, “While Nepal could benefit from its northern neighbor’s economic and technological might, it is not in a position to ignore its southern neighbor, with whom it not only shares historical, cultural, and people-to-people ties but also carries out a majority of its trade.”The fate of the China-built Pokhara Airport is instructive. New Delhi’s refusal to allow Indian flights to land at Pokhara is the main reason underlying the airport’s failure to generate profits.Leaning on China while ignoring India’s security concerns is not in Nepal’s best interests. Sri Lankans to vote for change in parliament poll, discarding decades of dynastic politics (Reuters)
Reuters [11/12/2024 12:54 AM, Uditha Jayasinghe, 5.2M, Neutral]
Sri Lanka votes to elect a new parliament this week in a snap general election called by its Marxist-leaning president who wants a fresh mandate in the legislature to drive economic reforms in the debt-ridden island nation.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake was elected president of the South Asian country in September but his National People’s Power (NPP) coalition had just three of 225 seats in parliament, prompting him to dissolve the legislature and seek a fresh mandate there for his policies.
Dissanayake, an outsider of the family parties that have dominated Sri Lankan politics for decades, swept to power promising change as the country emerges from a crushing financial crisis. Millions of voters put faith in his graft-fighting pledge and vows to bolster a fragile economic recovery.
"In past elections, people did not have confidence in us but in September people gave us victory and proved that we are a winning party and we can form a government," Dissanayake said during a campaign rally on Sunday.
"The next task is to unite people from the four corners of this country and build a powerful people’s movement."
Sri Lankans were hit hard by the 2022 economic crisis, which was triggered by a severe shortfall of foreign currency that added to problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Buttressed by a $2.9 billion bailout programme from the International Monetary Fund, the economy has posted a tentative recovery, but the high cost of living is still a critical issue for many voters.
Dissanayake aims to change the revenue goals set under the IMF programme to reduce high income taxes and free up funds to invest in welfare for millions of Sri Lankans hardest hit by its financial crisis.
Investors worry that Dissanayake’s desire to revisit the terms of the country’s IMF bailout could delay future disbursements, and make it harder for Sri Lanka to hit a crucial primary surplus target of 2.3% of GDP in 2025 set under the programme.
Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa’s party, Samagi Jana Balawegaya, is expected to be NPP’s main challenger alongside the New Democratic Front - a breakaway group from the party of the Rajapaksa family and backed by former president Ranil Wickremesinghe.
BACKING FOR DISSANAYAKE
Voters who backed Dissanayake in September are expected to stick by him in the general election as well.
In Hambantota - a southern district of about 680,000 people largely from the farming and fishing communities - Sudath Kumara and his wife, Nilmini Kumari, voted for Dissanayake in September’s presidential election. They plan to do the same on Thursday by backing his coalition NPP.
Expenses are currently five times the 3,000 rupees ($10) her husband earns in a month by doing odd jobs, said Kumari, standing in their one-room house built of cement bricks.
"We grow as much food as we can, but we still have to pay for fuel, water, transport and tuition for three children," Kumari said. "There is no electricity. Kids try to finish their homework during daylight hours, or they study by lamplight."
NPP candidate Athula Welandagoda, 51, is confident he will win one of the seven seats up for grabs from Hambantota with the backing of voters such as Kumara and his wife.
"There has been a deep evolution in Sri Lanka where people have moved away from standard parties and want to see genuine change," Welandagoda said.
The Rajapaksa family, who hail from Hambantota and whose cohort of brothers gave Sri Lanka two former presidents during a dozen years in power, saw their political fortunes wane after the financial crisis sparked a massive public uprising that ousted former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2022.
For the first time in 88 years, a member of the Rajapaksa family is not contesting an election although Namal Rajapaksa, son of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, is leading the campaign for their Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna party.
Namal received only 2.57% of votes polled in the presidential election.
"We will do better in this election. I am confident we can rebuild this party with a new political generation... and the SLPP will transform into a major political force in the near future," Namal said at a meeting last week. Sri Lanka’s leftist president faces first parliament test (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [11/11/2024 10:29 PM, Amal Jayasinghe, 88008K, Neutral]
Sri Lanka’s new leftist leader has drawn strong support from an unlikely source as he seeks to expand his three parliamentary seats to a house majority in elections on Thursday.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, 55, who counts Karl Marx and Che Guevara among his heroes, has the backing of the country’s largest and most influential private sector trade and industry body.
Dissanayake took power in September on the back of public anger over the island’s 2022 economic meltdown -- and the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC) has said its proposals for economic recovery match the socialist agenda of his People’s Liberation Front (JVP).
Business leaders have speculated the country could follow the economic models of China or Vietnam under Dissanayake, whose party sports the hammer and sickle motif of the international communist movement in its logo.
"In the first term (of Dissanayake), I would say that they will be far better than Vietnam in terms of having a full democratic setup", said Imran Furkan, from the Australia-based geopolitical risk analysis firm Tresync.
"Democracy is deeply rooted in Sri Lanka, unlike in Vietnam, which has been communist for a long time".
Furkan said he expected Dissanayake’s party to comfortably win Thursday’s parliamentary elections and then pursue reforms, including unpopular austerity measures begun by his right-wing predecessor Ranil Wickremesinghe in line with a $2.9 billion IMF bailout.
The JVP, which led armed insurrections in 1971 and 1987 that left some 80,000 people dead, has since joined mainstream politics, in a coalition with professional groups calling themselves the National People’s Power (NPP).
Dissanayake, by allowing the debt deal agreed by Wickremesinghe to move forward, has won the confidence of both local and foreign investors that he will not reverse the reforms, Furkan said.
Since Dissanayake’s victory, the All Share Price Index at the Colombo Stock Exchange has gained 16.65 percent, underscoring positive investor sentiment.
He has also maintained close ties with giant neighbour India and the country’s largest bilateral lender, China.
The two compete for influence in the small but strategically located Indian Ocean island, a majority-Buddhist nation of about 22 million people.
Voting opens Thursday at 7:00 am (0130 GMT) for 8,880 candidates contesting 225 seats in parliament, with initial results expected as early as Friday morning.
But election monitors say there is little enthusiasm among voters.
Private monitoring group the People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) said voter turnout could be lower than the 80 percent seen in the presidential poll.
PAFFREL head Rohana Hettiarachchie said the results were seen as a foregone conclusion given how few opposition party candidates were active.
Dissanayake’s party had only three seats in the outgoing legislature but faces little challenge this time.
"Campaigning from the opposition side is very, very low," he said, while noting that campaigns, unlike in the past, had at least been peaceful.
CCC chief Duminda Hulangamuwa is not only backing the new administration’s plans but has also accepted an honorary position as Dissanayake’s economic adviser.
Hulangamuwa told reporters last week that Dissanayake wanted to push ahead with the IMF bailout, which requires reforms to loss-making state-owned enterprises as well as the elimination of subsidies and tax holidays.
Dissanayake’s policy is to implement reforms and then bring about macro stability, Hulangamuwa said, adding the president wanted "growth in a more inclusive manner.".
Ex-president Wickremesinghe was voted out of office after doubling income taxes and imposing other reviled austerity measures.
His policies ended the shortages of essentials such as food, fuel and medicines, along with runaway inflation, and returned the country to growth, but left millions struggling to make ends meet.
The IMF has stated that Wickremesinghe’s administration made significant progress in repairing the nation’s ruined finances after a $46 billion foreign debt default in 2022.
The IMF is due to send another mission to Colombo on the day of the polls to review progress, after declaring that Sri Lanka was "not out of the woods yet".
Hotel sector executive Anura Lokuhetty said a stable government was needed.
"Now that we have a president from the NPP, the parliament should support the system to carry on a good environment for business," Lokuhetty told AFP.
Lawyer Shanthini Walgama said Dissanayake’s coalition offered the best promise of tackling endemic corruption.
"In this election, it is all about progress over stagnation, unity over division, honesty over corruption," she told AFP. Central Asia
C5+Trump: Getting the US Down to Business in Central Asia (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [11/12/2024 2:15 AM, Eric Rudenshiold, 1.2M, Neutral]
The five Central Asian countries will not be at the top of President-elect Donald Trump’s new foreign policy agenda, but they won’t be at the bottom either. The first Trump administration was well aware of the region and saw significant promise for U.S. engagement with Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Hosting the presidents of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for rare official visits to the White House, the former Trump administration also adopted the 2019-2025 U.S. National Security Strategy for Central Asia – a whole-of-government strategy that has resulted in the region becoming a regular component of U.S. policy, no longer an afterthought. (While a State Department summary is available, the strategy itself remains classified). The Trump-era strategy was adopted unchanged by the Biden administration and remains in effect today and ready to be updated.Will the approach of the incoming Trump administration toward Central Asia differ much from that of the previous Trump administration? Not likely.
Significant changes have taken place over the last four years in the region since Trump was last in office, but the region’s transformation could work well with Trump’s espoused interests and the likely transactional style of a new Trump foreign policy. Many of the tools and approaches used in the first Trump administration could be reprised to yield significant benefits and a deeper U.S. and Central Asian partnership. The Central Asian states have emerged as a region interested in pursuing efforts to secure their economic sovereignty from neighboring Russia and China. As a result, new opportunities for the United States, particularly in expanding the U.S. business sector in Central Asia, may prove irresistible to the new leadership and its businessman boss.
Understanding the Trump administration’s engagements with Central Asia may be a key to what a new approach might include, particularly as the region has grown increasingly more connected to Europe and less dependent on Russia and China than when Trump was last in office. This new connectivity fits well into the former- and future-president’s actions and efforts in the region, foreshadowing potential early moves with the region once he is re-sworn into office. Energy and strategic minerals are two off-the-shelf standouts for likely attention by Trump’s new Washington team.
A Region of Power
Central Asia’s gas and oil wealth is expected to be a key area of attention for the new Trump administration. A key energy supplier with large reserves, the region is actively working to provide Europe with greater energy independence from Russian supplies. In the 1990s, U.S. companies were among the first to develop and modernize the Central Asian gas and oil industry, remaining today among its largest investors and those most keen to increase their investments. U.S. energy prices were articulated during the campaign as a serious concern to the new administration and are directly linked to Central Asia’s oil market.
The difficult relations between Moscow and Astana and the other Central Asian capitals need to be of interest to the incoming team in Washington. The Central Asian countries feel under pressure from Moscow and are pursuing different courses of action than four years ago. For instance, despite Moscow’s geographic control of most of Central Asia’s energy export infrastructure, Kazakhstan is working to move away from its current pipeline vulnerability. Kazakhstan pumps 80 percent of its oil exports through one Russian terminal. Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev refused in 2022 to support Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, triggering Moscow’s imposition of retaliatory pipeline closures as a direct threat to Astana’s revenue stream. The suspension generated substantial oil price spikes in the tight global oil market and within hours prices at U.S. gasoline pumps rose over a dollar a gallon. Kazakhstan immediately began to pursue alternatives and has not looked back.
The resulting increased cooperation between Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan to move oil and other goods by sea, along with rumors of their interests in developing a trans-Caspian oil pipeline, are a direct consequence of Russia’s actions. The emergence of the Middle Corridor trade route through the region and across the Caspian Sea is also an outgrowth of increased regional cooperation that seeks alternatives to engagement with Russia.These developments since the last Trump administration create an opportunity for the incoming administration to help the region secure its economic self-reliance and reduce its dependence on Russia and China by building markets to the West.
A first step for Washington might be to pick up where it left off in 2021, when the Trump administration expressed support for the development of a trans-Caspian gas pipeline connecting Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan, in a strategy that would support both greater energy independence from Russia for Europe as well as greater market resilience and diversity for Central Asia. While this effort was heralded in a 2019 holiday letter to then-Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, Ashgabat did not act on the U.S. outreach. Trump reiterated the hope that Turkmen gas could soon be shipped to Europe in a subsequent effort in 2020.
Coming on the heels of the adoption of a long-term, pro-engagement, U.S. National Security Strategy for Central Asia, these pipeline messages suggested Trump’s interest in defining U.S. national interests in the region through a business-oriented approach that would use energy as a major entry point. The opportunity to engage on a trans-Caspian pipeline continues to exist, as gas is regarded as a necessary transition fuel for many European capitals to achieve climate energy objectives. Increased gas sales to Europe would transform Central Asian economies, as happened in the 2000s in the Caucasus when U.S. efforts were instrumental in creating a pipeline for the region’s gas to reach European markets.
To facilitate just this type of major investment lift, the first Trump administration’s Development Finance Corporation (DFC) opened in 2020 and was utilized in Central Asia to leverage U.S. political and financial support for strategic projects. The new administration will likely seek to extend its foreign policy reach by re-energizing DFC’s work as a tool for blending private equity and investment funding to augment U.S. financing of key projects. One immediate step could be through revisiting the DFC Memoranda of Understanding with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan signed at the end of the Trump administration for $1 billion which were not implemented by the Biden administration.
A trans-border pipeline project would achieve Trump’s long-term objectives of driving down high prices across tight global energy markets, supporting the U.S. gas and oil industry (already operating in the Caspian region), and using U.S. infrastructure investment to deepen cooperation, collaboration, and stability in Central Asia. The five-year DFC agreements were the largest United States government-led initiatives in the region at the time and specifically targeted to support energy connectivity and private-sector development. Welcomed then by the region, the DFC memoranda are still on the table.
Rock Solid Opportunities
Another potential Central Asia policy kickstarter for the new administration is strategic mineral development. The first Trump administration was highly interested in developing and securing stockpiles of strategic and rare earth minerals, declaring the lack of domestic capabilities and reliance on China as a national security threat. To compete with and decouple from China, the administration then even proposed purchasing Greenland as a source of rare elements critically needed for the U.S. economy.
China’s growing monopolization of strategic mineral sources and processing, along with its potential to weaponize its advantage in this field, will undoubtedly be a serious concern for the new administration. Vital to defense and semiconductor industries, as well as the traditional and renewable energy sectors, the abundance of critical minerals in Central Asia remain largely undeveloped. The region’s leaders seek investment and capacity-building to further a more independent course of economic development that is not controlled by Beijing or Moscow. The region contains massive rare earth and other mineral deposits, including 38.6 percent of global manganese ore reserves, 30.07 percent of chromium, 20 percent of lead, 12.6 percent of zinc, 8.7 percent of titanium, and significant reserves of other materials. The United States Geological Survey has been active in the region, documenting significant “occurrences” of these elements in all Central Asian countries.
U.S. businesses are already active in Central Asia’s mining sector, consumers of the region’s critical titanium and uranium deposits, but greater inroads are possible as the U.S. has already initiated a process to develop a partnership in this sector during the Biden administration. The rare earth and strategic mineral sector is critical to U.S. industry and will predictably be a focus of the new administration to rebuild and onshore. As the U.S. looks to nuclear energy under the new administration, Kazakhstan is a global player, producing over 40 percent of the world’s production.
However, though some related mining can be reconstituted within the U.S. and its territories, other scarce materials will require a reliance on partner countries. Priority DFC funding by the new Trump foreign policy team can serve to bolster closer relations with Central Asia as a reliable alternative to their large neighbors, solidify U.S. supply chains of needed and critical commodities, and even deny China access to the region’s vast reserves.
Energy and strategic minerals are a potential cornerstone of reconstituted Trump administration outreach to Central Asia. The explosive growth of the Middle Corridor is a game-changer since Trump was last in office, making transit of goods from this region more reliable, cost-efficient, and accessible to global markets. This transit gateway provides the basis for the region’s long-term economic development and a potential hub for U.S. business investment. The Central Asian countries continue to engage with their neighbors but are more interested in pathways that enable them independent access to global markets. This is a sweet spot for the new administration, particularly as it has a long-term, positive track record of engagement with the region.
Picking up Where He Left Off…
The new Trump administration will have a lot on its plate after taking office. Central Asia will be somewhere on its to-do list, but there are many good reasons for the United States to secure easy wins with the region early on. Energy and strategic minerals will be agenda priorities for a Trump administration, as they were last time. And, just as last time, the region will be anxious to work with the new U.S. team.
In 2018, Trump sent Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to Kazakhstan to head a globally rare official trade mission to boost U.S. investment in Kazakhstan and to Uzbekistan to meet with government and business leaders to encourage further trade reforms and World Trade Organization (WTO) accession. His administration focused significant economic development attention on the Central Asian region, including through repeated engagement by the commerce secretary with the region, State Department Secretaries Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo’s high-level regional engagements on economic reform, increased funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development’s WTO accession assistance programming and its flagship Central Asia Trade Forum, and increased attention from the U.S. Trade Representative and the United States-Central Asia Trade and Investment Framework Agreement Council. These same tools are still available to Trump and able to take advantage of the region’s increasingly positive trade and development trajectory.
While tied down by other priorities, a new president can achieve much in the foreign policy realm through signaling and empowering U.S. business interests. Continued high-level engagement with the region’s leaders will be important, including early planning for a potential Trump visit to the region that would be a historic opportunity to demonstrate U.S. interest in developing a deeper, sustained relationship. Central Asia is one region that a U.S. president has never visited.
While the expanding connectivity in Central Asia offers many areas for the new Trump administration to work with the region’s countries, working to expand Central Asia’s energy connectivity directly to global markets will both enable these countries to have greater control of their economies, but also help reduce and stabilize global energy pricing – undoubtedly a key concern for the Trump team. Energy and strategic mineral development in Central Asia can be a massive opening for U.S. business to further invest and develop resources that are crucial to the U.S. economy and to developing the region’s economic sovereignty. Engaging the region through Trump’s own DFC initiative can provide significant catalyzing power for U.S. business and industry, working to turn this crossroads region into a dynamic hub.
The Central Asian nations are no strangers to the Trump White House. The new Trump administration will have many opportunities for partnering with this strategic region, which is already reaching across the Caspian in a bid to boost trade and connectivity. Possessing massive traditional and next-generation energy resources and burgeoning economies, Central Asia shares many areas of potential mutual interest with the U.S., which is reason enough for Trump officials to engage with the region sooner rather than later. The key question will be where to start first. Toxic towns in Kyrgyzstan battling radioactive danger (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [11/12/2024 4:15 AM, Staff, 1.4M, Negative]
In a mask and a hazmat suit, Ermek Murataliyev drives a truck filled with Soviet-era radioactive waste along the winding mountain roads of Kyrgyzstan.
His is a hazardous mission: two such trucks crashed into ravines over the summer.
Drivers in this former Soviet Central Asian state are forbidden to stop until they reach their final destination -- a storage zone where the waste will be buried under thick layers of compacted clay and rock.
Murataliyev had to undergo a medical inspection and have regular health checks to get the job.
"I have been trained on how to keep myself safe," he said.
Three decades on from independence, Kyrgyzstan is still dealing with the consequences of the Cold War nuclear arms race, when Central Asia provided the Soviet Union with all of its uranium.
Kyrgyz authorities say there are now six million cubic metres of radioactive waste in 30 sites such as Min-Kush, which require complex and costly disposal measures.
"When the Soviet Union collapsed, Kyrgyzstan had neither the equipment nor the money to transfer the waste to safe sites," said Ilgiz Ernis, deputy mayor of the Min-Kush municipality.
"The process was badly delayed," he said.
The disposal work is now in its final stages and is being carried out by the Russian nuclear giant Rosatom as well as the European Union and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.‘Radioactive lake’
Local resident Aiman Kishkenalina said "this problem is not just for Min-Kush but for all of Kyrgyzstan".
Kishkenalina is one of around 5,600 residents of the run-down uranium mining town -- a ticking time bomb with grave human and environmental consequences.
"Some experts with dosimeters found that the (radiation) level was too high in some places," she said.
Local officials say it is in fact up to six times higher than the norm.
Radioactive waste has also been found in the river running through Min-Kush that flows into the Syr Darya, the second-largest river in the region, potentially threatening up to 80 million people.
"The (radioactive) content of the water that passes under the disposal area breaches admissible norms," said Bakytbek Asankulov, who is in charge of radioactive security at the Kyrgyz emergency situations ministry.
Asankulov also warned of the risk of a landslide where natural disasters exacerbated by climate change are becoming more frequent.
He said a landslide triggered by either foul weather or the earthquake-prone country’s tremors could block up the river and "create a radioactive lake".
If the water from such a lake were to burst out, it "would reach the Fergana Valley" -- the most populated part of Central Asia where Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan meet.‘Hair falling out’
Warnings from the authorities not to drink contaminated water from the river are ignored by some local inhabitants."We eat the livestock and we drink the milk of cows" that have drunk the water, said Perizat Berdaliyeva, a retired former accountant at the uranium mine.
Health risks from radiation were covered up in Soviet times but, unlike many other parts of the Communist bloc, atomic industry towns like Min-Kush had no food shortages.
"Everything was available," Berdaliyeva remembered.
Scientific studies have found an abnormal prevalence of illnesses such as cancer and depleted immune systems among people living close to nuclear waste sites.
"My two daughters’ hair is falling out. They are often sick. My husband gets nose bleeds," said Nazgul Zarylbek, 25.
Her house was recently pulled down by the authorities because it was contaminated with radiation. She received 5,000 euros ($5,300) in compensation and was re-housed in a different part of Min-Kush.
Located in a picturesque valley at an altitude of 2,000 metres (6,500 feet), Min-Kush could appear relatively normal were it not for an electronic display outside the mayor’s office showing the current radiation levels.
The town in central Kyrgyzstan wants to turn the page from its toxic past and local officials are even hoping that it could have tourism potential.
"The transfer of uranium waste to a safer area will allow Min-Kush to be taken off the red list for tourism," deputy mayor Ernis said. Germany Deports Tajik Activist, Sending Chill Among Other Dissidents Abroad (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [11/8/2024 7:49 PM, Mirzonabi Kholiqzod, 235K, Negative]
Germany has deported a Tajik anti-government activist to Dushanbe despite warnings by rights groups and opposition politicians that he may face torture and imprisonment if returned to Tajikistan.
Dilmurod Ergashev, 40, was handcuffed and had a black bag put over his head upon arrival in Tajikistan on November 7, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on X, citing the activist’s friends.
Ergashev, a member of the Europe-based opposition movement Reform and Development of Tajikistan, has lived in Germany since 2011. He was previously a member of the Group 24 opposition organization, which Tajikistan banned in 2014.
A court in the Germany city of Kleve on October 28 ordered Ergashev’s deportation after his repeated requests for political asylum were rejected.
HRW quoted Ergashev’s lawyer as saying German immigration officials had questioned whether his commitment to opposition causes was genuine.
The German Interior Ministry told RFE/RL that it does not comment on individual cases. Tajik government officials did not respond to RFE/RL’s request for comment.
Several opposition members, political activists, and others linked to anti-government movements have been jailed in Tajikistan after they were either deported or forcibly returned to Dushanbe in recent years.
A Tajik court handed a 23-year prison sentence last month to Farrukh Ikromov, who was deported from Poland, Tajik opposition officials told RFE/RL.
The trial was held behind closed doors and the charges against Ikromov are unknown. The opposition says he was targeted for taking part in a 2023 protest in Berlin where Tajik opposition supporters threw eggs at President Emomali Rahmon’s car during a visit to Germany.
In 2023, Germany deported Tajik nationals Bilol Qurbonaliev and Abdullo Shamsiddin, who were subsequently sentenced to 10 and seven years in prison in Tajikistan, respectively, in closed-door trials.
Qurbonaliev, a member of Group 24, was found guilty of the dubious charge of organizing a criminal group. The activist’s supporters say the allegation is "illegal" and politically motivated.
Shamsiddin, the son of prominent opposition politician Shamsiddin Saidov, was convicted of attempting to overthrow the government, a charge his supporters denied. Shamsiddin was reportedly abused in custody.
In 2020, Austrian authorities extradited Tajik asylum seeker Hizbullo Shovalizoda to Tajikistan at Dushanbe’s request.
Just three months after his forcible return, the government critic was sentenced to 20 years in jail for treason and membership in a banned organization. His supporters have denied the charges.
Chilling Message
Ergashev’s deportation to Dushanbe has caused concern among other Tajik political asylum seekers in Europe who say they fear a similar fate amid widespread anti-migrant sentiment in Western countries.
"Every time I hear about a Tajik national being deported, I fear that I will be next," an asylum seeker told RFE/RL on condition of anonymity.
"I lived in a camp which housed many asylum seekers from different countries, and I think most of them were economic migrants. These waves of migrants coming to Europe is negatively affecting those who are genuinely seeking asylum on political grounds," the person said.
Tajik opposition groups and human rights advocates have repeatedly urged foreign governments not to deport Tajiks seeking political asylum, citing Dushanbe’s long-standing clampdown on political opponents.
Dozens of opposition politicians have been jailed on terrorism and extremism-related charges since Group 24 and the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan were outlawed.
Hundreds of others have fled the country, but Dushanbe has been relentlessly hunting down its critics, even abroad.
Group 24 leader Suhrob Zafar and a prominent member of the movement, Nasimjon Sharifov, disappeared in suspicious circumstances in Turkey in early 2024.
In August, Tajik authorities admitted the two men were in custody. Zafar and Sharifov were then sentenced to 30 and 20 years in prison, respectively, in secretive trials last month.
Group 24 accuses the government of kidnapping the two opposition activists.
Sharofiddin Gadoev, the leader of the Reform and Development movement, says the deportation cases send a negative message to those who stand against the Tajik government at home and abroad.
"Such actions by Germany contribute to the strengthening of the authoritarian regime in Tajikistan and create a climate of fear among political activists," Gadoev told RFE/RL. Twitter
Afghanistan
Amnesty International South Asia, Regional Office@amnestysasia
[11/11/2024 7:31 AM, 92.9K followers, 37 retweets, 65 likes]
Tarina Wodod – a human rights defender, from Afghanistan told Amnesty International: "It surprises me how international community still expect that the Taliban will respect human rights." Three years into the Taliban rule, the country remains a hotbed of unchecked and unabated human rights abuses – gender persecution, torture, arbitrary detentions, and censorship – all with zero accountability. The world’s response? Tepid at best. Sign our petition: https://amnesty.org/en/petition/break-the-silence-end-human-rights-violations-in-afghanistan/ Heather Barr@heatherbarr1
[11/9/2024 5:50 AM, 62.8K followers, 191 retweets, 313 likes]
The world shrugging over Taliban abuses against women and girls has consequences far beyond Afghanistan’s borders. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/fears-religious-freedom-libya-proposes-new-morality-policeHabib Khan@HabibKhanT
[11/11/2024 4:46 PM, 244.7K followers, 281 retweets, 629 likes]
The Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan is normalizing misogyny and extremism worldwide. After imposing harsh laws on women with little backlash, Libya followed suit with a dress code and travel restrictions, while Iraq plans to lower the legal marriage age to 9.
Habib Khan@HabibKhanT
[11/11/2024 4:10 PM, 244.7K followers, 200 retweets, 513 likes]
The Taliban has made going to school illegal for 1.4 million teenage Afghan girls, and it has been 1,152 days since this oppressive ban was enforced. #LetHerLearn
Habib Khan@HabibKhanT
[11/11/2024 12:45 PM, 244.7K followers, 12 retweets, 45 likes]
Caitlan Coleman, held by the Taliban and Haqqani Network for five years, has filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania to hold both groups accountable as terrorist organizations. She and her husband were kidnapped in 2012 and freed in 2017.Habib Khan@HabibKhanT
[11/11/2024 11:50 AM, 244.7K followers, 203 retweets, 493 likes]
After Trump’s re-election, the Taliban are calling for friendly relations with the U.S. and help from the “Western world” and “America,” all while banning girls’ schools and universities and enforcing gender apartheid in Afghanistan.
Habib Khan@HabibKhanT
[11/10/2024 11:48 AM, 244.7K followers, 410 retweets, 1K likes]
Afghanistan’s women’s rights activists are demanding global recognition of gender apartheid. Stripped of basic rights under the Taliban, Afghan women are leading the fight against Taliban’s oppressive regime. Pakistan
Shehbaz Sharif@CMShehbaz
[11/11/2024 2:27 PM, 6.7M followers, 291 retweets, 1.2K likes]
Just landed in Baku, a city that beautifully bridges cultures and continents—symbolizing the unity we need to overcome our shared climate challenges. At #COP29, Pakistan will present its climate priorities, calling for commitments that bring real, measurable impact. Let’s turn words into action. #COP
Shehbaz Sharif@CMShehbaz
[11/11/2024 12:04 PM, 6.7M followers, 715 retweets, 2.5K likes]
Israel continues to massacre innocent Palestinians with impunity. In my remarks at the Joint Arab Islamic Summit, I strongly condemned Israel’s actions and reaffirmed Pakistan’s principled position to support the Palestinian people’s right to self determination. I also echoed the Muslim Ummah’s call for an immediate ceasefire, stoppage of arms to Israel, provision of urgent humanitarian assistance to those affected by Israeli atrocities in Palestine, Lebanon, and the broader region. This Summit demonstrates the collective resolve of the Muslim world to support Palestinian brothers and sisters in their just struggle against Israel occupation and aggression.
Shehbaz Sharif@CMShehbaz
[11/10/2024 1:02 PM, 6.7M followers, 574 retweets, 2.3K likes]
Landed in Riyadh where I will join the leaders of the Muslim Ummah at the Joint Arab Islamic Summit being convened to discuss the rapidly deteriorating situation in Gaza and speak with one voice for the rights of the Palestinian people and reaffirm our collective call for regional peace!
Madiha Afzal@MadihaAfzal
[11/10/2024 11:17 AM, 43K followers, 17 retweets, 55 likes]
Pakistani citizens continue to be denied their right to information. Reports emerge of nationwide VPN access ‘restrictions, throttling’ https://www.dawn.com/news/1871473
Amnesty International South Asia, Regional Office@amnestysasia
[11/11/2024 5:02 AM, 92.9K followers, 1.4K retweets, 2.5K likes]
PAKISTAN: The UN Human Rights Committee has made a number of recommendations to Pakistan in its concluding observations following the second review under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Among others, the committee recommended to:- abrogate the jurisdiction of military courts over civilians which violate Article 14 and 15 of the Covenant;- ensure that legislation regarding surveillance, content and data regulation is in full compliance with the right to privacy under article 17 of the Covenant;- end measures that unduly restrict freedom of expression under article 19 of the Covenant including arbitrary and wholesale internet shutdowns and blocks on social media platforms such as X;- review and amend its legal framework and policies relating to the Exit Control List, the Black List, the Passport Control List and the Visa Control List to bring them into compliance with the right to freedom of movement under article 12 of the Covenant;- protect Afghan refugees by adopting an asylum and refugee law and establishing an asylum procedure in conformity with relevant international standards to ensure refugees are effectively protected against forced return;- take necessary measures to lift the ban on student unions throughout the country; and- repeal all blasphemy laws or amend them in compliance with the strict requirements of the Covenant and end the use of cyber-crime laws such as the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016 to prosecute and detain individuals accused of breaching blasphemy laws online.
Read the concluding observations at length: https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CCPR%2FC%2FPAK%2FCO%2F2&Lang=en.
Amnesty International South Asia, Regional Office@amnestysasia
[11/11/2024 5:03 AM, 92.9K followers, 103 retweets, 185 likes]
.@amnesty underscores the concluding observations made by the committee with regard to the clampdown on freedom of peaceful assembly, association and movement of human rights defenders, including Baloch and Pashtun activists and other dissidents. Amnesty International highlighted these recommendations in its submission to the Committee and calls on the Pakistani authorities to immediately take the necessary measures to ensure the implementation of the recommendations to respect, protect and fulfil human rights in the country. Read our submission here: https://amnesty.org/en/documents/asa33/8576/2024/en. India
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[11/11/2024 11:19 AM, 103.5M followers, 5.8K retweets, 47K likes]
Glad to meet Russia’s First Deputy PM Denis Manturov today. Happy to see that teams on both sides are working together to implement decisions taken during my recent visits and meetings with President Putin to further strengthen India-Russia Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership.
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[11/11/2024 2:53 AM, 103.5M followers, 8.8K retweets, 74K likes]
Attended the oath taking ceremony of Justice Sanjiv Khanna, who has been sworn in as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India. My best wishes for his tenure.
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[11/11/2024 10:12 PM, 103.5M followers, 2.5K retweets, 14K likes]
Will be addressing a programme to mark the 200th anniversary celebrations of Shree Swaminarayan Mandir, Vadtal, via video conferencing at around 11:15 AM today. This sacred place has enriched the social and spiritual fabric of countless lives over the years.
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[11/9/2024 5:03 AM, 103.5M followers, 4.4K retweets, 29K likes]
People of Maharashtra have decided to reject Maha-Aghadi and its misleading promises. They have faith in the NDA’s development agenda. Watch from Nanded. https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1BRJjwLRPagxw
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[11/9/2024 1:56 AM, 103.5M followers, 3.8K retweets, 18K likes]
Unparalleled energy at the rally in Akola! Maharashtra stands firmly with the NDA. https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1BdGYEMNvYoGX
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[11/8/2024 5:07 AM, 103.5M followers, 8.5K retweets, 71K likes]
In Dhule, met Jainacharya Ratnasundersurishwarji Maharaj Saheb. His contribution towards social service and spirituality is commendable. He is also admired for his prolific writing.
Dr. S. Jaishankar@DrSJaishankar[11/12/2024 2:25 AM, 3.3M followers, 77 retweets, 473 likes]
My opening remarks at the 25th Session of the India-Russia Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technical and Cultural cooperation in Delhi.
Dr. S. Jaishankar@DrSJaishankar
[11/11/2024 1:42 AM, 3.3M followers, 503 retweets, 3.9K likes]
Pleased to deliver the keynote address at the India-Russia Business Forum held today. Spoke about our economic complementarities and emerging opportunities in a multipolar world for greater IN-RU business cooperation. Also highlighted our strong resolve to boost connectivity, market and investment linkages to achieve USD 100 billion trade by 2030. Happy to see growing Russian appreciation of Make in India, in this regard. Confident that today’s discussions will lead to a successful India - Russia Intergovernmental Commission meeting tomorrow.
Dr. S. Jaishankar@RichardRossow
[11/11/2024 1:12 AM, 3.3M followers, 7 likes]
India’s Ministry of New & Renewable Energy launches program to create innovation ways to produce & use green hydrogen.- Produce via: Floating solar, biomass, using wastewater; - Uses: Cooking, heating, electricity, off-road vehicles, "city gas."https://mnre.gov.in/notice/scheme-to-support-pilot-projects-on-new-and-innovative-production-techniques-and-applications-of-green-hydrogen/ NSB
Amnesty International South Asia, Regional Office@amnestysasia
[11/12/2024 1:20 AM, 92.9K followers, 23 retweets, 70 likes]
Bangladesh: Authorities must swiftly and impartially investigate and hold accountable, perpetrators of the attacks on people perceived to be part of the Awami League at Zero Point on Sunday. Attacking people for their political beliefs is a violation of their right to freedom of expression and association and authorities must take action to protect and foster these rights of all people, regardless of their political affiliations.
Tshering Tobgay@tsheringtobgay
[11/12/2024 12:03 AM, 100.2K followers, 23 likes]
During @COP29_AZ, I participated in a panel discussion hosted by @WorldBank on “Raising Finance for Climate Action Through Paris-Aligned High Integrity Carbon Markets.”
Tshering Tobgay@tsheringtobgay
[11/12/2024 12:03 AM, 100.2K followers, 6 likes]
I emphasized Bhutan’s unique position as a carbon-negative country and shared how we aim to use carbon finance as a tool to both protect our environment and drive sustainable development.
Tshering Tobgay@tsheringtobgay[11/12/2024 12:03 AM, 100.2K followers, 7 likes]
Engaging with experts and leaders on these critical issues reinforced the potential of innovative finance to support our shared vision for a sustainable and resilient future.
The President’s Office, Maldives@presidencymv
[11/12/2024 2:02 AM, 110.8K followers, 40 retweets, 41 likes]
At #COP29, President Dr @MMuizzu leads the #Maldives delegation reaffirming our commitment to climate action and calling for intensified global efforts. Stay tuned to our blog for the latest on #MaldivesAtCOP29: https://blogs.presidency.gov.mv/events/maldives-at-cop29
The President’s Office, Maldives@presidencymv
[11/12/2024 1:47 AM, 110.8K followers, 67 retweets, 72 likes]
President H.E. Dr @MMuizzu held a meeting with H.E. Tshering Tobgay, Prime Minister of Bhutan, on the sidelines of #COP29. The leaders discussed enhancing bilateral cooperation and shared their visions for a sustainable future through #COP29 initiatives.
The President’s Office, Maldives@presidencymv
[11/11/2024 8:56 AM, 110.8K followers, 195 retweets, 189 likes]
President H.E. Dr @MMuizzu attends the Joint Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit, convened to address the ongoing Israeli aggression in Palestinian territories and Lebanon. President Dr Muizzu is expected to deliver his address, reaffirming the Maldives’ strong call for an immediate ceasefire and a just resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The President’s Office, Maldives@presidencymv
[11/10/2024 1:14 PM, 110.8K followers, 167 retweets, 173 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu confers the National Award for Public Service on 53 recipients at the Republic Day function held at Dharubaaruge tonight. The recipients were presented with commemorative shields and badges in recognition of their long-standing dedication to public service.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake@anuradisanayake
[11/11/2024 1:12 PM, 134.6K followers, 18 retweets, 217 likes]
A heartfelt gratitude to the thousands who attended the victorious public rally series (‘Building the Nation Together—We are for Malimawa!’) held this afternoon (11) in Colombo. Your unwavering support is truly appreciated
Anura Kumara Dissanayake@anuradisanayake
[11/11/2024 10:22 AM, 134.6K followers, 17 retweets, 193 likes]
We extend our sincere gratitude to the thousands who demonstrated their unwavering support for Malima’s victory by attending the victorious rally (‘Building the Nation Together—We are for Malimawa!’) held this afternoon (11) in Gampaha.Anura Kumara Dissanayake@anuradisanayake
[11/10/2024 1:23 PM, 134.6K followers, 46 retweets, 499 likes]
A heartfelt gratitude to the thousands who attended the inaugural victorious public rally series (‘Building the Nation Together—We are for Malimawa!’) held this evening (10) in Jaffna. Your unwavering support is truly appreciated.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake@anuradisanayake
[11/10/2024 1:20 PM, 134.6K followers, 18 retweets, 179 likes]
We extend our sincere gratitude to the thousands who demonstrated their unwavering support for Malima’s victory by attending the victorious rally (‘Building the Nation Together—We are for Malimawa!’) held this evening (10) in Vavuniya.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake@anuradisanayake
[11/9/2024 8:33 PM, 134.6K followers, 34 retweets, 384 likes]
A heartfelt gratitude to the thousands who attended the inaugural victorious public rally series (‘Building the Nation Together—We are for Malimawa!’) held yesterday (09) in Anuradhapura. Your unwavering support is truly appreciated.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake@anuradisanayake
[11/9/2024 11:05 AM, 134.6K followers, 16 retweets, 220 likes]
We extend our sincere gratitude to the thousands who demonstrated their unwavering support for Malima’s victory by attending the victorious rally (‘Building the Nation Together—We are for Malimawa!’) held this evening (09) in Dambulla.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake@anuradisanayake
[11/8/2024 8:48 PM, 134.6K followers, 19 retweets, 338 likes]
A heartfelt gratitude to the thousands who attended the inaugural victorious public rally series (‘Building the Nation Together—We are for Malimawa!’) held yesterday (08) in Kurunegala. Your unwavering support is truly appreciated.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake@anuradisanayake
[11/8/2024 8:44 PM, 134.6K followers, 10 retweets, 179 likes]
We extend our sincere gratitude to the thousands who demonstrated their unwavering support for Malima’s victory by attending the victorious rally (‘Building the Nation Together—We are for Malimawa!’) held yesterday (08) in Kegalle. Central Asia
MFA Kazakhstan@MFA_KZ
[11/9/2024 6:50 AM, 56.5K followers, 1 retweet, 6 likes]
Topical Issues of International Humanitarian Law Discussed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan
Yerzhan Ashikbayev@KZAmbUS
[11/10/2024 7:38 PM, 2.8K followers, 11 retweets, 22 likes]
.@CNN latest article highlights Almaty’s transformation into Central Asia’s urban star: a booming finance hub, artistic hotspot, and culinary gem. Blending tradition with modernity, Almaty is setting new standards for culture and livability in the region. : Lonely Planet https://www.cnn.com/travel/almaty-kazakhstan-central-asia-soviet-metropolis/index.htmlShavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service@president_uz
[11/11/2024 1:36 PM, 204.1K followers, 10 retweets, 35 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev held a meeting with Crown Prince and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud. The discussions focused on strengthening UZ-SA relations and preparations for the second “Central Asia-Gulf Cooperation Council Dialogue” summit, scheduled to take place in #Samarkand next year. Following the conclusion of his engagements in Riyadh, the President proceeded to #Baku for a working visit. {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.