SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS
Prepared for the U.S. Department of State
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
TO: | SCA & Staff |
DATE: | Wednesday, November 20, 2024 6:30 AM ET |
Afghanistan
UN moves to unlock stuck climate financing for Afghanistan (Reuters)
Reuters [11/20/2024 2:41 AM, Charlotte Greenfield and Gloria Dickie, 5.2M, Neutral]
United Nations agencies are trying to unlock key climate financing for Afghanistan, one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to climate change which has not received approval for any fresh such funds since the 2021 Taliban takeover, two U.N. officials told Reuters.
Plagued by drought and deadly floods, Afghanistan has been unable to access U.N. climate funds due to political and procedural issues since the former insurgents came to power.
But with the population growing more desperate as climate woes stack up, U.N. agencies are hoping to unseal project financing for the fragile country to boost its resilience.
If successful, this would be the first time new international climate finance would flow into the arid, mountainous nation in three years.
"There are no climate sceptics in Afghanistan," said Dick Trenchard, U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) country director for Afghanistan. "You see the impact of climate change and its environmental effects everywhere you go."
Two U.N. agencies are currently drawing together proposals they hope to submit next year to shore up nearly $19 million in financing from the U.N’s Global Environment Facility (GEF), part of the financial mechanism of the 2015 U.N. Paris Agreement on climate change.
These include the FAO, which hopes to get support for a project costing $10 million that would improve rangeland, forest and watershed management across up to four provinces in Afghanistan, while avoiding giving money directly to Taliban authorities.
The U.N. Development Programme, meanwhile, hopes to secure $8.9 million to improve the resilience of rural communities where livelihoods are threatened by increasingly erratic weather patterns, the agency told Reuters. If that goes ahead, it plans to seek another $20 million project.
"We’re in conversations with the GEF, the Green Climate Fund, the Adaptation Fund - all these major climate financing bodies - to reopen the pipeline and get resources into the country, again, bypassing the de facto authorities," said Stephen Rodriques, UNDP resident representative for Afghanistan.
National governments often work alongside accredited agencies to implement projects that have received U.N. climate funds. But because the Taliban government is not recognised by U.N. member states, U.N. agencies would both make the request and serve as the on-the-ground partner to carry out the project.
A Taliban administration spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.
FLOODS, DROUGHT
"If one of the countries most impacted by climate change in the world cannot have access to (international climate funds), it means something isn’t working," Rodriques said, adding that any funds should come alongside continued dialogue on human and women’s rights.
Flash floods have killed hundreds in Afghanistan this year, and the heavily agriculture-dependent country suffered through one of the worst droughts in decades that ended last year. Many subsistence farmers, who make up much of the population, face deepening food insecurity in one of the world’s poorest countries.
The FAO and UNDP will need to receive initial approvals by the GEF secretariat before they can submit their full proposals for a final decision from the GEF Council, which comprises representatives from 32 member states.
If the agencies get that first green light, Trenchard said, they would aim to submit their proposals in early 2025.
We "are awaiting guidance as to whether it would be possible to proceed," Trenchard said.
No foreign capital has formally recognised the Taliban government, and many of its members are subject to sanctions. The United States has frozen billions in central bank funds since the former insurgents took over and barred girls and women over the age of 12 from schools and universities.
Many human rights activists have condemned the Taliban’s policies and some have questioned whether interaction with the Taliban and funnelling funds into the country could undermine foreign governments’ calls for a reversal on women’s rights restrictions.
The Taliban says it respects women’s rights in accordance with its interpretation of Islamic law.
Countries mired in conflict and its aftermath say they have struggled to access private investment, as they are seen as too risky. That means U.N. funds are even more critical to their populations, many of whom have been displaced by war and weather.
Taliban members are attending the ongoing annual U.N. climate negotiations COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan as observers for the first time, Reuters has reported.
The Taliban’s presence could build trust between Afghanistan and international donors, said Abdulhadi Achakzai, founder of the Afghanistan climate nonprofit Environmental Protection Trainings and Development Organization, on the sidelines of COP29.
"It will be a safer world for the future to include Afghanistan officially in the agenda," he said. "We see this is an opportunity. There are funds for Afghanistan, we just need to secure it." Taliban Govt Clearing ‘Un-Islamic’ Books From Afghanistan Shelves (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [11/19/2024 10:45 PM, Qubad Wali and Susannah Walden, 502K, Negative]
Checking imported books, removing texts from libraries and distributing lists of banned titles -- Taliban authorities are working to remove "un-Islamic" and anti-government literature from circulation.
The efforts are led by a commission established under the Ministry of Information and Culture soon after the Taliban swept to power in 2021 and implemented their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or sharia.
In October, the ministry announced the commission had identified 400 books "that conflicted with Islamic and Afghan values, most of which have been collected from the markets".
The department in charge of publishing has distributed copies of the Koran and other Islamic texts to replace seized books, the ministry statement said.
The ministry has not provided figures for the number of removed books, but two sources, a publisher in Kabul and a government employee, said texts had been collected in the first year of Taliban rule and again in recent months.
"There is a lot of censorship. It is very difficult to work, and fear has spread everywhere," the Kabul publisher told AFP.
Books were also restricted under the previous foreign-backed government ousted by the Taliban, when there was "a lot of corruption, pressures and other issues", he said.
But "there was no fear, one could say whatever he or she wanted to say", he added.
"Whether or not we could make any change, we could raise our voices.".
AFP received a list of five of the banned titles from an information ministry official.
It includes "Jesus the Son of Man" by renowned Lebanese-American author Khalil Gibran, for containing "blasphemous expressions", and the "counterculture" novel "Twilight of the Eastern Gods" by Albanian author Ismail Kadare.
"Afghanistan and the Region: A West Asian Perspective" by Mirwais Balkhi, an education minister under the former government, was also banned for "negative propaganda".
During the Taliban’s previous rule from 1996 to 2001, there were comparatively few publishing houses and booksellers in Kabul, the country having already been wracked by decades of war.
Today, thousands of books are imported each week alone from neighbouring Iran -- which shares the Persian language with Afghanistan -- through the Islam Qala border crossing in western Herat province.
Taliban authorities rifled through boxes of a shipment at a customs warehouse in Herat city last week.
One man flipped through a thick English-language title, as another, wearing a camouflage uniform with a man’s image on the shoulder patch, searched for pictures of people and animals in the books.
"We have not banned books from any specific country or person, but we study the books and we block those that are contradictory to religion, sharia or the government, or if they have photos of living things," said Mohammad Sediq Khademi, an official with the Herat department for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (PVPV).
"Any books that are against religion, faith, sect, sharia... we will not allow them," the 38-year-old told AFP, adding the evaluations of imported books started some three months ago.
Images of living things -- barred under some interpretations of Islam -- are restricted according to a recent "vice and virtue" law that codifies rules imposed since the Taliban returned to power, but the regulations have been unevenly enforced.
Importers have been advised of which books to avoid, and when books are deemed unsuitable, they are given the option of returning them and getting their money back, Khademi said.
"But if they can’t, we don’t have any other option but to seize them," he added.
"Once, we had 28 cartons of books that were rejected.".
Authorities have not gone from shop to shop checking for banned books, an official with the provincial information department and a Herat bookseller said, asking not to be named.
However, some books have been removed from Herat libraries and Kabul bookstores, a bookseller told AFP, also asking for anonymity, including "The History of Jihadi Groups in Afghanistan" by Afghan author Yaqub Mashauf.
Books bearing images of living things can still be found in Herat shops.
In Kabul and Takhar -- a northern province where booksellers said they had received the list of 400 banned books -- disallowed titles remained on some shelves.
Many non-Afghan works were banned, one seller said, "so they look at the author, whose name is there, and they are mostly banned" if they’re foreign.
His bookshop still carried translations of Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s "The Gambler" and fantasy novel "Daughter of the Moon Goddess" by Sue Lynn Tan.
But he was keen to sell them "very cheap" now, to clear them from his stock. Afghan girl who encouraged others to sing wins children’s peace prize (CNN)
CNN [11/19/2024 11:05 AM, Hilary Whiteman, 60726K, Neutral]
A 17-year-old who is not allowed to speak in public in her own country has won a prestigious international award for advocating for the rights of Afghan girls.
Nila Ibrahimi won the International Children’s Peace Prize on Tuesday, an award that has recognized luminaries including climate activist Greta Thunberg and girls’ education campaigner Malala Yousafzai.
Ibrahimi received the honor for her "courageous work to fight for the rights of girls" in Afghanistan, where women are being silenced by oppressive rules set by the Taliban, who seized power in 2021.
Before the takeover, Ibrahimi gained an online following after using her voice to pressure Kabul education authorities to overturn a ban on schoolgirls singing in public.
Ibrahimi recorded herself singing, and her brother uploaded the video to social media.
The "IAmMySong" campaign caught on and, within weeks, the ban was overturned.
"That was the first time that I thought, wow. Like if I do want it, if I do think this is the way I want to live, I can speak up and that can be accepted," she said in a video statement.
Campaigning from Canada
Ibrahimi was 15 when the Taliban moved into Kabul and seized power after the chaotic withdrawal of the US and its allies following a 20-year occupation, returning the nation to theocratic rule.
With the help of the 30 Birds Foundation, Ibrahimi fled Afghanistan with her family — first to Pakistan and then Canada, where she continues to advocate for Afghan girls.
She co-founded "Her Story," which encourages Afghan girls to share their stories, spotlighting the voices of those still in Afghanistan.
"Every single day I think of those girls who are left behind in Afghanistan, left with no hope. In Canada, I make decisions about my life and embrace the person I aspire to be, but what about them?" Ibrahimi said in a speech to the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy last year.
After the Taliban took power, they closed schools for girls over 12. Teenage girls and women are not allowed to study or work and can only leave the house with a male relative. They can’t talk in public and must cover themselves head to toe, their eyes downcast to avoid accusations of impropriety. They aren’t allowed to use parks, gyms and other public facilities. Nor can they travel without permission.
The restrictions are part of a dramatic reversal of freedoms gained over two decades since the last time the Taliban ruled Afghanistan.
Last week, the Taliban carried out a public execution, drawing condemnation from senior United Nations officials who called for an immediate end to such practices.
The UN’s Special Rapporteur to Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, said the execution was a "clear violation of human rights." Bennett has been banned from Afghanistan by the Taliban, who have accused him of spreading propaganda.
Germany, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands have accused the hardline Islamist group of violating the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
The Taliban has previously said it was "absurd" to accuse Afghanistan’s leaders of gender discrimination. "Human rights are protected in Afghanistan and no one is discriminated," said spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat Fitrat. Why Does It Matter What We Call the Oppression of Afghan Women? (The Diplomat – opinion)
The Diplomat [11/19/2024 11:10 AM, Nazila Jamshidi, 1198K, Neutral]
Recently, the Taliban in Afghanistan forbade Afghan women from praying loudly or reciting the Quran in front of other women, following the introduction of terrifying yet unsurprising new "vice and virtue" laws requiring women to cover their entire bodies, including their faces, whenever they are in public. The Taliban claim that women’s voices alone could inspire men and grown women to sin. So, the Taliban also decreed that women should not speak, sing, or recite anything aloud in public.
Afghan women feel that the world has turned a blind eye as the Taliban have gradually reduced them to prisoners in their own homes.
Many diplomats and foreign analysts speculated that the Taliban would soften their harsh rule in exchange for aid and international recognition. We Afghan women knew better. Many of us warned the world that withholding recognition alone is not enough to change the Taliban’s policies on women. The new laws clearly demonstrate the Taliban’s intent to establish a gender apartheid, a society in which the regime systematically segregates and excludes women from public life.
I was born in Herat, a city in Afghanistan known for its art and poetry. I spent my childhood as a refugee in Iran, a country known for restricting women’s freedom, but it was still far better than the harsh Taliban rule of the 1990s. When I returned to Afghanistan as a young woman after the U.S. invasion, I had no prior experience of freedom. I worked as a teacher and community organizer, traveling across 27 provinces. I had the right to stand up against male family members in a court of law, a first in my family.
The tangible changes brought about by U.S. engagement in Afghanistan were evident in every province I visited and in the lives of women there. While many women remained trapped by cultural norms, for the first time in decades, we could imagine a different future.
That hope was shattered three years ago when everything we’d gained vanished overnight.
I am part of a campaign, End Gender Apartheid, supported by hundreds of prominent jurists, public figures, academics, civil society leaders, and activists. The campaign aims to include gender apartheid in the U.N.’s crimes against humanity treaty and to ensure international leaders call the Taliban’s actions what they are. This initiative emerged from the collective frustration of Afghan women and allies worldwide, recognizing that without explicit legal recognition of these atrocities, accountability would remain elusive. Our goal is to build a robust coalition that pressures governments and international bodies to act decisively in defense of Afghan women.
What Afghan women face is not just misogyny. It is systematic oppression from the top down – a characteristic of apartheid – that goes beyond the inequalities most societies are still striving to overcome. By establishing a gender apartheid regime, the Taliban’s actions meet the legal criteria for crimes against humanity: a widespread and systematic attack directed against a civilian population with intent to marginalize and exclude a group (in this case, women) entirely from society. This legal framing aligns with precedents set by international law, ensuring that such actions are condemned and punished appropriately.
This isn’t just theory or academic talk; it’s the real, ongoing oppression of women happening right now in our lifetime. We are recording all the decrees and restrictions that the Taliban are imposing on women and making this information accessible to advocates and human rights defenders worldwide. We have trained hundreds of Afghan advocates and civil society leaders on the legal and technical aspects of the campaign. This work is being done in our personal capacities, not as a formal job that pays the bills. It is the most grassroots campaign I have ever seen among Afghans.
Some may question why terminology matters. What leaders call the situation in Afghanistan won’t instantly change the reality for women there. Even with labeling the Taliban’s actions as a crime against humanity, the international community won’t enforce rights in a country they’ve abandoned. But calling oppression what it is is the first step to resisting it. Real change can’t occur in a fog of denial and disinformation. Afghan women can’t speak their truth, so we must do it for them.
This is personal to us. Today, many women across the world live better lives than their mothers and grandmothers. Women in many places are often financially independent and have the freedom to make their own choices regarding romance and reproduction, freeing them from dependence on men. In more traditional societies, women still face some restrictions, but they still enjoy far more freedoms than their grandmothers could have imagined. This trend holds true almost everywhere – except for Afghan women. My generation was supposed to experience something different. Instead, we’ve traveled backward in time.
Today, I still have a better life than my mother and grandmother, but this privilege came at the cost of leaving Afghanistan and becoming an American. Afghan women in the diaspora often experience a form of "survivor’s guilt" for the women we left behind, and so we have no choice but to be their voice in the face of an indifferent world.
What we want is for the cruelty being endured by women and girls in Afghanistan to be called what it actually is: gender apartheid, and a crime against humanity. Pakistan
Pakistan PM approves military operation against separatists following surge in violence in southwest (AP)
AP [11/19/2024 2:26 PM, Munir Ahmed, 31638K, Neutral]
Pakistan’s Prime Minister on Tuesday approved a long-awaited "comprehensive military operation" against separatist groups in the restive southwest, more than a week after an outlawed group killed 26 people in a suicide bombing at a train station, officials said.
The announcement by Shehbaz Sharif to launch the operation "against terrorist organizations" operating in Balochistan came after a meeting of the government’s security committee in Islamabad, the capital. On Nov. 9, a suicide bomber with the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army group blew himself up at a train station in Quetta, killing 26 people, most of them soldiers.
In a statement, Sharif’s office said the BLA and other groups will be targeted buit didn’t say when the operation would begin. The office blamed the groups for "targeting innocent civilians and foreign nationals to scuttle Pakistan’s economic progress by creating insecurity at the behest of hostile external powers.".
In recent months, Balochistan and northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province have witnessed a surge in militant violence, most blamed on the outlawed BLA and TTP groups. The train station attack in Quetta 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.
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.
The BLA mostly targets security forces and foreigners, especially Chinese nationals who are in Pakistan as part of Beijing’s multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative. The BLA wants a halt to all Chinese-funded projects and for Chinese workers to leave Pakistan to avoid further attacks.
Also Tuesday, a suicide car bomber targeted a security post in Bannu, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to Irfan Kahn, a local police official. Kahn said gunshots were heard and and ambulances had arrived at the scene of the attack. He provided no further details, and it was not immediately clear how many people were killed or wounded in the attack.
The attack came a day after Pakistani security forces raided a militant hideout in the northwestern district of Tirah, sparking a shootout in which at least 10 insurgents were killed and several others were wounded. Pakistan’s military to launch new offensive against separatist militants (Reuters)
Reuters [11/20/2024 3:33 AM, Asif Shahzad, 5.2M, Neutral]
Pakistan plans a new military offensive against separatist insurgents in southwestern Balochistan province, home to key Chinese Belt and Road projects, but it was not immediately clear if the plan would be a joint effort with its giant neighbour.
Following a string of deadly attacks that targeted its citizens in recent months, Beijing has pushed to join security efforts to protect them, and unveiled a plan for joint counter-terrorism exercises in Pakistan on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif led a meeting of civil and military leaders who gave the go-ahead for the "comprehensive operation", his office said in a statement.
But it stopped short of saying if the effort was limited to ground operations, or could involve the air force, and whether it was prompted by China’s disquiet at the separatist attacks.
Pakistan’s information ministry and the military did not immediately respond to a request for details on the nature of the offensive.
Asked if China is involved in the Pakistan plan for an offensive against insurgents in Balochistan, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said on Wednesday, "I do not understand the situation you mentioned. As a matter of principle, China firmly supports the anti-terrorism efforts of the Pakistan side and is willing to deepen pragmatic cooperation with the Pakistan side in various fields to better benefit the two countries and the peoples of the two countries."
The military already has a huge presence in the rugged region bordering Afghanistan and Iran, where insurgent groups have been battling for a separate homeland for decades to win a larger share of the benefits from the resource-rich province.
The military has long run intelligence-based operations against the insurgent groups, the most prominent being the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), which stepped up attacks in recent months on the military and nationals from longtime ally China.
The region is home to Gwadar Port, built by China as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a $65-billion investment in President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative to expand China’s global reach.
In addition to the recent attacks, the BLA claimed a suicide bombing last month outside the international airport in the southern port city of Karachi that killed two Chinese engineers.
On Tuesday, China’s defence ministry said the armies of both nations planned "a joint counter-terrorism exercise in Pakistang from late November to mid-December. A suicide car bombing at a security post in northwestern Pakistan has killed 12 troops (AP)
AP [11/20/2024 3:58 AM, Riaz Khan, 456K, Negative]
A suicide bomber detonated his explosive-laden vehicle at a security post in northwestern Pakistan, killing 12 members of the security forces and wounding several others, officials said Wednesday.
The attack, one of the deadliest in recent months, happened Tuesday evening in Bannu, a district in restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the military said in a statement.
It said in the ensuing exchange of fire, six “khwarij” — a phrase which is used for Pakistani Taliban — were killed.“The attempt to enter the post was effectively thwarted by own troops, which forced the khwarij to ram an explosive laden vehicle into the perimeter wall of the post,” the statement said. It said the suicide attack led to collapse of a portion of a perimeter wall and damaged the adjoining infrastructure, resulting in the “martyrdom” of 12 security forces.
A breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, known as the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement. Pakistan has witnessed a steady increase in violence since November 2022, when the Pakistani Taliban ended a monthslong cease-fire with the government in Islamabad.
The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, are a separate group but are allies of the Afghanistan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan in 2021. The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan emboldened the TTP, whose top leaders and fighters are hiding in Afghanistan.
In December 2023, a suicide bomber targeted a police station’s main gate in Dera Ismail Khan, a district in northwestern Pakistan, killing 23 troops.
Tuesday’s attack happened in Bannu while the country’s political and military leadership was meeting in Islamabad to discuss how to respond to the surge in militant violence.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday approved a “comprehensive military operation” against separatist groups, including the Balochistan Liberation Army, in southwestern Balochistan province. The order came following a Nov. 9 suicide attack by the group at a train station that killed 26 people in Quetta, the capital of the province.
In recent months. violence has also surged in northwest Pakistan, where security forces often target TTP and the Gul Bahadur group.
Abdullah Khan, a senior defense analyst and managing director of the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies, said over 900 security forces have been killed in militant attacks in Pakistan since 2022, when TTP ended the cease-fire with the government.“TTP and other groups have expanded their operations, showing they are getting more recruits, money and weapons,” Khan said. He said there is a need for political stability in the country to defeat the insurgents.Pakistan has experienced a political crisis since 2022, when then-Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in Parliament. He was arrested and imprisoned in 2023. Since then, his supporters have been rallying to demand his release. China, Pakistan to hold first anti-terror drills in 5 years amid rising attacks (VOA)
VOA [11/19/2024 10:58 AM, Ayaz Gul, 4566K, Neutral]
China said Tuesday it will send troops to Pakistan later this month for the countries first joint counterterrorism military exercise in five years to enhance security cooperation with its South Asian neighbor and close ally.
The announcement follows reports that Beijing is pushing Islamabad to permit its security personnel to safeguard thousands of Chinese nationals working in Pakistan from deadly terrorist attacks. It also comes amid a spike in terrorist attacks against Pakistani security forces attributed to or claimed by the outlawed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, commonly known as TTP.
On Tuesday, China’s Defense Ministry said that the Pakistan-hosted "Warrior-VIII exercise is set to begin in late November and will run until mid-December "with the aim … to enhance the capability for conducting joint counterterrorism operations," according to Chinese state media.
The ministry said the exercise will involve troops from the Western Theater Command of China’s People’s Liberation Army.
"The two sides will engage in multi-level and mixed training across various specialties and organize live troop drills in accordance with the actual combat process," according to the state media report.
China and Pakistan last conducted joint counterterrorism military drills in 2019.
String of attacks
Last month, a suicide car bombing just outside the airport in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi killed two Chinese engineers. The victims were returning to work after a holiday in Thailand on a project under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a multibillion-dollar extension of President Xi Jinping’s global Belt and Road Initiative.
In March, a suicide car bomb attack in northern Pakistan killed five Chinese workers and their local driver.
The repeated targeting of its nationals reportedly angered China, prompting it to urge Pakistan to negotiate a joint security management system to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens in the country.
The Pakistani government has dismissed the alleged Chinese diplomatic pressure, however, as "media speculation" and an attempt "to create confusion" regarding Islamabad’s relationship with Beijing.
"Pakistan and China have a robust dialogue and cooperation on a range of issues, including counterterrorism and security of Chinese nationals in Pakistan," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Baloch told reporters last Thursday at her weekly news conference.
"We will continue to work with our Chinese brothers for the safety and security of Chinese nationals, projects, and institutions in Pakistan," she stated.
Shaking ties
Baloch added that attempts to undermine the mutual trust and cooperation between the two countries will not succeed, nor will the two countries "allow any efforts or stories to derail the Pakistan-China strategic partnership.".
Speaking at a seminar in Islamabad just days after the Karachi car bomb attack, Chinese Ambassador Jiang Zaidong publicly questioned the host government’s safety measures to deter threats to Chinese nationals.
"It is unacceptable for us to be attacked twice in only six months," Jiang stated. He urged Islamabad to take "effective remedial measures to prevent the recurrence of such terror acts and ensure that perpetrators are identified, caught, and punished.".
Pakistan dismissed the Chinese envoy’s remarks as "perplexing" and contrary to established diplomatic traditions between the neighbors.
The Pakistani response was unprecedented, and Jiang’s public admonishment of Islamabad highlighted the strains arising from attacks on Chinese nationals that have resulted in the loss of at least 21 lives over the past five years.‘Afghan terror sanctuaries’.
The joint drills between Pakistani and Chinese troops come amid a dramatic surge in deadly militant attacks on security forces and civilians in Pakistan, which authorities say are being orchestrated from "TTP sanctuaries" in neighboring Afghanistan. The country’s Islamist Taliban leaders reject the allegations.
Yue Xiaoyong, China’s special envoy for Afghan affairs, visited Islamabad this week, where Pakistani officials reportedly shared with him evidence regarding TTP’s presence in Afghanistan and the threat it poses to regional stability.
Neither Islamabad nor Beijing has commented on the media reports. A brief post-meeting Pakistani statement said the discussion centered on the Afghan situation, with both sides reaffirming "the vital role of neighboring countries for a peaceful and stable Afghanistan.". Bad Air Chokes the Life Out of a Vibrant Pakistani City (New York Times)
New York Times [11/20/2024 12:50 AM, Zia ur-Rehman, 831K, Negative]
In the vibrant Pakistani metropolis of Lahore, a city of 14 million people with a rich history and grand colonial-era buildings, evenings hold a special significance.
Markets thrum with activity, and families gather along bustling “food streets.” With the end of the year comes the height of the wedding season, when shimmering celebrations keep the city alive deep into the night.
But as a dense, suffocating smog has settled over Lahore’s skyline this month, the government has imposed restrictions that are reshaping the rhythms of a city that wakes late and thrives late.
Markets and wedding halls must now close by 8 p.m. Outdoor barbecues at restaurants are banned. Parks, zoos, historical monuments and museums are shut down. Complete weekend lockdowns — reminiscent of Covid-19 restrictions — are set to begin in a few days.“People here start shopping after 4 or 5 p.m. after men return from their jobs,” said Chaudhry Kabir Ahmed, a traders’ leader at the Ichhra market in Lahore. “Now the government is asking us to close by 8 p.m. It’s hard to change people’s habits so quickly. And if we open late, authorities raid us and impose heavy fines.”
Lahore, the capital of Punjab, the most populous province in Pakistan, regularly ranks among the world’s most polluted cities. According to IQAir, a Swiss climate monitoring group, Lahore has hit record smog levels in recent weeks, reaching a reading of 1,100 on the Air Quality Index on Thursday. Any level above 150 is classified as “unhealthy,” and anything over 300 is deemed “hazardous.”
Punjab Province is next to north India, and both regions face alarmingly high levels of air pollution. On Monday, the A.Q.I. figure in the Indian capital, New Delhi, reached 1,785, and the city’s chief minister has declared a “medical emergency.”
In Lahore, the concentration in the air of tiny particulate matter, which can penetrate deep into people’s lungs and even enter the bloodstream, has been nearly 100 times as high in recent weeks as the level deemed safe by the World Health Organization, said Christi Chester Schroeder, air quality science manager at IQAir.
Even outside the usual smog season that lasts roughly from November to January, when temperatures cool, the city’s air is polluted. Lahore has not had a day of “good” air quality, as measured by the A.Q.I. scale, since July 2021, Dr. Chester Schroeder said.
On Friday, the provincial government declared smog a health crisis, saying that nearly two million people had already been sickened. Hospital hours have been extended, medicines for respiratory illnesses have been supplied and ambulances have been equipped with breathing equipment, said Marriyum Aurangzeb, a senior provincial minister.
UNICEF recently issued a stark warning about the extreme vulnerability of the more than 11 million children under the age of 5 in the province, citing their smaller lungs and lack of immunities.
Lahore’s emergency rooms are filled with patients — many of them children — suffering from ailments such as breathing difficulties, throat infections, persistent coughing and eye irritation.“My 1-month-old child has been struggling to breathe,” said Sumaira, 25, who uses a single name, cradling her baby at Services Hospital. “I don’t know the exact cause, but I see countless children with similar problems. I can only pray for better weather.”
Ahmad Rafay Alam, a Lahore-based environmental lawyer, is one of a group of air quality experts who wrote a letter to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif urging the government to take immediate action.
Citing scientific studies, Mr. Alam said that about 45 percent of year-round air pollution in Lahore stems from tailpipe emissions, largely a result of low-quality fuel. Another 40 percent is attributed to industrial emissions and energy production.
The solutions to these problems, he said, “are neither cheap nor quick.”
The task of improving air quality cannot fall to just one country in the region, experts said. In 1998, South Asian nations, including Pakistan and India, signed the Malé Declaration, which aimed to address transnational air pollution collaboratively.
The effectiveness of that agreement, however, has been limited by funding shortages and a lack of political will. The issue gained renewed attention when the chief minister of Punjab Province, Maryam Nawaz, recently called for “smog diplomacy” with India.
For most residents of Lahore, the smog has become a brutal presence, and the months of bad air are now referred to as the “fifth season.”
The poor face an even greater struggle.
In a cramped house on the outskirts of Lahore, just seven miles from the Indian border, a 10-member family endures the choking air that seeps through cracked windows and unsealed doors.“The air outside is thick and acrid, but there’s no escape indoors,” said Amna Bibi, 60, the matriarch of the family. She has watched the smog worsen each winter during her more than two decades in Lahore.“Every year, it gets harder to breathe,” she said.
With schools across the city closed because of the hazardous air, children are either confined indoors or left to play in the streets, even though many already suffer from throat infections.
Families like Ms. Bibi’s in Lahore’s low-income neighborhoods cannot afford the protective measures, like air purifiers, that wealthier residents take for granted.
Some believe that the smog is a sign of divine anger. During Friday Prayer last week, hundreds of thousands of Muslims across Punjab Province offered a special prayer for pollution-dampening rain, a ritual performed in times of calamity.“Floods, smog, earthquakes — these are all signs of God’s wrath toward us,” said Syed Hashim, 23, a college student who attended the prayers. “It’s time to pray to God for forgiveness.”
In addition to vehicle and industrial emissions, the burning of rice stubble has long been identified as a major contributor to Lahore’s toxic winter air.
Many farmers say they are being unfairly scapegoated.“Why waste so much time and money blaming us? Why not focus on the bigger polluters, like transport and industries?” asked Ghulam Mustafa, 41, a farmer in Lahore’s suburbs. “Instead, smog has ruined the quality of our crops, and now we need to spend more money to buy expensive chemicals to spray.”
The rapid growth of housing developments has brought brick kilns into Mr. Mustafa’s area to supply building materials, exacerbating the pollution.
The authorities have shut down many brick kilns, along with other polluting facilities like plastic-melting plants, for failing to comply with emissions control regulations.
For Maskeen Butt, a 29-year-old software engineer, the smog and government-imposed restrictions have made planning his mid-December wedding a challenge.“Lahore’s nightlife is part of the wedding experience — shopping for bridal dresses, jewelry and decorations, as well as distributing invitation cards, well into the night,” Mr. Butt said. “Now, with shops forced to close early, it’s nearly impossible for people like me, who work during the day, to manage everything.”
The early closure of wedding halls adds to the frustration. “Guests never arrive early enough,” he said. “It will make everything feel rushed and far less festive than it should be for my wedding.” Pakistan to reopen Punjab schools after smog improves (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [11/19/2024 12:49 PM, Staff, 88008K, Negative]
Pakistani authorities announced that schools would reopen Wednesday in Punjab, the country’s most populated province, after a drop in dangerous air pollution.Schools have been closed for nearly two weeks in the province, home to nearly half the country’s 240 million population, as dense smog hit "hazardous" levels."The ambient air quality has improved in Punjab, due to rain in upper parts of Punjab, change in wind direction and speed," the province’s environmental agency said late Tuesday."Therefore, all the educational institutions in the whole province, including Lahore and Multan Division, shall be opened" beginning Wednesday morning, it said.Students and staff will be required to wear face masks, it added, while also ordering a "complete ban on outdoor sports and outdoor co-curricular activities till further orders".Breathing toxic air has catastrophic health consequences, with the World Health Organization (WHO) warning that strokes, heart disease, lung cancer and respiratory diseases can be triggered by prolonged exposure.Since Sunday, the Air Quality Index has fallen below 300, the threshold considered "hazardous" for humans. Last week, the index hit a record high of 1,110.But as of Tuesday evening, the concentration of PM2.5 micro-particle pollutants in Lahore was still more than ten times higher than levels deemed acceptable by the WHO.A mix of low-grade fuel emissions from factories and vehicles, exacerbated by seasonal crop burn-off by farmers, blanket the city each winter, trapped by cooler temperatures and slow-moving winds.According to a University of Chicago study, high levels of pollution have already reduced life expectancy in Lahore, the capital of Punjab with its 14 million inhabitants, by 7.5 years.Similar hazardous conditions have hit India’s capital New Delhi, where classes have been moved online after air pollution surged past 60 times the WHO-recommended daily maximum.Experts believe that modernising car fleets, reviewing farming methods and making the transition to renewable energies are the keys to overcoming the smog that paralyzes millions of Pakistanis and Indians every year. Pakistan reports new polio case in northwest, raising nationwide tally to 50 cases this year (AP)
AP [11/20/2024 4:00 AM, Staff, 456K, Negative]
Pakistan detected one more polio case in the restive northwest bordering Afghanistan, raising the country’s tally of the infectious disease to 50 cases this year, officials said Wednesday.Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where the spread of polio has never been stopped.The sudden rise in cases of polio, which is an infection caused by a virus that mostly affects children under 5, has hampered the country’s yearslong efforts to make it a polio-free state.The latest case was detected in Tank, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where militants often target polio workers and police assigned for anti-polio campaigns, according to a statement by the National Emergency Operations Centre for Polio Eradication. Pakistan has reported 50 such cases this year, it said.Most polio cases this year were reported in the restive southwestern Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces bordering Afghanistan, where 23 confirmed cases have surfaced, according to data from the World Health Organization. That’s up from six cases in 2023.Hamid Jafari, the WHO director for the Eastern Mediterranean, said last week the forced repatriation of Afghans from Pakistan was a major setback to polio eradication and has led to a “massive and unpredictable movement” of people within the two countries and across borders.“The virus moved with these populations,” he told a virtual discussion hosted by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.He said there were other reasons for the rise of polio in Pakistan, including the impact of militancy in some parts of the country.Pakistan regularly launches campaigns against polio despite attacks on the workers and police assigned to the inoculation drives. Militants in Pakistan often target police and health workers during campaigns against polio, claiming the vaccination drives are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.More than 200 polio workers and police assigned for their protection have been killed since the 1990s, according to health officials and authorities.Earlier this month, a bomb attached to a motorcycle exploded near a vehicle carrying police officers assigned to protect polio workers in Balochistan, killing nine people including five children. Pakistani police arrest a man accused of insulting the Quran and save him from being lynched by mob (AP)
AP [11/19/2024 7:30 AM, Riaz Khan, 31638K, Negative]
Police arrested a man accused of insulting Islam’s holy book, the Quran, in deeply conservative northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday after being alerted that a mob wanted to lynch him, police said.
The man, identified as Humayun Ullah, was arrested in Khazana, an area on the outskirts of Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, police officer Nasir Khan said.
He said the man was arrested as a mob was trying to grab him in a street.
Video posted on social media showed hundreds of people blocking a road near a police station and demanding the man be handed over to them. Gunshots were also heard near the police station, where the man was being held for questioning.
Khan said the man allegedly made derogatory remarks about the Quran during a heated argument with his brother at the family’s home. He said some of the demonstrators threw stones at the police station and threatened to burn it and harm officers if the man was not handed over to them.
Under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, anyone found guilty of insulting Islam or Islamic religious figures can be sentenced to death — though authorities have yet to carry out a death sentences for blasphemy.
The arrest Tuesday came two months after the government said police had orchestrated the killing of a doctor who was in custody after being accused of blasphemy in southern Sindh province. The doctor had voluntarily surrendered following assurances from officers that he would be given a chance to prove his innocence.
In November 2021, a mob burned a police station and four police posts in northwestern Charsadda district after officers refused to hand over a mentally unstable man accused of desecrating the Quran. Pakistan’s Islamic Council calls for ban on use of VPNs (VOA)
VOA [11/19/2024 8:23 PM, Iftikhar Hussain and Ihsan Muhammad Khan, 4566K, Negative]
Pakistan’s top cleric has declared that virtual private networks, or VPNs, are unlawful, igniting a debate on privacy rights and access to information amid a government crackdown on the internet.
Allama Raghib Naeemi, head of the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), issued a decree saying it makes no difference whether a VPN is registered or unregistered.
"If attempts are made to access indecent or immoral sites, character assassination is done, statements are being made against national security, or if various incidents of religious blasphemy are being spread through it, then [using] it would completely be un-Islamic," he said.
A VPN protects online privacy by creating a secure connection and is used to access blocked content, protect data from hackers and support remote work or secure transactions.
Several internet service providers in Pakistan expressed concerns Tuesday over the possible imposition of blanket restrictions on VPNs, warning that the move would anger users and impact online businesses.
Shahzad Arshad, chairman of the Wireless and Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan, said in a statement, "It is essential to recognize that blanket restrictions or sweeping narratives around tools like VPNs risk alienating segments of society, particularly those who rely on these tools for entirely legitimate purposes, such as IT exports, financial transactions, and academic research.".
Arshad, in reference to CII’s declaration, said technology is neutral and that how it is used determines whether it is aligned with ethics.
Amnesty Tech, part of Amnesty International, said last week on X that imposing restrictions on VPNs would amount to "violating the right to privacy under international law, restricting people’s access to information, and suppressing free expression.".
Qibla Ayaz, former chairman of CII, told VOA Deewa it seems as if a government agency has reached out to the religious body seeking its stance on the VPN issue.
"Similar requests were sent by the government in 2023," he said.
The CII is a constitutional body in Pakistan that advises the legislature on whether a certain law is repugnant to Islam, namely to the Quran and Sunna.
According to activists and experts, CII’s declarations on technology use are unwarranted and will only strengthen the government’s digital suppression of social media users.
Haroon Baloch, a Pakistani digital rights activist, believes the proposed restrictions on VPNs are aimed at suppressing political dissent.
"First, the government had compliance challenges with X. And when the platform did not agree with the government’s requests, then it banned X. And when X was available with the help of VPN, the government is planning to ban the VPN now," Haroon told VOA.
Pakistan banned X in February and installed firewalls to restrict access to certain online content. But consumers are using VPNs to access restricted networks and content and to hide their identities and locations.
Pakistan Army Chief General Asim Munir told a gathering at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute on November 16 that technology has played a pivotal role in the dissemination of information, but "the spread of misleading and incorrect information has become a significant challenge.".
In a speech to religious leaders in Islamabad earlier in August, Munir said, "Anarchy is spread through social media.".
A directive in October from the Interior Ministry asked the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to block "illegal" VPNs that had not registered by the end of November.
The Interior Ministry charged in a letter to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, which oversees the internet and mobile industry and has broad powers over online content and the licensing of service providers, that terrorists are increasingly using VPNs to facilitate violent activities and financial transactions in Pakistan.
"Of late, an alarming fact has been identified, wherein VPNs are used by terrorists to obscure and conceal their communications," the letter said, adding that pornography sites are frequently accessed using VPNs.
"These trends ... warrant the prohibition of unauthorized virtual private networks in order to address critical threats," the letter said.
The 2024 "Freedom on the Net" report published by Freedom House says the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has historically implemented policies that undermine internet freedom, removed content without a transparent process and instituted wholesale bans on platforms. Wife of slain Pakistani journalist’s long and lonely fight for justice (VOA)
VOA [11/19/2024 9:17 PM, Tabinda Naeem, 4566K, Negative]
The last time Javeria Siddique spoke with her husband, the renowned Pakistani news anchor Arshad Sharif, he was "happy and excited," she said.
Sharif was in Kenya after leaving his home country because of threats and legal issues. On that video call on October 21, 2022, he talked to all the family members, Siddique said, even the pets.
"His dogs were so excited to see him on video call as they thought he had returned home," Siddique told VOA.
But the journalist never returned home. Two days after that call, Sharif was shot dead at a roadblock in Kenya.His death shocked Pakistan and led to competing theories about what happened. Was it, as Kenyan authorities claim, a case of mistaken identity, or had powerful interests that Sharif took on in his journalism found a way to silence him?
For Siddique, she is balancing grief over her husband of 12 years with fighting for answers about what led to his death, and who may be responsible.
But it is a lonely fight.
"It is so quiet in my house right now that you can hear the ticking of the wall clock. It seems like everything is getting out of hand," Siddique told VOA during a video call.
Siddique, one of Sharif’s two widows, wants the government to re-open the case into her husband’s killing. "A special judicial commission should be formed," she said, "so that an investigation can be conducted into the murder of Arshad Sharif and other journalists who have been killed in Pakistan this year.".
Siddique’s push for justice is a challenge shared by other families of journalists killed in apparent retaliation for their work.
Pakistan has legislation to ensure journalist safety at provincial and federal levels, said Iqbal Khattak, Pakistan representative for Reporters Without Borders, known as RSF.
But, "both the laws appear to be failing in protecting journalists and combating impunity, leaving journalists vulnerable, without any use of the legal framework protections," said Khattak.
Part of the reason, he added, is because the safety commissions and systems required have not been fully established.
"Without robust and functioning safety mechanisms, these laws will remain ineffective, and the lives of media professionals will continue to be at greater risks.".
Pakistan has proved to be one of the deadliest countries for journalists this year, with at least six killings, according to media watchdogs.
But the Pakistani media watchdog Freedom Network, of which Khattak is executive director, has documented attempted killings this year as well.
In the group’s first report focused on journalist safety, it documented at least 57 violations, including threats, assaults, and legal harassment between November 2023 and August 2024.
Sharif had experienced threats and legal harassment before he finally left Pakistan in August 2022.
The one-time anchor of Pakistan’s ARY News channel had become a vocal critic of Pakistan’s powerful military establishment after former Prime Minister Imran Khan was removed from office in April 2022."Arshad acted on his own will," said Siddique. "And when you do that, the system starts to feel threatened by such people.".
Siddique said that suspicious people would stand outside their home, and on one occasion someone tried to enter their property. The journalist also received anonymous threatening calls.
But, she said, Sharif refused to back down. "I saw him becoming even more fearless. I saw him crossing the so-called ‘red lines.’ He started questioning various things that we normally cannot question in Pakistan.".
Sharif also came under legal threats, with sedition charges leveled against him when he finally left, traveling first to Dubai and then to Kenya.
Two months later, he was killed. Two years later, Sharif’s case remains unresolved.
Cross-border probe
The government of Pakistan sent an investigation team to Kenya and requested collaboration with Kenyan authorities, saying "an assassination cannot be ruled out.".
In December 2022, the chief justice of Pakistan’s supreme court ordered a five-member bench to look into Arshad’s death. The following year, that chief justice retired; since his departure, there has been no movement in the case.
Siddique says the Pakistan court proceedings have been marred with delays and hurdles.
There have been delays in Kenya, too. After a court there ruled that the journalist’s death was unlawful and arbitrary, law enforcement was ordered to pay compensation. But an appeal led to a stay on the case until January, one of the Kenyan lawyers who represents Siddique told VOA.
RSF’s Iqbal Khattak believes Pakistan should be taking the lead.
"Sharif’s murder story begins from Pakistan," Khattak said. "If we do not find who killed him and why was he killed, then the conspiracy theories surrounding his death will stay the course and people will believe them.".
For Siddique, the two years since her husband’s death have been hard. She faced threats and harassment that she believes are intended to deter her from demanding a transparent investigation.
"In last two years, I had to relocate twice," she said. "I have seen my ID card, home address, all plastered on the internet.".
She is also trying to keep the legal cases moving forward.
Siddique has demanded that the Pakistani state form a special judicial commission to investigate her husband’s death as well as the killings of other journalists in Pakistan this year."Now, I speak up for everyone. Because they all have the option to be reunited with their loved ones. I don’t have that option," said Siddique. India
Putin Plans First India Visit Since His War in Ukraine Began (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [11/19/2024 4:15 PM, Staff, 1784K, Neutral]
Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to visit India for the first time since he ordered the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, a further sign of that US-led efforts to isolate him on the world stage are failing.
While dates are still being worked out for the trip to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, "we are looking forward to it," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in video comments to India’s ANI news service published Tuesday that he later confirmed to Bloomberg News.
"After two visits of Prime Minister Modi to Russia, now we have a visit of President Putin to India," Peskov said. "We attach a very great importance to these contacts.".
India and Russia held annual summits between the two leaders before the invasion of Ukraine. New Delhi skipped the in-person meeting in December 2022 after Putin threatened to use nuclear weapons in the war, according to people with knowledge of the matter at that time.
Putin and Modi held talks when Russia hosted the summit of BRICS states last month. The Indian leader also met Putin in Moscow in July on his first trip to Russia since the war began, and his first bilateral visit after winning a third term in Indian elections.
Modi embraced Putin and called him his "friend" at those talks, which took place a day after a deadly Russian missile strike on a children’s hospital in Kyiv that provoked international outrage.
Modi’s readiness to visit Putin sparked concerns in the US, which has sought to make the Russian leader a pariah over the war in Ukraine. Still, Washington also knows it needs India to help counter China’s influence in the Asia-Pacific region.
Moscow and New Delhi have had close ties since the Cold War era. India is a major customer for military hardware from Russia and has also emerged as a top buyer of Russian oil since the US and its Group of Seven allies sought to restrict sales over the war.
If Putin does go to India, it will signal his growing confidence about traveling abroad since an arrest warrant against him was issued by the International Criminal Court in March last year for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
India isn’t an ICC member and isn’t obliged to implement the warrant. Still, Putin opted not to attend last year’s G-20 summit in India.
In September, Putin visited Mongolia, which is an ICC member state and faced international criticism for failing to meet its obligation to enforce the warrant.
South Africa, which is a signatory, asked Putin not to attend last year’s BRICS summit because of the warrant. Putin declined to go to this week’s G-20 in Brazil, which is also an ICC member state, saying his presence at the summit would have been a distraction because of the warrant. Elections in 2 Indian states are seen as a test of Prime Minister Modi’s popularity (AP)
AP [11/19/2024 11:14 PM, Ashok Sharma, 31638K, Neutral]
Millions of people are voting in state elections in politically significant Maharashtra, India’s western industrial hub, and the mineral-rich eastern province of Jharkhand on Wednesday, a test of the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party and its regional partners.
Maharashtra is India’s wealthiest state and home to the financial and entertainment capital, Mumbai. It is currently ruled by a coalition of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and a Hindu nationalist ally. An opposition alliance, including the Congress party, is in power in eastern Jharkhand state.
Modi has held big rallies in the two states. The challenge comes barely four months after his party suffered a setback and returned to power in national elections for a third term without a parliamentary majority. He formed the government with the help of regional partners.
Modi, in a post on social platform X ahead of the state elections, wrote: "On this occasion, I appeal to all the youth and women voters to vote in large numbers.".
Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a political analyst who wrote a Modi biography, said a reversal in these state elections would negatively impact Modi’s leadership style.
"It will have repercussions for the BJP in coming elections in Delhi and Bihar states next year," he said.
Votes in the two states will be counted on Saturday.
After suffering a setback in national elections, the BJP regained momentum in October as it won Haryana state elections, where pollsters had predicted an easy victory for the opposition Congress party.
Rahul Gandhi’s Congress party won a consolation victory in alliance with the regional National Conference party in local elections in India’s insurgency-wracked Jammu and Kashmir after a 10-year gap.
The BJP is trying to wrest power from the Congress party and its allies in Jharkhand, a state rich in iron ore, coal and other minerals.
The BJP’s use of slogans like "If you divide, then you will die" and "If we are united, then we are safe" to attract Hindu votes has prompted opposition parties to accuse the BJP of trying to polarize the voters along Hindu-Muslim religious lines.
Hindus constitute nearly 80% and Muslims 11.5% of Maharashtra state’s estimated 131 million people.
Mukhopadhyay saw a tendency from top BJP leaders to communalize the elections, saying, "It shows the growing desperation of the party, and it looks like their reading is they are not doing very well in Maharashtra and Jharkhand states.".
Election surveys on the eve of polling put the opposition alliance comprising the Congress party and two truncated regional groups, the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress party, ahead of the BJP and its allies currently governing the state. The Congress party defeated the BJP and its allies in the June national elections by winning 30 out of 48 seats in the state. The BJP and its regional partners won 17 seats.
The Congress party and its allies hope to capitalize on the simmering disaffection with high youth unemployment, inflation and low crop prices during the BJP’s rule.
The BJP hopes to attract women voters with a scheme that provides 1,500 rupees ($18) a month to over 20 million women aged 21-65 whose annual family income is less than 250,000 ($3,010). If the Congress party is voted to power in the state, it has promised women double that amount and free transportation in government buses. Delhi Trudges Through Another Air Pollution Nightmare With No Answers (New York Times)
New York Times [11/19/2024 6:12 PM, Alex Travelli and Hari Kumar, 3902K, Negative]
On Tuesday morning, the air quality in India’s capital under a widely used index stood at 485. While that is almost five times the threshold for healthy breathing, it felt like a relief: The day before, the reading had shot up to 1,785. Infinitesimal air particles were still clogging lungs and arteries, but it was possible to see sunlight again, and to smell things.
"My eyes have a burning feeling during these periods of pollution," said Vikram Singh, 58, an auto-rickshaw driver in central Delhi, who noted that he also tires more quickly. "I don’t know what else is happening to my body, on the inside." He earns less, too, just $6 per day instead of his usual $8.30.
Every year this suffocating smog accompanies the drop in temperatures as the plains of north India shed their unbearable heat for wintertime cool. And like clockwork, political leaders roll out emergency measures intended to quit making the problem worse. Yet India seems powerless to reduce the effects of this public health catastrophe, as its politicians stay busy trading blame and trying to outmaneuver one another in legal battles.
The haze was so shocking this week that Delhi’s chief minister, Atishi, who goes by one name, declared it a "medical emergency" endangering the lives of children and older people. The Supreme Court, whose members also live in the capital, chided the national government for responding too slowly and ordered special measures: halting construction work and blocking some vehicles from the roads. Schools were closed indefinitely to protect students.
For middle-class Delhiites, the emergency measures have taken on an uncanny resemblance to life during COVID-19 lockdowns. There was a familiarity to the work-from-home mandates, idle children cooped up in the house and spare surgical or N95 masks rummaged from drawers.
But only a small proportion of Delhi’s citizens can afford such luxuries. Debu Jyoti Dey, the finance director at a nonprofit in the development sector, wore a handkerchief tied below his eyes as he trudged between a subway station and his office. At least, he said, he was going indoors.
"I feel congestion in the chest, I feel sneezy, sometimes drowsy," he said. But "people who are working on the road, they suffer a lot more" — people like drivers, curbside vendors and day laborers. "And if I remained at home, how would I earn my living?".
Dey said that governments were failing to "reach at the root causes" of the pollution because it was not a voting issue among the poor, who must "think about free electricity and water and not bother" about the health of their lungs.
The rich can afford to ignore the smog because they "use machinery and technology and stay indoors," he said. The middle class — he means people like himself — are too few in number to matter to politicians but unhappily "put our lives at stake" alongside the poor.
For those who are able to stay at home, that can help a little, said Dr. Sundeep Salvi, president of the Indian Chest Society, based in Pune. There are "at least some health benefits," if it means moving from a pollution level of 450 to 300, say. Those benefits, however — like masking with a simple bandanna — are marginal, and easily overstated.
Salvi also recommends staying hydrated, performing a kind of nasal wash twice a day and keeping houseplants in living spaces. None of these measures are enough to make a difference in any epidemiological study. But unlike industrial-grade HVAC systems with air filters, they are affordable to all households.
The immediate cause of the dreaded autumn smog is the drop in temperatures, creating a "thermal inversion," when hotter air forms a stubborn layer atop the colder air, trapping pollutants at ground level. It coincides with extra sources of microscopic grit: small fires for cooking and warmth, smoke from Diwali firecrackers and farmers’ burning stubble from their fields after the harvest.
Ms. Atishi has traded accusations with the party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the burning of crop waste. Her smaller party controls the state of Punjab, which is most often blamed for the fires. But the surrounding states run by Modi’s party, she said, were responsible for much more of this season’s burning.
The scientific community is at odds over what proportion of the deadliest particulate matter comes from the fields. Recent analysis by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology put stubble burning’s contribution at just more than 1% in October. By this month it had risen, to 13%, but remained small in comparison to the city’s base-line pollution from vehicles and other sources.
Whatever the causes of the smog, by one ranking Delhi was not just the most polluted city in the world, but "nearly five times as bad as the second most polluted city, Dhaka," in Bangladesh next door, as Shashi Tharoor, a leader of the opposition in parliament and bestselling author, posted on the social platform X.
"This city is essentially uninhabitable from November to January inclusive and barely livable the rest of the year. Should it even remain the nation’s capital?" he wrote.
About 10 years after Delhi’s extraordinary wintertime air pollution first drew the world’s attention, it is remarkable how little is understood about it. Even its health effects need further research.
Dr. Salvi said there were simply no significant longitudinal studies on cardiovascular function, which are "expensive, and take 10 years to do.".
He said that "I can only imagine that the prevalence of heart attacks, of strokes, of heart failure — they must all increase significantly because of this high level of air pollution. But there are no studies from India to support it.". India’s Coal Plants to Miss Pollution Goal as Smog Chokes Delhi (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [11/19/2024 10:55 PM, Rajesh Kumar Singh, 27782K, Negative]
Most of India’s coal-burning plants are set to again fall short of a major pollution target, adding to the deadly smog that’s enveloped large parts of the country.
About three-quarters of the coal-fired generators near major cities are set to miss a year-end deadline to install equipment to curb sulfur-dioxide emissions, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified as the information isn’t public.If fully implemented, such systems could cut India’s emissions of the pollutant by almost two-thirds, benefiting air quality and public health, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. Sulfur dioxide breaks down into sulfates, which can account for almost a third of the particulate mass that forms India’s smog, according to Manoj Kumar, an analyst at the Finland-based research group. About 20 gigawatts worth of coal plants near cities face the December deadline. Other generators near critically polluted areas must comply by end-2025, and the remainder a year later. The nation first targeted a clean-up of power plant emissions in 2015, and has already delayed compliance targets twice.The Ministry of Power is preparing to seek a third extension of the deadline, as well as an exemption for plants that have fewer than 10 years to run, according to the people. Less than 10% of the nation’s total 218-gigawatt coal power fleet currently has the pollution control equipment installed.The power ministry didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment. The environment ministry, which must approve the extensions, also didn’t respond.Objections to the steps include the high cost of installation and the need to shut down plants for about a month, which operators say could jeopardize electricity supply. India has battled blackouts in recent years as power demand outpaced supply growth.The move would be a setback to efforts to combat the smog that’s been blamed for millions of premature deaths and diseases as well as economic losses due to the impact on productivity. Every year, a vast swathe of the country’s densely populated northern plains battles the pollution, which comes from vehicles, construction dust and the burning of crop waste after harvest as well as power plants. On Monday, New Delhi’s air quality index, a measure of pollutants, soared to more than 1,700, far exceeding the safe level of 50. Authorities have halted construction work, asked schools to conduct online classes and advised citizens to remain indoors as much as possible.
“We are faced with one of the worst air quality crises in years and this calls for urgent government action to accelerate pollution-control measures,” said Sunil Dahiya, founder and lead analyst at New Delhi-based environment advocacy firm EnviroCatalysts. “The environment ministry should pressurize the power ministry to act in the interest of public health, instead of siding with polluters.” In India’s tribal-dominated Jharkhand, BJP labels Muslims as ‘Bangladeshis’ (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera [11/19/2024 4:14 PM, Mohammad Sartaj Alam, 25.8M, Neutral]
Sitting at a dusty roadside tea stall with his friends in Bada Sanakad village in the tribal-dominated eastern Indian state of Jhakhand, Abdul Gafur is furious.“Who says we are Bangladeshi infiltrators? Hear me out, we are the registered citizens of India. To date, God knows how many of our generations have passed away on this land. So, do not insult our ancestors by calling us infiltrators,” said the 46-year-old farmer, as nearly a dozen of his companions, most of them Muslims, nodded in agreement.
Gafur is a Muslim, a community in Jharkhand that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been painting as “Bangladeshi infiltrators” for months as it seeks to unseat a coalition of opposition parties, led by Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), in the two-phase state assembly election that started on November 13.
Bid to break anti-BJP voting bloc?
Bada Sanakad falls in Jharkhand’s Pakur district, which together with Godda, Deoghar, Dumka, Jamtara and Sahibganj districts form what is known as the Santhal Pargana region, which votes in the second phase of the election on Wednesday. The region, with 18 seats in the 81-member state assembly, is dominated by tribal groups, who along with Muslims form about 50 percent of Santhal Pargana’s population and have traditionally been voting for anti-BJP parties.
Across Jharkhand state, the tribes and Muslims – at 26.2 percent and 14.5 percent respectively, according to the 2011 census – form nearly 41 percent of Jharkhand’s 32 million population.
Analysts say it is this pattern of voting among the tribals and Muslims that the BJP aims to break this year by invoking the “Muslim infiltrator” bogey. In 2019, the right-wing party won only four of 18 Santhal Pargana seats, while in the parliamentary elections earlier this year, the BJP failed to win the two seats reserved for the tribals and won one of the three from the region.India’s affirmative action programme reserves some state assembly and parliamentary seats for historically marginalised groups, including dozens of tribes and less-privileged castes. The programme also extends such quotas in state-run academic institutions and government jobs.
Pakur, located on the northeastern end of Jharkhand, is barely 50km (32 miles) from the Bangladesh border. It also adjoins the Muslim-dominated Murshidabad district in neighbouring West Bengal state. It is for this reason that most residents in Santhal Pargana speak Bengali, a major South Asian language spoken in West Bengal as well as Bangladesh.
The bogey of a Bangladeshi infiltrator is not unfamiliar in India, especially since Modi came to power in 2014 on a Hindu majoritarian agenda. What first started as a demonisation of the mainly-Muslim Rohingya refugees from Myanmar and Bangladesh metamorphosed into a broader campaign against Muslims in India’s northeast, especially in the state of Assam, home to millions of Bengali-speaking Muslims.
In Assam, where a third of its population is Muslim, the BJP and its allies have been running the “Muslim infiltrator” campaign for decades, alleging that Muslims entered the country from Bangladesh “illegally”, altered the state’s demographics, and took over lands and jobs.
Xenophobic campaigns demanding that such Muslims should be deprived of all citizenship rights, jailed or deported to Bangladesh have intensified since a BJP-led coalition first won Assam in 2016. Since then, thousands of Muslims have been declared “doubtful” voters and dozens put in detention centres specifically designed to lock up “illegal” Muslims.
Now, Muslims in Jharkhand fear that politics is being transported to their state: The BJP appointed Assam’s Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma its election coordinator for Jharkhand in the run-up to the vote. Sarma, 55, is a hardline politician accused of hate speeches and policies against Muslims. In several of his election rallies in Jharkhand, Sarma said his party would identify “the illegals” – as he claims he did in Assam – and “push them to Bangladesh”.
Sarma also promised to replicate Assam’s controversial National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Jharkhand if the BJP wins. The NRC, originally ordered by India’s Supreme Court in 2013, aims to identify and deport immigrants in India who do not have valid papers. In 2019, Sarma’s government used the NRC drive to remove nearly two million people from the citizenship list – about half of them Hindus. Though the BJP had declared its intent to implement NRC nationwide, it has been seen using the issue selectively in some regions.“The country knows that 900,000 Hindus and 700,000 Muslims were left out in the final draft of Assam’s NRC,” Jharkhand-based lawyer Shadab Ansari told Al Jazeera, adding that such campaigns will have no effect in a tribal-dominated state.
Most analysts regard the NRC as a policy supplement to a controversial citizenship law passed by the Modi government in 2019 and implemented earlier this year. The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), whose passage had set off protests across the country over allegations of anti-Muslim bias, expedites Indian citizenship for “persecuted” Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians from neighbouring Muslim-majority Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who arrived before December 31, 2014.BJP spokesman Pratul Shahdev denied the party is using the “Bangladeshi infiltrator” issue as an election plank. “We have been raising this issue for years and will continue to do so,” he told Al Jazeera.
Shahdev said the BJP is not claiming that all Santhal Muslims are infiltrators. “We are only raising questions on Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators, not on local Muslims of Jharkhand,” he said.“These infiltrators are taking advantage of various schemes run by the government for minorities by becoming citizens of the country and usurping the rights of local Muslims. They are marrying tribal women and usurping the land of tribals,” he added, without providing any evidence to back his allegation.
Controversial BJP video
Meanwhile, the BJP last week raised its “Bangladeshi infiltrator” pitch by releasing a 53-second video that depicted a group of Muslims, men and children wearing skullcaps and women in burqa, forcibly entering the house of a purported JMM supporter and occupying it.
The video starts with residents in a seemingly upper-middle-class bungalow-style house enjoying their meals and playing music on a radio when the doorbell rings. A man opens the door to find the group outside, some carrying their belongings on their heads.
The man, taken aback, asks what they want. But the group shoves him aside and barges in, taking over the radio and soiling the upholstery with their dirty feet. A woman from the house is shown closing her nose – a stark reference to the invading “impurity”. Soon, the occupants are all over the house, forcing the residents to huddle in a corner. Amid the “occupation”, the camera zooms to a poster featuring JMM’s Soren on the wall. The caption next to his photo says: “We will change the look of Jharkhand.”
Gafur from Pakur told Al Jazeera he saw the video on WhatsApp. “It seems the BJP wants to gain votes by spreading hatred through such videos. This attempt to gain votes by setting a narrative centering on a particular religion is scary,” he said.
The JMM complained to the Election Commission of India about the “misleading and malicious” video, accusing the BJP of breaching the election rules. The commission on Sunday ordered the BJP to take down the video immediately. The party obliged, but the video is still viral on social media, with several accounts on X and Facebook sharing it.“The only fault of Santhal citizens who are being labelled Bangladeshis is that first, they are Muslims, and two, they are Bengali speaking. That is why they are accused of being Bangladeshis,” JMM legislator Sudivya Kumar Sonu told Al Jazeera.
BJP spokesman Shahdev told Al Jazeera the video “tried to show how horrific the situation is when intruders forcefully enter someone’s house”. “But when the Election Commission instructed, we took it down. We did not post the video to hurt the sentiments of any community,” he said.‘We can only be patient’
The BJP may have taken down the video, but its top leaders – including Modi’s main aide, Home Minister Amit Shah, and BJP chief Jagat Prakash Nadda – have long been targeting the JMM-led government, accusing it of helping “illegal” Muslims settle across the state and adding them to the voters’ list. In 2018, Shah had repeatedly called Bangladeshi migrants “termites” during his public speeches.
In one of his campaign speeches in Jharkhand, Nadda even cited an alleged intelligence report claiming that “Bangladeshi infiltrators” are sheltered in madrassas (Muslim schools) where they are given key documents reserved for citizens. “The JMM government ensured land for them,” he said.
Gafur rejected the allegation.“Bangladesh was formed in 1971 whereas all the Muslims living in Bada Sanakad have land records, some going as far back as 1932. Our ancestors have been living here since before the independence of India,” he said.
Wakil Ansari, sitting next to Gafur at the tea stall, agreed. He said the political parties should work to develop the Santhal Pargana region instead of indulging in such polarising tactics.“Most Santhal families are dependent on agriculture. But due to a lack of resources for irrigation, farmers are dependent on ponds and rain. In such a situation, agriculture has been suffering. The government should work on it,” Ansari, 55, told Al Jazeera.“Our children are deprived of quality education. Due to limited job opportunities, people either work in stone quarries or migrate to other states in search of better work. No political party is willing to discuss these issues,” he said.
AC Micheal Williams, national coordinator for United Christian Forum, a community group, told Al Jazeera the Hindu right’s politics in Jharkhand so far mainly targeted Christian churches and other such institutions, accusing them of running a conversion campaign by offering cash and other incentives to the poor tribals.“This year, there have been a total of 585 incidents of violence against Christians across India, with 27 of those incidents occurring in Jharkhand alone,” he noted.“Just as Christians have been accused of conversion, now Muslims in Jharkhand are being targeted under the pretext of being Bangladeshi infiltrators. Such politically motivated actions for the sake of votes are detrimental to the interests of the country and will ultimately harm social harmony,” he said.
Back at the tea stall in Bada Sanakad village, Gafur only has one thought as he prepares to vote on Wednesday: “We can only be patient.” Authorities Fail to Address Ethnic Violence in India’s Manipur State (Human Rights Watch)
Human Rights Watch [11/19/2024 7:35 AM, Meenakshi Ganguly, 2M, Negative]
On November 16, a mob in India’s Manipur state attempted to storm the home of Chief Minister N. Biren Singh and attacked properties of other ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders. The assailants were protesting the government’s failure to end ongoing ethnic violence in the state.
What was especially notable was that the protesters belonged to the majority Meitei community, which has had his government’s support. The chief minister has been promoting the BJP’s Hindu majoritarian ideology by backing the primarily Hindu Meitei. That has deepened distrust of the minority tribal groups of Manipur, known as the Kuki-Zo, who are mostly Christian. Biren Singh’s administration even provided political protection to militant Meitei groups like the Arambai Tenggol, which have attacked the Kuki-Zo.
Since violence first broke out in Manipur in May 2023, nearly 250 people have been killed, dozens of women raped, and tens of thousands displaced. Civil society activists who had warned that prejudiced policies would encourage further violence found themselves under government investigation.
Now, both Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities are facing reprisals by armed groups, often targeting women.
On November 7, Meitei gunmen attacked a settlement of the Kuki-Zo ethnic Hmar community in Jiribam. The autopsy report of a woman found she was beaten and burned to death, sparking anger over suspected rape.
On November 9, Kuki-Zo gunmen killed a Meitei woman in Bishnupur district.
On November 10, at least 10 members of the Hmar community were killed in an alleged armed exchange with security forces. Kuki-Zo groups said that those killed were village self-defense volunteers. Meanwhile, Hmar militants killed two men sheltering in a Meitei displaced persons shelter in Jiribam, and abducted three women and three children.
The recovery of the bodies of women and children that were abducted have sparked protests since November 16, with Meitei groups warning that if the government continued to fail to act, it would “bear the brunt of the people’s discontentment.” The authorities ordered curfew and shut down the internet, but protests continued.
It is evident that the current approach has only enabled the atrocities to spiral out of control, with at least 20 people, including a protester, killed in the latest outbreak of violence since November 7. It is critical that the government response ensures the protection of Kuki-Zo and Meitei people alike. Australia, India to boost cooperation on renewables, defence, says Albanese (Reuters)
Reuters [11/19/2024 7:08 PM, Kirsty Needham, 37270K, Neutral]
Australia will partner with India to boost investment in renewable energy, including solar manufacturing, battery and mineral processing, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a meeting with his Indian counterpart on the G20 sidelines.
Australia and India will also look to enhance defence and maritime security cooperation, Albanese said in a meeting with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday.
The two countries, along with the United States and Japan, are members of the Quad, which has sought to balance China’s rising military and economic clout in the Indo Pacific region.
Australia was the largest producer per capita of rooftop solar in the world, and projects with India will include training a rooftop solar workforce as India seeks to boost household use of renewables, Albanese said.
"Our new partnership will boost two-way investment in renewable energy projects like solar PV manufacturing, battery and mineral processing, green hydrogen and green iron," he said, according to an official transcript.
"Australia’s relationship with India is also vital to regional security and stability," he added.
Modi said they were exploring new cooperation on defence industry, critical minerals, renewable energy, ship building, space, according to the transcript.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute in a report on Wednesday said the Quad plus countries such as South Korea needed to cooperate more on critical minerals processing, including harmonising industrial policies and building stockpiles, to overcome "China’s manipulation of the global critical minerals market".
Australia has rich deposits of copper, vanadium, cobalt and lithium used in electric vehicle batteries.
China is a major investor in Australia’s critical minerals sector and the Albanese government faced a challenge in diversifying investment to avoid a greater concentration of the supply chain, it said. China and India should not be called developing countries, several Cop29 delegates say (The Guardian)
The Guardian [11/19/2024 12:02 PM, Patrick Greenfield and Fiona Harvey, 92374K, Neutral]
China and India should no longer be treated as developing countries in the same way as some of the poorest African nations are, according to a growing number of delegates from poorer country at the Cop29 UN climate talks.
China should take on some additional responsibility for providing financial help to the poorest and most vulnerable, several delegates told the Guardian. India should not be eligible for receiving financial help as it has no trouble attracting investment, some said.
Balarabe Abbas Lawal, Nigeria’s environment minister, said: "China and India cannot be classified in the same category as Nigeria and other African countries. I think they are developing but they are in a faster phase than states like Nigeria.
"They should also commit in trying to support us. They should also come and make some contribution [to climate finance for poorer countries].".
China and India are regarded as developing countries at the Cop29 climate talks, using classifications that date back to 1992 when the UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC) was signed. That means they have no formal obligation to cut their greenhouse gas emissions or to provide financial help to poorer countries, and technically are eligible to receive climate aid, though China chooses not to do so.
"Those that actually deserve this support are African countries, poor Asian countries and small island states that are facing devastating climate change issues," Lawal said.
His views were echoed by two other representatives from developing countries at the talks. An African negotiator said: "China, India, South Africa, Egypt: those countries should not be on the list of developing countries. In the framework, they have conditions to access funds, much more than us. They should be contributing.".
Susana Muhamad, the environment minister of Colombia, said: "The developed and developing country categories are obsolete. These categories should be changed. The problem is that the Paris agreement and the UNFCCC are negotiated on these categories.".
Nearly 200 governments are gathered in Azerbaijan for the second week of fortnight-long climate talks that are focused on how to give poor countries access to the $1tn a year they need to cut greenhouse gas emissions and cope with the impacts of extreme weather.
Progress has been slow as developed nations have been reluctant to put forward the cash needed, and rows have erupted over the global commitment to "transition away from fossil fuels".
China is the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter and second biggest economy but is classed alongside some of the poorest countries in the world at the UN talks, and carries no obligation to provide financial help to the developing world.
India is now the world’s fifth largest economy by some measures but is still entitled to receive climate finance.
China and India have long been seen as leaders of the developing world at the annual climate summits, called conferences of the parties (Cops) under the UNFCCC, the parent treaty to the 2015 Paris agreement.
This year, however, questions over which countries are still developing have been thrown into sharp focus by the goal of this year’s talks, which is to forge a "new collective quantified goal" on climate finance.
Li Shuo, the director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, a thinktank, said that for any countries to try to push China into contributing to climate finance on the same basis as developed countries would be counterproductive. "That would risk harming trust, and reinforcing divisions," he said. "What we need is unity, and unity is starting to emerge at these talks.".
Vaibhav Chaturvedi, a senior fellow at India’s Council on Energy Environment and Water, another thinktank, rejected the suggestion that India could contribute to climate finance. "Our per-capita income is $2,800 a year; in the US, it’s $35,000. No one should be saying India should be paying climate finance – we should be receiving.".
If India did not receive such assistance, he said, speeding up the transition to a green economy would be impossible. "An acceleration without climate finance is unthinkable for India," he said. "India will also defend the principle of responsibility [for cutting emissions and providing climate finance] based on historic emissions.".
However, China’s historic emissions are now greater than those of the EU, according to research from Carbon Brief.
According to the World Resources Institute, China provided nearly $4.5bn a year in climate finance to poorer countries from 2013 to 2022. But much of this money appears to come with strings attached. Developing countries spent nearly $300bn in 2022 just on servicing their debts to China.
Rich countries are concerned that China releases too little information on its financing activities to allow for a clear view. "It’s a black box," said Germany’s lead negotiator, Jochen Flasbarth.
Avinash Persaud, a former economic adviser to Barbados’s prime minister, Mia Mottley, and now a special adviser to the president of the Inter American Development Bank, pointed out that China and India were also indirectly contributors to climate finance through their shareholdings in regional multilateral development banks.
He said: "Around half of developed countries’ contributions to the current $100bn target come from their shareholdings in multilateral development banks, which currently spend around $75bn on climate to developing countries. China and, to a smaller extent, India are also significant shareholders and will want their share of that international climate finance to be considered as well.". NSB
In Sri Lanka, China and India have a chance to join hands (South China Morning Post – opinion)
South China Morning Post [11/19/2024 4:30 PM, Kalinga Seneviratne, 9769K, Neutral]
The decisive victory of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s National People’s Power (NPP) alliance in the November 14 parliamentary election is expected to usher in a new era of clean government and socioeconomic empowerment for the Sri Lankan people. However, much depends on whether the two Asian powers, India and China, and a global power, the United States, can act as partners in helping the Sri Lankan government implement its ambitious reforms.
After Dissanayake narrowly won the presidential election on September 21, there were questions over whether he would be able to implement his ambitious election platform without a working majority in parliament. His party had only three members of parliament, leading Dissanayake to form a three-member interim cabinet with each minister sharing about 10 ministries. Because the NPP was elected with only 42 per cent of the vote, opposition parties were quick to claim that Dissanayake did not have the support of the majority of voters.
Therefore, Dissanayake quickly dissolved parliament and called for a snap general election on November 14, where he was able to increase the NPP vote by around 20 percentage points and win a two-thirds majority with 159 seats. His party has virtually wiped out the opposition, expect for the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) party led by his presidential rival Sajith Premadasa, which came a distant second with 40 seats.
The emphatic victory gives the NPP unprecedented powers to draft and pass legislation, and even amend the constitution. However, a more important outcome of the election with long-term implications is that the NPP won seats in the Tamil-dominated electorates in the north and east of the country.
It won three seats in the Tamil bastion of Jaffna. This is the first time since the ethnic conflict between Tamils and the Sinhalese erupted in the early 1980s that a party from the south has won seats in Jaffna. The NPP fielded several Tamil candidates, and it also won seats among the electorates dominated by Tamil tea estate workers in the central hill country.
Shortly after the official results were declared, Tilvin Silva, general secretary of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) which leads the NPP coalition, acknowledged the significance of the Tamil vote. He said that "the people of our country have rejected communalism" and that "the old politics based on communalism and extremism has ended". He thanked the people of the north, east and the plantations for joining hands with the south. Central Asia
Serbia, Kazakhstan Strengthen Economic Ties Amid Toqaev’s Visit To Belgrade (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [11/19/2024 9:05 AM, Staff, 1251K, Positive]
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev have pledged to strengthen economic cooperation between their countries during Toqaev’s first visit to Serbia as the Central Asian country’s president. At a joint press conference on November 19, Toqaev highlighted the commitment of both nations to expand their bilateral relations, focusing on key sectors such as industry, mining, and health care. Vucic emphasized the deep political and historical bonds between the two countries, pointing to Kazakhstan’s longstanding support for Serbia, referencing Kazakhstan’s non-recognition of Kosovo’s independence declared in 2008. The two sides signed 10 agreements and memorandums, aiming to foster cooperation in various fields. These include readmission, defense collaboration, and the peaceful exploration and use of outer space. Serbia and Kazakhstan already share a military-technical cooperation agreement, signed in November 2013 and in effect since July 2021. However, the deal has drawn criticism from the European Union, as Serbia’s agreements with third countries will need to be reevaluated if it joins the EU. Kazakhstan: Officials resorting to press gangs to curb draft evasion (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [11/19/2024 4:14 PM, Almaz Kumenov, 57.6K, Neutral]
Press gangs are operating in Kazakhstan, trying to fill out the ranks of the country’s military. Draft evasion is prevalent in the Central Asian nation amid reports of widespread hazing of new recruits that occasionally results in deaths or serious injuries.
Military officials are currently facing widespread criticism over regular media reports about the bullying of conscripts. According to the Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office, 270 servicemen died while serving in the military over the past three years, while 86 soldiers have killed themselves since 2020. Dozens more have attempted suicide. Those statistics are linked to the long-standing problem of hazing in the military.
The practice of older soldiers bullying raw conscripts – known as dedovshchina in Russian – is a holdover from the Soviet era. According to a Human Rights Watch report issued in 2004, fresh conscripts in many formerly communist states have had to endure a “year-long state of pointless servitude,” during which they are abused gratuitously and punished “violently for any infractions of official or informal rules.”“Hundreds commit or attempt suicide and thousands run away from their units,” the HRW report adds. “This abuse takes place in a broader context of denial of conscripts’ rights to adequate food and access to medical care, which causes many to go hungry or develop serious health problems, and abusive treatment by officers.”
One of the most resonant, recent cases of an alleged hazing-related injury in Kazakhstan involved National Guard soldier Erbayan Mukhtar, who fell into a coma during his sixth month in the service. The unit’s leadership, without informing the 22-year-old soldier’s relatives about the incident, admitted him to a hospital, where part of his brain was removed. As a result, Mukhtar was left unable to eat or breathe on his own. He is currently cared for by medical workers hired by his relatives. Military investigators reported that Mukhtar slipped in the latrine and hit his head. The soldier’s relatives, pointing to the bodily injuries he suffered, assert his injury was caused by a severe beating.
Suspected dedovshchina-related incidents are often not investigated, and alleged perpetrators are rarely held accountable. Military officials routinely attribute deaths and injuries to accidents. At the same time, many victims show extensive bodily injuries indicative of the use of violence. Relatives of victims complain that the problem of hazing remains unresolved precisely because of the connivance of defense officials, who consider the phenomenon to be a military tradition.
The Ministry of Defense’s efforts to eradicate hazing have so far proven ineffective. Deputy Defense Minister Darkhan Akhmediyev announced plans in October to install video cameras with artificial intelligence technology in military barracks, enabling the “recording [of] all incidents.” However, according to members of parliament, the ministry had already installed thousands of video cameras by 2023, with no tangible impact on discouraging bullying.
Dedovshchina is widely acknowledged to be a major factor in explaining why lots of Kazakh youngsters are not answering their conscription notices. Kazakhstan’s fall draft, which got underway in September and runs until December, is apparently falling well short of its target of inducting 39,000 new conscripts into the military.
Authorities are now resorting to extreme measures to round up draft dodgers. A video filmed in the capital Astana, now circulating on social networks, depicts a suspected incident of impressment outside a shopping mall in which men in plain clothes are shown trying to hustle younger men into a car. Some women try to stop them, their indignant cries can be heard: “Film everything and post it!”
On November 12, the Defense Ministry commented on the video, explaining that many conscripts are not responding to conscription summons and do not live at their registered addresses. In such cases, according to the law, the police must ensure their forced appearance, the ministry maintained.“During raids, sometimes citizens do not obey legal demands of the employees of internal affairs bodies and resist,” the Ministry of Defense said. Rights Watchdog Says Tajik Activist Deported From Germany Has Been Jailed (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [11/20/2024 4:00 AM, Staff, 456K, Negative]
Dilmurod Ergashev, a Tajik opposition activist who was deported from Germany despite significant concerns about the risk of his detention and torture upon returning to Tajikistan, has been jailed for two months, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on November 20, calling on Berlin to press for his release.An administrative court in Germany ordered Ergashev’s deportation on October 28. The 40-year-old is a prominent member of Group 24, an opposition movement that is banned in Tajikistan, and part of the Reforms and Development of Tajikistan movement established by exiled dissidents.His activism has included participating in demonstrations in Berlin, notably during a protest against Tajik President Emomali Rahmon’s visit to Germany in September 2023."Germany should urgently press Tajikistani authorities to release Ergashev or make clear the legal grounds and evidence justifying his detention and ensure that his due process rights are fully respected," HRW said in a statement."This includes access to appropriate and quality medical care and ensuring that he is not mistreated. Ergashev was deported after a German court dismissed concerns, that he and human rights groups had raised, that he would be detained on arrival in Tajikistan," it said.Ergashev has been in Germany since February 2011 and first applied for asylum on political grounds that same year. Despite several applications, his asylum requests have been consistently rejected.According to his lawyer, German immigration authorities have expressed doubts about the sincerity of Ergashev’s commitment to opposition causes.On November 6, The Insider investigative group reported that Ergashev had attempted to commit suicide before being deported from Germany to Tajikistan, citing self-exiled Tajik opposition activist Sharofiddin Gadoev.Germany has faced criticism for similar actions in the past. In 2023, two Tajik dissidents, Abdullohi Shamsiddin and Bilol Qurbonaliev, were deported to Tajikistan, where they were immediately detained and later sentenced to lengthy prison terms on dubious charges related to attempts to overthrow the constitutional order.Reports indicate that Shamsiddin has faced mistreatment while incarcerated.The Tajik government is known for its systematic persecution of opposition members, especially those affiliated with banned groups like Group 24.A recent report by HRW highlighted Tajikistan as a country of major concern regarding transnational repression, noting that the government actively targets critics abroad on charges of extremism and terrorism, leading to severe penalties and mistreatment upon forced return.Given Ergashev’s documented activism and participation in protests, he is seen as a clear target for persecution by the Tajik authorities. Jailed Tajik MMA Fighter, Blogger Chorshanbiev’s Sentence Extended (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [11/19/2024 8:47 AM, Staff, 1251K, Negative]
Popular Tajik MMA fighter and blogger Chorshanbe Chorshanbiev, who was sentenced in 2022 to 8 1/2 years in prison on charges he and his supporters call politically motivated, has received an additional four-year term for his involvement in a prison fight.
Chorhsanbiev was convicted in a closed trial for "actions disrupting prison operations," Tajik journalist Anora Sarkorova and two sources close to Tajik law enforcement structures told RFE/RL on November 18.
With the new sentence, part of which will be served concurrently, Chorhsanbiev now faces a total of 12 1/2 years behind bars, of which more than two years have been served.
Sarkorova cited her sources in the Justice Ministry as saying that prison officials were instructed to provoke Chorhsanbiev, allegedly to justify extending his sentence. Reports also detail his repeated solitary confinement and physical abuse, including punishment for speaking his native Pamiri dialect of Persian during family visits.
Chorhsanbiev was initially convicted for alleged calls for the violent overthrow of the constitutional order.
The primary evidence was a November 2021 video in which he discussed events in Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO). Authorities deemed the video an incitement to protests against the state. Chorhsanbiev denied the charges, asserting that his statements were misinterpreted.
In December 2021, Chorhsanbiev was deported from Russia for alleged traffic violations. Upon arrival in Dushanbe, he was detained by military personnel at the airport.
The case is rooted in the November 2021 unrest in GBAO that was sparked by the death of 29-year-old Gulbiddin Ziyobekov during a security operation.
Mass protests erupted, with demonstrators bringing Ziyobekov’s body to government offices, demanding accountability. The protests, which lasted four days, turned violent at times, resulting in three deaths and injuries to around 10 protesters and five security personnel.
Tensions between the government and residents of the restive GBAO have simmered ever since a five-year civil war broke out shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Gorno-Badakhshan, a linguistically and ethnically distinct region, was home to rebels who opposed government forces during the conflict.
While it occupies almost half of the entire country, its population is a mere 250,000. The region is difficult to travel around because of the mountainous terrain, while its economy is wracked by unemployment, difficult living conditions, and high food prices. Indo-Pacific
Afghan Teacher, Imprisoned Tajik Lawyer Win Prestigious Rights Award (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [11/19/2024 2:58 PM, Staff, 1251K, Neutral]
Zholya Parsi, a women’s rights activist in Afghanistan, and imprisoned Tajik lawyer Manuchehr Kholiqnazarov have been declared co-winners of the prestigious Martin Ennals Award, often referred to as the Nobel Prize for human rights.
"Two outstanding human rights defenders who have made it their life mission to protect human rights in Afghanistan and in Tajikistan will receive the Martin Ennals Award 2024 on November 21" in Geneva as the award marks its 30th anniversary, organizers said on November 19.
The two "have shown exceptional courage and determination to bring human rights at the forefront despite evolving in deeply repressive environments," the group said.
It is not clear if Parsi would be allowed to travel to the award ceremony, while Kholiqnazarov remains imprisoned in his home country, serving a 16-year sentence.
The jury consisted of 10 leading human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Parsi, a teach from Kabul, founded the Spontaneous Movement of Afghan Women (SMAW) to protest the return of policies and practices against women’s rights and fundamental freedoms following the extremist Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021.
The movement quickly grew in Kabul and elsewhere in Afghanistan and now has 180 members and has mobilized communities to resist the Taliban’s policies and practices, organizers said.
Parsi was arrested in the street by armed Taliban members in September 2023 and detained along with her son."She was released after three months of torture and ill-treatment under their custody, which further strengthened her resolve to resist Taliban oppression and repression," award organizers said.
Since returning to power, the Taliban has been assailed by international groups and Western nations -- which have not yet officially recognized the extremist group as legitimate rulers -- for human rights violations, especially those against women and girls.
Kholiqnazarov is director of the Lawyers Association of Pamir, one of the few civil society organizations active in Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan region.
After mass protests erupted in the region in November 2021 following the extrajudicial killing of Khorugh district resident Gulbiddin Ziyobekov, Kholiqnazarov joined the Commission 44 organization in which members of law enforcement agencies and local civil society representatives joined to investigate the reasons behind the unrest.
But in May 2022, the Tajik authorities renewed their crackdown on protests in the region, leading to the arrest of Kholiqnazarov and a dozen other members of Commission 44.
In December 2022, the Supreme Court sentenced Kholiqnazarov to 16 years in prison after finding him guilty of being part of a criminal organization and of participating in the activities of a banned organization engaged in extremist activities.
Kholiqnazarov pleaded not guilty to the charges.
"We are very proud to honor these two exceptional laureates," said Hans Thoolen, chair of the Martin Ennals Award Jury, said. Twitter
Afghanistan
Habib Khan@HabibKhanT
[11/19/2024 7:12 PM, 244.6K followers, 45 retweets, 160 likes]
Jailed alongside her son for protesting Taliban oppression, Zholia Parsi—an activist and founder of a women’s movement—has just been honored with the 2024 Martin Ennals Award. The courageous Afghan women standing against the Taliban’s tyranny deserve greater global recognition.
Habib Khan@HabibKhanT
[11/19/2024 5:43 PM, 244.6K followers, 83 retweets, 229 likes]
Women and girls of Afghanistan are leading the fight against Taliban oppression with extraordinary resilience that demands recognition. Congratulations to Nila Ibrahimi for winning the 2024 International Children’s Peace Prize.
Habib Khan@HabibKhanT
[11/19/2024 4:25 PM, 244.6K followers, 55 retweets, 169 likes]
Being a journalist under the Taliban in Afghanistan is one of the most challenging and dangerous professions, particularly for Afghan journalists. https://x.com/i/status/1858969844584247804 Jahanzeb Wesa@JahanzebWesa
[11/19/2024 4:33 PM, 4.6K followers, 15 retweets, 41 likes]
Nila Ebrahimi, a girl who, like other Afghan girls, was banned from attending school, received major award from a prestigious organization today. The world must not stop supporting Afghan girls who have been deprived of education. Congratulations to Nila for winning the award.
Jahanzeb Wesa@JahanzebWesa
[11/19/2024 4:25 PM, 4.6K followers, 24 retweets, 46 likes]
Nazifa Haqpal, a women’s rights activist, in an interview with the DEFAW organization, said: “Under the current regime, Afghan women face rising suicide rates fueled by systemic oppression—denied education, work, and freedom, leaving them with no hope.” Pakistan
Imran Khan@ImranKhanPTI
[11/20/2024 1:14 AM, 20.9M followers, 4.7K retweets, 8.7K likes]
Former Prime Minister, Imran Khan’s discourse with his lawyers and representatives of the media: (November 19, 2024)
We have three demands:
Revocation of the 26th Amendment and restoration of the Constitution
Return of the stolen mandate Release of political prisoners
The protest on November 24 will neither be postponed nor canceled.
Ali Amin Gandapur and Barrister Gohar briefed me about the preparations for the protest today. My directives for party officials, members of Parliaments (National and Provincial), ticket-holders, party members and supporters are to plan comprehensively for the protest, and to prepare the people of their constituencies and regions by providing them with thorough details for a zealous, but peaceful protest.
We are always ready for negotiations in the best interests of the country. A leadership committee was formed on the same day the call for protest was given. Whenever negotiations are held, with whomever they are held, our leadership committee will negotiate with whoever the handlers put forward based on our three demands. What could be better than resolving issues through negotiations?!
Ideology based politics has returned to the country after many decades. Ideological politics was buried in 1985 when elections were held on non-party basis. Since then the politics of money began. Politics without the involvement of political parties commenced, and members of assemblies were given “developmental funds” (leading to corruption). PTI emerged as an ideological political party following the February 8 (2024) elections. People voted for party ticket and ideology. The end of the politics of electables is a welcome development. PTI ticket holders won because this is a struggle for upholding an ideology. I am in jail myself, because of upholding my ideology.
Had Dr. Yasmin Rashid given a statement (denouncing PTI), she too would have come out of prison like Andleeb Abbas. Shah Mahmood Qureshi could have been released from prison if he had given just one statement (against Imran Khan). Our workers and leaders including Omar Sarfaraz Cheema, Ejaz Chaudhary and Mian Mahmood Ur Rasheed could have chosen the easy path, but they refused to compromise on ideology. Now we have become a revolutionary party. Only a revolution can bring the country out of the current quagmire of challenges.
Anyone who does not come out (to protest) on November 24 will be considered not to be a part of the party. No matter how long anyone has been in the party, they will have no place in the party if they choose not to participate in the protest. This protest is a test for the party as well as the party leadership. The protest will continue in Islamabad until our demands are met!
Anas Mallick@AnasMallick
[11/20/2024 3:29 AM, 74.2K followers, 1 retweet, 17 likes]
Pakistani military’s PR wing in a statement says that Six terrorists were killed whereas 12 brave soldiers lost their lives in an attempted attack at a joint check post in Malikhel of Bannu. #Pakistan
Anas Mallick@AnasMallick
[11/20/2024 1:12 AM, 74.2K followers, 60 retweets, 188 likes]
In the past 48 hours, there has been a blackout on mainstream Pak media of 2 major events where brave Pak security forces lost their lives -- the one in Tirah and yesterday’s attack in Bannu, where collectively over 15 lives have been lost is where Pak media has remained silent. India
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[11/19/2024 9:05 PM, 103.7M followers, 2.4K retweets, 15K likes]
Met Jonas Masetti and his team. I had mentioned him during one of the #MannKiBaat programmes for his passion towards Vedanta and the Gita. His team presented glimpses of the Ramayan in Sanskrit. It is commendable how Indian culture is making an impact all over the world.
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[11/19/2024 5:27 PM, 103.7M followers, 1.8K retweets, 12K likes]
Dear Tulsi Bhai, A healthy planet is a better planet. India is working actively in this sector. We are attaching great priority to integrating technology too. At the same time, we will strengthen global efforts in this regard. @DrTedros
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[11/19/2024 5:21 PM, 103.7M followers, 1.1K retweets, 5.6K likes] Technology holds immense potential for driving progress on the SDGs and empowering lives globally. May humanity harness it together for a brighter and better future. @KGeorgieva
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[11/19/2024 2:54 PM, 103.7M followers, 1.5K retweets, 6.8K likes]
With G20 leaders at the productive Rio de Janeiro summit. We had engaging conversations and deepened global collaboration in areas like sustainable development, growth, fighting poverty and harnessing technology for a better future.
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[11/19/2024 2:30 PM, 103.7M followers, 3.5K retweets, 23K likes]
Partnering to leverage the power of technology for a greener world! The Declaration on Digital Public Infrastructure, AI and Data for Governance offers a roadmap towards a more sustainable planet. I thank the distinguished world leaders for their passion and support to this effort. We will continue the focus on the transformative potential of DPI, AI and data-driven governance to advance the SDGs and enhance lives globally. This is an area where India stands ready to contribute actively and share our best practices with the world.
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[11/19/2024 12:42 PM, 103.7M followers, 2.9K retweets, 17K likes]
At the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro today, I spoke on a topic which is very important for the future of the planet- Sustainable Development and Energy Transition. I reiterated India’s steadfast commitment to the Sustainable Development Agenda. Over the past decade, India has undertaken numerous initiatives in sectors like housing, water resources, energy and sanitation which have contributed to a more sustainable future.
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[11/19/2024 12:42 PM, 103.7M followers, 554 retweets, 1.7K likes]
We in India, guided by our cultural values, have been the first to fulfil the Paris Agreement commitments ahead of schedule. Building on this, we are accelerating towards more ambitious goals in sectors like renewable energy. Our effort of the world’s largest solar rooftop programme is an example of the same.
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[11/19/2024 12:42 PM, 103.7M followers, 554 retweets, 1.6K likes]
India is sharing its successful initiatives with the Global South, focussing on affordable climate finance and technology access. From launching the Global Biofuels Alliance and promoting ‘One Sun One World One Grid’ to planting a billion trees under ‘Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam’, we continue to work actively towards sustainable progress.
Rajnath Singh@rajnathsingh
[11/19/2024 8:44 PM, 24.3M followers, 133 retweets, 566 likes] Today, 20th November, I’m leaving for Vientiane to attend the 11th ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM Plus) in Lao PDR. Various regional & international security Issues will be discussed during the meeting. There would also be separate bilateral meetings with my counterparts from other participating nations. Looking forward to it. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2074309
Rajnath Singh@rajnathsingh
[11/19/2024 8:36 PM, 24.3M followers, 436 retweets, 2K likes]
I call upon my sisters and brothers of Maharashtra to vote in large numbers and strengthen the festival of democracy. I particularly urge young and first time voters to exercise their franchise.
Rajnath Singh@rajnathsingh
[11/19/2024 7:36 AM, 24.3M followers, 273 retweets, 1.6K likes]
Addressed the IAF Commanders’ Conference in New Delhi. Lauded the Air Force for its dedication and professionalism in safeguarding our nation’s sovereignty. The Government is working towards making the processes of capability and capacity building more vibrant and efficient. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleseDetailm.aspx?PRID=2074689®=3&lang=1
Dr. S. Jaishankar@DrSJaishankar
[11/19/2024 6:05 AM, 3.3M followers, 274 retweets, 1.6K likes]
My remarks at the 7th India - Japan Indo - Pacific Forum and 10th India - Japan Track 1.5 Dialogue. @DPG_ORG @JIIA_eng
U.S. Ambassador Eric Garcetti@USAmbIndia
[11/19/2024 5:13 AM, 230.1K followers, 138 retweets, 510 likes]
I’m thrilled to share that, with over 330,000 students, India has sent more students to the U.S. than any other country this year! This is International Education Week. Let’s celebrate the power of education to build tomorrow’s leaders and deepen our bonds. I came to India first as a 19-year-old student, and I know firsthand the value of these exchanges. Here’s to our continuing vibrant education partnership moving the #USIndia forward together! #USIndiaFWDforEducation #IEW2024
Richard Rossow@RichardRossow
[11/19/2024 5:03 AM, 29.6K followers, 5 retweets, 18 likes]
The Reserve Bank of India affirms its list of domestic systemically important banks. SBI, HDFC, ICICI. All have slightly higher capital buffers. https://rbi.org.in/scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?prid=59088
Michael Kugelman@MichaelKugelman
[11/19/2024 9:55 AM, 214.7K followers, 5 retweets, 21 likes]
In this essay for @TIMEIdeas, I explain why recent talk of an India-China thaw--following the border deal--shouldn’t be overstated. The relationship remains highly fraught & any broader improvements in ties will likely be limited to the economic realm. https://time.com/7175644/india-china-ladakh-deal-rapprochement/ NSB
Sabria Chowdhury Balland@sabriaballand
[11/19/2024 10:35 AM, 7.4K followers, 1 retweet, 6 likes]
It is the hope of all well wishers of #Bangladesh that its ties with the #Trump administration remain the same as with the #Biden administration. However, we must be cautious. Bangladesh’s Yunus hopes US ties will strengthen despite Trump victory https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/bangladeshs-yunus-hopes-us-ties-will-strengthen-despite-trump-victory-2024-11-19/
Jon Danilowicz@JonFDanilowicz
[11/19/2024 8:44 AM, 9.5K followers, 6 retweets, 90 likes]
One way to settle the issue of #Bangladesh’s interim government’s tenure is to hold a referendum once the reform outline is clear. This would also provide an opportunity to test drive the electoral mechanisms. Vox populi, vox dei.
Jon Danilowicz@JonFDanilowicz
[11/19/2024 7:17 AM, 9.5K followers, 13 retweets, 123 likes]
This is an outstanding appointment by @ChiefAdviserGoB. There is a real opportunity for #Bangladesh to work collaboratively with @Refugees, its neighbors and international friends to address the challenges faced by the Rohingya refugees and their host communities. I wish Dr. Khalilur Rahman success in this important work. The approach taken by the previous government only succeeded in politicizing the issue while treating the Rohingya as pawns. Now is the time for a fresh approach.
Tshering Tobgay@tsheringtobgay
[11/19/2024 11:26 AM, 100.1K followers, 35 retweets, 344 likes]
Bhutan takes another leap forward in strengthening our energy security and regional integration. The signing of the MoU b/w Druk Green Power Corporation & Tata Power Company Limited marks a historic partnership to develop 5,000 MW of clean energy capacity in Bhutan. #tatasons
Abdulla Shahid@abdulla_shahid
[11/19/2024 2:05 PM, 118.9K followers, 46 retweets, 68 likes]
The Government’s rushed move to amend the Constitution for anti-defection provisions is reckless and raises serious concerns about its true intent. Reports that the government plans to push this amendment through in a single sitting are deeply worrying. We demand transparency and inclusivity in any constitutional reforms to protect democratic principles and public trust. Central Asia
Asel Doolotkeldieva@ADoolotkeldieva
[11/20/2024 1:27 AM, 14.1K followers, 3 retweets, 2 likes] My current finding from a small survey of various export-import companies is that current Western sanctions are actually counter-productive in Central Asia in the ways European products are being replaced by cheaper Turkish, Chinese, and Russian products. More will follow.
Yerzhan Ashikbayev@KZAmbUS
[11/19/2024 8:22 PM, 2.8K followers, 5 likes]
Senator @SteveDaines bold leadership is a game-changer, unlocking unprecedented opportunities. Grateful for yet another showcase of his unwavering commitment, paving the way for a stronger future in US&KZ relations today in the heart of Capitol Hill.
Yerzhan Ashikbayev@KZAmbUS
[11/19/2024 8:20 PM, 2.8K followers, 8 likes]
Immense thanks to @ChrisMurphyCT for his support and for highlighting that once the objectives of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment’s sanctions mechanism are achieved, it’s time to move forward. Your leadership inspires progress.
Yerzhan Ashikbayev@KZAmbUS
[11/19/2024 8:18 PM, 2.8K followers, 4 likes]
Heartfelt thanks to @RepTomSuozzi for his inspiring speech in the Bennett Room today and to @RepJimmyPanetta for his steadfast support. Champions like you drive US&KZ relations forward.
Yerzhan Ashikbayev@KZAmbUS
[11/19/2024 8:15 PM, 2.8K followers, 5 retweets, 15 likes]
Today, in the heart of Capitol Hill, we reaffirmed Kazakhstan’s readiness to embrace permanent normal trade relations (PNTR). We are closer than ever – this is our moment to act. Let’s make it happen!
UNODC Central Asia@UNODC_ROCA
[11/19/2024 7:08 AM, 2.5K followers, 1 retweet, 8 likes]
Yesterday kicked off a game-changing 5-day professional development training at the prestigious Kostanay Police Academy in Kazakhstan! 19 talented psychologists from the Kyrgyz @minjust_kg are actively taking part in this transformative program. @oliverstolpe
Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service@president_uz
[11/19/2024 2:33 PM, 205.4K followers, 7 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev addressed the first session of the @OSenati #Uzbekistan’s #OliyMajlis today, highlighting that strong will, unity, and hard work are key to the nation’s development. He proposed new initiatives focused on enhancing lawmaking, fostering dialogue with civil society, and strengthening social protection.
Navbahor Imamova@Navbahor
[11/20/2024 12:21 AM, 23.8K followers, 1 like]
You won’t lose your job to AI. You will lose your job to someone who knows AI better than you do. @USAGMgov #SolutionsJournalism workshops in Uzbekistan this month. 1/2 @KhikmatPulatov
Navbahor Imamova@Navbahor
[11/19/2024 10:13 PM, 23.8K followers]
Uzbekistan’s journalists and bloggers have been trying to use AI in their work. But how and why? @USAGMgov workshops offering practical sessions on it in its current module on #SolutionsJournalism. 2/2{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.