SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS
Prepared for the U.S. Department of State
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
TO: | SCA & Staff |
DATE: | Tuesday, October 1, 2024 6:30 AM ET |
Afghanistan
Taliban Arrests Suspects In Deaths Of 3 Foreign Tourists (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [9/30/2024 7:55 AM, Staff, 1251K, Negative]
Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government has announced the arrest of several alleged members of a regional branch of Islamic State who are suspected of killing three foreign tourists in Bamiyan in May and involvement in a mid-September attack on compliance officials in Kabul.Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on X on September 30 that the unspecified number of suspected Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) members includes one Tajik national.He alleged that the Tajik national had come from neighboring Pakistan to carry out attacks in Afghanistan and said other IS-K fighters are in hiding in the Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces of Pakistan with support from certain intelligence agencies. He did not provide evidence.Islamabad has rejected past accusations that it provides shelter to militants.Mujahid added that Taliban operations had forced IS-K militants out of Afghanistan, their former base.The September 12 attack on employees of the High Directorate of Supervision and Prosecution of Decrees and Edicts -- which took over duties from the former UN-backed government’s attorney-general’s office -- resulted in six deaths and 13 injuries, according to the Taliban.The Afghan Prosecutors Association said at least 16 prosecutors were killed.The May 17 attack on a group of tourists at a market in the central Bamiyan Province killed three foreigners and an Afghan, and injured seven others, according to Taliban officials at the time.An anonymous Taliban source, however, put the number of dead at eight in comments to RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi. Radio Azadi could not confirm that account.Spain later confirmed that some of its nationals had been "murdered" in the attack, and simultaneous reports cited injured citizens from Australia, Norway, and Lithuania.Four suspects were said to have been detained at the scene.Bamiyan has remained a tourist destination despite a previous Taliban leadership’s destruction in 2001 of two massive sixth-century Buddha statues to prosecute the hard-line fundamentalist group’s extreme ban on idolatry. Taliban asserts new gains against Afghan-based IS offshoot amid skepticism (VOA)
VOA [9/30/2024 11:49 AM, Ayaz Gul, 4566K, Negative]
The Taliban said Monday that their security forces had killed and captured several "key members" of a regional Islamic State affiliate for plotting recent terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, alleging that the suspects had crossed over from Pakistan.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesperson, listed the claims and so-called successes against Islamic State-Khorasan, or IS-K, locally known as Daesh, in a formal statement without providing evidence to support them.
The assertions came after the country’s three immediate neighbors and Russia jointly urged the de facto Kabul government this past Friday to take "visible and verifiable actions" against transnational terrorist groups, including IS-K, on Afghan soil.
Mujahid said the IS-K operatives in question had been involved in several recent attacks in Afghanistan. They included a suicide bombing in the Afghan capital earlier this month and a May gun attack in the central city of Bamiyan, he added.
Both attacks resulted in the deaths of at least ten people, including three Spanish tourists, with IS-K claiming credit for them at the time.
The Taliban spokesperson said that IS-K insurgents had established "new operational bases and training camps" in the Pakistani border provinces of Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after fleeing Afghan counterterrorism security operations.
"From these new bases, they continue to orchestrate attacks, both within Afghanistan and in other countries," he claimed, noting that "some of the arrested individuals had recently returned to Afghanistan from the Daesh Khorasan training camp" in Balochistan.
Islamabad has not immediately responded to the Taliban’s allegations, which came two days after neighboring Pakistan, China, and Iran, along with Russia, at a meeting in New York this past Friday, urged the Taliban to eradicate bases of IS-K and other transnational terrorist groups in Afghanistan.
The ministerial meeting warned that these Afghan-based terrorist entities "continue to pose a serious threat to regional and global security." According to a joint statement released after the huddle, the participants recognized the Taliban’s efforts in combating IS-K.
"They called on de facto authorities to take visible and verifiable actions in fulfilling the international obligations and commitments made by Afghanistan to fight terrorism, dismantle, and eliminate all terrorist groups equally and non-discriminatory and prevent the use of Afghan territory against its neighbors, the region, and beyond," the statement stressed.
It identified the groups in question as IS-K, al-Qaida, Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement, ETIM, which opposes China, anti-Iran Jaish ul-Adl, and the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, TTP, as well as the Baloch Liberation Army, BLA, both waging attacks on Pakistani security forces and civilians.
The United Nations, in a recent security assessment, also described TTP as "the largest terrorist group" in Afghanistan, with several thousand operatives, noting that IS-K activities in the country are also turning into a significant regional threat. It noted that the group had intensified cross-border attacks in Pakistan since the Taliban regained power three years ago and is being facilitated by the de facto Afghan rulers.
A new report issued Monday documented nearly 1,000 deaths of civilians and security forces in Pakistan during the first nine months of 2024. The Islamabad-based independent Center for Research and Security Studies stated that most of the fatalities resulted from attacks by TTP and BLA-led insurgents.
Pakistani authorities have consistently urged Kabul to extradite TTP leaders and militants to Islamabad for trial for instigating deadly violence in the country.
The Taliban has rejected Pakistani and U.N. allegations, saying they are not allowing any foreign groups, including TTP, to threaten other countries from Afghanistan.
The United States has designated TTP and BLA as global terrorist organizations. Afghan Journalists’ Group Slams 10-Year Sentences Given To Reporters (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [9/30/2024 6:57 AM, Staff, 1251K, Negative]
The Afghanistan Journalists’ Support Organization (AJSO) has expressed concern at the 10-year prison sentences reportedly given to two reporters by a Taliban military court after their arrest in Kabul two months ago. The AJSO, a support nonprofit established by media professionals and German academics, said the court sentenced Mohammad Arif Hijran and Ahmed Kamran to prison immediately after their detention on July 16. It said they were convicted of reporting on and taking photographs of ceremonies to mark Ashura, an Islamic day of commemoration. The AJSO condemned the sentences and called on the international community to put pressure on Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government to release the men. Government officials have not commented on the claims. Taliban Tourism ‘Distorting The Truth’ In Afghanistan (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [9/30/2024 4:14 PM, Abubakar Siddique and Frishta Sahak, 235K, Neutral]
The Taliban’s repressive policies and widespread rights abuses have made its unrecognized government in Afghanistan a global pariah.
To boost its international image, the hard-line Islamist group has tried to woo foreign tourists to the country, where violence has significantly dropped since the Taliban seized power in 2021.
But even as the Taliban looks to cash in on propaganda and financial benefits of foreign visitors, the groups’ widespread restrictions on the movement of Afghans, especially women, have stifled the growth of the local tourism industry.
"The Taliban promote tourism because it has a major propaganda advantage for its government," said Sami Yousafzai, a veteran Afghan journalist and commentator who tracks the Taliban.
"The Taliban want to cash in on the interest in tourism to project a positive image of the country it rules," he added.
The number of tourists visiting Afghanistan has steadily increased in recent years. In 2021, there were 691. In 2022, that number increased to 2,300. Last year, there were 7,000, according to Taliban officials.
Foreign visitors have been drawn to the country’s ancient history and scenic landscape. Chinese tourists make up the largest group of visitors. Major airlines stopped flying to Afghanistan after 2021, but several have resumed flights.
Taliban officials have also been keen to stress that foreign tourism also provides a financial boost to Afghans, many of whom are struggling to survive mass unemployment and rising poverty.
But the burgeoning tourism industry in Afghanistan faces formidable challenges.
Visas are expensive and difficult to obtain. Many countries cut ties with Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover. No country in the world recognizes the Taliban regime. Many Afghan embassies, especially in the West, have shut or suspended their operations.
The Taliban is also selective in who it chooses to grant a visa. Foreign journalists and rights activists are barred from entering and working in the country.
Even with a visa, foreign tourists must obtain written permission from the Taliban to visit tourist spots and take photos or videos of their interactions with Afghans and Taliban fighters.
Safety is also still a concern. The Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) extremist group, a rival of the Taliban, killed six foreign and local tourists in the central city of Bamiyan in May.
IS-K militants have previously targeted foreigners and embassies in Afghanistan.‘Dark And Bleak’
The Taliban has been keen to exploit the rosy picture of the country presented in videos and photos taken by foreign tourists, including YouTubers.
"The Taliban know these YouTubers are not interested in stirring controversies," said Yousafzai. "So, they plan to send these YouTubers to places where they can do their ‘positive’ reporting."
Many YouTube videos produced by foreign tourists show the Taliban in a positive light, portraying them as welcoming hosts. The videos also highlight the relative safety in the country and suggest that Afghans are happy under Taliban rule.
The Taliban, which is increasingly active on social media, often promotes the videos on various platforms.
The militant group has also made exceptions for female tourists to visit historical sites and national parks that are off-limits to Afghan women.
The Taliban has imposed severe restrictions on the appearances, behavior, and movement of women in what rights group have described as gender apartheid.
"This is dangerous and distorts the truth," said Nazifa Haqpal, a British-based Afghan researcher.
"The truth under the Taliban’s cruel rule is dark, bleak, and ugly," she said. "Unlike journalists, YouTubers are not bound by impartiality or professional ethics, which makes it easy for the Taliban to manipulate them."
Some Afghan women said that foreign tourists are playing into the Taliban’s hands and whitewashing their suffering.
"Conditions for us are worsening with each passing day," Arezo, a young woman in the central province of Bamiyan, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.
Even as the Taliban tries to woo foreigners, the group’s restrictions have prevented the growth of local tourism.
Last year, the Taliban banned women from visiting Band-e Amir, a national park in Bamiyan. Consisting of crystal-blue lakes and soaring cliffs, it is one of the most popular tourist sites in the country.
The Taliban is "denying the most fundamental rights of Afghan women," Arezo said.
"Unfortunately, Afghan women are banned from tourism and leisure by the Taliban," Zala, a housewife in the capital, Kabul, told Radio Azadi.
"We are banned from enjoying the natural beauty and historic places of our ancient homeland," she added.
In recent years, the militants have barred Afghan women from using gyms and visiting public bathhouses and city parks. Closing the Afghan Embassy in London Is a Moral and Diplomatic Mistake (The Diplomat – opinion)
The Diplomat [9/30/2024 11:26 AM, Ramiz Bakhtiar, 1198K, Neutral]
On August 18, 2021, Keir Starmer stood in the House of Commons as the leader of the Labor Party and criticized the Conservative government’s response to the crisis unfolding in Kabul. In his remarks, aimed at Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was on holiday at the time, he stated: "You cannot coordinate an international response from the beach," highlighting the urgency of the situation in Afghanistan, as the capital, Kabul, had just fallen to the Taliban.
Now, under Starmer’s leadership, the Afghan embassy in London has been ordered to cease operations at a time when Afghanistan is fighting for its future. This raises an important question: How can diplomacy be coordinated when doors are closed?
The Afghan embassy in London is not a diplomatic or legal representative of the Taliban. Its staff and diplomats were appointed by the former Republic government of Afghanistan. It has no affiliation with the Taliban regime. This diplomatic mission, though representing a defunct government, serves as a voice for the people of Afghanistan and supports the Afghan diaspora in the U.K., operating independently of any ties to the Taliban.
I urge Prime Minister Keir Starmer to reconsider his government’s decision to close the Afghan embassy, as I believe it is a step in the wrong direction. It is morally wrong and must be reversed.
First, closing the Afghan embassy in London is not just a matter of administrative adjustments. It will have serious humanitarian consequences for thousands of Afghan nationals residing in the U.K. who rely on essential services provided by the embassy in London. Additionally, there will be diplomatic and legal implications for the Labor government. It signals a neglect of the Afghan people’s well-being and further alienates a population already suffering from the collapse of their country’s political system.
Second, Article 45 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations(1961), to which the U.K. is a signatory, states: "If diplomatic relations are broken off between two States, or if a mission is permanently or temporarily recalled: (a) The receiving State must, even in the case of armed conflict, respect and protect the premises of the mission, together with its property and archives."
The decision to close the Afghan embassy in London disrespects and disregards Article 45 of the Vienna Convention. Under this article, the functions and operations of the Afghan embassy remain relevant and active, as it represents the interests of the people of Afghanistan, if not its current regime. The embassy in London, and in other countries, can provide essential services to Afghan nationals residing in the U.K., regardless of the status of the central government in Afghanistan. Closing the embassy will cut off thousands of vulnerable people from these necessary services and undermine their legal rights, especially during an ongoing crisis.
Third, Afghanistan’s embassy in London is not an isolated example of an "embassy without a recognized government." From 1996 to 2001, when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, their regime was not recognized by any Western country. The Afghan embassy in London, which had no ties to the Taliban regime at the time, remained operational in that period. The only difference is that back then, it represented a government-in-exile.
Furthermore, the embassy of Sudan in London remains operational despite the absence of a central authority in Sudan or a globally recognized government, and ongoing internal turmoil and civil war. The embassy of Sudan provides consular services to the people of Sudan, who have the right to receive these services regardless of the political status quo at home. Similarly, Afghans residing in the U.K., the vast majority of whom oppose the Taliban, deserve to receive consular services, and have a representative that echoes their voices and concerns with the government of the U.K. Ordinary people should not be punished for the status of the political system in their home country.
Lastly, the closure of the Afghan embassy in London would place the U.K. government in a position where it may have to engage with the Taliban, a regime it does not recognize. The U.K. could soon find itself in a difficult situation, as four Western countries - Australia, Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands - are preparing to take the Taliban to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). A ruling from the ICJ could serve as a barrier for the U.K. in engaging with the Taliban. Therefore, it is preferable to keep the Afghan embassy open, allowing continued engagement with the Afghan people and receiving insights from the embassy, which represents the Afghan people and the former Republic government. Pakistan
Pakistani court denies imprisoned former premier Khan and his wife bail in graft case (AP)
AP [9/30/2024 4:37 PM, Munir Ahmed, 31638K, Negative]
A Pakistani court denied on Monday a bail application by imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife in a graft case, their lawyer said. It’s another blow to the popular opposition leader, who has been in prison for more than a year after being convicted on multiple charges.
Khan is embroiled in more than 150 cases since 2022, when he was ousted from power in a no-confidence vote in parliament after several political allies deserted him.
He has accused the military and his archenemy and current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of ousting him under a U.S. plot. Charges which they denied.
He faced new charges, including the graft case, in July after a court overturned the convictions and seven-year sentences of the couple in a case questioning the legality of their 2018 marriage, giving way for their release.
Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi are accused of allegedly retaining and selling state gifts in violation of government rules while he was in power. Pakistan allows government officials to buy gifts received from foreign dignitaries but they have to declare their sales as it adds to their income. Khan is charged with undervaluing such proceeds
The couple’s lawyer Intizar Hussain Panjutha denounced the court’s decision. The bail application was heard at Adiala prison where Khan and his wife are held in separate cells.
Oct. 2 is set for the couple’s indictment in the case.On Monday, Khan’s spokesman Zulfiqar Bukhari claimed on X that Bibi was being mistreated in jail, with officers storming her cell in the middle of the night, being forced to remove her hijab, the Islamic headscarf, and having water thrown on her mattress. "These violations of human and prisoner rights must be reported and stopped," he wrote.
There was no immediate comment from authorities on his claims.
Recently, some prison officials were fired on charges of violating prison rules to help Khan. It was unclear how they aided him. India
India’s Modi speaks to Israel’s Netanyahu, urges deescalation (Reuters)
Reuters [9/30/2024 11:19 AM, Pushkala Aripaka, 37270K, Negative]
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday that he had spoken to his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu about recent developments in West Asia and highlighted the need for de-escalation."Terrorism has no place in our world. It is crucial to prevent regional escalation and ensure the safe release of all hostages," Modi posted on X.Israel’s military killed the leader of Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah on Saturday as it ramped up attacks on militant targets in Lebanon."India is committed to supporting efforts for an early restoration of peace and stability," Modi said on Monday. Options for India, China to resolve border stand-off, Indian army chief says (Reuters)
Reuters [10/1/2024 4:14 AM, Tanvi Mehta, 5.2M, Neutral]
Talks between Indian and Chinese diplomats have opened options for the Asian rivals to resolve the conflict on their Himalayan frontier, India’s army chief said on Tuesday.Ties between the nuclear-armed neighbours have been strained since clashes between their troops on the largely undemarcated frontier left 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers dead in 2020.Diplomatic and military talks to end the standoff have made slow progress and hurt business relations between the world’s two most populous nations with New Delhi tightening scrutiny of investments from Chinese firms and halting major projects."The positive signalling is coming from the diplomatic side," General Upendra Dwivedi said at a defence think tank event."But when it comes to the execution on ground ... it’s dependent on the military commanders on both the sides to take those decisions."New Delhi wants the status on the frontier in the western Himalayas to be restored to its pre-April 2020 position when the stand-off began and the situation will remain sensitive until then, Dwivedi said.The militaries have pulled back from four of six positions where they had been involved in a face-off but have not been able to secure a breakthrough on the remaining points of friction.The sides have resolved the "low-hanging fruits" and now need to address difficult situations, Dwivedi added.The Indian army chief’s comments followed recent meetings India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar have held with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.Jaishankar said last month that about 75% of the disengagement problems at the border with China had been sorted out.The countries also agreed to redouble efforts to ensure complete disengagement, India said after Doval met Wang in Russia last month. Modi’s Party Faces Tough Contest as Kashmir Votes in Final Phase (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [10/1/2024 3:11 AM, Swati Gupta, 5.5M, Neutral]
India’s northern-most region of Jammu and Kashmir concludes local elections on Tuesday as concerns mount of an uncertain outcome that may delay economic progress in the restive province.
The only Muslim-majority region in Hindu-dominated India held three phases of elections beginning from Sept. 18. About 8.7 million registered voters are picking candidates for 90 assembly seats. The party with half the seats can form the government and choose its chief minister, although it’s more likely a group of parties will need to form a governing coalition.
Results will be announced on Oct. 8 alongside the outcome of local elections in the northern state of Haryana.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is facing stiff competition from regional groups in Jammu & Kashmir, which have typically governed there, and the Indian National Congress, the country’s main opposition party.
The Congress party has allied with Jammu and Kashmir National Conference, one of the main regional groups, to keep the BJP out. They are campaigning on a pledge to restore statehood after Modi’s government stripped the region of its semi-autonomy in 2019 and removed constitutional guarantees that gave residents special rights. Since then, Jammu and Kashmir has been directly controlled by the federal government in New Delhi.
Another major regional party, Jammu & Kashmir People’s Democratic Party, suggests the legislature is heading for a hung assembly, with no single party or coalition having enough support to govern.“This election in J&K has left most political analysts perplexed,” Iltija Mufti, daughter of PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti, a former ally of the BJP, said in a post on X. “No one can quite predict if at all what permutations & combinations will make the majority mark or will it be another spell of an apathetic central rule.”
Iltija said in an interview last month that her party is open to working with rivals to block the BJP from forming a local government.
Prospects of a hung assembly or long-drawn coalition talks may further delay progress to the region. The Kashmir valley sits on the edge of a disputed territory with Pakistan and has seen three wars and several skirmishes over the years. As a result, the region hasn’t seen the kind of development and investment the rest of India has experienced.
A non-BJP government in the region, which is still ultimately controlled by the federal government in New Delhi, may continue to be hamstrung in making policy.
An arrangement with various players “doesn’t add up to the stability” in the region, said Rasheed Kidwai, a political analyst and author on Indian politics. Regional parties want a restoration of statehood, and if they win “for the next five years, we are going to see a confrontation between New Delhi and Srinagar,” he said.
The BJP is contesting 62 out of the 90 seats up for grabs and is leaning on other regional parties and independent candidates to boost its support in the assembly. The party’s campaign has focused on pledges to create 500,000 jobs, bringing in investments, and giving handouts like free laptops and stipends to students.
Usually an energetic campaigner for the party in state elections, Modi has held just one rally in Kashmir’s capital city of Srinagar. The BJP has concentrated its campaigning in the Hindu-dominant Jammu area, where 43 seats are in contention.
The Congress party and its allies are contesting all 90 seats in contention for the assembly.
Turnout in the first two phases of the elections has averaged about 60%, higher than in previous polls, a sign that voters may be motivated by the message of statehood. While the BJP has pledged it will restore Jammu and Kashmir to a state from a union territory, it’s stalled over the years.“The decisions made by New Delhi in 2019 are a major focus of the election campaign and led to increased participation in the elections,” said Ayjaz Wani, fellow at the Observer Research Foundation. Indian-controlled Kashmir votes in final phase of polls to elect local government (AP)
AP [9/30/2024 10:44 PM, Staff, 459K, Neutral]
Voting in the final phase of the election to choose a local government in Indian-controlled Kashmir began Tuesday in the first such vote since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government stripped the disputed region of its special status five years ago.Over 3.9 million residents are eligible to cast their votes to choose 40 lawmakers out of 415 candidates in the region’s seven districts during the third — and last — phase of the election.It’s the first such vote in a decade and the first since Modi’s Hindu nationalist government scrapped the Muslim-majority region’s semi-autonomy in 2019.The unprecedented move downgraded and divided the former state into two centrally governed union territories, Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir. Both are ruled directly by New Delhi through its appointed administrators along unelected bureaucrats and security setup. The move — which largely resonated in India and among Modi supporters — was mostly opposed in Kashmir as an assault on its identity and autonomy.The region has since been on edge with civil liberties curbed and media gagged.India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety. The two nuclear-rivals have fought two of their three wars over the territory since they gained independence from the British colonial rule in 1947.On Tuesday, thousands of armed government forces patrolled the voting districts and guarded over 5,000 polling stations. In Jammu areas, tens of thousands of Pakistani Hindu refugees are voting for the first time in any regional election since their migration in 1947. The refugees, officially called as West Pakistan Refugees, have long been recognized as Indian citizens with voting rights in national elections. However, before 2019 changes, Kashmir’s special status allowed only descendants from residents of the territory in 1934 to vote and own property.Voting began Sept. 18 with about 61% turnout. In the second phase on last Wednesday, overall turnout was about 55%. There were no incidents reported from either phase.Votes will be counted on Oct. 8, with results expected that day.The multistage election will allow Kashmir to have its own truncated government and a local legislature, called an assembly, rather than being directly under New Delhi’s rule. However, there will be a limited transition of power from New Delhi to the 90-seat assembly as Kashmir will remain a “Union Territory” — directly controlled by the federal government — with India’s Parliament as its main legislator. Kashmir’s statehood must be restored for the new government to have powers similar to other states of India.Militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels’ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.India insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan denies the charge, and many Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict. How India’s crackdown on Kashmir – and the blowback – transformed the region’s politics (Christian Science Monitor)
Christian Science Monitor [9/30/2024 1:47 PM, Fahad Shah, 658K, Negative]
Street vendor Javaid Ahmed Bhat has never voted in local elections. Now, he feels it’s imperative.Jammu and Kashmir – the contested, north Indian territory he calls home – is facing myriad problems, most stemming from the armed insurgency that erupted here in the late 1980s. Over the past five years, India’s central government has stripped Kashmir of its statehood, delayed local elections, expanded its military presence, and jailed critics of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), all in the name of securing peace in the region.Kashmir’s highly anticipated legislative assembly elections run from Sept. 18 to Oct. 1, with results expected next week. They mark residents’ first shot to regain some semblance of local autonomy.Although early data from the first two voting phases suggest turnout has remained relatively static compared to the last assembly elections in 2014, the mood on the ground is markedly different. Gone are the calls to boycott elections and the looming terrorist threats which once deterred people from the polls, and many Kashmiris are feeling energized by a wave of 346 independent candidates challenging the region’s traditional parties. Rashid Wani, a businessman from south Kashmir, says the past five years have left many Kashmiris desperate to express their anger. “People are participating in elections [and] joining rallies,” he says. “These votes are against the BJP.” Mr. Bhat agrees. The days of anti-India street protests are over, he says, and now “we have to vote.”Delhi draws a redlineThe Kashmir conflict is a territorial dispute rooted in India-Pakistan tensions, as well as the fact that the Muslim-majority region was never allowed to decide whether it wanted to remain with India, join Pakistan, or become independent. It has claimed more than 100,000 lives since 1988, when the armed struggle began.In August 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP government downgraded the semi-autonomous state to a union territory, ruled directly by New Delhi, and then imposed a six-month communications blackout to contain the ensuing chaos. Indian officials have been broadly criticized for using sweeping new security laws to jail hundreds of activists, journalists, and politicians in the years since. Any group that fundamentally opposed Indian rule in Kashmir has also been banned.“Today, we are trying to, in a sense, completely depoliticize the population,” says Ajai Sahni, founder and executive director of the New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management. “We are trying to undermine the traditional leadership over there.”The BJP claims that peace and stability have now returned, but Mr. Sahni nuances that description, describing the armed movement as “very substantially contained.”Data from his organization shows that dozens have been killed during at least 137 terrorism-related incidents this year, including gunfights and assassinations. Experts also note that the violence appears to be spreading from the Kashmir valley into the historically calmer region of Jammu. Still, if Pakistan continues to weaken while Delhi maintains its military presence in Kashmir, Mr. Sahni doesn’t expect a resurgence in terrorism, and Delhi’s aggressive crackdown has certainly helped dismantle the network of separatist militants. But as long as separatist ideologies persist, the region remains vulnerable to political unrest.That’s why, experts posit, Delhi has drawn a clear redline in local politics: No more separatism.
“You can’t question [India’s] sovereignty or try to incite people against the country,” says a senior Indian security officer, who wished to remain anonymous as he was not authorized to speak to the press. “Anyone who crosses this line will have to be dealt with through law enforcement.”Candidates and parties that once were sympathetic to separatism are now focusing instead on issues like improving the economy, fostering peace with neighboring Pakistan, and addressing Delhi’s mass imprisonments.Politicking from prisonHafiz Sikander Malik, an independent candidate in northern Kashmir’s Bandipora district, has spent several years in prison for promoting Kashmiri independence. Now, he’s going door-to-door wearing a GPS ankle monitor, advocating for the release of fellow prisoners and trying to secure a spot in Kashmir’s 90-member legislative assembly.
“Most of our supporters are victims of prison,” says Mr. Malik, who is backed by a banned socioreligious organization that previously boycotted elections. “We want these draconian laws to be revoked. We want to get youth released from prisons. This is part of our manifesto.”Shopkeeper Malik Nayeem ul Hassan believes a vote for Mr. Malik is a vote against “against oppression and coercion.” He says many of Mr. Malik’s backers probably boycotted elections in the past, but times have changed. “If we don’t join that change, then we will stay behind in society,” says Mr. Hassan. “It is the need of the hour for everyone to participate in the elections.” Sheikh Abdul Rashid, better known as “Engineer Rashid,” is also politicking on bail. Since his Sept. 11 release from Tihar prison, where he’s facing terror funding charges, Mr. Rashid has been campaigning on behalf of 34 assembly candidates who oppose Delhi’s crackdown.The politician made headlines during India’s general election this spring when he won a parliament seat from prison, but his subsequent bail has sparked accusations that he has tacit support from the BJP, which benefits from a fragmented opposition. These allegations have sowed doubt into his base, including Mr. Bhat, the street vendor, who voted for Mr. Rashid in May.“Rashid talks about the right to self-determination, but it’s all theatrics for elections,” he says.And compared to the general election, when electing Engineer Rashid was seen as a bold statement against Mr. Modi and the BJP, Mr. Bhat says voters must now think more practically. How much can an assembly member really accomplish behind bars, or while out on bail?When his district went to the polls on Sept. 25, Mr. Bhat cast his ballot instead for a candidate backed by Kashmir’s oldest party – Jammu and Kashmir National Conference – which has never allied with the BJP in regional elections, and poses the strongest threat to Delhi’s influence. Junior doctors in India’s Kolkata resume full strike, disappointed with top court’s ruling (Reuters)
Reuters [10/1/2024 2:15 AM, Tanvi Mehta, 5.2M, Neutral]
Junior doctors in India’s West Bengal state resumed their full strike on Tuesday, complaining that the country’s judiciary has not made adequate efforts to restore justice after the rape and murder of a trainee doctor in August.
Doctors from the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front, which represents about 7,000 physicians in the state, reinstated partial services last month, citing the flood situation in parts of the state.
The rape and murder of the 31-year-old female doctor in Kolkata, capital of the eastern state, set off a wave of protests by doctors demanding greater workplace safety for women and justice for their slain colleague, prompting India’s Supreme Court to create a hospital safety task force.
The top court, in its latest hearing on Monday, urged the state government to put in place all measures by Oct. 15 to meet the doctors’ demands.
It also asked the information ministry to ensure the identity of the victim was concealed and not shared online as required by law.
The doctors, however, said they were disappointed with the court’s decisions and were "compelled to return to a full ceasework".
"Unless we receive clear action from the government on safety, patient services, and the politics of fear, we will have no choice but to continue our full strike," the group said in a statement on Tuesday.
The doctors’ demands include increased police protection in hospitals and investigation of what they say is corruption in several medical colleges.
West Bengal, ruled by the regional Trinamool Congress party, has been slow to create new tribunals to try sex crimes speedily, according to a Reuters report.
Only six tribunals are operational in the state, a far cry from the target of installing 123 fast-track tribunals by March 2021. India’s monsoon rains hit four-year high in boost to crop output (Reuters)
Reuters [9/30/2024 8:14 AM, Rajendra Jadhav, 37270K, Neutral]
India’s monsoon rainfall this year was its highest since 2020, with above-average precipitation for three consecutive months, helping the country recover from last year’s drought, the state-run weather department said on Monday.India’s annual monsoon provides almost 70% of the rain it needs to water farms and replenish reservoirs and aquifers, and is the lifeblood of a nearly $3.5 trillion economy. Without irrigation, nearly half of Indian farmland depends on the rains that usually run from June to September.Rainfall over the country from June through September was 107.6% of its long period average, the highest since 2020, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).India received 11.6% more rainfall than average in September, following 9% and 15.3% above-average rainfall in July and August respectively, the IMD data showed.Above-average rainfall in September, arising from a delayed monsoon withdrawal, damaged some summer-sown crops like rice, cotton, soybean, corn, and pulses in certain regions of India.However, the rains may also enhance soil moisture, benefiting the planting of winter-sown crops such as wheat, rapeseed, and chickpea.India badly needed good rainfall in 2024 after its driest year in five years in 2023, which depleted reservoir levels and trimmed production of some crops. This forced New Delhi to impose curbs on exports of rice, sugar and onions.Rainfall distribution was generally good, which helped farmers expand areas under most crops, said Ashwini Bansod, vice president, commodities research at Phillip Capital India."This means we could have larger harvests of some summer-sown crops, potentially helping the government to relax trade restrictions in certain cases," she said.India on Saturday lifted curbs on exports of non-basmati white rice. That came a day after New Delhi cut export duty on parboiled rice to 10%, buoyed by a new crop in the offing and higher inventories in state warehouses. India’s Tata Power to invest $14.3 bln in Rajasthan over 10 years (Reuters)
Reuters [9/30/2024 7:54 AM, Staff, 2376K, Positive]
India’s Tata Power said on Monday that it will invest about 1.2 trillion rupees ($14.32 billion) in northern state Rajasthan over the next 10 years, with majority of the money in the renewable energy projects.
Tata Power signed an agreement with the state for developing renewable energy projects, set up solar modules manufacturing plant, solar rooftops installations, transmission and distribution projects, nuclear power plant and electric vehicle charging.
About 750 billion rupees of the investment will go on renewable energy projects, with 10 gigawatt of renewable energy capacity to be developed across the state, the company said in a statement.
Tata Power, which currently has 5 GW renewable energy capacity in large projects, aims to add another 5 GW capacity in the next one to two years and expand that to more than 20 GW by 2030, investing up to $9 billion CEO Praveer Sinha told Reuters this month.
Indian companies are increasingly adding to their renewable energy capacity, with the government aiming to add at least 500 GW of clean energy by 2030 to reduce emissions. NSB
Bangladesh after the revolution: Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus envisions a new nation (NPR)
NPR [9/30/2024 10:02 AM, Reena Advani and Michel Martin, 79K, Negative]
Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus saw the trajectory of his life change after student-led protests this summer resulted in his installation as the interim leader of Bangladesh.
Autocratic former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India in early August, as tens of thousands of demonstrators stormed her residence protesting against her leadership and a job quota system that favored certain groups.
Yunus saw these events unfolding from about 5,000 miles away in Paris, where he was attending the summer Olympics. Back then, he still faced possible jail time in Bangladesh on embezzlement charges, which he alleged was Hasina’s political prosecution.
But hours after Hasina’s ouster on Aug. 5, Yunus received a phone call. He was asked to serve as special advisor to the interim government. It was a "very strange turn of events," he told NPR’s Morning Edition on Sept. 27 in New York City.
A 2006 Nobel Laureate, Yunus is known for founding Grameen Bank and pioneering small loans for low income people as a way to fight poverty. When he was mired in legal trouble at home, world leaders from Barack Obama to former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed solidarity.
After Yunus spoke at the UN General Assembly, he sat down with NPR’s Michel Martin.
The following interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Michel Martin: When we talked this past summer, you were on trial on corruption charges, and now here you are representing Bangladesh on the world stage. That is some turn of events. Are you surprised to find yourself in this position?
Muhammad Yunus: A very strange turn of events. Before I was sworn in as a chief adviser, I was in Paris trying to see if I go back, I’ll be arrested, because she will be angry at me and put me in jail. So I was thinking of delaying my return. And suddenly I got a phone call from Bangladesh that now she has left. We want you to be the head of the government. That was a big surprise.
Martin: What went through your mind when you got that phone call?
Yunus: Whether I should get involved in running the country at all. It’s a very difficult political situation. But when the students called me up and explained what the situation is, finally I said, "Yes, you have given lives for this. If you can give lives, I can remove all my other considerations. I can be of your service. I’ll do that."
Martin: And when you say you’ve given life, you were not exaggerating and it was not a metaphor.
Yunus: No, it’s not a metaphor. People die. Nearly a thousand young people died, stood in front of the gun to take bullets. Literally, young people came and sacrificed themselves. When they are coming out of their homes to join the demonstrations, they’re saying goodbye to their parents. They’re saying goodbye to their siblings; ‘I may not come back.’ That’s the spirit in which the whole thing happened. And finally, it was so unbelievable. The Prime Minister decides to leave the country because the whole mob is coming towards her home.
Martin: On the one hand, these demonstrations led to the departure of this wildly unpopular and by some accounts corrupt leader. But in those chaotic first days, there were attacks against Ahmadis and Hindus. Some of it was related to their loyalty to Sheikh Hasina’s party. Some of it seemed to be just simply attacks against minorities. Those have subsided. But since then, there have been more attacks, this time on Sufi mosques, and according to our reporting, there has been more than 20 vigilante killings, murders by mobs of people since she was ousted. Why is this happening?
Yunus: People are in the mood for revolution. So this is a revolutionary situation. They were killed. So they are looking for people who made their colleagues die. So people were attacking the followers of the party headed by Sheikh Hasina. When you say minority community being attacked, that minority community, particularly Hindu community, was associated with her. So you cannot distinguish whether they were attacked because they’re followers of Sheikh Hasina or they were attacked because they are Hindu. But they were attacked, that’s for sure. But then we took over the government and tried to bring peace. I kept telling everybody that we may have differences of opinion. That doesn’t mean we have to attack each other.
Martin: Do you think that you can redirect people to focus on reform rather than revenge?
Yunus: Revenge period was only a couple of weeks maybe. But then normalcy started coming back so we are running the country. But there are demonstrations, not revenge demonstrations. Most of the demonstrations are about demanding their pay rises, demanding their jobs, which they were fired from before by the regime. So they said, we are mistreated by the past government and we lost our jobs for nothing - because we happened to belong to another political party. So everybody is trying to settle their scores because they were deprived. We were trying to convince them. Look this is 15 years of your grievances. We cannot solve it in 15 days. Give us some time so that we can go back. You have a very difficult situation and we have to resolve it so that it’s done systematically.
Martin: Speaking of time, the army is behind you. Military leaders have said the interim government should rule for 18 months. That’s not what the opposition parties wanted. They wanted elections in November. Is 18 months enough time to do what you need to do?
Yunus: People are throwing out these numbers. How many months, how many years as they feel are needed. Some say it should be done quickly because if you go longer and longer, you’ll be so unpopular and everything will be messed up. Some say no, you have to finish the reform. So you stay this long period because we don’t want to get to Bangladesh 2.0 without fixing everything. So this is the debate going on.
Martin: You know, it’s almost like you’re talking about an entire rebuilding of civil society.
Yunus: That’s precisely what version 2 means. We don’t want to go back to the old style. Then what is the meaning of giving all these lives? It has no meaning because everything that we did, we destroyed everything. So we have to begin to build a new one.
Martin: You know, it’s challenging, but it also is exciting isn’t it?
Yunus: It’s very exciting. You look at the negative. I look at it in a very positive way. I said this is the greatest opportunity this nation got. Never, ever, all these people, the country is unified on one thing: We need change
Martin: You are 84. And I don’t know that you ever saw yourself as a head of government, as a head of state. Do you think that you will see Bangladesh become the country that you hope it will be in your lifetime?
Yunus: Not the ultimate. But I will be very happy, it’s on the way. Institutions are right. Policies are right. Young people are committed to change the world that they belong to and they play a role within the country and a global role. When we talk about climate change, we are the victims of climate change. But we have to work together. I always give importance to the youth because they are the ones who will be building the future and they should be in the leadership position anyway, because this is the planet they have to inherit. You mentioned I’m 84. I don’t have a long part ahead of me, but they have their whole life ahead of them. IMF Pledges to Support Bangladesh Reforms for Economic Stability (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [9/30/2024 11:04 AM, Arun Devnath, 27782K, Neutral]
The International Monetary Fund pledged to work with Bangladesh’s interim government to regain economic stability as the country struggles to reduce pressure on foreign exchange reserves.An IMF mission team led by Chris Papageorgiou discussed recent developments in the South Asian country and the authorities’ reform priorities during a visit from Sept. 24-30, according to a statement Monday from the Washington-based lender. This was its first visit since Muhammad Yunus took over as head of the interim government on Aug. 8.The formation of the government has helped stabilize political and security conditions “fostering a gradual return to normalcy in the economy,” Papageorgiou said in the statement. “Nonetheless, economic activity has slowed markedly, while inflation remains at double-digit levels, owing to the recent turbulence and major floods.”The deterioration in the balance of payments has put additional pressure on foreign exchange reserves and tax revenue collection has declined, while spending pressures have increased and domestic payment arrears have accumulated, he said.Bangladesh sought $3 billion in additional funds from the IMF to rebuild foreign currency reserves as it’s under pressure to pay bills for overseas purchases. This would be in addition to a $4.7 billion loan program with the IMF.“We support the authorities’ efforts to initiate policy adjustments, including continued monetary tightening and rationalizing non-priority capital spending, in response to these challenging circumstances,” Papageorgiou said.The IMF will continue discussions on how to proceed with program reviews during the upcoming 2024 IMF-World Bank annual meetings in Washington, which start Oct. 21. IMF sees gradual return to economic normalcy in Bangladesh (Reuters)
Reuters [9/30/2024 10:10 AM, Susan Heavey, 37270K, Neutral]
The International Monetary Fund on Monday said Bangladesh’s quick formation of an interim government has helped stabilize the country, and that the country’s new authorities have helped address the economy even as challenges remain.The IMF staff’s review, following a Sept. 24-30 staff visit, also backed Bangladesh authorities’ efforts to make economic adjustments in the face of those challenges such as slowing economic activity, double-digit inflation and pressure on foreign exchange reserves, the IMF said in a statement."The timely formation of an interim government has helped stabilize political and security conditions, fostering a gradual return to normalcy in the economy," they wrote.IMF’s review comes after Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus took office last month following the ousting of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina amid deadly protests.A U.S. delegation also pledged economic support following a visit to the country this month.IMF officials said they remained committed to supporting Bangladesh and its people, and would work with authorities on their reforms to shore up its economic agenda."We support the authorities’ efforts to initiate policy adjustments, including continued monetary tightening and rationalizing non-priority capital spending, in response to these challenging circumstances," the IMF staff said, adding that declining tax revenues and spending pressures also loom. Factories reopen amid garment sector unrest in Bangladesh (Reuters)
Reuters [10/1/2024 3:16 AM, Ruma Paul, 5.2M, Neutral]
Most garment factories in Bangladesh reopened on Tuesday, a day after violent protests over a pay hike left one worker dead and several others injured, officials said.
Bangladesh, one of the world’s largest garment producers and a supplier to western brands such as H&M (HMb.ST), Zara (ITX.MC) and Carrefour (CARR.PA), has been facing widespread protests in recent weeks, leading to the closure of dozens of factories.
The protests have worsened an already significant production backlog caused by recent political turmoil and devastating floods, industry insiders said.
"Most of the factories are open today, and everything is going well so far," said Abdullah Hil Rakib, senior vice president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA). He added that only five or six small factories remain closed, as they were unable to clear payments.
Rakib said that unrest persists in the sector, largely due to certain groups spreading rumours and taking advantage of the worsening law and order situation.
He urged the government to enhance security measures, as some factory owners are unable to operate due to vandalism and ongoing disruptions.“Stronger security is essential to keep production running smoothly and protect our industry,” Rakib said.
A labor ministry official said that a separate review committee is currently assessing the industry’s capacity to revise the wage structure and is expected to submit a report soon. The government is also reviewing police cases filed against workers to ensure they are not subjected to harassment, the official added.
Garment factory owners have called on the government to take immediate steps to restore order and ensure the safety of their operations, as the unrest threatens to disrupt an industry that accounts for more than 80% of the country’s export earnings.
Last year, Bangladesh was ranked the third-largest exporter of clothing globally, after China and the European Union, exporting $38.4 billion worth of garments in 2023, according to the World Trade Organization.
The ongoing unrest comes at a critical moment for Bangladesh, as the country’s interim government, led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, has taken control following the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
The former prime minister fled to India in early August after the deadliest violence in Bangladesh since its independence in 1971, which claimed over 700 lives.
Industry leaders have warned that if the unrest continues, global brands may shift production to other countries, such as Indonesia, India, and Pakistan.
"Workers should think: if the industry doesn’t survive, will they?" said a garment factory owner. Rescuers search for people still missing in Nepal after flooding and landslides that killed 217 (AP)
AP [10/1/2024 1:19 AM, Binaj Gurubacharya, 456K, Neutral]
Rescuers on Tuesday searched for people still missing and tried to recover bodies of those killed in weekend flooding and landslides in Nepal that killed more than 200 people.
Weather continued to improve, and workers were clearing the highways that were blocked by landslides. Sections of several highways next to raging rivers were washed away, however, and those repairs will likely take longer.
The disaster came just ahead of the country’s biggest festival Dasain, which begins on Thursday when people return home to celebrate with their families. The damage to roads is likely to hamper festival travel plans for many.
The government has said it was focusing on helping people who were stranded and who have lost their homes in the flooding and landslides.
Nepal police said the death toll by Tuesday had reached 217 while 143 people had been injured. There were still 28 people who were reported missing and searches were continuing for them.
Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli returned home Monday afternoon from attending the U.N. General Assembly meeting and immediately called an emergency meeting of his Cabinet.
Police and soldiers were assisting with rescue efforts, while heavy equipment was used to clear the landslides from the roads. Schools and colleges were closed until Tuesday to help clean up the premises and students to be able to recover.
The days of heavy rain came toward the end of Nepal’s monsoon season, which began in June and usually ends by mid-September. More than 200 dead in Nepal floods, as parts of Kathmandu left under water (The Guardian)
The Guardian [9/30/2024 9:28 AM, Hannah Ellis-Petersen, 92374K, Negative]
More than 200 people were killed in Nepal over the weekend in what experts described as some of the worst flash flooding to have hit the capital, Kathmandu, and the surrounding valleys.
Swathes of Kathmandu were left underwater after the heaviest monsoon rains in two decades fell on Friday and Saturday, washing away entire neighbourhoods, bridges and roads. The heavy rains caused the Bagmati River, which runs through the city, to swell more than 2 metres higher than deemed safe.
Officials reported that by Monday afternoon, 204 bodies had been recovered from the disaster and at least 30 more people were still stranded or missing, while hundreds more were injured. Dozens who died had been travelling on buses that were washed away when the highways were engulfed by surging flood waters.
Nepal’s army said more than 4,000 people had been rescued using helicopters, motorboats and rafts. Search teams continued working to dig people buried in deep mud and rubble, while rescue teams also used ziplines to reach those who were stranded.
The mountain city of Pokhara, which is popular with tourists, was also hit by heavy flooding.In the aftermath, thousands were displaced and hundreds were left without access to power and drinking water. The damage to the roads was so extensive that all main routes out of Kathmandu remained blocked and schools in the capital were closed for the next three days.
Officials and experts attributed the disaster to the climate crisis, which is causing increasingly intensive and erratic downpours and deadly flooding in south Asian countries such as Nepal. While the monsoon rains are drawing to a close, the onslaught over the weekend was caused by unusual monsoon weather patterns.
More than 300 people have died in Nepal this year from rain-related incidents, and recent studies have shown that the incidence of heavy flooding is likely to increase in the Himalayan country in the next five years as it is disproportionately affected by the changing climate.
Arun Bhakta Shrestha, an environmental risks expert at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), said he had "never before seen flooding on this scale in Kathmandu".
ICIMOD said the scale of the disaster had been worsened by unplanned urban encroachment on flood plains and unauthorised construction without proper drainage along the banks of the Bagmati River. It called for the restoration of wetlands in areas vulnerable to flooding. Nepal Surveys Flood Wreckage As Death Toll Reaches 209 (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [9/30/2024 7:12 AM, Paavan Mathema, 502K, Negative]
Search and rescue teams in Nepal’s capital picked through wrecked homes on Monday after waters receded from monsoon floods that killed at least 209 people around the Himalayan republic.Deadly floods and landslides are common across South Asia during the monsoon season from June to September but experts say climate change is making them worse.Entire neighbourhoods in Kathmandu were inundated after the heaviest rains in more than two decades, with the capital temporarily cut off from the rest of Nepal after landslides blocked highways.Nepal’s Home Ministry said 209 people had been killed across the country with another 29 still missing."We intensified aerial rescue for people who are sick or still need to be brought to safety," home ministry spokesman Rishi Ram Tiwari told AFP.Police said at least 35 of those killed were buried alive when earth from a landslide careened into vehicles on a highway south of Kathmandu.Bulldozers were being used to clear nearly two dozen sections of major roads leading into Kathmandu that had been blocked by debris.The home ministry said it was working to rescue numerous people who had been stranded on the highways.More than 400 people were rescued from various districts on Monday.Rescuers in knee-high rubber boots were using shovels to clear mud from the worst-hit riverside neighbourhoods around Kathmandu, many of them unauthorised slum settlements.The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), a Nepal-based think tank, said the disaster had been made worse by unplanned urban encroachment around the Bagmati River, which flows through the capital.Nepal’s army said more than 4,000 people had been rescued, with helicopters, motorboats and rafts bringing stranded people to safety.Nilkantha Pandey of the humanitarian organisation CARE Nepal said many of those affected by the floods needed safe drinking water and temporary housing."Mostly informal settlements have been affected," Pandey said. "It is time to respond and not delay."Merchants in Kathmandu said damage to intercity roads had drastically cut the supply of fresh fruit and vegetables into the capital."The farmers have their produce ready but with the highways blocked, all of it is stuck," Binay Shrestha, who works at one of the city’s main produce markets, told AFP.Nepal’s weather bureau said their preliminary data measured record-breaking rain in the 24 hours to Saturday morning.A monitoring station at Kathmandu airport recorded about 240 millimetres (9.4 inches) of rain, the highest figure since 2002.Climate expert Arun Bhakta Shrestha of ICIMOD told AFP that rainfall should be decreasing by late September with the end of the annual monsoon."Rainfall of this kind has to be described as abnormal," he said."It is an extreme event... I see the possibility of the role of climate change to some extent."But he added that unplanned urban development had also worsened the impact of the disaster.The summer monsoon from July to September brings South Asia 70-80 percent of its annual rainfall and is vital for agriculture and food production in a region home to around two billion people.However, monsoon rains also bring widespread death and destruction in the form of floods and landslides.Experts say climate change has worsened their frequency and intensity.More than 300 people have been killed in rain-related disasters in Nepal this year. Sri Lanka to discuss shape of IMF deal during Oct meetings in Washington (Reuters)
Reuters [10/1/2024 2:45 AM, Uditha Jayasinghe, 5.2M, Neutral]
Sri Lanka will have detailed talks with the IMF on the framework of a $2.9 billion bailout programme on the sidelines of the lender’s annual meetings in Washington later this month, the country’s cabinet spokesperson said on Tuesday.
The delegation to the meetings in Washington will be led by the country’s central bank governor, treasury secretary and financial advisers to new president Anura Kumara Dissanayake, minister Vijitha Herath told reporters at a news conference.
Dissanayake said Sri Lanka will immediately engage with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the third review of its bailout programme, the approval of which will see the disbursement of a fourth tranche of about $337 million.
An IMF team will be on a three-day visit to Colombo from Wednesday to meet with Dissanayake and his team to discuss latest economic developments and reforms under Sri Lanka’s economic programme supported by the IMF, a spokesperson for the lender said.
"We are of the view that an evaluation needs to be conducted on the IMF programme but that will not be done with the delegation visiting this week," Herath said, adding that the IMF delegation was making a "courtesy call" this week.
The 2024 annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank is scheduled to take place during Oct. 21-26.
Millions of Sri Lankans voted for leftist leader Dissanayake in the debt-ridden island nation’s presidential election in September - the first since its economy buckled in 2022 - putting faith in his graft-fighting pledge and vow to bolster a fragile economic recovery.
Investors worry that Dissanayake’s desire to revisit the terms of the IMF bailout could delay future disbursements. But the fears have been somewhat allayed by the new president who said last week that the programme would move forward under his administration. Real winners of Sri Lanka’s election: A people emboldened to force change (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera [9/30/2024 7:19 AM, Andrew Fidel Fernando, 25768K, Neutral]
Transport a Sri Lankan citizen from the early 1990s to the past week of the island’s politics, and you may just break their brain.
Back then, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the Marxist outfit that the country’s new president, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, now leads, was reviled in swaths of southern Sri Lanka for having twice attempted violent revolution. Between 1987 and 1989, the JVP unleashed new horrors upon a nation already rent by ethnic war in the north.
In the years that followed that uprising, Sri Lanka’s third president, Ranasinghe Premadasa, allegedly ran death squads that cut down young men that Dissanayake - already part of the JVP cadre - would have considered his sahodarayo, the Sinhala word for brothers. There are stories, often told, of the corpses of JVP comrades floating down rivers, a chilling warning from the state to match the brazenness of the JVP’s own killings.
In the scenic village of Batalanda, meanwhile, a young minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe - the man Dissanayake would replace as president three decades later - was allegedly overseeing a detention camp for JVP activists. Many are believed to have been tortured and killed there.
So soaked in blood is Sri Lanka’s modern history, that though the details of these violent skeins have been blurred in whirls of denial, propaganda and cynical revisionism, these stories, and the dread they evoked, have endured, and shaped the island’s politics for decades.
And yet, in September 2024, many of the southern electorates the JVP of the late 1980s had terrorised turned out for the party’s leader, Dissanayake, in the presidential election. He comfortably defeated his opponents: Sajith Premadasa, the son of Ranasinghe, and Wickremesinghe himself.
In the week since his election, Dissanayake has struck a remarkably gentle tone in his public addresses.
"We have asked our supporters to refrain even from lighting fireworks to celebrate our victory," Dissanayake said in his first, off-the-cuff, address. This was to avoid upsetting defeated political opponents. "We must end forever the era in which we are divided by race, religion, class, and caste," he said days later in a longer, prerecorded speech. "We will embark instead on programmes that enshrine Sri Lanka’s diversity."
Although it is not uncommon for new leaders to speak in such platitudes, it is worth noting that Sri Lanka’s last elected president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, had endorsed Sinhalese chauvinism in his inauguration speech in November 2019.
Dissanayake, by contrast, had tried to lower the political temperature even during his campaign, amid a bitterly-fought three-cornered race. "Let’s stop this ugly political culture of harassing political opponents," he had said in his final rally, in Colombo. "In a democracy, our right is to make our case to them; perhaps they will change their minds. But even if they do not, theirs remains the right to work for a political force of their choosing."
Since his election, he has installed Sri Lanka’s first female prime minister not coming from a dynastic political family - Harini Amarasuriya. Amarasuriya is not a member of the JVP, but of the National People’s Power (NPP), which is the moderately left-wing coalition under whose banner she and Dissanayake contested. Dissanayake has also appointed a minority Muslim, Hanif Yousuf, as governor of Sri Lanka’s most populous Western Province.
To understand how an island riven with division for much of its post-independence history has arrived at this moment, we must go back to a tumultuous 2022. Dissanayake has been shrewd and has chosen his political moments skillfully. But he is far from the architect of the wave that has swept him into Sri Lanka’s highest political office.‘The struggle’
It was the power cuts in the sticky heat of 2022’s March and April that tipped the country into tumult. The protests against then-President Rajapaksa swelled through those early months. Outside the grand, colonnaded Presidential Secretariat near Colombo’s Galle Face Green, thousands gathered nightly, like white blood cells rounding on a pathogen.
The movement soon gained the name aragalaya in Sinhala and porattam in Tamil - words that translate essentially to "the struggle". Within weeks, the movement grew swiftly all over a country strapped for fuel, gas for cooking, and electricity, after the rupee tumbled. A smattering of tents outside the primary aragalaya site swiftly expanded into a village featuring a theatre, a library, first aid stations, an art gallery, a small solar power station, and later, a cinema tent.
During Ramadan, in the first aragalaya month, Muslims broke fast with Sinhalese, and Tamils, the first installations in this village having been canteens at which food was provided free. Not only had Rajapaksa’s campaign been virulently Islamophobic in the months that followed 2019’s Easter attacks, but the government he headed had also banned Muslim burials during the pandemic, claiming baselessly that decaying bodies carrying the COVID-19 virus could contaminate groundwater. Muslims were forced to cremate their dead.
Where Rajapaksa’s government had refused to recognise the national anthem in Tamil, the Tamil version was sung at the Galle Face protest site. Where the government celebrated its victory over Tamil separatists on the May 19 anniversary, protesters made a point of commemorating the deaths of Tamil civilians during the vicious conclusion to the fighting instead. There was, in the months from April to July, also a Gay Pride Parade, a Catholic-led demand for answers over the Easter attacks, and substantial participation by Sri Lankans with disabilities.
The aragalaya site was hardly a utopian space, and there was in fact significant internal opposition to many of these events, plus widespread instances of homophobia, transphobia, and sexual harassment. But it was nevertheless the most intensive public airing of progressive ideas perhaps since the country’s independence. Radically reformist visions for Sri Lanka were not merely tolerated, they were often discussed, refined, and on occasion, incubated.
That the initial protests were devised in direct and virulent opposition to the Rajapaksas allowed activists, civil society and citizens the rare intellectual freedom to take aim at the entirety of the Rajapaksas’ political project, which included the Sinhalese-Buddhist nationalism of which they had been the most conspicuous champions in the 21st century. Many of these critiques were disseminated rapidly and emphatically on social media but also found expression in mainstream press.
Perhaps the most consequential idea was that Sri Lanka had inflicted upon itself a "74-year curse". The "curse" essentially, was the population having allowed political elites, largely organised into Sri Lanka’s two main historic parties, to fleece the island in turns since it gained independence from the British in 1948.
In this formulation, the Sri Lankan populace had allowed itself to be divided by and subservient to the interests of the few. They were not merely the ruled, but the fooled. It did not escape attention that between the power wielded by five families - the Senanayakes, the Bandaranaikes, the Jayawardene-Wickremesinghes, the Rajapaksas, and the Premadasas - almost the entirety of Sri Lanka’s modern political history is traversed.
A nation on a short fuse
That Sajith Premadasa, the leader of the opposition against Rajapaksa’s failing government, could not seize the political opportunity the protests created, was unsurprising. Though his father, the third president, had come from modest means, Sajith had studied in boarding school in the United Kingdom and interned for a United States politician. In leading his breakaway segment of the United National Party - historically the centre-right of Sri Lanka’s two leading parties - his perceived status among the political elite had become reified. So when he arrived at the main aragalaya site with the intention of showing solidarity, he promptly - and aggressively - found himself driven back into his vehicle, the protesters refusing to tolerate the presence of a mainstream politician.
Dissanayake, meanwhile, had positioned himself as an anti-establishment voice long before the protests began. Though as a youth he had sold cigarettes and toffees on the trains that passed through his village in the North Central province, he hailed essentially from the rural middle class. It is to those voters that he has always best appealed. Though in 2019, he had received a mere 3 percent of the presidential vote, he had nevertheless enjoyed soft support in much of the south.
Since becoming the JVP’s leader in 2014, he gained a profile not only for speaking out against corruption and the excesses of politicians in parliament but also as a skilled orator in Sinhalese. Young southerners, especially, had been drawn to his relaxed speaking style, and quick, dry wit; where political opponents often attacked him in screeching diatribes, Dissanayake could dispatch them with one-line zingers.
Perhaps his most astute political moment came in 2019, when by forming the NPP, he shunted his own left-wing party substantially towards the centre, making them a viable alternative to the traditional outfits in election cycles to come.
Though in attacking the political establishment he has connected with the disillusionment towards the elite, he has also in other ways been among the most inoffensive of Sri Lanka’s politicians. He has promised greater equality to minorities, but affirmed Buddhism’s "foremost place" in Sri Lankan life, as laid out in the constitution. He spoke out against the onerous conditions imposed on many families by Sri Lanka’s deal with the International Monetary Fund but affirmed his commitment to pursuing a renegotiated IMF deal. He also courted international support, taking special care to signal to India that his leadership would not be a threat. Much of this would have been anathema to the JVP of past decades.
If Dissanayake is tentative, it is perhaps because he has discerned the precarity of his political position. The forces that have brought him to the presidency have tended to punish both excess and failure. In 2015, Sri Lanka tossed out Mahinda Rajapaksa - Gotabaya’s brother and arguably the most charismatic Sinhalese politician in generations - when he sought an unprecedented third presidential term. In 2019, the same electorate ditched the Maithripala Sirisena-Wickremesinghe alliance, whose ineptitude had allowed a security breach as great as the Easter attacks, and voted in Gotabaya Rajapaksa.The protests of 2022 saw the seeding of a new political strain as Sri Lanka turfed out a third president in less than eight years. With Wickremesinghe also soundly defeated in elections, Dissanayake is Sri Lanka’s fifth head of state in 10 years. One week in, there is optimism that he could be the change Sri Lanka has been hankering for.
And yet, there is also the sense that Dissanayake is only the next experiment for Sri Lanka’s people - currently riding the crest of a wave that has built over the past decade, but just as easily capable of being swallowed by it. If economic conditions in homes worsen, either through macroeconomic instability or through the intolerable austerity of an IMF programme, Dissanayake and the NPP would be exposed.
Sri Lanka’s people feel more empowered to call for change than ever. Central Asia
Kazakhstan Seeks to Boost China Gas Exports With Possible New Pipe (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [10/1/2024 4:20 AM, Nariman Gizitdinov, 5.5M, Neutral]
Kazakhstan is in talks with China about increasing gas exports and is even considering building an additional pipeline to boost flows, underscoring the growing significance of its role in the region’s fuel market.
Kazakhstan will be competing with neighboring countries including Turkmenistan and Russia for Chinese demand. Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago led to it cutting off major buyers in Europe, with China becoming a key alternative market even amid sputtering economic momentum.“Despite reports of an economic slowdown in China, the demand for gas continues to grow,” said Sanzhar Zharkeshov, chief executive officer at national gas operator QazaqGaz NC JSC. “We hope to reach a consensus on increasing our export volumes to China and possibly other countries like Uzbekistan.”
The operator’s discussions with China involve “significantly higher volumes” than current Kazakhstan exports, he added.
The world’s largest landlocked country is seeking to boost gas production to cover growing domestic demand as well as increase revenue from exports. It sends about 4 billion cubic meters of gas to China at the moment, while consuming about 21 billion cubic meters itself. In 2023 the two countries renewed a three-year export contract.
Boosting fuel deliveries abroad could help QazaqGaz compensate for unprofitable domestic sales, where selling prices are kept low by the government.
The operator is working with major producers — including state-owned KazMunayGas National Co JSC and the Tengiz, Kashagan and Karachaganak fields — to raise output. QazaqGaz will introduce a new gas price formula aimed at supporting producers, Zharkeshov said.
It’s also working with Qatari investors on projects that will add another 3.5 billion cubic meters of gas output by 2029, as well as on exploration activities with Chevron Corp., he said.
In addition, QazaqGaz plans to build a second pipeline alongside its Beyneu-Bozoy-Shymkent link, feeding into a larger pipe to China.
The latter is currently operating at about 70% of capacity, leaving some room for additional deliveries, he said. The new pipe feeding into it would cost between $3 billion to $6 billion, and could take two to three years to complete, with a decision due later this year.
QazaqGaz may issue a Eurobond next year to finance its projects, Zharkeshov added, with a potential issuance of as much as $1 billion depending on market conditions. He said the operator remains on track for an initial public offering by 2026, potentially listing in London, New York, and Kazakhstan.“Although China has secured some good liquefied natural gas contracts, the price of LNG is not competitive compared to pipeline gas,” he said. “Therefore, our focus is on fulfilling our obligations to China during this winter season.” Turkmenistan Eyes Pakistan’s Gwadar Port for Trade Expansion (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [9/30/2024 1:43 AM, Mariyam Suleman Anees, 1198K, Neutral]
Turkmenistan is poised to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Pakistan on accessing Gwadar Port in southwestern Balochistan province. The deal marks a significant step for Turkmenistan, making it the first Central Asian country to seek access to the strategically located Gwadar Port.
Economic motivations underlie the decisions of Pakistan and Turkmenistan to finalize the deal. It is expected to open up several layers of opportunities for both countries. However, it is beset with challenges.
A part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Gwadar Port is under the operational control of the China Overseas Port Holding Company. Pakistan will be hoping that the Pakistan-Turkmenistan deal will boost business at Gwadar.
A landlocked nation, Turkmenistan has long sought access to warm-water ports to increase its alternatives to access global markets. Historically, it has relied on routes via Iran, Afghanistan, other Central Asian countries, Russia and the Caspian Sea, which is also landlocked. The initiative to link up with Gwadar Port presents Turkmenistan with a key outlet to the Arabian Sea and eventually to some of the most important international shipping routes.
As one of the world’s largest gasproducers, Turkmenistan’s economy is primarily dependent on gas exports. It has long sought for diversified transit routes to expand its reach into markets in South Asia, Southeast Asia and even Africa.
In July this year, Turkmenistan signed a landmark agreement with Kazakhstan, Russia, and Iran to develop the North-South Transit Corridor. Similarly, Ashgabat signed another such partnership with Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Romania to establish the "Caspian Sea-Black Sea Corridor to expand its links with Europe,Turkmenistan is not the first Central Asian nation to show interest in Pakistani ports. In 2021, Pakistan extended an offer to all Central Asian states to access Gwadar Port. At that time Pakistan and Uzbekistan signed bilateral agreements on preferential trade transit, customs procedures, and visa facilitation, while also proposing a major railway corridorthrough Afghanistan - an ambitious project yet to be realized.
Turkmenistan’s interest in Gwadar Port aligns with its broader push to reduce dependency on Russian and Iranian transit routes, especially in light of ongoing geopolitical instability and sanctions.
If the plan succeeds, Turkmenistan’s use of Gwadar Port for international shipments will streamline logistical operations from Central Asia through Pakistan to international markets. But the viability of this ambitious plan remains uncertain.
A crucial part of the initiative is the development of multimodal transport routes, which must pass through Afghanistan. However, relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have soured since the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, primarily because of cross-border violence and Pakistan’s push to repatriate Afghan refugees. Tensions have further escalated over Pakistan’s construction of border fencing along the Durand Line.
Besides, the potential of Gwadar Port, which has long been envisioned as a global hub for maritime shipments as well as overland trade, is yet to be realized, even two decades after completion of the port’s construction. Political instability, logistical bottlenecks, and security challenges in Balochistan have hindered the port’s full operational capacity. The port currently requires significant upgrades to handle increased traffic. At present, the port has only threeberth facilities, and lacks operational Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) terminals, although such terminals are part of the port’s future plans. The port also exclusively relies on road transport.
A core plan under CPEC was to build road and railway connections across Pakistan, linking Gwadar Port to major Pakistani cities and then into China’s western Xinjiang region. Currently, the pre-CPEC Makran coastal highway completed in 2004, connects Gwadar with Karachi. However, the $10 billion ML-1 railway stretching 2,600 kilometers from Karachi to Peshawar, which is an important component of the plan to upgrade Pakistan’s primary railway route, has seen limited progress, although it is around nine years since the project was first conceived.
For Pakistan, the ML-1 railway and realizing Gwadar’s potential could establish the port as an important transit hub for Central Asia, and bring economic benefits including increased flow of foreign exchange and job opportunities. Given Pakistan’s current economic crisis, rising debt, and ongoing negotiations with the IMF, with a recent $7 billion loan, the financial gains from increased transit trade and port activities through Gwadar have become more critical than ever.
However, concerns persist over connectivity infrastructure and the ongoing security situation in Balochistan, which has been plagued by insurgencies and violence. It could make Turkmenistan, known for its cautious foreign policy, think twice. Turkmenistan may be hesitant to fully invest in the project until it sees signs of improvement in Pakistan-Afghanistan relations, regional security, port capacity and transport infrastructure.
While Turkmenistan’s potential partnership with Pakistan to access Gwadar Port offers a win-win deal for both countries, the path to realizing these benefits is fraught with challenges. Without serious efforts to address the complex security situation, strained diplomatic relations in the region, and underdeveloped infrastructure the feasibility of this project will remain in question. Uzbek Politician Alisher Qodirov Takes on Russian Chauvinism and Soviet Legacy (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [9/30/2024 9:25 AM, Niginakhon Saida, 1198K, Neutral]
On September 27, Uzbek Foreign Minister Bakhtiyor Saidov met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. Subsequent publications from both parties highlighted different aspects of their discussions.
During the meeting, the two sides "Underscored the importance of commitment of states to the principle of non-interference to each other’s internal affairs for strengthening mutual trust," wrote Saidov in a Teleram post. "We agreed to continue our constant dialogue in the spirit of alliance."
However, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ website made no mention of non-interference. Instead, it noted that "particular attention was paid to the need to counteract manifestations of intolerance on interethnic grounds." In her Telegram channel, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, also emphasized countering the "manifestation of intolerance on interethnic grounds."
This all happened days after a scandal involving a teacher at a Tashkent public school who hit a student for allegedly asking the class to be held in Russian. The Russian MFA asked for an "official explanation" from Uzbekistan.
What Happened?
On September 23, during a Russian language class, a 6th-grade student allegedly "talked back" to the teacher. According to a now-deleted Facebook post by the student’s mother, the boy had requested that the class be conducted in Russian. In response, the teacher reportedly pulled the student from his seat, slapped him, and shoved him forcefully. Video footage of the incident quickly went viral on social media.
The Preschool and School Education Department of Tashkent City said that an investigation over the incident was underway and that "the student was not injured."
Zakharova soon weighed in, stating that the Russian Foreign Ministry was "keeping this issue under a close attention." In a Telegram post, she stated that the Russian ministry had formally requested an official explanation from their Uzbek counterparts.
In response, Alisher Qodirov, chairman of the National Revival Party and a deputy speaker of the Legislative Chamber, fired back, noting that Russia should mind its own business.
"It would be right if they go about their own affairs full of problems instead of racking their brain over our internal affairs," he wrote, after emphasizing that the violation of the rights of an Uzbek citizen’s child will be addressed in accordance with the laws established by the people of Uzbekistan.
It did not end there.
Following Qodirov’s remark, deputy chairman of the the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs and senator of the Russian Federation Andrey Klimov did an interview with a local Russian media outlet, Lenta.ru. "What was done by this so-called teacher is at the very least an offense, maybe even more. What the chairman says is at the very least puzzling," Klimov said, after noting he disapproves of the quick escalation of statements by the two sides.
Klimov then moved to threaten Uzbekistan with Ukraine’s fate. He said that there are many people who want to put Central Asia against Russia and against each other. "There was already one country that behaved this way for quite a long time. Now it finds itself in a very difficult situation," he said, presumably referring to Ukraine. He also added that it is the constitutional right of Russians to care about the rights of their "compatriots," alluding to the incident in Uzbekistan.
A day later, Qodirov took it to his Telegram channel, responding to Klimov he said, "In the case of Ukraine, Keosyan’s threat was more colorful, it is best to let the professionals do the job." He added that he was more concerned about losing Russia as a market.
Tigran Keosayan is a film director and journalist from Russia with Armenian origin who was sanctioned by the European Union, Canada, the United Kingdom, and a number of other countries for spreading anti-Ukraine propaganda in the Russian media. In April 2022, he provoked a response from Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry after appearing to threaten the country, saying in a video critical of Astana’s decision to refrain from holding a May 9 Victory Day parade that year, "Look at Ukraine carefully, think seriously."
Who Is Alisher Qadirov and Why are His Statements Important?
In recent years, Qodirov, a 49-year-old former presidential candidate, who currently serves as the chairman of the National Revival Party (Milliy Tiklanish) and a deputy speaker of the Legislative Chamber, has emerged as a prominent critic of Russian chauvinist claims and of the Soviet legacy.
When a Soviet flag was raised at a concert - "Songs of Victory" - organized in Tashkent on May 1, 2021, Qodirov called it an insult and provocation.
"We consider it an insult to the Uzbek people that the flag of the invading Soviet state, stained with the blood of progressive Uzbek intellectuals and our pure-hearted ancestors, is raised high in the heart of the capital of our country," his post at the time read.
Following the invasion of Ukraine, as inquiries on which side Uzbekistan supported started circulating, Qodirov criticized Uzbeks who sided with the Kremlin. "Is this the result of the Russian mass media brain-washing?" he wrote.
Russian chauvinism, which usually targets Kazakhstan given that the country shares the longest border with Russia, lately started targeting Uzbekistan, too. In December 2023, Zakhar Prilepin, co-chairman of the Fair Russia - For Truth Party, speaking about migrant workers, said that the territories "from where migrant workers come to us [Russia], should simply be annexed entirely." He specifically mentioned Uzbekistan.
Officially, 1.8 million Uzbeks are currently working in Russia, making them the largest group of migrant workers in the country. However, informal estimates suggest the actual number could be significantly higher.
A month later, nationalist Russian historian Mikhail Smolin claimed that the Uzbek nation did not exist before the 1917 revolution, nor did the Kazakh or Azerbaijan nations. In response, Qodirov called for reducing the use of Russian language in education, media, and other spheres.
"Lately we hear nothing but chauvinistic statements in Russian," he stated, suggesting that Moscow seems interested in this kind of rhetoric. As a practical measure to amend the situation, he urged attention to the disproportionate use of the Russian language in education and media, noting that only 3 percent of Uzbekistan’s population are Russian.
Uzbekistan is home to over 130 ethnicities and nationalities. A national census has not been carried out since 1989; however, official estimates state that 84.4 percent of the population are ethnically Uzbek while only 2.1 percent are Russian. Despite that, the Russian language is taught at public schools as part of mandatory secondary education. The Tashkent branch of Rossotrudnichestvo (the Russian Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation) claimed that one-third of Uzbekistan’s population speak Russian, but this may be an overestimation. Many people can understand Russian, but that is not the same as being fluent in it or preferring it.
Qodirov later clarified that he is not a Russophobe, rather a "Sovietaphobe": "True that the Soviet state is our history, but it should remain in the black pages of our history and should not be part of our future."
In early September, Qodirov called for a ban on the promotion of Soviet-era propaganda, ideology, and symbols.
"The Uzbek people were discriminated against and humiliated by the USSR administration and are still healing the wounds of that period," Qodirov wrote, arguing that any approval or glorification of the Soviet era should not be criminalized, but viewed as "a betrayal of our people and our ancestors who became victims of the bloody regime."
His remarks came in response to a recent court decision sentencing a 74-year-old man to three years of restricted freedom for a Telegram post in which he claimed that "Uzbekistan’s independence is superficial and the former Soviet Union has not officially dissolved."
Uzbek politicians rarely make bold remarks, especially in regard to Russia where millions of migrants work and send remittances from and with which Uzbekistan has close relations. The mere fact that the Uzbek government is allowing a politician to speak this freely about Russia should send a signal to Moscow that Tashkent is not going to tolerate or even entertain the absurd chauvinistic claims made by Russian propagandists, even if Moscow insists these voices do not reflect its official stance. Central Asian State Media Largely Silent About Russia’s War In Ukraine (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [10/1/2024 5:10 AM, Chris Rickleton and Yelnur Alimova, 235K, Neutral]
There was a popular joke in the Soviet Union that reflected the government’s ability to filter any information that it didn’t want the population to see or hear.
It went something like this: If the Soviet newspaper Pravda (Truth) had existed in the time of Napoleon, then nobody would have heard of the French Army’s defeat in the battle of Waterloo.
In modern-day Central Asia, the closest thing to Pravda’s capacity to willfully ignore bad news is Turkmenistan’s state media, which has not mentioned Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in any meaningful way since the conflict began.
But to various extents, all government-controlled media across the Russia-tied region have managed to keep mentions of the devastating conflict to a bare minimum, despite its knock-on effects being clearly felt by local populations -- including the return of corpses of young soldiers to Central Asia.
For many independent media outlets, by contrast, the war that has raged for more than 2 1/2 years has been a staple of coverage.
But that coverage, while very popular with local audiences, has often risked the wrath of Russia, which explains why most of those state-run outlets that dabbled in references to Ukraine have now stopped doing so.
Bolivia Or Not...
While caution has been the watchword of Central Asian official positions on Ukraine, some of the bolder official statements -- including not recognizing territory acquired by Russia during the war -- have come from Kazakhstan.
Central Asia’s largest country is the only one in the region to share a land border with Russia -- one that just happens to be the longest continuous border in the world.
More than 200,000 Russian citizens crossed into Kazakhstan to escape Moscow’s military mobilization in 2022, while both the war and the sanctions placed on Russia by a broad coalition of countries have bedeviled the Kazakh economy.
But according to state TV reports, you would assume the ongoing conflict had no relevance to Kazakhstan whatsoever.
In recent weeks alone, viewers of the state-run television channel Qazaqstan have seen reports about forest fires in Bolivia -- which is some 14,000 kilometers from Kazakhstan -- power outages in Puerto Rico, and the spread of mpox in Congo.
Yet they would not have seen reports about Ukraine’s shock military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region in August, or Russia’s regular deadly drone and missile attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, which it invaded.
In fact, Kazakh state media has said very little about the war since the early months of 2023, when some state broadcasters rather surprisingly covered the initiative of Kazakh businessmen to set up yurts in Ukraine as part of a humanitarian-aid drive.
Those yurts -- placed in at least four Ukrainian cities -- appeared to hurt Russia’s feelings.
After the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman publicly demanded an explanation, her opposite number in Kazakhstan said he saw "nothing to explain," calling the yurts a "private initiative."
A sharp drop-off in coverage of Ukraine events followed.
When asked by RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service if state channels had been asked to cut Ukraine coverage, a representative of the state media outlet Khabar denied the suggestion, arguing instead that "it is difficult to verify the authenticity of reports coming from the conflict zone."
In neighboring Uzbekistan, state television has completely ignored the conflict, with searches for "Ukraine" returning virtually no results on state media websites outside of the first year of the war. Ditto Tajikistan.
Kyrgyz state broadcaster KTRK provides the exception to the rule, airing regular snippets of BBC reporting on the war.
But in terms of the broadcaster’s own coverage, "they mostly cover only when there is something related to the war that is too big to ignore, and in those cases the coverage is very sparse, rigid, and neutral," Kyrgyz media expert Adil Turdukulov told RFE/RL.‘Wording Is Very Important To Russia’
Coverage of Ukraine by Central Asia’s privately owned media, however, is fairly varied, ranging from the terse coverage of purely geopolitical developments on the part of websites close to national governments, to stories from close to the Ukrainian Army’s front lines as part of crowdfunded or donor-backed reporting projects.
Mahinur Niyazova, who was an editor with the private Kyrgyz news agency 24.kg when the full-scale invasion occurred, said the agency’s policy was to cite both Russian and Western media as well as official sources in digests that 24.kg initially updated several times a day.
This led to criticism from activists, who were unhappy that the website used Moscow’s "special military operation" formula when introducing the digests. But there were also "calls from the Russian Embassy, who complained that our coverage was too pro-Ukrainian," Niyazova said.
24.kg’s offices in Bishkek were raided in January and sealed after the outlet came under criminal investigation for "propaganda of war" in relation to an August 2023 interview that the outlet conducted with Almaz Kudabek-uulu, a Kyrgyz national and the commander of the Turkic Turan battalion fighting with the Ukrainian Army.It is unclear what role Russia had in this case, if any, since it coincided with a broader crackdown on Kyrgyz media critical of President Sadyr Japarov.
But Roskomnadzor, the Russian media regulator, blocked 24.kg in the country shortly after the interview was published, explaining its decision with reference to digests from the war’s first year.
After 24.kg came under new ownership and staff -- including Niyazova -- resigned, Kyrgyz prosecutors announced that the case was no longer being investigated.
Roskomnadzor has also blocked the websites of private news outlets based in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan over their refusal to take down war-related coverage.
So far, media in Uzbekistan are not known to have suffered the same fate, despite several major private websites there covering the war, and not from Moscow’s position.
"Russia is extremely sensitive about the war and very sensitive about wording -- everyone knows this," said Ruslan Myatiev, editor in chief of the Dutch-based Turkmen.News.
But when it comes to super-authoritarian Turkmenistan’s information space, Roskomnadzor’s censors can rest easy, Myatiev says.
As a state that positions itself as diplomatically neutral, official Turkmen state media tend to say nothing about any international conflict, including those closer to home, like Ukraine, where several thousand Turkmen students found themselves trapped in the early days of the war.
The only Turkmen-language reports even mentioning the war come from sources outside the country, like Myatiev’s Turkmen.News, RFE/RL’s Turkmen Service, and the Vienna-based Chronicles of Turkmenistan.
"In many authoritarian countries, [nonstate] media can be somewhat dependent on the state. But in Turkmenistan, that dependence is a total dependence," Myatiev said. "In this respect, Turkmenistan is still very much the Soviet Union." Twitter
Afghanistan
Nilofar Ayoubi@NilofarAyoubi
[9/30/2024 10:15 AM, 68.1K followers, 39 retweets, 95 likes]
Afghan women will counter the Taliban’s oppression and repression in numerous arenas—on the streets, in the courts, at the Olympic stadium, within the Human Rights Council and the Security Council, and in parliaments worldwide. They will confront the Taliban with religious arguments, human rights reports, poetry, literature, and song. Free women are the Taliban’s greatest fear.
Habib Khan@HabibKhanT[9/30/2024 7:47 PM, 237.3K followers, 104 retweets, 193 likes]
The Taliban’s new law invalidates all divorces from the previous Afghan government, forcing thousands of young women—many married as children—into abusive cycles.
Habib Khan@HabibKhanT
[9/30/2024 4:13 PM, 237.3K followers, 303 retweets, 600 likes]
It has been 1,110 days since the Taliban banned millions of Afghan girls from attending schools in Afghanistan, yet they continue to send their daughters to schools in Qatar and Pakistan.
Habib Khan@HabibKhanT
[9/30/2024 3:47 PM, 237.3K followers, 65 retweets, 261 likes]
Just another day in Afghanistan under the Taliban. A Taliban member attacked a man on the street, but the man managed to grab his gun and shot him in the foot.
Yalda Hakim@SkyYaldaHakim
[10/1/2024 2:07 AM, 219.8K followers, 79 retweets, 171 likes]
1110 days since the Taliban banned teenage girls from school. New laws enacted this year also ban women from speaking or showing their faces outside their homes. #LetAfghanGirlsLearn Pakistan
Shehbaz Sharif@CMShehbaz
[10/1/2024 12:46 AM, 6.7M followers, 169 retweets, 549 likes]
Warmest felicitations to President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Qiang & the brotherly Chinese people on the 75th Anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China! We are proud of China’s remarkable progress and achievements under President Xi’s visionary leadership. Pakistan and China are iron brothers. Our All Weather Strategic Cooperative Partnership continues to grow from strength to strength. Pakistan and China are fully committed to ensuring the success of CPEC, the flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative. On this auspicious day, I reaffirm our resolve that Pakistan will continue to work closely with China to further strengthen our bilateral ties across all spheres, and promote regional peace, stability & prosperity! Long live Pakistan-China Friendship! India
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[9/30/2024 10:29 AM, 102.4M followers, 14K retweets, 79K likes]
Spoke to Prime Minister @netanyahu about recent developments in West Asia. Terrorism has no place in our world. It is crucial to prevent regional escalation and ensure the safe release of all hostages. India is committed to supporting efforts for an early restoration of peace and stability.
Dr. S. Jaishankar@DrSJaishankar
[9/30/2024 3:46 PM, 3.2M followers, 178 retweets, 1.3K likes]
Great to see Commerce Secretary @SecRaimondo today in Washington DC. We discussed semiconductors, iCET, critical minerals, trusted partnerships and supply chain resiliency. Value the strides we are making in our tech collaboration and economic partnership.
Vice-President of India@VPIndia
[9/30/2024 5:02 AM, 1.5M followers, 45 retweets, 251 likes]
Hon’ble Vice-President, Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar interacted with philanthropists and beneficiaries associated with ‘YUVA Unstoppable’ at Vice-President’s Enclave, New Delhi today. @anandibenpatel @UnstoppableYUVA
Vice-President of India@VPIndia
[9/30/2024 5:15 AM, 1.5M followers, 70 retweets, 245 likes]
Education alone can help us realise the Preamble of the Indian Constitution. Education brings about equality and cuts into iniquities. If you handhold someone so that he or she can pursue education, that’s divinity expressed! @UnstoppableYUVA
Rahul Gandhi@RahulGandhi
[9/30/2024 3:33 PM, 27M followers, 7.3K retweets, 25K likes]
The detention of Sonam Wangchuk ji and hundreds of Ladakhis peacefully marching for environmental and constitutional rights is unacceptable. Why are elderly citizens being detained at Delhi’s border for standing up for Ladakh’s future? Modi ji, like with the farmers, this ‘Chakravyuh’ will be broken, and so will your arrogance. You will have to listen to Ladakh’s voice.
Derek J. Grossman@DerekJGrossman
[10/1/2024 12:14 AM, 93.1K followers, 22 retweets, 161 likes]
India-Israel. Modi’s influence with Netanyahu is apparently very low, if not zero. He warned against "regional escalation" and Netanyahu invaded southern Lebanon on the same day. In fairness, the US has little to no control over him either. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/pm-modi-speaks-to-benjamin-netanyahu-says-terrorism-has-no-place-in-our-world/article68702353.ece NSB
Sabria Chowdhury Balland@sabriaballand
[9/30/2024 10:01 PM, 7.2K followers]
Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus saw the trajectory of his life change after student-led protests this summer resulted in his installation as the interim leader of #Bangladesh. https://www.npr.org/2024/09/30/nx-s1-5117378/nobel-laureate-muhammad-yunus-tasked-with-helping-to-chart-his-countrys-future
Tshering Tobgay@tsheringtobgay
[10/1/2024 1:30 AM, 99.6K followers, 3 retweets, 10 likes]
Delighted to interact with 18 Ambassadors representing 17 European countries and the European Union yesterday. Deeply appreciate the EU’s continued support to Bhutan.
Tshering Tobgay@tsheringtobgay
[10/1/2024 1:30 AM, 99.6K followers]
We had fruitful discussions on strengthening cooperation in areas like economic growth, tourism, and investment opportunities in the Gelephu Mindfulness City. Looking forward to further enhancing our partnership!
The President’s Office, Maldives@presidencymv
[10/1/2024 2:54 AM, 110.1K followers, 51 retweets, 50 likes]
First Lady advocates for equitable education at 7th International Teachers’ Conference https://presidency.gov.mv/Press/Article/31759
The President’s Office, Maldives@presidencymv
[9/30/2024 8:52 PM, 110.1K followers, 207 retweets, 221 likes]
President Dr @Mmuizzu attends the reception celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China.
Dr Mohamed Muizzu@MMuizzu
[10/1/2024 12:03 AM, 86K followers, 276 retweets, 345 likes]
On the historic occasion of your 75th Anniversary of the Founding of People’s Republic of China, I extend warm felicitations and good wishes to President HE Xi Jinping, the Government and the friendly people of China. The Maldives deeply values our friendship and reaffirms our commitment to the One-China Principle. Our close partnership will continue to strengthen and elevate our bilateral ties, bringing mutual benefit to our peoples.
UNICEF Nepal@unicef_nepal
[10/1/2024 1:09 AM, 94.9K followers, 10 retweets, 5 likes]
35 children die in #Nepal after devastating rainfall and landslides. "On behalf of UNICEF, I offer my heartfelt condolences to the families who have lost loved ones, including children," says, Alice Akunga, @UNICEF’s Representative to Nepal. https://unicef.org/nepal/press-releases/35-children-die-nepal-after-devastating-rainfall-and-landslides-unicef
Anura Kumara Dissanayake@anuradisanayake
[10/1/2024 2:40 AM, 127.9K followers, 6 retweets, 61 likes]
This morning (01st), I met with @USAmbSL, U.S. Ambassador, at the Presidential Secretariat. Ambassador Chung congratulated the new government and discussed the development of strong bilateral relations between the United States and Sri Lanka. The meeting focused on strengthening diplomatic ties, enhancing economic and social cooperation, and exploring areas of mutual interest between the two nations.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake@anuradisanayake
[9/30/2024 4:07 PM, 127.9K followers, 77 retweets, 551 likes]
The future belongs to our children. Let’s dedicate ourselves to creating a better world for them! We have identified several significant challenges facing today’s children, including poverty, malnutrition, inadequate health and sanitation, environmental degradation, educational disparities, social inequalities, and the risks associated with substance abuse and technology misuse. Our mission in this renaissance era is to free children from harmful prejudices and social effects, and the pressures of exam-focused education, which hinder their psychosocial development. We aim to reclaim the joyful, carefree childhood that every child deserves. By nurturing a generation of children who are healthy both in mind and spirit, we can foster compassionate, independent, and imaginative individuals who will shape a better future. To achieve this, we are committed to promoting economic freedom, fostering human kindness, building mutual trust, and encouraging respect and acceptance within society. Additionally, we prioritize the protection of our rich environmental heritage and advocate for necessary political transformation. This is a shared responsibility for all of us! Anura Kumara Dissanayake President Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka 01.10.2024
Karu Jayasuriya@KaruOnline
[9/30/2024 7:30 AM, 53.6K followers, 1 retweet, 7 likes]
Happy to be here at the launch of the Institute for Democracy and Governance (IDAG). Good governance is not a luxury, but a necessity. Leadership has to be defined by service. Central Asia
Javlon Vakhabov@JavlonVakhabov
[10/1/2024 12:17 AM, 6.1K followers]
ADB Economic Overview Report: Central Asia - First Half of 2024
Kazakhstan is projected to achieve a growth rate of 3.8% in 2024, driven primarily by substantial investments in its oil and gas sectors, along with ongoing infrastructure projects.
The Kyrgyz Republic exhibits robust economic expansion, estimated at 8.1%, propelled by a significant increase in construction activity and a surge in private consumption. However, it grapples with a widening current account deficit.
Tajikistan anticipates a growth rate of 6.1% for 2024, supported by remittances and agricultural exports, despite persistent challenges related to external debt and inflation.
Turkmenistan aims for a growth rate of 6.0%, leveraging government investments in energy and infrastructure, although attracting foreign direct investment remains a critical hurdle.
Uzbekistan stands out with a projected growth of 6.4%, buoyed by advancements in manufacturing and construction, alongside notable increases in both investment and household consumption.
Despite shared inflationary pressures and trade deficits, the Central Asian nations are proactively pursuing strategies to diversify their economies and enhance resilience. As mentioned in the report, Uzbekistan’s successful initiatives to broaden the sources of remittances, coupled with Turkmenistan’s focus on expanding export capacities—particularly in the gas and textile sectors—exemplify the region’s commitment to sustainable economic growth. Furthermore, the continued emphasis on structural reforms and regional cooperation will be vital as these countries confront the complexities of their respective economic landscapes. Overall, the potential for development and integration into global markets remains robust, underpinned by ongoing reforms and enhanced international collaboration. More: https://adb.org/publications/asian-development-outlook-september-2024
Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service@president_uz
[10/1/2024 1:10 AM, 200.9K followers, 4 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev held a meeting with @anbassani , Vice President of Europe and Central Asia Region of the @WorldBank. Issues of further expansion of strategic cooperation with the World Bank Group and support for ongoing reform program in the #NewUzbekistan were considered. Areas like poverty reduction, transformation of state-owned enterprises and banks, decarbonization, support for @wto accession among others were identified as priorities for further expansion of bilateral partnership.
Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service@president_uz
[9/30/2024 3:21 PM, 200.9K followers, 3 retweets, 12 likes]
Additionally, President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev held a dialogue with teachers and mentors, focusing on improving professional skills, encouraging and stimulating teachers. Key topics included modernizing schools and kindergartens, supporting private education, expanding digitalization, and creating pedagogy clusters. The establishment of an international Olympiad preparation center and the "Abdulla Avloniy" scholarship for outstanding pedagogy students was also announced. The President endorsed the proposals and instructed officials to ensure their implementation.
Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service@president_uz
[9/30/2024 12:03 PM, 200.9K followers, 3 retweets, 42 likes]
A solemn ceremony was held to mark the celebration of October 1st, the Day of Teachers and Mentors. On behalf of the people of #Uzbekistan, President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev extended his heartfelt congratulations to professionals in this sphere, expressing profound respect and gratitude for their dedicated service.
Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service@president_uz
[9/30/2024 11:16 AM, 200.9K followers, 2 retweets, 11 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev visited Institute of pedagogical excellence named after A.Avloniy, and got acquainted with museum and library. The Institute plays a pivotal role in enhancing teacher training by incorporating modern artificial intelligence technologies and international best practices. Over the past year, more than 4,300 school principals have completed advanced training at the Institute. The President emphasized the central role of education in ongoing reforms and stressed the importance of continuous professional development for teachers, issuing specific instructions in this regard.{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.