SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS
Prepared for the U.S. Department of State
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
TO: | SCA & Staff |
DATE: | Thursday, October 17, 2024 6:30 AM ET |
Afghanistan
Iran’s border security forces allegedly massacre ‘dozens’ of Afghan migrants (VOA)
VOA [10/16/2024 5:09 PM, Ayaz Gul, 4566K, Neutral]
Taliban authorities are looking into allegations that dozens of Afghan civilians were killed and injured by Iranian border forces while trying to enter that country from Pakistan illegally.
Hamdullah Fitrat, the deputy Taliban spokesperson in Kabul, said Wednesday that "various governmental bodies" and Afghan diplomatic missions have initiated "comprehensive investigations" to verify the reported casualties.
"As the incident is reported to have occurred beyond Afghanistan’s borders, the available information remains unverified," Fitrat noted in his English-language statement posted on social media platform X. He added that a "conclusive decision" would be made after a "thorough clarification of the facts."
The Taliban probe was announced after an Iranian rights group, known as Halvash, initially reported the alleged Afghan casualties, saying they occurred Sunday in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan border province.
The organization quoted survivors as saying that about 300 Afghan migrants were attempting to enter Iran unlawfully when they were assaulted by Iranian border guards, resulting in deaths and injuries.
"As of now, reliable sources confirm that the news about the deaths of dozens of illegal citizens at the Saravan border is not true," Hassan Kazemi Qomi, Iran’s special presidential envoy for and ambassador to Kabul, said in a Persian language statement on X.
He referred to an Iranian region adjacent to Washuk, a border district in Pakistan’s southwestern sparsely populated Baluchistan province.
Qomi emphasized, however, that responding "legally" to the "illegal entry of unauthorized nationals" was "the legitimate right of countries, and the border guards of any country are obliged to prevent the entry of illegal nationals."
The Iranian envoy wrote that "managing border traffic is a shared responsibility, and neighboring countries must prevent unauthorized" crossings in line with their international border security obligations. Qomi reiterated that Tehran is determined to return undocumented asylum-seekers and deal sternly with illegal border crossers.
"I’m seriously concerned about reports of injuries & deaths of Afghans in Iran’s#Saravan border area and I call for authorities to investigate transparently," Richard Bennett, the United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Afghanistan, said on X. "Clarity is urgently needed. These reports don’t stand in isolation. More dignity & safety is needed for Afghans worldwide," Bennett wrote.
Residents in the Pakistani border district of Washuk also reported the alleged Iranian assault on Afghan migrants, but they could not provide specific casualty details, citing the remoteness of the border area.
Pakistani provincial authorities did not immediately comment on the alleged incident.
Iran and Pakistan together host millions of documented and undocumented Afghan refugees. Both countries have deported hundreds of thousands of undocumented individuals back to Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power three years ago.
According to the International Organization for Migration, the deportations continue daily, and almost 100,000 Afghans returned home from Pakistan and Iran in September alone. Taliban begins enforcing rule banning ‘images of living beings’ in Afghan media (FOX News)
FOX News [10/16/2024 9:55 PM, Andrea Margolis, 48844K, Neutral]
The Taliban is reportedly enforcing a ban against certain media outlets airing "images of living beings" in Afghanistan.
An Afghan official confirmed the news to the Associated Press on Tuesday. The militant group, through its Vice and Virtue Ministry, is currently enforcing the rule in certain provinces, and it is unclear when or if it will apply to all media outlets across the country, including foreign media.
The new rule reflects laws announced by the Vice and Virtue Ministry in August, which also banned women’s voices and bare faces. The legislation marked the first declaration of such rules in Afghanistan since the Taliban took over after the U.S. withdrawal.
Article 17 of the legislation, which was approved by supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, bans the publication of any images depicting living beings.
Vice and Virtue Ministry spokesman Saif ul Islam Khyber confirmed that media in the Afghan provinces of Maidan Wardak, Kandahar and Takhar have been advised not to show images of anything with a soul.
Aghan Independent Journalists Union director Hujjatullah Mujadidi reported that state media was directly told not to air such images by the ministry. It was later extended to all media in the provinces.
"Last night, independent local media (in some provinces) also stopped running these videos and images and are instead broadcasting nature videos," Mujadidi said.
Afghanistan is the only Muslim-majority country enforcing this broadcasting rule. The extremity of the legislation announced by the Vice and Virtue Ministry caused international concern, especially the laws pertaining to women.
The Vice and Virtue Ministry deemed that women’s voices were considered too "intimate" and banned women from singing or reading aloud in public. The legislation also requires women to wear veils in public. FBI, French authorities coordinate on Islamic State arrests (VOA)
VOA [10/16/2024 5:48 PM, Jeff Seldin, 4566K, Negative]
Recent arrests in the United States and in Europe have law enforcement and intelligence agencies on alert, bolstering concerns about a reinvigorated Islamic State terror group bent on lashing out against the West.
FBI officials Wednesday confirmed the bureau shared information with French authorities following last week’s arrest of 27-year-old Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, an Afghan national in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on charges connected to a mass shooting plot in the name of the Islamic State group, to coincide with the U.S. election in November.
That information led to the arrest of a 22-year-old Afghan national in the Haute-Garonne region of France, who French officials say is linked to Tawhedi.
That arrest followed the arrests of three other men in the same region, again carried out in coordination with the U.S.
French anti-terrorism prosecutors said Saturday that the suspects, all of whom are said to be followers of the Islamic State, appear to have been involved in a plan to carry out an attack on a football stadium or a shopping center.
"The recent arrests in France and by the FBI’s Oklahoma City field office demonstrate the importance of partnerships to detect and disrupt potential terrorist attacks," the FBI said in a statement.
"The FBI’s top priority is preventing acts of terrorism, and we are committed to working with our partners both overseas and in the United States to uncover any plots and protect our communities from violence," it said.
The arrests follow repeated warnings from Western counterterrorism officials that the Islamic State, also known as IS or ISIS, has set its sights on launching attacks against the U.S. and Europe. And many have raised specific concerns about the group’s Afghan affiliate, known as IS-Khorasan or ISIS-K.
IS-Khorasan "does have the intention to carry out external attacks, including external attacks inside the United States," said U.S. Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, speaking during a Washington Post webcast last month.
"We are very concerned about the capacity of ISIS-K to potentially move operatives into the United States," he added.
Others have warned that IS, and IS-Khorasan, have each sought to expand recruiting efforts around the globe.
Some Western officials and regional observers have told VOA that as far back as 2021, the IS Afghan affiliate was seeking to seed Central Asian states such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan with small but highly capable cells and networks that could serve as the basis for future attacks.
Some also have warned that IS-Khorasan has since built on those efforts, increasingly trying to target Afghans and Central Asians living in the West.
"We’ve seen ISIS-K make a concerted effort to recruit from diaspora communities," said Austin Doctor, the director of counterterrorism research initiatives at the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology and Education Center, or NCITE, speaking with VOA last week following the Oklahoma City arrest.
"It will be another important factor to watch as more information becomes available." Pakistan
Pakistan pushes for expansion of China’s BRI plans (VOA)
VOA [10/16/2024 9:17 AM, Ayaz Gul, 4566K, Neutral]
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif advocated expanding China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on Wednesday, saying it would enhance regional trade cooperation and promote "the vision of a connected Eurasia."
He delivered the remarks at the annual heads of government meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Islamabad. Beijing and Russia established the SCO in 2001 as a way to counterbalance Western alliances in the areas of security, politics, and economics.
In his inaugural speech to the SCO huddle, Sharif hailed China’s investments in infrastructure projects in Pakistan as part of its global Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, and called for its expansion.
"Flagship projects like the Belt and Road Initiative of President Xi Jinping, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor…should be expanded, focusing on developing road, rail, and digital infrastructure that enhances integration and cooperation across our region," he stated.
"Let us not look at such projects through the narrow political prism, and [instead] invest in our collective connectivity capacities, which are crucial to advancing the shared vision of an economically integrated region," Sharif asserted, noting that 40% of the world’s population lives in SCO member countries.
Beijing launched the ambitious $1 trillion BRI, a global infrastructure and energy network, a decade ago to connect Asia, Africa, and Europe through new land and maritime routes.
The United States and other Western critics see the plan as a tool for China to expand its geopolitical and economic influence. They also criticize the Chinese investments, alleging they are burdening developing countries with unsustainable debt, charges Beijing rejects as politically motivated.
Last year, through the G7 framework, Western nations unveiled a $600 billion initiative to establish an alternative infrastructure development plan for connectivity.
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, known as CPEC, is a key BRI extension into Pakistan, building road networks, mostly coal-fired power plants and a deep-water port as well as an airport in the coastal city of Gwadar.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin were among the leaders from the 10-member grouping who attended Wednesday’s gathering, including host Pakistan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, and Iran.
An official Chinese statement quoted Premier Li as stating during the SCO gathering in Islamabad that China "looks forward to working with all parties" to implement the outcomes of summits and "deepen cooperation in various fields, and promote the cohesion of the SCO, so as to make greater contributions to advancing regional peace, stability, and development."
Analysts remain skeptical whether the SCO meetings have produced outcomes that would address the needs of member states, noting that Western alliances like NATO or the European Union offer members privileges such as mutual defense and economic integration.
Afghanistan
Pakistani authorities placed Islamabad under a security lockdown for the SCO meeting, deploying around 10,000 security forces, including troops, in and around the city to protect the high-profile event due to a recent surge in deadly militant attacks. Islamabad says fugitives linked to anti-Pakistan terrorist groups orchestrate the violence from sanctuaries in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
Sharif used his speech Wednesday to press the Taliban government, which is officially not recognized by any country, to address regional terrorism concerns, noting that stability in Afghanistan was essential for SCO member states to realize regional connectivity and trade opportunities fully.
"While the international community must extend the needed assistance to help the Afghan interim government in staving off the humanitarian crisis and preventing an economic meltdown, it must also demand from the Afghan Interim government to take concrete measures to promote political inclusivity, as well as to ensure that its soil is not used for terrorism against its neighbors, by any entity," he stated.
Militant and separatist attacks have claimed the lives of more than 1,000 Pakistani civilians and security forces so far this year alone. Last week, two Chinese engineers were killed and another was injured when a suicide car bombing hit their convoy in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi. The slain Chinese nationals were staff at a CPEC-built power plant.
The Taliban have repeatedly denied charges that foreign militants are using Afghan soil to threaten neighboring countries. They also dismissed international calls for giving representation to all ethnic and political groups in Afghanistan in their administration, called the Islamic Emirate. The Tabliban say they are governing the country in line with their strict interpretation of Islamic law. Students are injured in clashes with Pakistani police over reports of an on-campus rape (AP)
AP [10/16/2024 7:18 AM, Babar Dogar, 31638K, Negative]
More than two dozen college students were injured in clashes with Pakistani police over reports of an on-campus rape of a young woman, officials said Wednesday.
The students were hurt on Monday and Tuesday in the eastern city of Lahore in Punjab province after reports about the alleged rape spread on social media.
Students initially protested on the campus of the private college but later gathered outside the provincial assembly, where they clashed with police.
The college administration denied there was an assault, as did the young woman’s parents.
Sexual violence against women is common in Pakistan but is underreported because of the stigma attached to it in the conservative country. Protests about sexual violence against women are uncommon.
A special committee formed by the provincial government said the alleged victim said she slipped at her home on Oct. 2 and was taken to a hospital, where she was treated until Oct. 11. It said the student was absent from college from Oct. 3 to 15.
The Federal Investigation Agency said it was looking into the case, including identifying people who spread the reports on social media.
Punjab’s chief minister, the province’s most senior official, said no rape had taken place.
Maryam Nawaz, who is the niece of the current prime minister and daughter of a former prime minister, asserted that a vile and dangerous plan was hatched to mislead students.
"An incident happened and a security guard was arrested and accused of being involved," Nawaz told a press conference on Wednesday.
The Sustainable Social Development Organization said last month that there were 7,010 rape cases reported in Pakistan in 2023, almost 95% of them in Punjab.
"However, due to social stigmas in Pakistan that discourage women from getting help, there is a high chance that due to underreporting the actual number of cases may be even higher," it said.
This week’s protests came less than a month after a woman said she was gang-raped when on duty during a polio vaccination drive in southern Sindh province.
Police arrested three men. Her husband threw her out of the house after the reported assault, saying she had tarnished the family name. Fears Grow for Health of Pakistan’s Jailed Former Prime Minister Imran Khan (Time)
Time [10/16/2024 5:47 AM, Charlie Campbell, 15975K, Negative]
Concern is mounting regarding the health of Pakistan’s former Prime MinisterImran Khan, who has spent over a year in a squalid prison cell on a slew of charges his supporters insist are politically motivated.
On Tuesday, Khan’s ex-wife, British socialite Jemima Khan,posted on X that the couple’s sons had been barred since Sept. 10 from speaking with their father, who his party alleges has also been denied access to lawyers or doctors. "He is now completely isolated, in solitary confinement, literally in the dark, with no contact with the outside world," she wrote. "His lawyers are concerned about his safety and well-being."
A court order had permitted Khan’s personal physician to visit him in jail on Tuesday but he was denied entry after waiting for several hours outside, Raoof Hasan, a spokesperson for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, told TIME. Instead, two government-appointed doctors examined Khan, 72, and later released areport that declared him "fit and healthy."
However, Hasan insisted that assessment is not trustworthy. "We have no faith in the doctors," he said. "They’re government servants and obviously they will do as the government directs. They had fudged Khan’s medical report once in the past. There are indications that Khan is not really well."
In response to criticism regarding the welfare of Khan, Defense Minister Khawaja Asifsaid: "Imran [has been] extended far more humanity than he ever exhibited for his opponents."
Khan’s PTI party was banned in the lead up to February elections but independent candidates it backed still won aplurality of legislative seats, despite its leader being behind bars and myriad irregularities both before and onpolling day. However, the second place Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party instead formed a government largely thanks to military backing.
In a rare demonstration of bipartisan resolve, the U.S. House of Representativesvoted by an overwhelming 368-7 in June for an investigation into alleged poll-rigging in Pakistan, echoing separate calls by the U.K. and E.U. However, no executive action has been taken by the White House, which "speaks to the duplicity of the Western world," says Hasan. "It’s very unfortunate that Pakistan has not had the attention we deserve in the context of both democracy and human rights."
The increasing pressure on Khan and his family-two of his sisters were alsodetained on Oct. 4-comes as the PTI planned a series of flash protests in Islamabad to coincide with an ongoing Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit that would have proven extremely embarrassing for the government, said Samina Yasmeen, director of the Centre for Muslim States and Societies at the University of Western Australia.
"The government is already so weak and feeling under threat, so their main reaction is to put as much pressure as they can on the PTI and especially Khan," she said.
In June, the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detentionfound that Khan was unlawfully and arbitrarily detained and called for his immediate release. In a separate post on X on Tuesday, Jemima Khan revealed that she’d received rape threats from Khan’s opponents. Meanwhile, the PTI has vowed to continue protesting unless Khan receives access to his family, lawyers, and doctors.
"There is a possibility that we will call for a national strike," Hasan said. "The government has used the worst of its apparatus in the last two and a quarter years. They’re at their fascist worst; they have brutalized people, they’ve arrested them, they’ve tortured them, mauled the families. There’s really nothing to fear any longer." Imran Khan uni chancellor bid rejected, says adviser (BBC)
BBC [10/16/2024 12:24 PM, Ethan Gudge and Shahzad Malik, 67197K, Negative]
The former Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan has had his bid to become chancellor of the University of Oxford rejected, his adviser has said.Mr Khan, who has been in prison for more than a year on charges he says are politically motivated, submitted his application for the predominantly ceremonial role in September.On Wednesday, the university released a shortlist of 38 candidates who will take part in the first round of voting among its alumni later this month - with Mr Khan’s name not featuring.The university told the BBC that it would not be commenting on individual applications for the role.It also highlighted its rules for prospective candidates, including that they must not be disqualified from being a charity trustee or subject to a disqualification order made by the Charity Commission, and must be a “fit and proper person” as determined by Revenue & Customs (HMRC) guidance.In a post on X, Khan’s adviser Sayed Bukhari said the university’s decision was "extremely unfortunate"."This is a loss for Oxford Uni to present itself as a global trend setting institution," he said.Mr Bukhari added that he had written to the university asking for an explanation of its decision to exclude Mr Khan from the ballot.The former cricket star is already an honorary fellow of Oxford’s Keble College, where he studied philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) in the 1970s.Mr Khan has been jailed since his arrest on 5 August 2023.His lawyers and his political party, PTI, claim that more than 200 cases have been registered against him and only two cases were decided in this time.Mr Khan was exonerated in an illegal marriage case and the cypher case, in which he was accused of divulging state secrets. He was also granted bail in more than two dozen cases by the local courts but he remains behind bars.Currently he is under trial in a case registered by the National Accountability Bureau, in which he is accused of misusing his prime ministership to unlawfully buy and sell state gifts and for not declaring his assets.The ex-prime minister has also been booked in numerous cases around the violent riots that broke out after he was first taken into custody.Among the 38 names on the shortlist that will be voted on by the university’s staff and graduates are former Conservative Party leader Lord Hague and Lord Mandelson, who was a key architect of New Labour.Both studied at the university, before climbing to the top of British politics.The first round of voting will take place in the week commencing 28 October, with the top five candidates going through to a final round of voting in the first week of November.The successful candidate will be announced as chancellor later in November.The role cannot be held by current students, employees of the university or candidates to political office.Chris Patten is the outgoing chancellor and has held the position since 2003.Lord Patten, 80, was the last Governor of Hong Kong from 1992 to 1997 and chairman of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1992. Breaking the hunger cycle in the mountains of northern Pakistan (The Telegraph)
The Telegraph [10/16/2024 7:00 AM, Harry Johnstone, 145937K, Neutral]
Nasira Wali is snapping pieces of Juniper wood in the dim light of her living room. She places the kindling on the open fire. Soon the flames lick. Her veiled face glows. She heats up some milk.It is a heart-warming moment, but Nasira’s situation is pretty bleak. Her family is trapped in a cycle of hunger. In her village and throughout the far north of Pakistan, it requires an extraordinary effort to break it.Nasira’s four-year-old son, Hafiz, sits beside his mother. He stares at the ground for several minutes. When he was about nine months old, Nasira says, he began crying every night, his skin turned “white” and his hands and feet began to swell.“When he couldn’t sleep,” she says, “I couldn’t sleep. Seeing my baby like that…I was so anxious.”Nasira and her family live in a village called Immit, which lies at the southern slopes of the great Pamir mountain range.Outside Nasira’s house, there are a few green, terraced fields of wheat, potatoes and onions, lined with apricot and apple trees.Shimmering willows and poplars offer shade. It could appear idyllic, but the reality is far from it: 136,000 children under five in Gilgit-Baltistan – 46 per cent of that age group – are stunted.“We are a poor family,” says Jamjur Naroz, another mother I meet in Immit. Her house is half-constructed, with grey tarpaulin sheeting protecting the front door.Jamur’s husband works as a labourer, earning £3 a day. This is the family’s total daily income.“We cannot afford a balanced diet,” she says.Their son Kaleem was too weak to breastfeed properly as a newborn. Today, aged two and a half, he is both stunted and underweight.Serious undernutrition has life-changing consequences. When both mother and child don’t consume nearly enough macronutrients (proteins, carbohydrates and fats) or micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) during the pregnancy and breastfeeding period, children like Hafiz and Kaleem are physically impaired for life.Severe undernourishment hinders their physical development, which includes, of course, their brains. They are more likely to face poverty later in life. Their children could then easily suffer the same fate. This is why nutrition experts talk about an intergenerational cycle of hunger.The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is trying to break this cycle by tackling poverty through bolstering farming in northern Pakistan.IFAD’s Economic Transformation Initiative (ETI) is enlarging farmer smallholding sizes. It has established over 160 cooperatives for more than 40,000 farmers.Cooperatives are crucial to farmers’ development. Sharing grain stores lowers costs, while greater collective output enables farmers to negotiate better prices.Cooperatives help farmers access better information, finance and markets. These benefits can increase returns and production.The ETI has also embarked on a massive infrastructure project. Across the mountains of Gilgit-Baltistan, IFAD has built over 430 km of irrigation channels and 380 km of farm to market roads. “It is a huge and herculean task,” says IFAD’s Khadim Saleem, who coordinates the ETI project.Pakistan’s government is leading efforts to break the hunger cycle in the region and nationally.Mohammad Abbas, project director at the department of health in Gilgit-Baltistan, refers to the government’s national cash transfer scheme, known as the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), among others.Launched in 2008, the monthly cash vouchers of between $15 and $20 are sustaining some of Pakistan’s poorest.The scheme is working: between 2011 and 2019, the percentage of BISP beneficiaries below the poverty line fell from 90 to 72 per cent, according to a World Bank evaluation published this year.Prosperity begins with the food we eatYet while the BISP has succeeded in tackling poverty in this northern region, the programme is quite a blunt instrument; more targeted interventions are also required.In a treatment room of the health clinic in Immit, Gulsherran Mohdsadik is slipping a measuring tape around Urwa Hussain’s left arm.Gulsherran positions the four-year-old girl on some scales. She then measures her height and the data is recorded in a book.Gulsherran is supporting Urwa as part of the Aga Khan Development Network’s (AKDN) Central Asia Stunting Initiative (Casi).Three years ago, Urwa was stunted. Luckily, however, she was on the Casi books.The Casi team educated her parents on breastfeeding techniques, complementary feeding, dietary diversity and hygiene. They provided a nutritional supplement called Ronaq for a full year and monitored her growth each month.Over the past three years, her height and weight reached the average centile for her age. Today, she is thriving.Since 2019, Casi has been tackling undernutrition in nearly 450 of the most remote mountainous regions of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan.Teams of nutritionists are sweeping through the valleys, speaking to villagers, assessing their health status, raising awareness of better feeding practices and, where necessary, donating high-nutrition supplementary feeding products.The overall results are positive: where Casi operates in Gilgit-Baltistan, in just five years since the project began, the prevalence of stunting among children under five has dropped from 41 to 35 per cent or just over one in three, according to an Aga Khan University evaluation. The fall in stunting is happening faster than the global average, based on Unicef data.But despite these programmes, so many families continue to fall through the cracks.Nasira’s son, Hafiz, for example, suffers from anaemia so severe that he can’t concentrate, so he can’t go to school. He has gastric issues, so he can’t easily eat.Nasira has to give her son medication like Trimetabol, to treat his lack of appetite and digestion problems. He wears a leather amulet containing verses from the Quran and his parents pray for him.As I write this, after my time in Pakistan, I wonder what Hafiz’s future could have been.If only he and his mother had been able to eat properly in those early years, when she was pregnant and for a year or two after his birth. Perhaps, I reflect, he could have gone on to study engineering, medicine, law. He could have supported his family and his community.He could have pursued his dreams.Our dream should be a world where no family has to survive on £3 a day; where all of us can thrive. It starts with the food we eat. India
US calls meeting with India on probe into Sikh separatist murder plot productive (Reuters)
Reuters [10/16/2024 3:48 PM, Daphne Psaledakis and Kanishka Singh, 37270K, Neutral]
A meeting between the U.S. and India on a probe into a foiled plot to murder a Sikh separatist on American soil was productive, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said on Wednesday, adding Washington was satisfied with India’s cooperation.Washington has alleged that Indian agents were involved in an attempted assassination plot against Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York last year, and had indicted an Indian national working at the behest of an unnamed Indian government official.An Indian government committee investigating Indian involvement in the foiled murder plot met with U.S. officials in Washington on Tuesday, the State Department spokesperson said.The United States has been pushing India to look into the U.S. Justice Department’s claim that an unnamed Indian intelligence official directed plans to assassinate Pannun, a dual U.S.-Canada citizen."They did inform us that the individual who was named in the Justice Department indictment is no longer an employee of the Indian government," the State Department spokesperson told reporters in a press briefing, without giving further details. He called the meeting "productive.""We are satisfied with (their) cooperation. It continues to be an ongoing process," the State Department spokesperson said."The U.S. government broadly updated members of the (Indian) committee of inquiry about the investigation that the United States has been conducting. We’ve received an update from them on the investigation that they have been conducting," he added.The U.S. case is not the only instance of India’s alleged targeting of Sikh separatists on foreign soil.Canada on Monday expelled Indian diplomats, linking them to the murder of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil. India also ordered the expulsion of Canadian diplomats and denies Canada’s allegations. Washington has said that India was not cooperating with Canada.The accusations have tested Washington and Ottawa’s relations with India, often viewed by the West as a counterbalance to China. US Says India Has Removed Alleged Agent In Assassination Plot (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [10/16/2024 5:36 PM, Shaun Tandon, 502K, Negative]
The United States said Wednesday it had been informed by India that an intelligence operative accused of directing an assassination plot on US soil is no longer in government service.
The action by New Delhi represented a sharp contrast to its defiant approach to similar charges from Canada, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday accused India of violating his country’s sovereignty.
An Indian committee set up to examine the US case visited Washington for talks on Tuesday -- a tension-easing diplomatic process that came just as the row between India and Canada was escalating much more publicly.
"We’ve received an update from them on the investigation that they have been conducting. It was a productive meeting," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
"They did inform us that the individual who was named in the Justice Department indictment is no longer an employee of the Indian government," he said.
"We are satisfied with the cooperation."
US prosecutors charged an Indian citizen last November over a foiled attempt in New York to kill an advocate for a separate Sikh homeland in India.
The indictment described an "Indian government employee," who was not publicly named, as recruiting the hitman and directing the assassination plot remotely, including by arranging the delivery of $15,000 in cash.
The Hindustan Times, quoting an unnamed US official, said Monday that India not only removed but arrested the employee on "local charges."
The State Department did not confirm the arrest.
The Washington Post, in an extensive article in April, identified the employee as Vikram Yadav, an officer in India’s intelligence agency, known as the Research and Intelligence Wing (RAW).
The United States has been courting India as a growing partner, seeing common cause between the world’s two largest democracies faced with the rise of China, despite concern voiced by activists about an authoritarian turn under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.
Canada has separately alleged that India arranged a plot on its soil that ended in the killing last year of a Sikh separatist, who was a naturalized Canadian citizen, outside a Vancouver temple.
Unlike the United States, Canada has highlighted its concerns publicly and at the highest level, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau criticizing India’s actions.
Canada and India on Monday expelled each other’s ambassadors as Ottawa said that the Indian campaign went further than previously reported.
At a parliamentary inquiry Wednesday on foreign interference, Trudeau said India had clearly violated Canada’s sovereignty and that its intimidation tactics were not limited exclusively to the Sikh community.
Trudeau detailed conduct that he said involved Indian "diplomats collecting information on Canadians who are opponents or in disagreement with the Modi government."
India has rejected Canada’s charges and alleged a domestic political motive by Trudeau. Canada has the largest Sikh community outside of India, concentrated in suburban areas critical in national elections.
India on Monday called allegations it was connected to the killing "preposterous" and a "strategy of smearing India for political gains."
Trudeau insisted that Canada has sought to engage India about its concerns. Senior officials of the two countries met recently in Singapore in what Canada has cast as an attempt at more quiet diplomacy.
When Ottawa recently presented its latest allegations to New Delhi, Trudeau said the Indian response was "to double down on attacks against this government."
The United States has walked a fine line on the India-Canada row. Washington has called on India to be more cooperative with Canada, while praising India’s own work with Washington. Trudeau Describes Failed Efforts at Quiet Diplomacy With Modi (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [10/16/2024 10:59 PM, Brian Platt, 27782K, Negative]
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he only went public with a murder allegation involving India’s government after a lengthy behind-the-scenes effort to address the matter diplomatically was rejected by Indian officials.He said Canadian officials had first sought cooperation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government “in a responsible way” that doesn’t “blow up the relationship between Canada and India,” especially given India was about to host a Group of 20 leaders summit at the time.“We had the opportunity of making it a very uncomfortable summit for India if we went public with these allegations ahead of time,” Trudeau said, recalling the discussions in August 2023. “We chose not to. We chose to continue to work behind the scenes to try to get India to cooperate with us.”Canada’s intelligence made it clear India was involved in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh activist gunned down in British Columbia earlier that year, Trudeau said. His efforts at quiet diplomacy culminated in a meeting with Modi at the G-20 summit in September 2023, but this also failed to make progress on the matter, he said.“I sat down and shared that we knew that they were involved, and expressed a real concern around it,” Trudeau said. “He responded with the usual response from him, which is that we have people who are outspoken against the Indian government living in Canada that he would like to see arrested.”Trudeau gave the account during testimony to a judicial inquiry examining foreign interference in Canadian democracy. The inquiry has mostly focused on China, but other countries including India have also come up during the hearings.Canada’s allegation that India played in a role in the slaying of Nijjar exploded into public view shortly after the Trudeau and Modi meeting, when Trudeau revealed it in a speech to the Canadian Parliament. He had to go public in part because some media outlets were preparing stories on the matter, Trudeau said.Modi’s government reacted furiously, rejecting the accusation as absurd, ejecting Canadian diplomats and temporarily suspending visa processing.“Canada has presented us no evidence whatsoever in support of the serious allegations that it has chosen to level against India and Indian diplomats,” India’s foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a statement Thursday. “The responsibility for the damage that this cavalier behavior has caused to India-Canada relations lies with Prime Minister Trudeau alone.”Canadian police have criminally charged four Indian nationals over the Nijjar killing, but the allegations haven’t stopped there. This week Canada and India expelled each others’ most senior envoys after Canada’s national police force said Indian diplomats were implicated in an escalating campaign of violence and extortion across the country.At a news conference on Monday, Trudeau said Canadian officials had again tried to seek India’s cooperation behind the scenes and its only response had been to deny, obfuscate and attack his government. He said he spoke with Modi at the end of last week and impressed upon him that the allegations needed to be taken “very, very seriously.”India has called Canada’s allegations “preposterous” and politically motivated. It had designated Nijjar a terrorist.Trudeau told the inquiry on Wednesday that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police would have preferred to follow the country’s usual law enforcement procedure and not reveal the allegations before charges or a trial. But it felt it had no choice but to go public given the involvement of Indian officials with diplomatic immunity.“The decision by the RCMP to go forward with that announcement was entirely anchored in public safety, and a goal of disrupting the chain of activities that was resulting in drive-by shootings, home invasions, violent extortion, and even murder, in and across Canada — particularly in the South Asian community,” Trudeau said.The prime minister also revealed that his government asked Canada’s intelligence agencies to look into Nijjar’s murder after hearing concerns from South Asian members of Parliament and those in the community, but learned officers were already investigating it.Ultimately, Canada is not looking to provoke a fight with Modi’s government and has repeatedly tried to give “off ramps” to India that have been rejected, Trudeau said.“We don’t want to be in this situation of picking a fight with a significant trading partner, with whom we have deep people-to-people ties and a long history and are fellow democracies.” Conservative Accusations
The inquiry was prompted by a series of media leaks last year that cited intelligence memos alleging China was orchestrating efforts to get certain candidates elected in Canada.
One media story alleged a Chinese diplomat boasted he had helped ensure Trudeau’s Liberal Party won a minority government in Parliament, and that such an outcome was best for China.
An interim report earlier this year found China’s attempted meddling did not affect the election results.
Trudeau used his testimony on Wednesday to direct some attention at his rival in the Conservative party, Pierre Poilievre. The prime minister said he knows the names of former and current Conservative parliamentarians or nominees who are allegedly involved in foreign interference.
Poilievre has refused to participate in classified briefings on the issue because he would not be able to share the findings with the public — which he argues amounts to muzzling.
“The decision by the leader of the Conservative Party to not get those classified briefings means that nobody in his party — not him and nobody in a position of power — knows the names of these individuals and can take appropriate action,” Trudeau said.
“It also means nobody’s there to stand up for those individuals if the intelligence is shoddy or incomplete or just allegations from a single source.”
In a statement, Poilievre accused Trudeau of lying and demanded he release the names of implicated parliamentarians across all political parties. “It is beyond rich for Justin Trudeau to grandstand,” Poilievre said, arguing the inquiry has shown both the government and Liberal Party were warned about foreign interference “and refused to act.”
Canadian police went public with Indian diplomat allegations to prevent more violence, Trudeau says (AP)
AP [10/16/2024 6:00 PM, Rob Gillies, 88008K, Negative]
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday that Canada’s national police force went public with its allegations against Indian diplomats this week because it had to disrupt violent acts in Canada including drive-by-shootings, extortions and even murder.
The Royal Canadian Police said Monday it had identified India’s top diplomat in the country and five other diplomats as persons of interest in the June 2023 killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. The RCMP also said they uncovered evidence of an intensifying campaign against Canadians by agents of the Indian government.
"We are not looking to provoke or create a fight with India," Trudeau said. "The Indian government made a horrific mistake in thinking that they could interfere as aggressively as they did in the safety and sovereignty of Canada. We need to respond in order to ensure Canadians safety."
Niijar’s killing has strained bilateral relations between India and Canada for over a year and boiled over this week as the countries expelled each other’s top diplomats over those allegations and other alleged crimes in Canada.
Trudeau said he has tried not to "blow up" relations with India and that Canadian officials provided evidence privately with their Indian counterparts who, he said, have been uncooperative.
"The decision by the RCMP to go forward with that announcement was entirely anchored in public safety and a goal of disrupting the chain of activities that was resulting in drive by shootings, home invasions, violent extortion and even murder in and across Canada," Trudeau said while testifying Wednesday before the Foreign Interference Commission in Ottawa.
Trudeau said Indian diplomats have been passing information about Canadians to the highest levels of the Indian government which was then shared with organized crime, resulting in violence against Canadians.
"It was the RCMP’s determination that that scheme needed to be disrupted," he said.
RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme said Monday police have evidence allegedly tying Indian government agents to other homicides and violent acts in Canada. He declined to provide specifics, citing ongoing investigations, but he said there have been well over a dozen credible and imminent threats that have resulted in police warning members of the South Asian community, notably the pro-Khalistan, or Sikh independence, movement.Trudeau said India has violated Canada’s sovereignty. India has rejected the accusations as absurd.
In response to Trudeau’s testimony at the inquiry, India’s foreign ministry claimed again that Canada has not provided evidence of the allegations. In a statement, the ministry blamed Trudeau for "the damage that this cavalier behavior has caused to India-Canada relations."
India has repeatedly criticized Trudeau’s government for being soft on supporters of the Khalistan movement who live in Canada. The Khalistan movement is banned in India but has support among the Sikh diaspora, particularly in Canada.
Nijjar, 45, was fatally shot in his pickup truck after he left the Sikh temple he led in Surrey, British Columbia. An Indian-born citizen of Canada, he owned a plumbing business and was a leader in what remains of a once-strong movement to create an independent Sikh homeland.
Four Indian nationals living in Canada were charged with Niijar’s murder and are awaiting trial.
Trudeau noted his government could have gone public with the allegations when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted the G20 Summit in September 2023, but chose not to. He met with Modi and expressed concerns privately then.
"It was a big moment for India welcoming all the leaders of the world to New Delhi for a very important summit and we had the opportunity of making it a very uncomfortable summit for India if we went public with these allegations ahead of time," said Trudeau. "We chose to continue to work with India behind the scenes to try and get India to cooperate with us."
Trudeau said that when he returned home India’s response, particularly through the media, was to attack Canada.
Trudeau later went public in Parliament with the allegation that the Indian government might have been involved in Niijar’s killing. He said there were about to be media stories detailing the allegation of India’s possible involvement in the killing of a Canadian Sikh on Canadian soil. He said he went public because of worries about public safety.
Canada’s foreign minister on Monday said violence in Canada has worsened since then.
The British government said India should cooperate with Canada’s investigation into accusations that its government has been involved in an escalating number of violent crimes in Canada. In a statement, the British Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office said India’s cooperation with Canada’s legal process "is the right next step."
A U.S. State Department spokesman told a news conference Tuesday that the U.S. had long been asking India to cooperate with Canadian authorities. India Slams ‘Cavalier’ Trudeau In Sikh Separatist Murder Row (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [10/17/2024 12:00 AM, Staff, 1.4M, Neutral]
India slammed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday as "cavalier" over his handling of the disastrous diplomatic fallout following the 2023 killing of a Sikh separatist in Canada.
New Delhi held firm its defiant stance towards Ottawa -- an approach in sharp contrast to its compliant attitude this week towards the United States, where India is also accused of directing a separate assassination plot.
Canada has alleged that India arranged the killing of a Sikh separatist, naturalised Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar, murdered in the parking lot of a Sikh temple in Vancouver in June 2023.
India has called the allegations "preposterous".
But Trudeau, at a parliamentary inquiry on Wednesday, said Canada had "clear... indications that India had violated Canada’s sovereignty".
Canada’s top envoy to New Delhi, Stewart Wheeler, who India has ordered to leave by Saturday night, has said Ottawa had provided "credible, irrefutable evidence of ties between agents of the Government of India and the murder of a Canadian citizen".
India’s foreign ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal on Thursday said they had not seen that evidence.
"Canada has presented us (India) no evidence whatsoever in support of the serious allegations that it has chosen to level against India and Indian diplomats," he said in a statement.
"The responsibility for the damage that this cavalier behaviour has caused to India-Canada relations lies with Prime Minister Trudeau alone."
Nijjar -- who immigrated to Canada in 1997 and became a citizen in 2015 -- had advocated for a separate Sikh state, known as Khalistan, carved out of India.
He had been wanted by Indian authorities for alleged terrorism and conspiracy to commit murder.
Four Indian nationals have been arrested in connection with Nijjar’s murder.
Last year, the Indian government briefly curbed visas for Canadians and this week both countries expelled each other’s ambassadors.
New Delhi’s response to Washington has been very different, with the US State Department on Wednesday saying India had told it that an intelligence operative accused of directing an assassination plot on US soil was no longer in government service.
US prosecutors charged an Indian citizen last November over a foiled attempt in New York to kill an advocate for a separate Sikh homeland.
The indictment described an "Indian government employee," who was not publicly named, as recruiting the hitman and directing the assassination plot remotely, including by arranging the delivery of $15,000 in cash.
India’s Hindustan Times, quoting an unnamed US official, said Monday that India not only removed but arrested the employee on "local charges."
The State Department did not confirm the arrest. Indians in Punjab fear dispute with Canada endangers work, study plans (Reuters)
Reuters [10/16/2024 7:11 AM, Shivam Patel, 37270K, Negative]
Indians in Punjab, worried that plans to work, study or visit families in Canada will be jeopardised by this week’s tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats over the murder of a Sikh separatist, are urging both governments to reduce the tension.Canada’s nearly 800,000 Sikhs formed the world’s second largest community in 2021, after roughly 20 million in India. They have links to the northern granary state of Punjab, where their religion was founded more than 500 years ago."Many clients have reached out, worried about how this might affect their plans to migrate to Canada," said an immigration lawyer, Karan S. Thukral, who is based in the Indian capital, though adding he had seen no big drop yet in legal inquiries."Indian students are among those feeling the impact most acutely."Indians have made up Canada’s largest group of international students in recent years, mainly from Punjab, holding more than 41% of student permits in 2022. International students bring in about C$22 billion ($16 billion) for its universities each year."We want to go to Canada to study and settle there, but now that’s not possible because students who want to go there are facing difficulties," said Anita, a student in Punjab’s capital of Chandigarh, who gave only her first name.Canadian study permits for Indians fell sharply late last year and the diplomatic tension was likely to weigh on future numbers, Immigration Minister Marc Miller told Reuters in January."It is something that both countries cannot afford because we are heavily dependent on each other," said Kanwalpreet Kaur, a political science professor at Chandigarh’s DAV College."It is really keeping students on edge because their future is tied up with Canada," she added.Ties soured last September when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there were "credible allegations" linking Indian government agents to the killing of the Sikh separatist leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, on Canadian soil.India’s high commissioner, or ambassador, was among the six diplomats Canada expelled on Monday, linking them to the murder, while accusing the Indian government of having undertaken a broad campaign targeting the South Asian community in Canada.India dismissed the accusations and accused Trudeau of pursuing a "political agenda", while kicking out six high-ranking Canadian diplomats in retaliation.However, both countries see no immediate impact on two-way trade, which stood at $8.4 billion at the end of the last fiscal year on March 31."It’s a loss for families and for our children who want to go there to live a better life," said Gurinder Singh, who runs a cloth business and exports to Canada."The government should consider all this and should ensure that the matter does not escalate." China urges India to handle Taiwan issue cautiously after Mumbai office opening (Reuters)
Reuters [10/17/2024 4:56 AM, Shivam Patel, 37270K, Negative]
China urged India on Thursday to handle Taiwan issues with caution and avoid interference in the improvement of Sino-India relations following the opening of another Taiwan de facto consulate in Mumbai.China opposes moves by any countries it has ties with to engage in official contacts with Taiwan, said Mao Ning, a foreign ministry spokesperson, at a regular news conference.The Taiwanese government opened its third representative office in India on Wednesday, Taiwan’s official Central News Agency reported, adding to existing offices in New Delhi and Chennai.The opening came amid ongoing efforts from China and India to ease tensions and resolve conflicts on their Himalayan frontier, a point of contention that has strained bilateral ties.China, which views democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory, staged a new round of war games around the island earlier this week.Taiwan’s government rejects China’s sovereignty claims and Beijing’s claim of the right to speak for and represent the island on the international stage"China has lodged solemn representations with the Indian side," Mao said."The one-China principle is a serious political commitment made by the Indian side and the political foundation of Sino-Indian relations."China urges India to strictly abide by its commitments, handle Taiwan-related issues prudently and properly, and refrain from conducting any form of official exchanges with Taiwan, she added. Monsoon flooding closes schools and offices in India’s southern IT hubs (AP)
AP [10/16/2024 9:52 PM, Staff, 44095K, Negative]
Schools, colleges and government offices were shut Wednesday in parts of southern India as heavy monsoon rains triggered severe flooding.The worst-hit cities included Chennai and Bengaluru, the country’s industrial and information technology hubs. Power cuts and flight cancellations caused disruption, and thousands of residents prepared for more downpours over the next 48 hours.The June-September monsoon season has receded in northern parts of the country. However, the northeast monsoon has brought heavy rains to coastal Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and southern Karnataka state. At least 33 people died last month in rains and floods.Residents of the high-security Poes Garden area in Chennai, where top politicians, industrialists and celebrities live, woke up to severe flooding following overnight rains. Television images showed people struggling through traffic congestion in knee-deep floodwaters.The India Meteorological Department said that winds of 60 kph (37 mph) were expected to lash the southern region until Thursday.The Tamil Nadu state government said more than 200 boats and disaster response teams have been deployed and schools, colleges and government offices were closed.Disasters caused by landslides and floods are common in South Asia. Scientists and weather forecasters have blamed climate change for heavier rains in recent years. Indian police arrest minor for hoax bomb threats on flights (Reuters)
Reuters [10/17/2024 4:27 AM, Tanvi Mehta, 88008K, Neutral]Police in India’s financial capital Mumbai have arrested a minor for allegedly posting online bomb threats to three flights earlier this week, India’s aviation minister said.Indian airlines have this month received a spate of threats to domestic and international flights on their social media, all of which have been false alarms."Strongly condemn the recent bomb threats to Indian air carriers. We are closely monitoring the situation and ensuring that every necessary measure is taken against such actions," Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu, the country’s civil aviation minister, said in a post on X on Wednesday.He said the person arrested was a minor, meaning below the age of 18, and did not name him.Local media have reported that bomb threats were made from an account on X and alleged two IndiGo flights - one to Muscat and another to Jeddah, and an Air India one to New York had armed militants with explosives.At least eight flights of leading carrier IndiGo (INGL.NS) were subject to threats. Three Spicejet (SPJT.BO) ones, two Vistara and four Air India ones also received similar messages online this week, according to Reuters calculations.Air India said its flight from New Delhi to Chicago was forced to land in Canada on Wednesday after a "security threat posted online". Passengers were later taken to their destination by a Canadian Air Force plane."Air India notes that it, and other local airlines, have been subject to a number of threats in recent days," the carrier said.The government plans to enhance security on international flights by deploying more sky marshals, who are armed personnel in plain clothes, according to India’s Economic Times newspaper.India’s interior and aviation ministries did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.IndiGo, Spicejet and Vistara said in their statements they are working with authorities to follow standard procedures. India Turns to Maritime Neighbors to Navigate Troubled Neighborhood (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [10/16/2024 4:24 AM, Rushali Saha, 1198K, Positive]
Two high-profile visits earlier this month - one by Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar to Colombo on October 4, and the other by Maldives President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu to New Delhi on October 7 - have once again brought a focus on New Delhi’s neighborhood diplomacy.
New Delhi seems to be shifting focus to maritime engagements with littoral nations. In a departure from the past, the contours and geographic scope of India’s maritime security are broadening, which is now emerging as an important aspect of India’s Neighborhood First policy. Under the aegis of the Modi government’s SAGAR initiative, visits between India and countries in its oceanic neighborhood have become more frequent. Following bilateral talks between Muizzu and Modi, the leaders unveiled "A Vision for Comprehensive Economic and Maritime Security Partnership," which is described as "people-centric, future-oriented, and… an anchor of stability in the Indian Ocean Region."
In Sri Lanka, Jaishankar offered a $61.5 million grant to modernize the Kankesanthurai port in northern Sri Lanka. In an earlier visit to Sri Lanka in June this year, both sides unveiled the Maritime Rescue Coordination Center under a $6 million grant to boost maritime security in the Indian Ocean. New Delhi is focusing on frequent high-level visits, port visits, providing defense supplies and equipment to help countries in the region, capacity building, and greater economic cooperation.
India’s strategic focus has long been on its continental borders, resulting in a neglect of the maritime domain. The strategic inertia toward the Indian Ocean came from the lack of direct competition and a certain degree of complacency as New Delhi had already established itself as a key partner for most of its neighbors in the Indian Ocean. New Delhi’s renewed focus on the Indian Ocean is largely motivated by the growing Chinese strategic footprint in the Indian Ocean. The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is rapidly expanding its presence in the Indian Ocean through port and ship deployments and proliferation of submarines and underwater drones. New Delhi has repeatedly expressed its discomfort at the stationing of Chinese ships in its neighboring maritime countries due to concerns over their "surveillance activity."
Much to New Delhi’s dismay, activities by Chinese research vessels have continued unabated. Just a few days after Jaishankar’s visit, Colombo allowed a Chinese navy ship to dock, despite a one-year ban on Chinese research vessels, on the grounds that it was a "training vessel and not a research craft."In addition to its military presence, Beijing has invested heavily in strategic overseas ports in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. Domestically, New Delhi’s response has been to build the Indian Navy’s defense capability, particularly its sub-surface fleet, to bolster its presence in the region. Externally, while India has been enhancing extra-regional partnerships with like-minded partners, it remains wary of a large extra-regional presence in littoral South Asia. Therefore, New Delhi’s Indian Ocean diplomacy is rooted more in its immediate neighborhood, with the SAGAR vision focused on advancing cooperation and using its capabilities to benefit all in the region.
India’s renewed outreach toward its Indian Ocean neighbors comes at a time when disputes between China and its neighbors in the South China Sea, notably the Philippines and Vietnam, have intensified. China’s maritime ambitions can be understood as those in the near seas (the South China Sea and the East China Sea) and those in the far seas, the Indian Ocean and beyond. In the near seas, China is more concerned with the militarized territorial disputes that concern its sovereignty, while in the far seas, Beijing is looking to expand its influence. Currently, Beijing’s military and diplomatic energy is occupied in the South China Sea, leaving open space for New Delhi to (re)engage with its maritime neighbors to (re)build influence.
For New Delhi to ensure that the Indian Ocean remains "India’s Ocean," the SAGAR vision must work in tandem with the Neighborhood First policy. In the short term, India can turn to benign maritime engagements and broad-based cooperation on maritime security to safeguard its own national interest and promote stability in the larger Indo-Pacific region. NSB
Bangladesh court issues arrest warrant for ex-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina over deaths of protesters (AP)
AP [10/17/2024 4:51 AM, Staff, 88008K, Negative]
A special court in Bangladesh issued arrest warrants on Thursday for former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and 45 others, including her close aides, on charges of crimes against humanity during a student-led uprising in July and August that forced her to flee the country, a prosecutor said.Prosecutor B.M. Sultan Mahmud said the Dhaka-based International Crimes Tribunal issued the arrest warrants in response to two petitions submitted by the prosecution.He said the head of the tribunal, Golam Mortuza Majumdar, issued the orders in the presence of other judges.Hasina fled the country to India on Aug. 5 after weeks of violent protests in which hundreds of people died. Prosecutors said in the petitions that Hasina, her close aides and security agencies were responsible for killing the protesters and others. Alone in the Dark: The Nightmare of Bangladesh’s Secret Underground Prison (New York Times)
New York Times [10/17/2024 12:00 AM, Mujib Mashal and Shayeza Walid, 831K, Negative]
When his jailers barged in before dawn, the captive thought it was the end.
For eight years, he had been held in a windowless cell of an underground prison, dark night without end. Now, the guards ordered him to finish his prayer, then removed the thick blindfold and metal handcuffs he had almost always worn and tied his wrists with cloth — leaving nothing to incriminate them, he thought, if his body was later found floating in a river or lying in a ditch. They bundled their captive onto the floor of a minivan, hiding him under the weight of two men, and set out for an hour’s drive.
But unlike many other political prisoners before him in Bangladesh, Mir Ahmad Quasem Arman was not being taken to his death and disposal. Instead, he said, he was dropped off in a barren field on the edge of Dhaka, the capital.
A lot had changed: new highway overpasses, a recently opened subway system. But Mr. Arman was unaware of the latest and biggest change of all. Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister who had ruled with an iron fist and vengeful designs for the past 15 years, had fled the country as protesters stormed her home.
With her exit on Aug. 5 came the reappearance of Mr. Arman and two other men long confined in the secret prison.
Mr. Arman had been a spoiled and chubby-cheeked lawyer when he disappeared at the hands of paramilitary forces in 2016 — under no criminal accusation himself, but seemingly held accountable for his father’s decades as an Islamist activist and business magnate.
Years later, Mr. Arman stumbled back into the open as a shadow of his old self, skinny, with a wispy beard and thinning hair. The only thing that had kept him from spiraling into madness during all those years alone in the blackness was the thought of his wife and two young daughters, now 11 and 12.“I prayed to God every time that ‘I couldn’t be with my family in this world, at least keep us together in heaven,’” Mr. Arman, 40, said.
While Ms. Hasina’s downfall has given her country of 170 million people an opening to chart a new future, it has also lifted the veil on some of the worst abuses of Bangladesh’s recent past. Once an embodiment of her nation’s democratic longings, Ms. Hasina descended over time into autocracy, paranoia and repression, marshaling the state machinery to neutralize any challenge to her grip on power.
Embedded in that effort’s deepest recesses was Ms. Hasina’s program of enforced disappearances. Hundreds of people vanished without a trace after being abducted by her security forces, targeted in some cases over the smallest of political actions: organizing an opposition rally, blocking a road in protest or just posting an angry message on social media.
Many of the victims were killed and discarded. The rest were shut out of sight in an underground military detention center, pushed to the edge of insanity and death — often for years on end — but assiduously prevented from death itself.
That prison was code-named the House of Mirrors.
The Times pieced together the story of Ms. Hasina’s secret detention program through interviews with more than two dozen people, including Mr. Arman and another man released in August, as well as survivors who had previously been forced into silence, current and former government officials and security chiefs, diplomats and human rights activists.
It is a story of families destroyed — one of those released in August collapsed into repeated strokes after learning that his wife had remarried, believing him dead; another learned that his father had died after going door to door for years seeking clues to his disappearance.
Dozens of those who vanished remain unaccounted-for, their loved ones deprived of any sense of closure, even after braving years of government crackdowns and intimidation to hold vigils and protests. They want their sons and brothers to reappear, as the other three prisoners did. If that cannot happen, they want justice, to help close their own wounds, and those of their nation.“What we want is an answer — what happened?” said Tasnim Shipraa, whose uncle Belal Hossain vanished in 2013. “It’s almost like he never existed in this world.”
A Torturous History
To the outside world, Bangladesh was something of an economic miracle, with a garment export industry that lifted millions out of poverty and won admiration for Ms. Hasina as the strong, steady hand at the wheel.
But darker currents ran beneath the surface, rooted in the traumatic history of a 50-year-old nation born of two bloody partitions — of Pakistan from India, then of Bangladesh from Pakistan — and stuck ever since in a cycle of political violence and vengeance.
Ms. Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, helped guide Bangladesh to independence in 1971, after the Pakistani military had waged a brutal campaign against ethnic Bengalis that left hundreds of thousands dead.
But as Sheikh Mujib led the country in the years that followed, he became deeply paranoid, banning political parties and unleashing a ruthless paramilitary force against his opponents. In 1975, he and much of his family were killed in a military coup.
Ms. Hasina, who was abroad at the time, went into exile. When she returned years later, she was a breath of fresh air, eventually helping to end military rule and becoming prime minister for the first time in 1996.
Her defeat in the next election sent her to the sidelines for eight years. In 2004, she survived an assassination attempt in which grenade-hurling assailants killed two dozen people. During a later political crisis, she was detained on extortion charges. When she returned to office in 2009, she was a changed leader, paranoid and heavy-handed like her father.
Ms. Hasina employed a range of security forces in the campaign of repression that followed. For the work of killing and disposing of opponents, she turned to elite police and paramilitary units. One of them, the Rapid Action Batallion, had started as a counterterrorism squadron with U.S. and British training but was transformed by Ms. Hasina into what Human Rights Watch called an “in-house death squad.”
In a particularly gruesome case, an official in Ms. Hasina’s party paid the batallion’s members to take out an adversary, according to court documents. When they went to pick the man up in broad daylight, they also rounded up any witness to the crime. The officers sedated seven people and strangled them, according to court testimony. To prepare the bodies to be dumped into a river, their abdomens were perforated to help them sink, and sacks of bricks were tied to them.
A week later, the bodies were found floating on the surface of the river, a clear sign that the Hasina regime’s brutality had taken on a life of its own.
Secret long-term detentions were entrusted to the military’s intelligence wing. More than 700 people were forcibly disappeared from 2009 to this year, according to estimates by human rights organizations. The true count is most likely far higher, they say, because frequent government harassment made it difficult for them to fully document the cases.
About 450 of the known disappeared turned up alive later, released months or years after they were hauled away and ordered to maintain a strict silence, the rights groups say. For 80, the families received only their dead bodies. Roughly 150 victims remain unaccounted-for.
The military did Ms. Hasina’s dirty work as she brought it under her tight control. As if to make clear that she trusted no one, she put one of her relatives — a retired army general — in charge of coordinating military affairs. She allowed the top brass a free hand at making money to help ensure their loyalty.
Periodically, her intelligence outfits would present to her a list of threats to defuse, with the different forces competing to impress her, officials with knowledge of the program said. If she nodded, the system did its work.
Now, the military’s role in the detentions is drawing questions. The Bangladeshi military has long found prestige in being a top contributor to United Nations peacekeeping missions abroad. After the country’s institutions collapsed with Ms. Hasina’s departure, the military pitched itself as the only institution with the credibility to hold Bangladesh together as it faces a difficult road ahead.
That image is harder to maintain with each new story that emerges from the House of Mirrors.
A Look Inside
Abdullahil Amaan Azmi applies a grim math to the ceaseless suffering he endured.
Mr. Azmi, a decorated former army general who was whisked away apparently because his father had been a senior Islamist leader, was freed from the military prison in August. He estimated that he had been blindfolded and handcuffed 41,000 times during his eight years in captivity.“I did not see God’s sky, the sun, the grass, the moon, the trees,” Mr. Azmi said. In the beginning, he would try to catch a bit of sunlight through two small ventilation openings. “But once they found out through the CCTV camera,” he said, “they closed those off.”
The internment center was a tightly run operation intended to prolong a life barely worth living. Medical checkups were regular and thorough. Haircuts: every four to six months. Direct physical torture, if any, was kept to the early days, during interrogations.
The goal instead was to torture the mind.
Asked by The Times to sketch the facility, three of the former detainees drew practically identical blueprints: long corridors with half a dozen rooms facing away from each other. There were toilets at each end, a standing one and a squatting one. Each cell had a large exhaust fan meant to both drown out the guards’ chatter and send the prisoners into madness.“Let me show you,” said Maroof Zaman, a former Bangladeshi ambassador to Qatar and Vietnam who spent 467 days in the prison before re-emerging in 2019. He opened Google Maps and zoomed in on a military garrison in Dhaka, pinpointing the part now marked as Aynaghor — Bengali for House of Mirrors, a code name first revealed in 2022 by Netra News, a Bangladeshi news outlet operated in exile.
He and the other prisoners knew they were at a military base not just because of the discipline and precision of the guards, but also because they could hear morning parades. They knew that officers’ residential quarters were close by, with normal life playing out just above them.“Every Friday, you could hear the children singing,” Mr. Zaman said.
During his interrogation, Mr. Zaman, who had been critical of Ms. Hasina, particularly over her accommodation of India, was hooded and punched repeatedly in the face, knocking out two teeth. His interrogators had printed all of his social media and blog posts, questioning him on specific paragraphs.“We spent so much money printing your posts. Your father will give us all this money back?” one of the interrogators asked him.
Michael Chakma, a tribal rights activist, was set free in a jungle in August after being driven blindfolded for hours.“It was the first time I saw daylight in five years,” Mr. Chakma said. “As I was seeing this, I was trying to double-check if I was just imagining this light or if it was real.”
He was abducted in 2019 as he entered a bank in Dhaka. He had been campaigning for self-governance for Bangladesh’s Indigenous hill peoples.
Inside the prison, he kept asking his interrogators why he was there. The closest he could get to an answer was political retaliation: When Ms. Hasina had gone to the Chattogram Hill areas in the country’s southeast to hold a rally for her party, the Awami League, the student wing of Mr. Chakma’s party blocked the road.Ms. Hasina finished her speech at the rally with a threat — that she would see to those who had been behind the protest.“That hurt her,” Mr. Chakma said. “I always asked them, ‘What is my crime? What have I done? What am I guilty of?’ And they’d say that I have ill-intentioned politics in relation to the Awami League government.”
Mr. Azmi, the former military officer, said that sometimes his large blindfold was so tight that it would squeeze his nose and make breathing difficult. He suffered eye pain, tooth decay and skin sores.
But all of that paled in comparison to the constant fear: that he could be taken out any night and his body dumped somewhere, with the next morning’s newspapers fed a story that he had died in “crossfire” with the police.
Mr. Azmi prayed for dignity in death: “Please don’t let cats and dogs eat my dead body, please have them send my body to my family, my loved ones.”“There is no language in which I can explain the humiliation and pain I felt,” he said at a news conference.
Mr. Arman, the lawyer, was picked up in August 2016 as his wife and 4-year-old daughter watched, seemingly singled out for actions that were not even his own.
He was imprisoned shortly before his father, Mir Quasem Ali, was to be hanged over what the Hasina government labeled war crimes dating from 1971, when Mr. Ali was a teenage student leader of an Islamist party that opposed the creation of Bangladesh.
Mr. Ali was seen especially as a threat to Ms. Hasina because he sat atop a large and lucrative empire: a bank, a media network, hospitals.“I am not proud of his role in ‘71,” Mr. Arman said of his father. But as his lawyer, Mr. Arman said that his father had not deserved a day in jail, much less hanging.
After years of pain and uncertainty, Mr. Arman was finally able to reunite with his wife, daughters and mother while he recovered in a hospital. But he is haunted by the capriciousness with which his life was devastated: the summary execution of his father, crucial years stolen from family life, the abuse and isolation that shattered any sense of security — all seemingly on a whim that will never be fully explained.“It wasn’t in my worst nightmares that they could take me away from my everything,” he said, “in a moment where my father was going to be executed.”
A Search for Justice
In the hours after Ms. Hasina’s overthrow, a small group of men and women cut through the jubilant crowds flooding the streets and arrived at the gates of the country’s military headquarters.
Some of the men were survivors of enforced disappearances. The women, the loved ones of those still missing, had been knocking on doors for years seeking proof of life, or at least closure.
They had been brought together by a time-sensitive truth: There might still be prisoners inside the House of Mirrors. If those at the gates did not look the commanding officers in the eye and speak to them now, the last of the disappeared might vanish forever.
Close to midnight, the officers finally let in three representatives for a meeting. At first, the officers repeated their textbook response: There was no such thing as an enforced disappearance. When the survivors told the officers that they knew at least two men held inside — they had managed to see them during their daily bathroom runs — there was little room for denial.“They said, ‘Give us 24 hours of time, we will sort it out,’” said Hasinur Rahman, a retired army lieutenant colonel who had been forcibly disappeared for over 18 months and had gone in as one of the representatives. “‘If anyone is left, we will ensure they will be released as early as possible.’”
Over the next couple of days, Mr. Chakma, Mr. Arman and Mr. Azmi were all set free.
Their release filled the families of other victims with the kind of hope they had not felt in years. Over the following days, the mothers and sisters and daughters of the missing were everywhere.
They were at vigils for student protesters who had been killed by Ms. Hasina’s forces. They were outside the Supreme Court, holding placards. One woman, Shirin Akhtar, finding a ring of military men guarding the court building, looked to officer after officer, holding the arm of each and pleading tearfully for help locating her son, Mohamad Sayed.
They were also outside the military headquarters in Dhaka and military bases in several other parts of the country, asking the same question: Where are our loved ones? Wherever they gathered, they would chant: “The House of Mirrors, the House of Mirrors.” The response would be louder: “Shatter it! “Shatter it!”
One night, they arrived at the headquarters of the interim government that took over after Ms. Hasina’s ouster, to present their plea to Muhammad Yunus, the 84-year-old Nobel laureate who is now the country’s caretaker leader. One man, Babul Hawlader, his son’s photo hanging from his neck, sat cross-legged in the middle of the road leading to the main gate.
Inside the headquarters, Sanjida Islam Tulee, whose brother Sajedul Islam Sumon disappeared in 2013, described the group’s demand for justice. Their mother had become the core of a protest group called Mayer Daak, or “the mother’s call,” which stayed on the streets for years. Now the old woman sat quietly next to Mr. Yunus, hugging a framed portrait of her missing son.“We are done waiting,” her daughter said to Mr. Yunus. “What we want is something concrete.”
He told the women that his government was a result of their protest: Their persistence for all those years had helped inspire the student protesters and others to rise up and topple Ms. Hasina.If the country’s interim leaders cannot pursue justice for them, Mr. Yunus said, “then this government has no meaning.”
In the weeks that followed, Mr. Yunus signed an international treaty on enforced disappearances and formed a committee to investigate the crimes in Bangladesh. But in a sign of the difficult task ahead, and of how justice and reconciliation have been elusive throughout Bangladesh’s history, he was measured in his promise to the women.“Keep your hopes up,” Mr. Yunus told them, “but I can’t say what the result will be.” How Hunger Drives Mass Uprisings in Bangladesh (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [10/16/2024 8:13 AM, Jannatul Naym Pieal, 1198K, Negative]
People chant victorious slogans on the premises of the National Parliament House on the afternoon of Aug. 5, 2024, shortly after Hasina’s resignation was announced.
On August 2 of this year, after attending a student-led protest at the Central Shaheed Minar on the Dhaka University campus, I took a rickshaw home in the evening.
During the ride, I struck up a conversation with the rickshaw puller, who seemed to be well over 60. I asked him, "What do you think will happen in the coming days?"
"What else but the resignation of the despot?" he replied confidently. By "despot," he clearly meant Sheikh Hasina, who was then Bangladesh’s prime minister.
It was surprising to hear, as the student protesters had not yet put forward a demand for Hasina’s resignation. At that time, no one was certain whether such an outcome was even possible. Yet, the rickshaw puller predicted it.
I asked him why he thought so. "Because we’ve reached a breaking point," he said. "For poor people like us, it has become impossible to survive with the price of basic goods skyrocketing."
And there it was - his frustration laid bare.
When people are pushed to their limits, when they can no longer afford to feed their families, no amount of political repression can stop them from rising up, as we saw in the days leading up to August 5.
Those outside the country may believe that the mass uprising that eventually ended Hasina’s 15-plus-year rule was solely about the unfair quota system in public services. But that’s far from the truth.
That issue may have been the spark, with the movement gaining momentum after hundreds of protesters were killed. However, at the heart of the unrest was widespread public discontent with the government, fueled by economic hardship, inflation, and the rising cost of necessities.
Most people in Bangladesh, many of whom live hand-to-mouth, do not care much about politics. They certainly have little stake in public service job quotas. What they care about is being able to feed their families, and that was becoming increasingly impossible in Hasina’s later years.
While her government consistently promoted the narrative of Bangladesh achieving self-sufficiency in food production and securing food availability, even official data contradicted this. According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS)’s "Food Security Statistics 2023," released late last year, 21.91 percent of the population was suffering from moderate or severe food insecurity, with 0.83 percent facing severe insecurity.
Additionally, a survey by the South Asian Network on Economic Modelling (SANEM), published in March, found that 70 percent of Bangladeshi households had been forced to change their food habits due to high prices.
Yet the Hasina government, always keen to present a rosy picture of development, resisted criticism.
In a telling incident, a journalist from Prothom Alo, one of Bangladesh’s leading newspapers, quoted a day laborer in March 2023 as saying, "We want the freedom of fish, meat, and rice." For this, the journalist was swiftly detained by the authorities, exposing the fragility of press freedom under the Hasina regime.
Looking back at Bangladesh’s history, this isn’t the first time food insecurity has led to political upheaval. In Bangladesh, hunger is more than a personal crisis; it is a national reckoning.
The 1943 Bengal famine, though occurring before independence, left a deep scar on the region that would become Bangladesh. Driven by wartime policies and poor management, the famine caused millions of deaths and intensified anti-colonial sentiment, contributing to the political movements that eventually led to the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan in 1947.
In the 1950s and 1960s, East Pakistan - now Bangladesh - suffered from repeated food shortages and economic neglect by the central government in West Pakistan. These crises and the unequal distribution of resources fueled demands for autonomy, ultimately sparking the independence movement. Bangladesh gained independence from Pakistan in 1971 after a brutal war.
However, soon after the birth of the new nation, another famine struck in 1974. This famine, caused by flooding, government mismanagement, and global economic instability, led to immense suffering and growing dissatisfaction with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s government, contributing to the political instability that culminated in his assassination in 1975.
Food insecurity and economic struggles also played a significant role during the military regime of General Hussain Muhammad Ershad in the 1980s. These issues, combined with demands for the restoration of democracy, united opposition groups and led to mass protests, culminating in Ershad’s resignation in 1990 and the return of democratic governance.
The global food crisis of 2007-2008 also had a significant impact on Bangladesh. The poor were disproportionately affected by rising global food prices, and staples like rice became unaffordable for many. Protests and strikes erupted, highlighting the vulnerability of the population to global economic trends. The unrest occurred during a period of political instability under a military-backed caretaker government.In each of these instances, food insecurity was not just about hunger. It acted as a driving force for social unrest and political change, often amplifying existing grievances against the government and sparking demands for reform or regime change.
It is fair to say that much of Bangladesh’s political history has been shaped by struggles with food insecurity. However, despite the ousting of Sheikh Hasina, the country’s future remains uncertain.
The interim government, led by Dr. Muhammad Yunus, has so far struggled to restore law and order, and the much-promised reforms seem to be taking longer than expected. Their greatest failure, however, has been their inability to control market prices.
A dozen ripe bananas now cost 160-170 Bangladeshi takas ($1.34-1.42), while a dozen eggs cost 180-190 takas. Most vegetables are priced at over 100 takas per kilogram, and fish and meat have become unaffordable for even the middle class.
If this situation persists, it is not unthinkable that another mass uprising could very well be on the horizon. Maldives Moves to Hike Tourism Taxes and Tighten Belts (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [10/16/2024 10:48 AM, Ahmed Naish, 1198K, Neutral]
The Maldives government has decided to hike tourism-related taxes in a belated push for sorely needed economic reforms.
Government-sponsored bills were submitted to Parliament this week to double the green tax, hike the departure fee and airport service charge, and raise the tourism goods and services tax (T-GST).
The move came after the World Bank reiterated that a "large fiscal consolidation is urgently required to regain fiscal and debt sustainability and ease liquidity pressures," referring to foreign exchange reserves plunging to "critically low levels" due to rising debt repayment.
"Despite the government’s announcement of a homegrown fiscal reform agenda in February 2024, the policies are yet to be endorsed and implemented," the World Bank observed in a biannual economic update released on October 10. "Implementing these reforms is key to easing current liquidity pressures and bringing the budget closer to balance."
The Maldives’ official reserves of $322 million at the end of September were barely enough to cover imports for a month and far below debt service needs, projected at $615.6 million in 2025 and $1.07 billion in 2026.
According to the proposed revenue measures, T-GST will rise from 16 percent to 17 percent in June 2024. The green tax - a daily fee levied on each tourist - will be doubled on January 1 from $3 to $6 per day for tourists staying at guesthouses and hotels with fewer than 50 rooms, and from $6 to $12 per day for tourists staying at resorts and other establishments.
Starting on December 1 this year, the departure fee and airport service charge will rise from $30 to $50 for economy class passengers, $60 to $120 for business class passengers, $90 to $240 for first class passengers, and $120 to $480 for passengers on private jets. Both taxes will remain unchanged at $12 for Maldivians traveling overseas on economy class, but the higher rates will apply for local passengers on business class and above.
The tax hikes are expected to generate 2.7 billion Maldivian rufiyaas ($175 million) in additional revenue.
The bills were introduced to Parliament on October 14. In an expedited process on the following day, the T-GST bill was taken up for debate and sent for review by a full-house committee. Debate on the green tax bill started on October 16. The legal changes are expected to be voted through unchallenged as the ruling party controls a supermajority in the 93-member legislature.
The bid to squeeze more tax revenue out of tourism comes amid grumbling from the resort industry. During a panel discussion with ministers at a forum in September, resort operators complained about the short notice for a previous T-GST hike in January 2023.
"Will it be again that the business owners have to take the hit and pay for whatever is already on the books?" a participant asked, seeking to clarify whether advance bookings would be exempt as European law prohibits new charges after payment.
The question drew applause from the audience comprised of resort managers.
In response, Economic Development Minister Mohamed Saeed assured that "a proper consultation process" would take place. "The last thing the government wants is to cause any additional cost to the industry," he said.
"We’re not doing anything new. We’re trying to overcome the situation. But there are not plenty of new taxes or unfavorable tax expansion policies in the pipeline," he added.
The tax bills followed stringent measures by the central bank to address a persistent U.S. dollar shortage and an entrenched black market. New regulations that came into force on October 1 require resorts to deposit $500 per tourist in the domestic banking system. The central bank forecasted $750 million in additional annual foreign currency inflows into the banking system.
The regulatory change was widely applauded. It surprised those who believed that governments always serve the interests of tourism magnates. Economists have long advocated such rules to ensure that a larger share of U.S. dollar receipts from the lucrative tourism sector - valued at $3.6 billion in 2023 - is retained in the Maldives.
But it drew the ire of the Maldives Association of Tourism Industry (MATI), a powerful lobbying group representing resort owners. The compulsory exchange controls were "unacceptable," MATI said, accusing the authorities of failing to consult industry stakeholders or address concerns raised by the association.
The opposition echoed MATI’s concerns. If higher taxes dissuade tourists from choosing expensive resorts, tax revenue would not increase as anticipated, former finance minister Ibrahim Ameer argued."The government should reduce the number of political employees. And tax spending should be transparent. Government companies should increase efficiency. Travel for political purposes should be reduced. Useless vanity projects should be stopped," he told local media outlet Adhadhu.
Others criticized the failure to implement overdue fiscal reforms.
Key policies recommended by international financial institutions chiefly involve reforming the costly health insurance scheme and phasing out blanket subsidies for fuel, electricity, food, and sanitation, all of which are recommended to be replaced with targeted assistance to low-income households.
Both policies are likely to prove unpopular. Despite budgeting for subsidy reform in 2024 to reduce outlays by 2 percent of GDP, the government has so far hesitated to cut any spending that would directly impact the public.
In June this year, President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu announced his intention to enact austerity measures as planned in the budget for mid-2024. But the Finance Ministry now says that targeted subsidies have been postponed to 2025.
According to the World Bank, 43 percent of subsidy spending currently benefits the richest 40 percent of the population. It advised introducing an income-targeted cash transfer to cushion the blow. Without relief to the least affluent demographic, poverty could rise from 2.5 to 4.6 percent, the World Bank estimated. As a result of healthcare and subsidy reforms as well as higher prices, the poverty rate could nearly double among single parent households and households with more than three children.
A flat cash transfer to all citizens in the targeted bottom 60 percent of the population would entail "shifting to a new targeting framework, underpinned by a proxy means test (PMT) to identify eligible beneficiaries," the World Bank explained.
The elimination of subsidies could be a difficult adjustment for a population accustomed to government support; thus it has been an unpalatable prospect for successive leaders. But the Muizzu administration has signaled a willingness to embrace tough choices.
On October 15, the president decided to dismiss 228 political appointees as a cost-cutting measure. "It will save MVR 5.714m [$370,500] per month from the government budget," Muizzu announced on X.
These recent moves suggest that the government is finally confronting the harsh economic reality. It appears to have accepted that deferring decisive action is no longer a viable option. Failure to avert the looming debt crisis could be ruinous for the tourism-dependent economy.
As the World Bank stressed in a stark warning: "Any further delay in fiscal reforms could lead to further erosion in investor confidence and an unprecedented economic shock." Climate change worsened deadly Nepal floods, scientists say (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [10/16/2024 5:56 PM, Staff, 8537K, Negative]
Climate change, along with rapid urbanisation and deforestation, turbocharged floods in Nepal that killed more than 240 people last month, scientists said on Thursday. Nepal suffered its worst flooding in decades in late September after ferocious monsoon rains swelled rivers, swamping entire neighbourhoods in the capital Kathmandu and other districts.World Weather Attribution (WWA), a network of scientists who assess the role of human-induced climate change on extreme weather events, said the link between the intense rainfall and a warming planet was clear."If the atmosphere wasn’t overloaded with fossil fuel emissions, these floods would have been less intense, less destructive and less deadly," said researcher Mariam Zachariah, from Imperial College London.Their analysis found the relentless rain, which fell on saturated ground in the late monsoon, was made at least 10 percent heavier and 70 percent more likely by climate change.They warned that such "explosive" rain bursts will "become even heavier, risking more destructive floods" if the world does not stop burning fossil fuels.Lashing rain from September 26 sparked floods and landslides that killed 246 people and left 18 missing, according to Nepal’s government.WWA, which uses modelling to compare weather patterns in our world and one without human-induced climate change, said there was a high level of uncertainty in the results because of the complex rain dynamics in the small, mountainous region affected.However, the results were in line with growing scientific evidence on large-scale extreme rain in a warming climate, in which the atmosphere holds more water.The role of climate change was also compounded by other man-made problems, they said, including rapid urbanisation, with a nearly four-fold increase in built-up areas in Kathmandu since 1990.That was coupled with major deforestation that disrupted the natural flow of water, with tree cover slashed by more than a quarter since 1989.The floods smashed hydropower plants, washed away homes and ripped away bridges. It was the latest disastrous flood to hit the Himalayan nation this year."Climate change is no longer a distant threat," said Roshan Jha, Researcher at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai."With every fraction of a degree of warming, the atmosphere can potentially hold more moisture, leading to much heavier downpours, and catastrophic floods like these."Nepal has embarked on a giant hydropower dam building spree, generating 99 percent of its power, with output increasing fourfold in the past eight years.It has signed deals to export surplus power to neighbouring coal-dependent India.Earlier this month, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization said that increasingly intense floods and droughts are a "distress signal" of what is to come as climate change makes the planet’s water cycle ever more unpredictable.WMO chief Celeste Saulo called water the "canary in the coal mine of climate change". Nepal’s inventive use for waste placentas (BBC)
BBC [10/16/2024 10:00 AM, Gabriella Jozwiak, 67197K, Neutral]
The burning of medical waste poses a serious health and environmental danger. Hospitals in Nepal have started turning this hazardous waste into cooking gas.Hospital staff close to the incinerator complained of persistent coughs, breathing difficulties, headaches, sore eyes and rashes. The black, noxious smoke that poured out of its chimney wafted in through the windows of Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH) in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu. Staff reluctantly closed them to protect their vulnerable patients: children and babies in paediatric and neonatal intensive care, and adults with respiratory illnesses."Keeping the windows shut caused the rooms to overheat and added to the discomfort," recalls Deepak Mahara, former TUTH executive director who has now retired. "When the incinerator was operational, smoke frequently drifted into these sensitive areas, causing significant distress. The foul smell made the work environment uncomfortable."Despite this, no one realised their symptoms were connected to the incinerator’s emissions until 2014, when a local non-profit, the Health Environment and Climate Action Foundation (HECAF360), approached hospital managers to suggest replacing the offensive furnace with an underground biodigester. Staff not only faced long-term health conditions if they continued to be exposed to the poisoned air, but the hospital was also causing broader public health and environmental dangers, HECAF360 warned. Low-quality incineration of health care waste releases dioxins and furans into the atmosphere – chemicals both classified as human carcinogens. While medical waste that is dumped outside of hospital grounds poses risks to anyone who may come into contact with it, such as waste pickers on dump sites."We were unaware of the negative impact of the mismanagement of healthcare waste," says Mahara. Realising the issue was serious, he agreed to take action. "It needed to be addressed immediately to comply with hospital’s mission to ‘do no harm’," he says.The situation at TUTH is common. Hospitals worldwide use incinerators to eradicate rubbish. It is the method most commonly used in developing countries to dispose of infectious waste, according to a UN Human Rights Council report. The report highlights that if medical facilities have small-scale incinerators, or manage them incorrectly, this can lead to dioxins emissions that are 40,000 times higher than emission limits set forth in the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.In Nepal, hospitals and healthcare centres generate between 1 and 1.7kg (2.2 and 3.7lb) of healthcare waste per bed each day, according to Health Care Without Harm (HCWH), a global non-profit working to reduce healthcare services’ negative impacts on the environment and people. One study estimates low-income countries produce up to 6kg (13.3lb) of hazardous waste per bed per day, which rises to 11kg (24.3lb) in high-income nations.The safe approach to medical waste management is to separate and treat wastes differently. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 15% of healthcare waste is hazardous material that may be infectious, toxic or radioactive. Waste must all be segregated before disposal, but just one-third of healthcare facilities do this. This has a detrimental impact on people and the planet. About 5.2 million people, including four million children, die each year from waste-related diseases around the world.Pathological waste, such as human tissue, organs or amputated body parts, also carry risk because they may contain pathogens: disease-causing viruses and bacteria. Non-burn technologies are available to treat potentially bio-hazardous waste, such as autoclaving and microwave treatment before disposal. But in 2014, when the project at TUTH began, most Nepali hospitals were disposing of healthcare waste by burying it on-site, open burning or incinerating with "little or no air pollution control", according to a 2019 report on the project by HCWH international science and policy coordinator Ruth Stringer.Mahesh Nakarmi, executive director and founder of HECAF360 in Nepal, is on a mission to clean up Nepal’s healthcare waste management. When the qualified civil engineer arrived at the 700-bed Tribhuvan hospital in 2014 – the largest hospital in Nepal – he had already tried and tested a solution to replace the incinerator. "Everybody thinks burning is the solution, but this causes a lot of environmental consequences," says Nakarmi. "When I started this work, I wanted to find different solutions for different types of waste."As at other hospitals where he had worked, Nakarmi began with a full assessment of all the processes of waste handling at THTU. By 2017, the hospital had signed a contract with HECAF360 to implement changes across the services. They included new waste segregation approaches, installing autoclaves to disinfect all infectious waste (except pathological) at high temperatures before recycling or disposal, and the construction of a specially designed biodigester to replace the incinerator. One of reasons the incinerator was causing so many problems was because of the type of waste handlers that were feeding it. Every day, one would carry a bucket of placentas from the hospital’s maternity ward and throw them into the fire. These temporary organs, grown in female bodies during pregnancy, are a typical form of pathological waste.Burning placentas is challenging because they are mainly composed of water. An incinerator needs to reach high temperatures to break down the tissue. WHO recommends hospitals use two-chamber incinerators to meet temperatures of 850C to 1100C (1562F and 2012F) to reduce organic matter. But the incinerator at Tribhuvan was a diesel-fuelled single chamber unit with no pollution control.To fuel the fire, hospital staff added recyclable materials such as paper and plastic, which release carbon dioxide (CO2). When they added equipment made of PVC, such as blood bags, intravenous lines and oxygen masks – these released highly toxic dioxins into the environment. Dioxins build up in the food chain and can lead to damaged immune systems, reproductive and developmental problems, and even cancer. As well as replacing the incinerator, Nakarmi cautioned the hospital’s policy of sending food waste to municipal landfill. At the time, leftover food for patients and kitchen scraps amounted to 189kg (417lb) of waste a day. Dumping biodegradable waste in landfills not only attracts cockroaches and rodents, but also releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas about 80 times more powerful over a 20-year time span than CO2, and is the primary contributor to ground-level ozone, which causes one million premature deaths every year.The biodigester solution began as a means of managing food waste. In 2011 HECAF360 built a single-chamber, underground biodigester at Bir Hospital, Kathmandu. A culture of biogas has existed in Nepal for more than 40 years, according to a nationwide survey, which suggests 69% of the country’s total energy demand is met by biomass energy. Homes and farms dispose of their animals’ manure into small biodigesters on their land, which releases methane gas to fuel cooking.At Bir hospital, methane released by digested food waste was piped into the staff tearoom. But Nakarmi faced a new challenge at Kathmandu Medical College and Teaching Hospital, where he installed a biodigester in 2016. "After Bir, hospitals we worked with had maternity services which produce placentas as well as food waste," he says. "We modified the biodigester to make it suitable for both types of waste."Nakarmi – together with Stringer and Dutch engineer Marijn Zandee, an independent technical advisor on biotechnology – developed a new model to safely digest both food and pathological waste. It worked so well the team went on to install three more at Grande City Hospital, Paropakar Maternity and Women’s Hospital, and the largest at TUTH.Stringer explains how the concrete TUTH model, which measures 50 cubic metres, works. The key adaptation to safely dispose of the pathological waste was to add a second chamber.Before hospital staff began adding waste, constructors put in cow dung to "seed" the chambers. This contains bacteria the mix needs to digest the hospital waste and generate methane. Hospital workers throw pathological and some food waste into the first underground chamber through an inlet above the ground. The majority of the hospital’s food waste goes into the second inlet and chamber. "You feed placentas and some food to balance that carbon and nitrogen into the first chamber," says Stringer. "Food, which is much bulkier but doesn’t need such a long residence time – because there’s no potential for infection – is fed into the second."The team trained hospital staff to segregate waste and ensure they only fed suitable organic materials into the digester. Staff also regularly pour water into the inlets to keep the mixture fluid. Gravity slowly moves it though the system. The digestate ends its passage by tipping out of the second chamber into a sewer, from where it safely washes away. By this time, any pathogens have died. "Most viruses can last maximum a week outside of the body," says Stringer. "There’s no risk."Zandee explains that the two chambers were necessary, as food and placentas are "raw materials" compared to cow dung, which has already been partly digested. "We wanted to make sure that the waste would be as safe as it could be," he says. "You achieve that by keeping the material longer in the biogas plant than normally. It’s about 70 days versus 150-180 days."The biodigester has to be big enough to hold all the waste created by a hospital, while also needing to fit the shape and size of the location available, says Zandee. At the time, if Tribhuvan was at full capacity, it would produce 217kg (478lb) of food waste and 11.5kg (25lb) of pathological waste a day, adding up to 83 tonnes (182,984lb) per year.The methane gas produced by the biodigester at TUTH is piped out of the chambers into the staff room. It fuels a stove used for cooking, and has replaced some of the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) the hospital used to buy. The biodigester in Tribhuvan produces 1.5 cubic metres a day of methane gas – the equivalent of five standard-size LPG gas cylinders. One cylinder is enough for a family of five to cook two meals a day for a month and costs about £15 ($20), according to Nakarmi.Mahara says it was a "great challenge" to convince the entire hospital workforce to change their practices. Just 36% of the total organic waste the team anticipated the biodigester would process was fed in, according to a 2019 assessment. This was because not all wards were incorporated into the system, and some kitchen staff wanted to sell food waste for animal feed to supplement their income.Frontline waste handlers were also unofficially selling recyclable materials to recycling vendors, such as syringes, gloves and tubes. "They were dependent on this revenue," says Mahara. "But unaware of the occupational risks this caused." HECAF360 taught hospitals to recycle some forms of medical waste, but first autoclave them – heat at high temperatures – to disinfect them.But, in general, staff quotes in the survey point to satisfaction and wider benefits to society as a result of the changes. In the assessment, Dharma Laxmi Shrestha, hospital waste management coordinator at the time, said the whole service’s environment and cleanliness had improved and that patients and staff were implementing more hygiene practices at home too.By replacing the incinerator, 4.6 tonnes of CO2 emissions were avoided in 2019, as well as all diesel fuel and methane gas emissions, the assessment estimates.Kalidas Neupane, managing director of Pioneer Architect and Consulting Engineers’ in Kathmandu and an independent biogas expert, says the biodigester is a good way to manage hospital waste. He suggests it would be improved by increasing the size of the digester to allow it to handle greater volumes of waste and applying a process called "hygienisation" – heating the mixture to at least 70C (158F) for a minimum of one hour – to ensure pathogens were removed faster. "The system was designed to work in a mesophilic [moderate temperature] condition, where the retention time needed is very long – for some pathogens more than 90 days," he says. With improvement the solution could be expanded globally, he adds. The TUTH biodigester cost 3.5 million Nepali Rupees to construct – almost £20,000 ($26,400). It was funded through a combination of hospital budget and Nepali government funding, as well as technical support from HECAF360. Stringer expects the structure to last about 20 years, or longer if it avoids cracking. The digester at Bir Hospiral survived Nepal’s 2015 7.3 magnitude earthquake. But a crack could be repaired safely, adds Stringer. Staff could stop adding pathological waste and wait until any pathogens died off naturally. "It would be completely safe to open it," she says.The dichotomy that the very services aimed at healing people are causing harm happens for a number of reasons, according to Stringer. While biodigesters have proved their worth in Nepal, lack of awareness, lack of expertise, funding and political will all prevent further expansion of their use in health settings globally, she says.Worldwide, health budgets are under pressure, and generally targeted towards the front-end of provision rather than its leftovers, says Stringer. Nepal’s culture of biodigestion rendered it fertile ground to develop the technology, she says.Installing a biodigester is beneficial for environmental and human health. But it is difficult to make a financial argument for hospitals to invest in the technology, says Zandee. "It’s important not to oversell the amount of methane gas you can collect," he cautions. "You’re not going to suddenly make a huge dent in your hospital’s energy bill."Furthermore, "there is zero data" to backup healthcare biodigesters’ efficacy, says Stringer. Waste workers tend not to be included in surveys, so it is impossible to say their health has improved as a result of abandoning incineration or that viral or bacterial transmission has reduced for hospital staff and patients.HCWH has tried to expand the approach in other countries. In India this proved fruitless, as Indian law rules all placentas must be burned, says Stringer. HCWH representatives in Brazil and Mexico tried to discuss the approach with their healthcare sectors to no avail. However, the approach has been used successfully in some African countries.Between 2016 and 2020, HCWH partnered with WHO and the UN Development Programme to introduce environmentally friendly healthcare practices in Ghana, Madagascar, Tanzania and Zambia. Independent biogas consultant Christopher Kellner designed five hospital biodigesters in Zambia and Tanzania.His design differed slightly to those in Nepal as he connected the chambers to existing hospital wastewater pipes. "In Nepal the workers have to add water," says Kellner. "For me that’s not user-friendly. If you can add a placenta into an existing waste water stream [such as flushing it down a toilet], it’s a hands-free operation."Kellner also had a different solution for wastewater released by the biodigester. Instead of flowing into sewage pipes, at St Pauls Mission Hospital in Kashikishi, Zambia, he built gravel filters and encouraged hospital staff to plant banana trees above. "The water is clean but still contains nutrients," he says. "The bananas there are overwhelming!"A 2020 report on the biodigester Kellner designed concluded it was "a practical solution for disposing of pathological waste", but suggested more awareness needed to be raised about the value of the technology, as some hospital staff felt uncomfortable using gas generated from placentas for cooking. HECAF360 continues to encourage biodigester take-up in Nepal. It has another project agreed in a Kathmandu hospital but currently this has stalled because of funding. "Funding is a very big issue as no one understands the importance of medical waste management," says Nakarmi. Stringer hopes WHO’s recently published Global Framework for improvements in healthcare facilities, including waste, will encourage more sustainable approaches in waste management. She applauds its practical approach and setting of operational targets for 2030. However, she warns progress will be slow if politicians or officials responsible for making decisions about medical waste "don’t have access to experts or don’t have the confidence to trust their advice".Today TUTH hospital staff and administrators are happy with the impact the digester has on waste management and environmental sustainability, says Mahara. "Since the incinerator was removed, conditions in the hospital have improved significantly," he says. "The toxic smoke no longer affects patients or staff, leading to a noticeable reduction in respiratory issues. Complaints about foul odours and health-related problems have also subsided." The ugly incinerator has gone, and the biodigester, while no more beautiful, is hidden underground. Above it staff have planted grass and flowerbeds, where they can relax during a break while drinking a cup of methane-gas boiled tea. Central Asia
Tashkent Denies Taliban Demanded Music Ban At Border Trade Center (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [10/16/2024 1:41 PM, Staff, 1251K, Negative]
The Uzbek Foreign Ministry has rejected Afghan media reports saying that the Taliban-led government of Afghanistan requested the cancellation of concerts or other musical events at a trade center located on the shared border.The statement comes after the Afghan outlet Atlaspress reported on October 14 that the Taliban had requested the Uzbek government stop hosting musical performances at the Termiz International Trade Center.According to the publication, the Taliban allegedly warned that if this request was not fulfilled, Afghan citizens might be barred from visiting the facility.The Taliban, who follow their own interpretation of Islamic law, have been known to oppose music and public musical performances, which they consider contrary to their religious principles. This could explain why such a request may have been made to Uzbekistan, as musical events are held regularly at the center.In a statement to Gazeta.uz on October 15, the Uzbek Foreign Ministry clarified that no such request had been made."We have not received any formal communication from the Afghan side regarding the cancellation of any concerts or music-related events at the Termiz International Trade Center," the ministry’s press service confirmed.The Termiz International Trade Center, which opened in late August, serves as a free-trade zone where visitors, including Afghans, can trade for up to 15 days using multiple currencies without needing a visa.The center regularly hosts entertainment events, including musical performances and concerts by Uzbek artists.Despite the claims from Afghan media, the Uzbek government continues to operate the center as usual, with no disruptions to the planned entertainment and cultural programs.The center remains a key hub for cross-border trade and interaction, further strengthening ties between the two neighboring countries. Uzbekistan presses ahead with effort to gain World Trade Organization membership (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [10/16/2024 4:14 PM, Staff, 57.6K, Neutral]
Uzbek officials have a tall mountain to climb in their bid to gain membership in the World Trade Organization. A government report showed that only 29 percent of Uzbekistan’s existing laws and standards comply with WTO regulations.
Earlier this year, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev outlined a desire for Uzbekistan to qualify for WTO membership as soon as 2026. At an October 10 meeting to discuss the membership drive, Mirziyoyev noted some progress had been made toward harmonizing standards, but he emphasized “much work remains ahead of us,” if the country wants to meet the 2026 target.
Product development and quality control are areas in need of major improvements, Mirziyoyev indicated. Currently only 105 out of 269 laboratories in Uzbekistan are operating according to international standards. The Uzbek president wants all 269 facilities to comply with WTO rules by the end of 2025. The president also issued instructions to “improve the system of personnel training,” according to a report distributed by Gazeta.uz
WTO membership figures centrally in Mirziyoyev’s plans to transform Uzbekistan into an exporter of durable goods, clothing and food products, instead of a supplier of raw materials.
Gaining WTO membership involves a lengthy negotiation process overseen on the organization’s side by what is known as a “working party.” The WTO established a working party in 1994 to consider Uzbekistan’s qualifications, but the process was moribund until Mirziyoyev issued a decree this past June to promote reforms designed to align Uzbek standards with the WTO’s.
WTO membership agreements are negotiated individually with each aspiring member state, but all entail requirements to create a liberal trade framework, founded upon fair and transparent policies and practices. How Does Central Asia Fit Into Russia’s Nuclear Energy Diplomacy? (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [10/17/2024 5:01 AM, Chris Rickleton, 235K, Neutral]
With the result of Kazakhstan’s controversial nuclear power referendum being a resounding “yes,” attention now turns to which country will build the facility.
Kazakhstan’s government has spoken in favor of an international consortium of nuclear energy companies taking up the task while noting that a final decision will not be made until next year.
But if Kazakhstan were to ignore Russia’s Rosatom completely, it would be bucking a global trend.
Amid the war in Ukraine, and Moscow’s increased diplomatic isolation, nuclear energy projects in foreign countries have become an even more important part of Russia’s efforts to retain clout on the international stage.
Indeed, in a paper on Russian “nuclear energy diplomacy” published last year, scholars from the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs argued that nuclear energy could be “Russia’s overlooked trump card in a decarbonizing world.”
With the stakes high, the Kremlin will no doubt be expecting its energy-strapped partners in Central Asia to play ball, with Uzbekistan already signed up for a small Rosatom-built nuclear power plant and Kyrgyzstan mulling a facility that would be even smaller.
But at what cost -- financial or otherwise -- might Rosatom’s growing outreach in the neighborhood come?
"Central Asia has a special place in Russian nuclear energy diplomacy because of the post-Soviet heritage, meaning that Rosatom’s operations in the region are easier and smoother than elsewhere -- no language barrier, institutional and personal contacts going back to Soviet times," a co-author of the paper, Kacper Szulecki, told RFE/RL.
In this way “nuclear energy can be an element of [Russia’s] maintaining visible economic and symbolic presence in the region,” he said.
At the same time, nuclear power projects can create “hard dependencies” for host countries if their share of total power production becomes significant, while posing security risks that are unique to nuclear power, Szulecki argued.“Some of the risks we examined [in the paper], like sabotage, are things which have a low likelihood of occurring, but potentially very destructive impacts,” he said.
Globe-Trotting Rosatom
According to The World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR) 2024, Rosatom “is the primary constructor and exporter of reactors, building 26 out of the 59 units under construction worldwide as of mid-2024.”
At least 20 of those units are being built outside Russia, with Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, and Turkey among the clients.
And while nuclear power as a whole has lost its share of global power production since the 2022 Fukushima accident, Russia remains “unashamedly nuclear” in the words of the World Nuclear Association, an advocate for the global industry, prioritizing new reactors over renewables for the most part.
It’s not hard to see why.
The bills for nuclear power stations are large and seemingly growing.
The 4.8 gigawatt (GW) Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant that Rosatom began building in Turkey’s Mersin Province in 2018 is commonly referred to in the media as a $20 billion facility.
But as recently as June, Rosatom General-Director Aleksei Likhachev put the price of the plant that will supply around 10 percent of Turkey’s total power at $24-$25 billion.
The 2.2 GW facility in Bangladesh is priced at $12.65 billion, with the vast majority of the financing coming via a Russian loan. The agreement for that facility was reached in 2011, with construction only beginning in 2017.
And Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Roman Sklyar acknowledged -- once the results of the referendum were already in -- that the $10-billion to $12 billion price tag for the model his government is committing to might rise by as much as 50 percent over the next decade with inflation.
While Rosatom’s aggressive search for clients is ongoing, it has also lost some as a result of the war.
In 2022, Finnish-led consortium Fennovoima announced that it was pulling out of its planned reactor project with the company, citing delays and increased risks due to the war in Ukraine.
Rosatom has not been directly targeted with sanctions, but some of its supply chains have been affected, delaying projects.
Those risks are seemingly on the minds of policymakers in Central Asia, too.
Tellingly, Skylar said Kazakhstan would include a “sanctions clause” in any agreement for the nuclear power plant, without naming Russia specifically.
Uzbekistan, meanwhile, has reined in its nuclear vision.
In 2018, when Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a visit to Tashkent, the two countries broke ground on building a nuclear facility with a projected 2.4 GW capacity, which would have accounted for around one-fifth of Uzbekistan’s energy needs. It was to cost $11 billion.
The needle on that project never really moved after that, and when Putin and his counterpart Shavkat Mirziyoev confirmed a fresh deal for Rosatom to build a nuclear facility in the country of 35 million people earlier this year, it was for a facility that will feature six nuclear reactors with capacities of just 55 megawatts (MW) each.
Talking Consortiums
Central Asian neighbor Kyrgyzstan said in 2023 that it was also in talks with Rosatom for a relatively small nuclear facility with a reported 110 MW capacity.
But in May, Deputy Energy Minister Taalaibek Baygaziev said that just preparing specialists and laying the ground for such a project would take a full decade. By contrast, Rosatom is expected to complete its first foreign foray into wind power -- a 100-MW wind farm in Kyrgyzstan’s Issyk-Kul Province -- in the next two years.
While power deficits in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are more severe, they are also becoming a problem in Kazakhstan, where authorities are adamant that nuclear energy is a big part of the solution.
This week, after the results of a tightly managed October 6 plebiscite showed that more than 70 percent of voters had backed a “yes” vote on the construction of a nuclear power plant, officials from President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev downward reiterated their preference for an “international consortium” to build the plant.
Sklyar said that such a consortium would consist of “no more than five countries,” a figure that presumably takes in China, France, Russia, and South Korea -- the countries that have already registered their interest in building the facility -- as well as Kazakhstan itself.
This idea of an international consortium is in keeping with Kazakhstan’s desire to find common ground for partner countries amid sky-high geopolitical tensions.
But even ignoring the complications of getting rivals to work together, that isn’t really how nuclear power plants get built, says Mycle Schneider, coordinator and publisher of the 2024 WNISR survey of the industry.“Yes, nuclear power projects are international and often hundreds of companies can be involved," Schneider told RFE/RL.
"But the main question is always, ‘Who will be the responsible builder that takes on the investment risk?’ Five companies with a 20 percent share each of the project? That doesn’t happen."
And of those companies orbiting the project -- China’s CNNC, France’s EDF, South Korea’s KEPCO, and Rosatom, “Rosatom is the only one that has been really successful winning foreign contracts to build reactors lately,” the industry expert noted.
In a Kazakh government FAQ on the referendum, the government reassured those fearful that the facility might be manipulated by a foreign power. which could wield influence over the country, that the issue was “purely commercial, not political.”“The selected company or group of companies will only be involved in the construction -- not the operation -- of the station,” officials insisted.
Again, Schneider argues it’s not that simple.“First, the acquisition of a nuclear power plant is a political issue in itself. Secondly, every power reactor design is highly specific and cannot be operated without technical assistance from the provider," Schneider told RFE/RL. "Operators are even trained for individual reactor models and cannot simply move from one to another. Training of autonomous operators takes years.” Twitter
Afghanistan
Suhail Shaheen@suhailshaheen1
[10/16/2024 4:06 PM, 735.8K followers, 45 retweets, 213 likes]
The Department of Education of Baghlan province in the north of the country has kicked off 200 literacy courses both for men and women. About 3,000 men and women above age 15 are currently attending the classes, among them are 1, 300 women while the remaining male students.
Hamdullah Fitrat@FitratHamd
[10/16/2024 10:11 AM, 12.4K followers, 52 retweets, 154 likes]
Recent media reports have circulated regarding the alleged deaths and injuries of Afghan nationals along the Iran-Pakistan border. In response, various governmental bodies and diplomatic missions of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan have initiated comprehensive investigations into the matter. As the incident is reported to have occurred beyond Afghanistan’s borders, the available information remains unverified. A conclusive decision will be made following a thorough clarification of the facts.
Nilofar Ayoubi@NilofarAyoubi
[10/16/2024 12:59 PM, 67.9K followers, 106 retweets, 248 likes]
Iranian border guards indiscriminately fired on defenseless, unarmed Afghan refugees, tragically killing 300 people and injuring dozens more. Despite this, there is no media coverage, and the international community remains silent. Who says human rights don’t have a color?
Zalmay Khalilzad@realZalmayMK
[10/16/2024 4:30 PM, 213.4K followers, 111 retweets, 400 likes]
There are reports of a violent incident in which some 250 Afghans were allegedly killed or injured by Iranian border forces. Before making any judgment, we must wait for the results of an authoritative investigation. If the reports turn out to be true, this would be terrible and require consequences. For now, Iran is denying that this happened. #Afghanistan #Iran #Pakistan
AAN Afghanistan@AANafgh
[10/16/2024 9:30 PM, 168.6K followers, 1 retweet, 1 like]
After 6 years away, an Afghan medical student returns home to Kabul, but the fear of the Emirate’s restrictions on women leaves her torn between joy and sadness. #Afghanistan https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/en/the-daily-hustle/migration-the-daily-hustle/the-daily-hustle-a-young-womens-journey-home-for-the-summer-holidays/ Pakistan
Shehbaz Sharif@CMShehbaz
[10/16/2024 11:02 AM, 6.7M followers, 769 retweets, 3K likes]
Had a most substantive meeting with H.E. Mikhail Mishustin, Prime Minister of the Russian Federation. We discussed the entire spectrum of bilateral ties, with focus on enhancing trade and economic cooperation. Reiterated Pakistan’s resolve to strengthen Pak-Russia relations. Regional and global developments were also discussed. We also agreed to continue coordination at multilateral forums at the UN and SCO.
Shehbaz Sharif@CMShehbaz
[10/16/2024 8:01 AM, 6.7M followers, 1K retweets, 3.6K likes]
Honored to Chair the 23rd SCO CHG meeting in Islamabad, today. Pakistan’s national statement, underscored the constructive role that #SCO can play for sustainable development, enhance regional connectivity & economic integration, strengthen climate action, and poverty alleviation. Highlighted the importance of mutilateral cooperation and reform of international financial system while raising concerns about unilateral coercive measures that are contrary to international law. I am confident that, together, we can build a bright future for the people of SCO region and beyond. #SCOinPakistan
Shehbaz Sharif@CMShehbaz
[10/16/2024 3:32 AM, 6.7M followers, 2K retweets, 8.2K likes]
With SCO leaders at the 23rd SCO CHG meeting in Islamabad.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Pakistan@ForeignOfficePk
[10/16/2024 4:46 PM, 480.1K followers, 48 retweets, 113 likes]
Pakistan has successfully concluded the 23rd Meeting of SCO-CHG, that brought together leaders and senior officials of Pakistan, Belarus, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia and Turkmenistan, which adopted a number of important decisions and documents that will guide the future direction of SCO in relevant fields. Outcomes of today’s meeting are grounded in a year-long hard work under Pakistan’s presidency. We identified several new areas of cooperation: Creation of SCO Economic Preferences Base; Cooperation among the Trade Promotion bodies; Cooperation in the development of Creative Economy; and Programme of New Economic Dialogue.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Pakistan@ForeignOfficePk
[10/16/2024 4:18 PM, 480.1K followers, 7 retweets, 20 likes]
SCO leaders welcomed the initiatives of SCO countries in the creation of effective transport corridors and development of ports and logistics centres and instructed their authorized departments to intensify efforts on the establishment of the SCO Development Bank, SCO Development Fund and the SCO Investment Fund.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Pakistan@ForeignOfficePk
[10/16/2024 4:16 PM, 480.1K followers, 13 retweets, 48 likes]
The SCO-CHG also adopted a Joint Communique that covers a wide array of cooperation in the fields of economy, trade, industry, investment, technology development and areas of Pakistan’s priority such as transport and connectivity, climate change, poverty alleviation, women and youth empowerment. SCO leaders affirmed the resolve to further strengthen cooperation in these spheres to build a peaceful, safe, prosperous and environmentally friendly planet Earth.
Amnesty International South Asia, Regional Office@amnestysasia
[10/16/2024 3:34 AM, 92.7K followers, 2.1K retweets, 3.4K likes]
Geneva: UN Human Rights Committee to review Pakistan’s human rights records amid ‘rampant rights abuses’ “Pakistan’s review comes at a crucial time for the country, as human rights violations and abuses remain rampant,” said Babu Ram Pant, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for South Asia. “Two blasphemy-related extrajudicial executions by the police, crackdown on protests, enactment of the restrictive Peaceful Assembly and Public Order Act 2024, arbitrary detention and mass arrests of opposition workers and leaders, ban on the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement, and harassment of human rights defenders like Mahrang Baloch – have all been reported in the duration of past month alone." #PakHRCReview https://amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/10/geneva-un-human-rights-committee-to-review-pakistans-human-rights-records-amid-rampant-rights-abuses India
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[10/16/2024 9:18 AM, 102.8M followers, 3.2K retweets, 15K likes]
A special programme celebrating our rich culture! At 10 AM tomorrow, 17th October, I will take part in a programme to celebrate International Abhidhamma Divas and the Cabinet’s decision of conferring Classical Language Status on Pali language. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleseDetail.aspx?PRID=2065152®=3&lang=1
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[10/16/2024 4:03 AM, 102.8M followers, 6.8K retweets, 40K likes]
Adding momentum to our endeavour of making a Viksit Bharat! As a @BJP4India Karyakarta, proud to become the first Sakriya Sadasya and launch the Sakriya Sadasyata Abhiyan today in the presence of our national President, Shri @JPNadda Ji. This is a movement which will further strengthen our Party at the grassroots and ensure effective contribution of our Party Karyakartas for national progress. In order to be an Active Member, a Karyakarta has to register 50 members either at a single booth or in a Vidhan Sabha seat. Such Karyakartas will be eligible to contest elections for a Mandal Committee and above. At the same time, they will get many opportunities to work for the party in the times to come.
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[10/16/2024 3:49 AM, 102.8M followers, 5.7K retweets, 65K likes]Congratulations to Shri Omar Abdullah Ji on taking oath as the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. Wishing him the very best in his efforts to serve the people. The Centre will work closely with him and his team for J&K’s progress. @OmarAbdullah
Dr. S. Jaishankar@DrSJaishankar
[10/16/2024 7:10 AM, 3.3M followers, 3.1K retweets, 35K likes]
Departing from Islamabad. Thank PM @CMShehbaz, DPM & FM @MIshaqDar50 and the Government of Pakistan for the hospitality and courtesies.
Dr. S. Jaishankar@DrSJaishankar
[10/16/2024 6:00 AM, 3.3M followers, 1.4K retweets, 11K likes]
A productive meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of Government concluded in Islamabad today. Signed eight outcome documents. India made a positive and constructive contribution to the deliberations.
8 key takeaways from the Indian perspective:- Developing a dialogue on the idea of One Earth, One Family, One Future.- Outcomes of IN initiatives like SCO Startup Forum, SWG on Startups and Innovation and Traditional Medicine welcomed by SCO members. - DPI & Digital inclusion becoming part of SCO cooperation framework. - SCO taking inspiration from Mission LiFE to achieving UNSDGs.- Enhancing global food security and nutrition through promoting use of climate-resilient and nutritious grains such as millets. - Upholding fair and balanced connectivity projects in accordance with international law, the goals and principles of the UN Charter and SCO Charter.- Reemphasizing rules-based, non-discriminatory, open, fair, inclusive and transparent multilateral trading system with WTO at its core.- Opposing protectionist actions, unilateral sanctions, and trade restrictions that undermine the multilateral trading system and impede global sustainable development.
India extends its best wishes to Russia as it takes over the SCO CHG Presidency.
Rahul Ghandi@RahulGandhi
[10/16/2024 8:37 AM, 27.1M followers, 4.5K retweets, 24K likes]
Congratulations to CM Omar Abdullah and to the people of Jammu and Kashmir. However, government formation without statehood felt incomplete today. Democracy was snatched from the people of Jammu and Kashmir, and today we renew our pledge to continue our fight until statehood is fully restored.
Brahma Chellaney@Chellaney
[10/17/2024 2:14 AM, 267.2K followers, 56 retweets, 215 likes]
Trudeau’s admission before a federal inquiry that he relied on raw “intelligence and not hard evidentiary proof” to allege India’s involvement in a Canadian Sikh militant’s killing has prompted New Delhi to say that it confirms “cavalier behavior” in damaging Indo-Canadian ties.
Michael Kugelman@MichaelKugelman
[10/16/2024 11:04 PM, 214.1K followers, 4 retweets, 41 likes]
There’s video & other reporting indicating Jaishankar had cordial encounters w/Pakistani counterparts while in Islamabad. That’s to be expected. Doubtful he’d have made the first Indian ministerial trip to Pakistan in 8 years if New Delhi thought he’d just get the cold shoulder. NSB
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maldives@MoFAmv
[10/17/2024 2:16 AM, 54.9K followers, 12 retweets, 17 likes]
Foreign Minister Dr @abkhaleel met with the @WHOSEARO Regional Director @drSaimaWazed today. Discussions focused on exploring new avenues for collaboration to strengthen the health care delivery in the Maldives.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maldives@MoFAmv
[10/16/2024 6:03 AM, 54.9K followers, 38 retweets, 53 likes]
Foreign Secretary Fathimath Inaya, graced the closing ceremony and presented certificates to the participants of FOSIM’s Orientation Programme for Batch 9, conducted from 8 to 16 October 2024.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake@anuradisanayake
[10/16/2024 8:30 AM, 132.5K followers, 59 retweets, 530 likes]
We must align Sri Lanka’s education system with global demands. I’ve called for urgent reforms to equip our children with the knowledge and skills they need for the future. Every child deserves access to quality education, and we must reorganize schools to make these reforms effective.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake@anuradisanayake
[10/16/2024 7:46 AM, 132.5K followers, 26 retweets, 246 likes]
Sri Lanka’s agriculture sector needs a long-term, unified plan! At today’s meeting, I emphasized that rural development must focus on eradicating poverty, not just financial issues but also the marginalization many face. It’s time for a comprehensive approach to uplift our rural communities.
Eran Wickramaratne@EranWick
[10/17/2024 1:52 AM, 69.8K followers, 2 retweets, 19 likes]
Young entrepreneurs should not be forced to register their businesses with the company registrar as soon as they’re founded. I propose to allow them to begin and build for a year, before mandating registration. Entrepreneurs stimulate the future economy by creating jobs, supplying goods and services, and contributing tax revenue. Therefore, Sri Lanka must support them to find their feet, without burdening them with premature regulation. Central Asia
Javlon Vakhabov@JavlonVakhabov
[10/17/2024 3:04 AM, 6.1K followers, 1 retweet, 3 likes]
President @TokayevKZ addresses the Astana Think Tank Forum (@AstanaIntlForum) “Middle Powers in a Changing World”. Honored to be among the most distinguished speakers attending this event in the capital city of Kazakhstan.
Leila Nazgul Seiitbek@l_seiitbek
[10/16/2024 9:08 AM, 3.9K followers, 5 retweets, 16 likes]
Kyrgyz authorities are fiercely fighting against foreign funding of NGOs and free media, and those who receive grants, for example from the European Union, are labeled as foreign agents, which is often accompanied by a public smear campaign that paints these NGOs and media as Western spies. Although the largest recipient of Western grants are the Kyrgyzstan authorities.
Kyrgyzstan was allocated $186.16 million in grants for 2022-24:
$65 million — Asian Development Bank;
$14.96 million — Government of Japan;
$42 million — Government of China;
$27.8 million — Global Fund;
$36.4 million — World Bank.
In addition, the republic was allocated 70.2 million euros in grants. In particular, the Kyrgyz Republic received:
52 million euros — European Union;
10 million euros — German Development Bank (KfW);
4.5 million euros — Government of Germany;
3.7 million euros — European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Elizabeth Threlkeld@ethrelkeld
[10/15/2024 10:12 AM, 7.6K followers, 5 retweets, 10 likes]
Five times as many Russian SCO delegates than the next-largest contingent? "a 4-member delegation from India, 76 delegates from Russia, 15 representatives of China, a 2-member team from Iran and a 4-member delegation from Kyrgyzstan reached Islamabad." https://www.dawn.com/news/1865054/foreign-dignitaries-arrive-for-sco-summit-spadework
MFA Tajikistan@MOFA_Tajikistan
[10/16/2024 8:26 AM, 5K followers, 1 retweet, 2 likes]
Meeting of the Minister of Foreign Affairs with the Ambassador of the United States of America https://mfa.tj/en/main/view/15982/meeting-of-the-minister-of-foreign-affairs-with-the-ambassador-of-the-united-states-of-america
MFA Tajikistan@MOFA_Tajikistan
[10/16/2024 5:33 AM, 5K followers, 2 likes] Meeting with the Head of the OSCE Programme Office in Dushanbe https://mfa.tj/en/main/view/15981/meeting-with-the-head-of-the-osce-programme-office-in-dushanbe Navbahor Imamova@Navbahor
[10/16/2024 12:42 PM, 23.7K followers, 2 likes]
Is US soft on #Mirziyoyev’s regime? Interview with Ambassador Henick in Tashkent @usembtashkent @UsAmbUzbekistan @AmerikaOvozi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W6J44IJZfU&feature=youtu.be
Navbahor Imamova@Navbahor
[10/16/2024 12:41 PM, 23.7K followers, 2 likes]
US influence in Uzbekistan ... #Karakalpakstan, missing report, and #Mirziyoyev’s image https://youtu.be/mnl5qMW2T-I @UsAmbUzbekistan @AmerikaOvozi @VOANews @usembtashkent{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.