epubdos : Afghanistan
SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS
Prepared for the U.S. Department of State
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
TO:
SCA & Staff
DATE:
Monday, February 24, 2025 6:30 AM ET

Afghanistan
Rubio highlights emerging terror threat in Afghanistan (VOA)
VOA [2/21/2025 11:03 AM, Ayaz Gul, 2.7M]
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested late Thursday there are ungoverned regions in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan that provide opportunities for extremist groups to operate.

The comments came in an interview with former CBS correspondent Catherine Herridge on X, where Rubio was asked if intelligence indicates that al-Qaida and Islamic State had set up safe havens in Afghanistan, posing a threat comparable to the one preceding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“I wouldn’t say it’s the pre-9/11 landscape, but I think anytime you have governing spaces that are contested that you don’t have a government that has full control of every part of their territory, it creates the opportunity for these groups,” Rubio said.

“The difference between today and 10 years ago is that we don’t have American elements on the ground to target and go after them,” the top U.S. diplomat noted.

Rubio added that in some cases, the Taliban has been cooperative when “told that ISIS or al-Qaida is operating in this part of your country” and to go after them. Not so much in other cases, he said.

“So, I would say that I wouldn’t compare it to pre-9/11, but it’s certainly far more uncertain — and it’s not just limited to Afghanistan,” Rubio said.

The Taliban did not immediately respond to Rubio’s remarks, but they have persistently claimed to be in control of the entire country and rejected that any foreign terrorist organizations are on Afghan soil.

Rubio’s comments came just days after the United Nations reported that al-Qaida operatives continued to find shelter across Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban’s intelligence agency.

“The Taliban maintained a permissive environment allowing al-Qaida to consolidate, with the presence of safe houses and training camps scattered across Afghanistan,” read the report.

It also described an Afghan-based Islamic State affiliate, the Islamic State-Khorasan, or IS-K, as “the greatest extra-regional terrorist threat.”

The U.N. assessment highlighted that in addition to attacks on Taliban authorities and Afghan religious minorities, IS-K supporters conducted strikes as far away as Europe, and that the group “was actively seeking to recruit from among Central Asian states” bordering Afghanistan.

The Taliban militarily swept back to power in August 2021 when the then-Afghan government collapsed as all U.S.-led NATO allied troops withdrew from the country after a nearly two-decade-long presence.
Trump’s foreign aid pause imperils education programs for Afghan women (Washington Post)
Washington Post [2/21/2025 2:00 AM, Rick Noack, 40736K]
Banned from school by the Taliban, Afghan women fear that President Donald Trump’s suspension of foreign assistance will deny them a last chance at an education.

After the U.S. military’s withdrawal from the country in 2021, and the Taliban’s subsequent closure of secondary schools and universities for women, American aid had allowed thousands of female students to continue their studies online or seek scholarships abroad.

But many of those programs have now been suspended, according to students and administrators, following a 90-day pause on most international aid. The executive order, signed by Trump hours after his return to the White House, accused the “foreign aid industry and bureaucracy” of “promoting ideas in foreign countries that are directly inverse to harmonious and stable relations internal to and among countries.”

In response to questions about the suspension of education funding, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said: “Afghan women are suffering because Joe Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal allowed the Taliban to conduct a hostile takeover of the country’s government and impose medieval sharia law policies."

For Afghan women, many already disillusioned by what they view as America’s broken promises, there is a searing sense of abandonment.

“It’s history, happening again,” said a 19-year-old student, recalling the “dark days” more than three years ago when the new Afghan government began shuttering schools. “Now, President Donald Trump did the same thing,” she said.

She was thrilled to start an online computer science course through the American University of Afghanistan last month. The next day, classes were canceled.

“We encounter a new closed door,” she said, “and we’re very tired.”

Like other Afghan women interviewed for this story, she spoke on the condition of anonymity, fearing regime scrutiny. Though the Taliban has not explicitly outlawed online education, and would likely struggle to enforce such a ban, students are wary of drawing the attention of authorities.

Since its return to power, the group has imposed increasingly draconian rules on women. They are not allowed to look at men other than their husbands or relatives, or to travel long distances without a male companion. The morality police patrol parks and shopping malls to enforce strict gender segregation rules, effectively erasing women from much of public life.

The change is especially jarring for women who came of age during America’s 20-year war against the Taliban. Between 2005 and 2019, the United States invested about $167 million in the American University of Afghanistan — its flagship academic institution in the country. Now exiled to Qatar, the university has a small campus in Doha but is mostly dedicated to remote learning, and is among the largest providers of online classes for Afghan women. A notice on its website says it “decided to suspend the Spring 2025 semester,” impacting about 700 female students. The university declined to comment for this story.

The U.S. aid pause has also dashed the hopes of those desperate to study abroad. The Asian University for Women in Bangladesh had become a lifeline for many of them.

After the chaotic U.S. withdrawal, “we knew what awaited women in Afghanistan,” said Kamal Ahmad, the university’s founder. “So, we decided that we would go back and try to launch a very significant program to recruit more Afghan women,” he said.

The university has helped more than 600 women leave Afghanistan and pursue a higher education since 2021. About 330 more were expected to arrive in Bangladesh in the coming weeks, but those plans have been put on hold in the wake of Trump’s executive order.

Even studying abroad came with risks. A 21-year-old student recounted how, when she arrived at the Kabul airport to fly to Bangladesh, Taliban agents kept asking her why she was leaving the country. She lied and said she was traveling for a wedding. “I was so scared,” she recalled.

Last month, in the waning weeks of the Biden administration, the Asian University for Women was recognized for its work during an event at the State Department.

“So it came as a shock when 10 days later, we got a notice that all U.S. government support for our Afghan program will be suspended for a period of three months,” Ahmad said. In the past, he said, support for his university had transcended political divides — former first lady Laura Bush still sits on its council of patrons.

Ahmad is now appealing to other donors — including Germany and Canada — to step up their contributions. “But nobody, it seems, has the extra resources to fill the void left by the Americans,” who contributed roughly 20 percent of the university’s operating costs, he said.

Afghan women who are given a chance to study — whether online or abroad — often rise to the top of their classes, Ahmad said. Many speak in flawless, American-accented English. A lucky few have won scholarships to U.S. colleges and universities.

But even that narrow path may now be closing. Another executive order signed by Trump on Jan. 20 directed U.S. officials to identify nations with vetting and screening information that is “so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries.” Afghan women worry they may no longer be eligible for student visas.

A 23-year-old student, recently granted a full scholarship at a major U.S. university, spoke of a daily “battle with uncertainty.”

She is still waiting on documents before applying for her American visa and now worries it could be rejected. She’s hiding in Peshawar, in northwestern Pakistan, trying to avoid deportation to Afghanistan. Pakistani officials have yet to renew her expired visa and have warned of a looming crackdown on Afghan refugees.

She wants to study political science in the United States, “to be an advocate for my own country, to bring change,” she said in a phone interview. “But suddenly, this feels out of reach.”

Women’s rights activists worry the suspension of U.S. foreign aid could trigger a wholesale economic collapse in Afghanistan. The Center for Global Development, a D.C.-based think tank, estimated last week that the country’s gross national income could shrink by 7 percent if U.S. assistance is frozen for a full year.

A 22-year-old who teaches online courses from Kabul said she is already seeing the impact. “People are losing their jobs and unemployment is rising,” she said. “More girls are withdrawing from the classes because they can’t afford mobile data packages.”

Only a small fraction of Afghans have internet access at home, so many women rely on these data packages to sign on to online classes.

Afghan Female Student Outreach, a volunteer nonprofit group, has relied on private donations and is one of the few remaining providers of online education. But the team is struggling to cope with surging demand as other options disappear, said Lucy Ferriss, one of the organization’s leaders.

“Students are panicking,” Ferriss said, and “they’re very afraid that all their work will be for naught.”
Afghan women’s radio station will resume broadcasts after Taliban lift suspension (AP)
AP [2/23/2025 5:17 AM, Staff, 27233K]
An Afghan women’s radio station will resume broadcasts after the Taliban lifted their suspension over alleged cooperation with an overseas TV channel.

Radio Begum launched on International Women’s Day in March 2021, five months before the Taliban seized power amid the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops.

The station’s content is produced entirely by Afghan women. Its sister satellite channel, Begum TV, operates from France and broadcasts programs that cover the Afghan school curriculum from seventh to 12th grade. The Taliban have banned education for women and girls in the country beyond grade six.

In a statement issued Saturday night, the Taliban Information and Culture Ministry said Radio Begum had “repeatedly requested” to restart operations and that the suspension was lifted after the station made commitments to authorities.

The station pledged to conduct broadcasts “in accordance with the principles of journalism and the regulations of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and to avoid any violations in the future,” it added.

The ministry did not elaborate what those principles and regulations were. Radio Begum confirmed the ministry had granted permission to resume broadcasting. It did not give further details.

Since their takeover, the Taliban have excluded women from education, many kinds of work, and public spaces. Journalists, especially women, have lost their jobs as the Taliban tighten their grip on the media.

In the 2024 press freedom index from Reporters without Borders, Afghanistan ranks 178 out of 180 countries. The year before that it ranked 152.

The Information Ministry did not initially identify the TV channel it alleged Radio Begum had been working with. But the Saturday statement mentioned collaboration with “foreign sanctioned media outlets.”
Afghanistan’s only women-led radio station to resume operations after Taliban lifts suspension (FOX News)
FOX News [2/24/2025 1:12 AM, Landon Mion]
An Afghan radio station produced entirely by Afghan women will resume broadcasts after the Taliban lifted a suspension that was imposed over alleged cooperation with a foreign country’s TV channel.

Radio Begum launched on International Women’s Day in March 2021, just five months before the Taliban took control of Afghanistan during the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops from the region.

The station’s sister satellite channel, Begum TV, operates from France and broadcasts content on Afghanistan’s school curriculum from grades seven through 12.

On Saturday, the Taliban’s Information and Culture Ministry said in a statement that Radio Begum had repeatedly requested permission to resume broadcasts.

The suspension was lifted after the station made commitments to Taliban officials, the ministry said.

Radio Begum agreed to conduct broadcasts "in accordance with the principles of journalism and the regulations of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and to avoid any violations in the future," the statement said. The ministry did not offer details on what those principles and regulations may be.

The station confirmed it had been given permission to resume broadcasting, without providing additional details.

Taliban officials imposed the suspension after they raided the Kabul-based station on Feb. 4 and seized computers, hard drives and phones, and took into custody two male employees who do not hold any senior management positions, the outlet said in a statement at the time.

The Taliban have prohibited women from education, many fields of work and public spaces since they seized control of the country in the summer of 2021. Journalists, especially women, have lost their jobs as the Taliban control the media in the region.

Reporters without Borders ranked Afghanistan 178 out of 180 countries in the 2024 press freedom index, a dip from the year before when it ranked 152.

The ministry did not identify the TV channel it accused Radio Begum of working with, but its statement cited alleged collaboration with "foreign-sanctioned media outlets."
This Afghan refugee fought the Taliban. In Trump’s America, he faces a different threat (San Francisco Chronicle)
San Francisco Chronicle [2/22/2025 7:00 AM, Ko Lyn Cheang, 4368K]
A week before the election, Habibullah, an Afghan refugee, spent four days in Nevada campaigning for Donald Trump.

"Hey, do you want to have a powerful America, a secure border, a good economy?" he would rattle off from a script. "Then you need to vote for Donald Trump.".

In Afghanistan, Habibullah was a captain in the National Directorate of Security, exchanging intelligence reports with the CIA. When Kabul fell in the summer of 2021, Habibullah and his family were left behind by departing coalition forces and spent the next three years outrunning the Taliban.

In May 2024, the family arrived in the Bay Area on a temporary status called "humanitarian parole" and settled in the U.S.’ most expensive metropolitan area. Habibullah, struggling to find work and neutral on Trump, took the campaign gig in exchange for $1,700.

On Jan. 29, Habibullah saw news that President Trump’s mass deportation plan may include his family.

Along with banning refugee admissions and halting parole programs, Trump instructed federal immigration authorities that they can deport the 2.2 million people paroled into the U.S. without giving them immigration hearings, even if they still have legal status. (The Chronicle is identifying Habibullah and his relatives by first names because they are concerned about deportation.).

"As soon as I arrived here, first of all, I felt safe," Habibullah said. "I found myself in peace.".

But as Bay Area financial realities and Trump’s national immigration politics collided, those feelings became muddled. Looking around the small house he shares with nine others, he said, "It’s hard to live here.".

On the morning of Aug. 15, 2021, Habibullah was in his office in Kabul when his supervisor at the intelligence agency told him it had happened: the Afghan government had fallen. The Taliban was back in control. It was time to burn their documents.

Habibullah, who belongs to a persecuted ethnic minority called Hazaras, rushed home. He knew he was a Taliban target. In August 2013, when he was working for a logistics company supplying American troops, the Taliban regional commander in his home province of Ghazni sent a letter threatening to behead him if he continued working with the "enemy." Habibullah went on to work as a translator before joining the National Directorate of Security, his country’s version of the CIA.

Over the next two weeks, he, his wife, Mursal, and their infant son tried to make it onto one of the American evacuation flights out of Kabul, he said. But they couldn’t get through the crowds into the airport. The family spent the next month moving from safe house to safe house.

The Taliban visited Mursal’s parents, torturing them for information about her brother. Her father, Taqi, said a Taliban fighter broke his foot with the butt of a gun, and showed a photo of the injury.

Habibullah said he paid smugglers 100,000 Pakistani rupees, about $600, to get his family out of Afghanistan. They took a bus to the outskirts of Kandahar, then boarded a crowded van with no seats or windows. Before they reached the border, a motorcyclist carrying an AK-47, who said he was with the Taliban, diverted the van to a mosque. Everyone on board was searched. The women were told to remove their hijabs and burqas to prove they were women, he said. Then they were let go.

The smugglers dropped Habibullah and his family near the Pakistani border. Around sunset, they crept through a hole in the border fence, reuniting with Mursal’s parents, three sisters and nephew, who had arrived in Pakistan two weeks earlier.

They spent two-and-a-half years crowded into a house, afraid of being discovered and deported. In 2022, Mursal gave birth to a second son.

In May 2024, the U.S. embassy in Islamabad finalized the family’s parole applications. Mursal’s parents arrived in San Francisco first, followed by Habibullah, Mursal and their children. When Mursal’s three sisters and nephew arrived in June, she embraced them crying.

"I spent my whole lifetime in war in Afghanistan," Taqi said in Dari with Habibullah translating. "I am so lucky because I and my family are all together and … we are safe here.".

Unlike refugees who receive 90 days of resettlement assistance after arriving in the U.S., Habibullah and his family had to rely on Mursal’s brother, Sami Jamal, who works for an information technology company.

Jamal, a former U.S. Army translator and cultural adviser in Afghanistan from 2011 to 2019, rented his relatives a three-bedroom house in Hayward for about $3,500 a month, down the street from a row of Mexican food trucks.

To make extra money, Jamal started driving Uber in the evenings, occasionally working until 5 a.m. He estimates that he’s spent $25,000 to $30,000 buying everything from diapers for the babies to school supplies for his sister, Maryam, a senior at Hayward High School.

"They had to buy basically everything, from A to Z," said Jamal, a naturalized citizen who arrived in 2015 on a Special Immigrant Visa extended to Afghans and Iraqis employed by the U.S. government. "Not knowing the culture, not knowing the language — everything is hard.".

Each month, the family receives about $2,300 in CalWorks assistance and $1,000 in CalFresh food stamps. Habibullah’s life savings, about $4,000 that he smuggled out of Afghanistan, was depleted in Pakistan.

The family sleeps on the carpeted floor because they cannot afford beds.

Mursal is studying to be a dental assistant. Her parents and two older sisters are taking English classes at an adult school.

Maryam found a part-time job as a photographer’s assistant. In January, she turned 18, and the $500 in CalWorks aid the family received on her behalf ceased.

Habibullah, who speaks English, spent months looking for work. In December, an Afghan man who attends the same mosque offered to help Habibullah get a job at the tow truck company where he worked, paying $17 an hour. Habibullah didn’t know what a tow truck was, but said yes.

"I’d like to study, get a degree here, do the same thing I was doing in the past: to be honorable, to be in an office, to sit behind a computer, to work, to have a good income," said Habibullah, who has a degree in biology from Kabul University. "But unfortunately, I have to start working as a driver.".

On Habibullah’s third day of work, Feb. 5, he woke at 6:30 a.m. His first customer lived in Union City.

He pulled up to a quiet suburb where the customer’s car was parked. Ahmed Baporia, the child of Indian immigrants, was outside waiting.

Habibullah fastened thick straps around the wheels of Baporia’s sedan, which had a flat, and hauled it onto the truck. Baporia hopped in. On the drive to a tire shop, Baporia asked about Habibullah’s life. Habibullah told him that he had aided the U.S. military in Afghanistan and had to flee when the U.S. withdrew.

"I feel sad for him," Baporia said. "He had helped out the U.S. so much probably in that war. If anyone deserves to get a green card or get asylum, it’s people like him.".

The family has been preparing their asylum applications, but has yet to file it.

Their immigration attorney, Paris Etemadi Scott, legal director at the San Jose branch of the nonprofit Pars Equality Center, said the Hazara family would face persecution if they were to return to Afghanistan, both over their ethnicity and their former jobs: one of Habibullah’s sisters-in-law worked for a nongovernmental organization advocating for women’s education.

"If Trump decides to not process our asylum cases or not to let us live here, and deport us," Habibullah said, "we will directly go and we will be killed. We will be beheaded by terrorists in Afghanistan.".
Children of UK couple arrested in Afghanistan appeal to Taliban for release (AP)
AP [2/23/2025 11:50 AM, Staff, 129344K]
A British couple in their 70s who run education programs in Afghanistan have lost contact with their family after being detained by the Taliban early this month, their children say.

The family urged the Taliban authorities to release Peter and Barbie Reynolds. Their four adult children said the couple have lived in Afghanistan for 18 years, remaining after the Taliban toppled the Western-backed government in 2021.

The couple runs Rebuild, an organization that provides education and training programs for businesses, government agencies, educational organizations and nongovernmental groups. The Sunday Times, which first reported the story, said one project was for mothers and children. The Taliban has severely restricted women’s education and activities.

“They have always been open about their presence and their work, diligently respecting and obeying the laws as they change,” the children said in a letter to the Taliban, shared Sunday with The Associated Press. “They have chosen Afghanistan as their home, rather than with family in England, and they wish to spend the rest of their lives in Afghanistan.

“We kindly ask for the release of our father and mother so they can return to their work in teaching, training, and serving Afghanistan, which you have previously supported.”

The children said their parents had asked the British government not to get involved with their case. Britain’s Foreign Office declined to comment.

Rebuild said the husband and wife were taken from their home in the Nayak area of central Bamiyan province, along with another foreigner and an Afghan.

In a message to AP, Rebuild said the detained couple had been living in the area for more than two years and had Afghan identity cards. It said Taliban officials had previously searched their home and taken the couple to Kabul, before returning them to Bamiyan.

“Then a delegation came from Kabul, along with Bamiyan provincial officials, and took them again to Kabul,” the organization said. “It is now around 17 days and there is still no information about them.”

No one from the Taliban government was available for comment.
Taliban arrest British couple in their 70s for teaching mothers (The Times)
The Times [2/23/2025 10:00 AM, Christina Lamb, 27233K]
A British couple in their seventies have been arrested by the Taliban, apparently for teaching parenting skills to mothers over 30.

Peter and Barbie Reynolds, who loved Afghanistan so much that they married in Kabul in 1970 after meeting at Bath University, have been running training projects in schools there for 18 years and stayed after the Taliban’s sudden return to power in 2021.

Barbie Reynolds even became the first woman to receive a certificate of appreciation from the Taliban.

But on February 1 the couple were arrested when returning to their home in Bamiyan province with a Chinese-American friend, Faye Hall, who had rented a private plane to fly back from Kabul with them. They have been detained ever since.

Initially they were in touch by text message with their four children, telling them they were being held by the interior ministry and assuring them they were fine. But after three days the texts stopped and the children have heard nothing since.

The house in Nayak where the couple live with their two dogs has been raided and their employees interrogated.

“This is really bad,” their daughter Sarah Entwistle, from Daventry, Northamptonshire, told The Sunday Times. “My mother is 75 and my father almost 80 and [he] needs his heart medication after a mini-stroke. They were just trying to help the country they loved. The idea they are being held because they were teaching mothers with children is outrageous.”

Entwistle and her three brothers have written an open letter to the Taliban leadership, pleading with them to release their parents so they can continue their work and pointing out that they had been given dual citizenship.

“We do not understand the reasons behind their arrest,” they wrote. “They have communicated their trust in you, and that as Afghan citizens they will be treated well.”

The couple had been running projects in five schools in Kabul on participatory learning and learning through play, as well as programmes in communication skills. One project in Bamiyan was training mothers and children, which had apparently been approved by the local authorities despite a Taliban ban on women working and on female education beyond primary school.

When the Taliban seized power in August 2021 and most westerners fled, many begged the couple to leave but they insisted on staying, even as all their staff left. “They said they could not leave when Afghans were in their hour of need,” Entwistle said.

Instead they managed to convince a group of 65 senior Taliban to listen to their presentation on training teachers in schools through active participatory learning.

“The Taliban leaders were so impressed and inspired by the programmes Mum and Dad were offering, they said they would like them set up in every province of Afghanistan,” Entwistle said. “Mum was the first woman to receive ‘a certificate of appreciation’ from the Taliban.”

Since the Taliban took power they have imposed dozens of restrictions on women, banning them from parks, gyms, beauty salons, workplaces and even appearing at windows. Recently they stopped the training of midwives. Afghanistan is seen as the worst place on earth for women and Britain has joined a case at the International Court of Justice bringing proceedings against the Taliban for gender discrimination.

Entwistle insisted that her parents had done nothing without permission. “They were meticulous about keeping by the rules even as they kept changing,” she said.

Employees and associates have apparently been questioned about whether the couple were engaging in religious proselytising, but all denied this. “They are very definitely not missionaries,” Entwistle said.

The family is in touch with the Foreign Office but assistance is limited by the fact that the UK does not recognise the Taliban and has no embassy in Kabul.

Entwistle said her parents had always told them they would never want to be part of any negotiations.

“We recognise that there have been instances where exchanges have been beneficial for your government and western nations,” she and her siblings wrote in their letter. “However, our parents have consistently expressed their commitment to Afghanistan, stating that they would rather sacrifice their lives than become part of ransom negotiations or be traded.”
Pakistan
Pakistan threatens to deport Afghans if US relocation timeline isn’t met (VOA)
VOA [2/22/2025 2:20 AM, Ayaz Gul, 2.7M]
Pakistan has warned that thousands of Afghan nationals awaiting relocation and resettlement in the United States will be deported to Afghanistan if their cases are rejected or not processed on time.

Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar issued the warning during a television interview aired Saturday, noting that the U.S. has promised to relocate the Afghan community in question from Pakistan "tentatively around September this year." His office in Islamabad released the interview excerpts.

"If any refugee who was undertaken to be taken by another country after due process —no matter the timeline — if it doesn’t happen and the country refuses, then for us, that will be an illegal immigrant in Pakistan, and we might be forced to send such refugee back to [their] original country, which is Afghanistan," Dar told Turkey’s TRT national broadcaster.

However, the chief Pakistani diplomat expressed Islamabad’s willingness to resolve the issue with Washington, stating that his government is "examining the situation and will negotiate [accordingly]."

Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump halted refugee applications and travel plans until further notice to ensure that refugee entry into the United States aligns with its national interests.

The decision has stranded around 45,000 Afghans prepared to fly out of Afghanistan and at least 15,000 qualified refugees currently in Pakistan, according to #AfghanEvac, a coalition that assists Afghans with their relocation and resettlement in the U.S.

These individuals were part of Afghan families who fled their country following the Taliban insurgents’ retaking of power in 2021, primarily seeking refuge from potential retribution because of their affiliations with the U.S. and NATO forces during their nearly two-decade-long presence in Afghanistan.

While about 80,000 of these Afghans have since been relocated from Pakistan, officials in Islamabad assert that around 40,000 remain in a state of limbo including around 15,000 in Pakistan destined for the United States.

Since launching a crackdown on undocumented foreign migrants in September 2023, Pakistan has forcibly repatriated more than 825,000 undocumented Afghan refugees to their home country, according to the United Nations.

The government has recently intensified its crackdown, targeting both documented and undocumented Afghan refugees.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered authorities last month to remove all Afghans from Islamabad and the adjoining city of Rawalpindi by Feb. 28 before arranging for deporting them to Afghanistan along with others subsequently. The targeted population encompasses over 2.5 million Afghans nationwide, comprising lawful refugees, documented economic migrants, and those without legal authorization to remain in Pakistan.

Sharif’s directive stipulates March 31 as the deadline for the United States and other countries to process the cases of Afghans awaiting resettlements, thereby preventing their deportation.
Pakistan NGO chief who alleged vote rigging has home sealed (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [2/22/2025 5:53 AM, Staff, 9355K]
Pakistan authorities have sealed the home of an NGO chief who authored a report alleging widespread rigging in national elections last year, he told AFP on Saturday.

Polls in February 2024 took place with the nation’s most popular politician Imran Khan jailed and barred from running, and a coalition of parties considered pliable to the powerful military took power.

This month, NGO Pattan published a report on the elections and described them in a statement as "unprecedentedly rigged" with "vote-rigging, fraud and manipulation".

Pattan chief Sarwar Bari -- currently in London -- said his home in the capital Islamabad was sealed off on Friday night. "This is obviously in response to the report," he told AFP.

His wife Aliya Bano said the property was closed off by a team of around two dozen including police officers, magistrates and Islamabad administration officials.

A judge’s order to seal the residence, seen by AFP, said Pattan’s registration as an NGO had been cancelled in 2019 and it was operating illegally.

Bari said he often used his residence for Pattan meetings and postal correspondence but was adamant it was primarily his home.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said in a statement on social media platform X that it was "alarmed" by reports his home had been sealed.

"Such tactics of intimidation against citizens are unacceptable," the statement said. "The matter should be heard immediately in a court of law."

Pattan has called for a public inquiry into the national elections which took place on February 8, 2024.

Ahead of the vote ex-prime minister Khan’s party was targeted by a sweeping crackdown, which saw numerous senior leaders arrested and their street campaigning disrupted.

Days before the poll, Khan was convicted of a trio of offences including graft, treason and illegal marriage.

Polling day itself was marred by a mobile internet blackout, which Islamabad said was necessary to address security concerns.

Social media platform X has been banned since soon after the polls, when it was used to air rigging allegations.

Despite the setbacks, candidates loyal to Khan won more seats than any other party but a coalition led by two former rival parties considered allies of the military shut them out of power.

Pakistan’s military has directly ruled the country for decades at a time and continues to wield immense power in civilian politics, analysts say.
No passengers, no planes, no benefits. Pakistan’s newest airport is a bit of a mystery (AP)
AP [2/23/2025 8:13 PM, Riazat Butt, 57769K]
With no passengers and no planes, Pakistan’s newest and most expensive airport is a bit of a mystery. Entirely financed by China to the tune of $240 million, it’s anyone’s guess when New Gwadar International Airport will open for business.

Located in the coastal city of Gwadar and completed in October 2024, the airport is a stark contrast to the impoverished, restive southwestern Balochistan province around it.

For the past decade, China has poured money into Balochistan and Gwadar as part of a multibillion dollar project that connects its western Xinjiang province with the Arabian Sea, called the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor or CPEC.

Authorities have hailed it as transformational but there’s scant evidence of change in Gwadar. The city isn’t connected to the national grid — electricity comes from neighboring Iran or solar panels — and there isn’t enough clean water.

An airport with a 400,000 passenger capacity isn’t a priority for the city’s 90,000 people.

“This airport is not for Pakistan or Gwadar,” said Azeem Khalid, an international relations expert who specializes in Pakistan-China ties. “It is for China, so they can have secure access for their citizens to Gwadar and Balochistan.”

Caught between militants and the military

CPEC has catalyzed a decadeslong insurgency in resource-rich and strategically located Balochistan. Separatists, aggrieved by what they say is state exploitation at the expense of locals, are fighting for independence — targeting both Pakistani troops and Chinese workers in the province and elsewhere.

Members of Pakistan’s ethnic Baloch minority say they face discrimination by the government and are denied opportunities available elsewhere in the country, charges the government denies.

Pakistan, keen to protect China’s investments, has stepped up its military footprint in Gwadar to combat dissent. The city is a jumble of checkpoints, barbed wire, troops, barricades, and watchtowers. Roads close at any given time, several days a week, to permit the safe passage of Chinese workers and Pakistani VIPs.

Intelligence officers monitor journalists visiting Gwadar. The city’s fish market is deemed too sensitive for coverage.

Many local residents are frazzled.

“Nobody used to ask where we are going, what we are doing, and what is your name,” said 76-year-old Gwadar native Khuda Bakhsh Hashim. “We used to enjoy all-night picnics in the mountains or rural areas.”

“We are asked to prove our identity, who we are, where we have come from,” he added. “We are residents. Those who ask should identify themselves as to who they are.”

Hashim recalled memories, warm like the winter sunshine, of when Gwadar was part of Oman, not Pakistan, and was a stop for passenger ships heading to Mumbai. People didn’t go to bed hungry and men found work easily, he said. There was always something to eat and no shortage of drinking water.

But Gwadar’s water has dried up because of drought and unchecked exploitation. So has the work.

The government says CPEC has created some 2,000 local jobs but it’s not clear whom they mean by “local” — Baloch residents or Pakistanis from elsewhere in the country. Authorities did not elaborate.

People in Gwadar see few benefits from China’s presence

Gwadar is humble but charming, the food excellent and the locals chatty and welcoming with strangers. It gets busy during public holidays, especially the beaches.

Still, there is a perception that it’s dangerous or difficult to visit — only one commercial route operates out of Gwadar’s domestic airport, three times a week to Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, located at the other end of Pakistan’s Arabian Sea coastline.

There are no direct flights to Balochistan’s provincial capital of Quetta, hundreds of miles inland, or the national capital of Islamabad, even further north. A scenic coastal highway has few facilities.

Since the Baloch insurgency first erupted five decades ago, thousands have gone missing in the province — anyone who speaks up against exploitation or oppression can be detained, suspected of connections with armed groups, the locals say.

People are on edge; activists claim there are forced disappearances and torture, which the government denies.

Hashim wants CPEC to succeed so that locals, especially young people, find jobs, hope and purpose. But that hasn’t happened.

“When someone has something to eat, then why would he choose to go on the wrong path,” he said. “It is not a good thing to upset people.”

Militant violence declined in Balochistan after a 2014 government counterinsurgency and plateaued toward the end of that decade, according to Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies.

Attacks picked up after 2021 and have climbed steadily since. Militant groups, especially the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army, were emboldened by the Pakistani Taliban ending a ceasefire with the government in November 2022.

An inauguration delayed

Security concerns delayed the inauguration of the international airport. There were fears the area’s mountains — and their proximity to the airport — could be the ideal launchpad for an attack.

Instead, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his Chinese counterpart Li Qiang hosted a virtual ceremony. The inaugural flight was off limits to the media and public.

Abdul Ghafoor Hoth, district president of the Balochistan Awami Party, said not a single resident of Gwadar was hired to work at the airport, “not even as a watchman.”

“Forget the other jobs, how many Baloch people are at this port that was built for CPEC,” he asked.

In December, Hoth organized daily protests over living conditions in Gwadar. The protests stopped 47 days later, once authorities pledged to meet the locals’ demands, including better access to electricity and water.

No progress has been made on implementing those demands since then.

Without local labor, goods or services, there can be no trickle-down benefit from CPEC, said international relations expert Khalid. As Chinese money came to Gwadar, so did a heavy-handed security apparatus that created barriers and deepened mistrust.

“The Pakistani government is not willing to give anything to the Baloch people, and the Baloch are not willing to take anything from the government,” said Khalid.
India
How a false DOGE claim ignited a political firestorm in India (Washington Post)
Washington Post [2/22/2025 2:00 AM, Anant Gupta and Sammy Westfall, 40736K]
It began last week with a social media post from Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, listing foreign grants it said it had canceled. Buried in the middle was a reference to “$21M for voter turnout in India.”

It was soon front-page news in New Delhi. Prominent members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — which has long made unfounded allegations of foreign influence in national elections — seized on it as evidence of a nefarious U.S. plot.

“The recent revelation has left me shocked,” Indian Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar said Friday. “The democratic process of this country was sought to be manipulated to dent the purity of our electoral system.”

Two days before, President Donald Trump had fanned the flames at an investment summit in Miami: “What do we need to spend $21 million for voter turnout in India?” he mused.

“I guess they were trying to get somebody else elected,” he said. “Well, we ought to tell the Indian government.”

There is little to tell.

The Washington Post found no evidence that $21 million was due to be spent for voter turnout in India or for any other purpose. Three people with knowledge of regional aid programs, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of government retaliation, expressed bewilderment over the claim — and concern that it would energize efforts by India’s right-wing government to further weaken civil society.

Randhir Jaiswal, spokesman for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, called the reports “very deeply troubling” at his weekly news conference Friday. “Relevant departments and agencies are looking into this matter,” he added.

DOGE declined to comment for this story. The White House and State Department did not respond to a request for comment.

The controversy, which erupted less than a week after Modi met with both Trump and Musk on a visit to Washington, was another example of the global chaos wrought by Musk, as the billionaire and a small group of aides work to dramatically reduce the size and stature of the federal government. Central to their efforts — outlined in Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order putting a 90-day pause on foreign aid — is a campaign to eliminate overseas programs the administration deems wasteful or contrary to American values.

The claim about India was included in a lengthy Feb. 15 DOGE post on X, listing what it said added up to $729 million in canceled foreign grants for a variety of causes, in countries ranging from Serbia to Cambodia.

The alleged $21 million to be spent in India was mentioned as part of a larger $486 million payment to the Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS) — a USAID-funded consortium of nonprofits “dedicated to advancing and supporting democratic practices and institutions” in more than 140 countries since 1995, according to an archived version of its website, taken down soon after Trump took office.

There is no record of a CEPPS program matching DOGE’s description in India, according to people familiar with the organization’s work. CEPPS did have a $21 million USAID contract — not for India, but for neighboring Bangladesh.

“It seems that they are conflating numbers from other programs,” said a U.S. official with knowledge of the aid programs.

“We don’t know anything about elections in India because we have never been involved,” said a person familiar with CEPPS’s work. “We were all shocked to see that claim from DOGE.”

The erroneous claim dovetailed with a long-running BJP narrative that foreign actors, including the United States, have worked to undermine Modi’s government and interfere in domestic affairs. On X and other social platforms, some of the prime minister’s far-right supporters have spread conspiracy theories about the involvement of philanthropist George Soros and the “deep state” — mirroring language used by Trump and his political allies.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, a former minister under Modi, responded to the DOGE post by calling for an investigation into the “money trail in India,” using the hashtag #ExposeTheTraitors. Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of Modi’s economic advisory council, called USAID the “biggest scam in human history.”

To bolster their claims of foreign interference, BJP leaders and pro-government media pointed to a 2012 agreement between India’s Election Commission and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), one of three organizations that make up CEPPS.

Amit Malviya, the BJP’s head of information and technology, accused India’s previous opposition-led government of “handing over the entire Election Commission of India to foreign operators.”

But that, too, was misleading. IFES was contracted by India’s Election Commission to develop a curriculum on election management, according to a person familiar with the terms of the agreement.

“It was really boring work,” the person said. “And ultimately the Election Commission of India approved every single line of the curriculum IFES designed.”

The IFES course material has been used by India not for its own elections, but to train electoral officials from around the world. On its website, the Election Commission boasts of having trained 69,362 election officials from 109 countries.

“ECI has always championed the need for international cooperation among democracies,” the commission’s website reads.

A Post review of public documents shows the 2012 agreement with IFES was updated as recently as August 2020 — at the behest of Indian officials chosen by Modi’s administration.

S.Y. Quraishi, who initiated the collaboration with IFES and set up the training institute as India’s chief election commissioner between 2010 and 2012, said in a statement that the accusations circulating in India were “completely false and malicious.”

But the damage may already be done. Experts say India’s depleted civil society — which has been a prime target of the Indian government throughout Modi’s years in power — is likely to face even more state pressure, including stricter rules on receiving support from abroad.

“Foreign funding rules are used as a vindictive tool to crush dissent and voices critical of the regime,” said Joe Athialy, executive director of the New Delhi-based Center for Financial Accountability.

Human rights activist Harsh Mander, whom the Indian government has been investigating for money laundering since 2021, said the Trump administration was giving Modi “carte blanche” to go after civil society, which he called India’s “last frontier of resistance.”

“The enfeebling of independent citizen voices within each of our countries is a collective project of the far right,” said the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize nominee. “It is a collective project stretching from Budapest to Washington, D.C., to New Delhi.”
New Delhi says it is looking into ‘deeply troubling’ information about USAID activities in India (Reuters)
Reuters [2/21/2025 8:05 AM, Sakshi Dayal and Shilpa Jamkhandikar, 27233K]
Indian authorities are looking into "deeply troubling" information about U.S. governmental activity in the country, New Delhi said on Friday, after President Donald Trump suggested that a U.S. government agency had spent money trying to influence Indian elections.

The Indian foreign ministry comment comes two days after Trump cited information released by DOGE, the department led by Elon Musk, showing that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) had spent $21 million on "voter turnout" in India.

"We have seen information put out by the US administration regarding certain USAID activities and funding. These are obviously very deeply troubling. This has led to concerns about foreign interference in India’s internal affairs," foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told a weekly news briefing when asked about USAID’s activities in India.

Jaiswal said the "relevant department and agencies" were looking into the matter.

USAID did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

On February 16, DOGE published on X a list of funds that USAID, which Trump has put a freeze on, had disbursed, including $21 million for voter turnout in India.

"What do we need to spend $21 million for voter turnout in India for? Wow, $21 million. I guess they were trying to get somebody else elected," Trump said at an event in Miami.

His comment and DOGE’s disclosures have caused a political storm in India, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition Congress accusing each other of benefiting from foreign funds.

On Friday, the Indian Express newspaper reported,, opens new tab citing documents it had accessed, that the $21 million Trump referred to was disbursed to neighbouring Bangladesh, not India.
India’s Outrage Machine Devours a Star YouTuber Over a Crude One-Liner (New York Times)
New York Times [2/22/2025 4:14 PM, Alex Travelli and Pragati K.B., 129344K]
The Indian internet is a boisterous place, not always for the faint of heart. But sometimes India itself turns fainthearted in the face of the internet. Or livid, when family values are at stake.

Until a couple of weeks ago, Ranveer Allahbadia, 31, was riding high as a podcaster, influencer and all-around successful hyper-bro — a Joe Rogan for online Indians, especially young men. His handle, BeerBiceps, presented him to his eight million followers as a lighthearted, overgrown boy’s boy.

He interviewed celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Priyanka Chopra, as well as government ministers who build highways and plot foreign relations. He signed deals with brands like Sony, Skechers and Spotify. Last April, he shared a stage with Prime Minister Narendra Modi while being named “Disrupter of the Year” at India’s first National Creators Awards.

It all came crashing down for BeerBiceps on Feb. 8, when “India’s Got Latent,” a YouTube-based talent show with a clever title and almost a half-million subscribers, broadcast an episode with him performing as a judge.

Mr. Allahbadia told a joke that sounded like a throwaway line, racy if unoriginal. But it landed.

“Would you rather,” he said, “watch your parents have sex every day for the rest of your life, or would you join in once and stop it forever?” The studio audience oohed, whooped and laughed, and the show went on.

Indians are extremely familiar with this form of obscenity — the two most common terms of abuse in Hindi refer to illicit sex acts within a family. But BeerBiceps’s jest seemed somehow a step too far. India has become fitfully intolerant of entertainment that offends certain sensibilities, often religious. Comedy, its reach lengthened by the ubiquity of YouTube and WhatsApp, has become riskier.

The outrage that descended on Mr. Allahbadia can hardly be exaggerated. It started with people on social media howling with offense at a clip posted online. Soon, minor celebrities chimed in, some with death threats: Saurav Gurjar, a former pro wrestler and TV actor, wrote on Instagram that BeerBiceps had “crossed all limits.”

“If I see him at a party, show or anywhere,” Mr. Gurjar said, “neither his security nor any force in the world will be able to save him from me.”

He was joined by political leaders. Devendra Fadnavis, an ally of Mr. Modi and the head of the state of Maharashtra, home to Mumbai and the Hindi film industry, said that such “vulgar, blasphemous content, passed off as comedy,” must be prevented from influencing young minds. Supriya Shrinate, of the opposition Congress party, wrote online that “we can’t normalize perverted behavior as cool.”

Next came criminal charges. A cyberpolice unit in the state of Assam filed a case on the basis that BeerBiceps had used an obscenity in public. Maharashtra lodged charges against Mr. Allahbadia and 30 other people involved in “India’s Got Latent,” and other states prepared to follow suit.

Worried about having to defend himself in courts around the country, and about threats to himself and his family, Mr. Allahbadia asked the Supreme Court to consolidate the cases and protect his personal safety.

It obliged, grudgingly, saying that the government should censor such crude content in the future — or the court would do so itself.

Justice Surya Kant threw in his own opinion of BeerBiceps. “There is something dirty in his mind that has been vomited,” Mr. Kant wrote, and as a result, “parents will be ashamed, mothers and sisters will be ashamed.”

The court asked Mr. Allahbadia to surrender his passport and ordered that “he shall not air any show on YouTube” or other platforms until further notice.

Mr. Allahbadia offered profuse apologies, conceding that “humor is not my forte,” and for the moment, he remains a free man.

But what of freedom of speech?

A well-known comedian, who was afraid to speak on the record, told of a chilling effect as audiences become more likely to take offense. The circle of what is acceptable to joke about is shrinking, the comedian said, as first religion and then politics have been marked out of bounds.

One fear is that politicians will see the BeerBiceps uproar as an opening to regulate online content. Mr. Modi’s government has already blocked dozens of news channels on YouTube and has its sights set on other parts of the web.

Apar Gupta, a lawyer and founder of the Internet Freedom Foundation, argued in The Hindu, an Indian newspaper, that Mr. Allahbadia and his friends were “mere pawns in the great game for control of our digital media.”

Whatever happens next, the outrage has already had a harsh and immediate effect on the careers of the team behind “India’s Got Latent,” where up-and-coming performers were judged on their “latent” talents.

Arti Raghavan, a lawyer defending a famous comedian who was accused of criminal contempt in 2020, said that in India’s legal system, once charges are brought, “you’re talking about at least a decade of hardship for the accused.”

“Speech laws are wide and vague, and that makes them ripe for abuse,” she said. That affects everyone.
Britain and India to Restart Trade Talks in New Delhi on Monday (Reuters)
Reuters [2/23/2025 5:37 PM, Paul Sandle, 30936K]
Britain’s Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds and India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal will meet in New Delhi on Monday to restart talks on a UK-India trade deal, the British government said on Sunday.

"Securing a trade deal with what is soon-to-be the third biggest economy in the world is a no-brainer, and a top priority for me and this government," Reynolds said in a statement.

"That is why I’m flying to New Delhi with our top negotiating team to show our commitment to getting these talks back on track."

Britain’s previous Conservative governments, in power from 2010 to 2024, held years-long trade talks with New Delhi, but they ended in March 2024, with Britain saying an agreement could not be finalised before Indian elections, held last year.

Previous sticking points in the talks included a steep import duty on British whisky sold in India and India’s demand for more visas for Indian students and businesses.

Trade ministers will restart talks on an economic deal with two days of focused discussions – the first time both teams have formally got around the table since Britain’s Labour Party took power last year, the government said.

India and Britain, currently the world’s fifth and sixth largest economies respectively, have a trade relationship worth 41 billion pounds ($51.8 billion), it said.
UK ministers head to India in search of trade deal they hope will boost economy (The Guardian)
The Guardian [2/23/2025 5:30 PM, Eleni Courea, 82995K]
Ministers are relaunching negotiations with India this week in an attempt to clinch a multibillion-pound free trade agreement that they hope will boost the UK’s flatlining economy.

Jonathan Reynolds, the business and trade secretary, flew to Delhi on Sunday to meet his Indian counterpart, Piyush Goyal, for the first time since Labour won the election.

The trip kickstarts the 15th round of trade negotiations with India, a booming economy of 1.4 billion people, after they were paused in May when Rishi Sunak called the general election.

Successive Conservative prime ministers tried to secure a trade deal with India, considered to be one of the biggest prizes of Brexit. Reynolds told the Guardian that sealing the deal was "a top priority" for him and that he was "not afraid to take the tough decisions needed".

"We’ve seen trade secretaries come and go, and while their efforts have been sincere, it’s no secret that British businesses have nothing to show for it in terms of a final product," he said. "They need a trade deal they can actually use to cut costs, grow their business and expand in the massive Indian market. That’s what this government is going to get them.".

During his visit to India, Reynolds and Goyal will visit BT India’s office in Gurugram. Poppy Gustafsson, the investment minister, is expected to hold business engagements in Mumbai and Bengaluru.

Saif Malik, the chief executive of Standard Chartered, which has been operating in India for more than 160 years, said the opportunities of a trade deal for businesses were "significant".

"Whether it’s improved access to India’s growing consumer market, opportunities in manufacturing, infrastructure and innovation, or collaboration in financial and professional services, the relaunch of trade talks can unlock even greater trade, investment and prosperity across the UK-India corridor," he said.

The UK and India are the sixth and fifth largest global economies respectively, with a trade relationship worth £41bn. India is forecast to become the third-largest world economy by 2028.

The country is a notoriously tough negotiator on trade, however. Narendra Modi’s government signed a £79bn agreement with the European Free Trade Association – a bloc made up of Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein – in the spring, 16 years after talks began. Donald Trump said this month that Modi was a "much tougher" negotiator than him.

Boris Johnson and Liz Truss both set Diwali deadlines to reach agreements but failed to get them over the line. Under Sunak, negotiators got close to finalising a deal but this was put on ice when the UK election was triggered.

As part of the deal, the UK has asked for lower tariffs on goods such as cars and whisky, and increased access for British lawyers and financial services companies to the Indian market. In return, India has asked for faster and easier processing arrangements for its companies to send workers to the UK.

One sticking point has been Delhi’s concern that Indians working temporarily in the UK on business visas have to pay national insurance despite not being eligible for UK pensions or social security benefits.

The Guardian revealed in the spring that India has also asked for an exemption from the UK’s planned carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) – a planned tax on the import of carbon-intensive goods such as steel, glass and fertiliser – on the basis that it is a developing country.

Any decision to exempt India from a carbon tax would be controversial. The plans are designed to reduce emissions and support UK steel producers by levelling the playing field with countries that have a lower or no carbon levy.

Ministers have recently touted a number of life sciences and tech companies that are increasing their exports to India. About £17bn goods and services were exported in total by UK businesses to the country in 12 months to September 2024.

Among the British businesses exporting to India are Radio Design, which has its headquarters in Shipley, West Yorkshire, and has opened a manufacturing facility in India, and the tech company marcusevans group, which has established its global tech operations in Mumbai.

ApplianSys, a tech company based in Coventry that offers internet-based education services, has developed a pilot to be used across almost 5,000 Indian schools.

Reynolds said tech and life sciences were "two huge growth sectors for the UK" and that their exports into the Indian market "will amount to tens of millions of pounds for the UK economy".
India appoints former central bank chief as Modi’s principal secretary (Reuters)
Reuters [2/22/2025 8:12 AM, Shivangi Acharya, 48128K]
India on Saturday appointed its former central bank chief Shaktikanta Das as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s principal secretary, according to a government notice.

The appointment comes after Das finished his second term at the helm of the Reserve Bank of India in December last year, where he oversaw monetary policy, debt and forex markets, along with financial sector regulation for six years.

Das, a former bureaucrat, became the first non-economist in nearly three decades to head India’s central bank in 2018.

He will be Modi’s second principal secretary, with a tenure running through the Prime Minister’s entire term or until further orders, the notice said.

Pramod Kumar Mishra, also a former bureaucrat, has been Modi’s principal secretary since September 2019.
India’s Modi Uses Mega Hindu Festival To Burnish Credentials (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [2/23/2025 9:24 PM, Bhuvan Bagga and Devesh Mishra, 660K]
The quest of millions seeking salvation at the world’s largest religious festival has also been a golden opportunity for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to burnish Hindu nationalist credentials.

Undeterred by packed trains, sold-out hotels, stomach-churning faecal matter measurements in rivers used for ritual bathing, and two deadly stampedes that killed dozens, the Hindu faithful descended on the city of Prayagraj for the six-week-long Kumbh Mela.

They were welcomed by the ubiquitous presence of Modi on giant billboards flanked by firebrand Hindu monk Yogi Adityanath, 52, the chief minister of India’s largest state of Uttar Pradesh -- and viewed by many as the prime minister’s potential successor.

Both men say the millennia-old festival which ends Wednesday has been the "grandest" yet, bolstering their portrayal of themselves as stewards of Hindu resurgence and national prosperity.

Above the sea of people at sprawling campsites, loudspeakers trumpet the achievements of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

That is the take-home message for many of the pilgrims, who -- at least according to eyebrow-raising figures from Adityanath’s state government -- numbered more than 560 million.

"We are just thankful to Modi and Yogi for their great work," said Satendar Singh, 60, who travelled from Bihar state to bathe where Ganges and Yamuna rivers meet.

"Only they will return to power now, no one else can replace them.".

As well as Modi and Adityanath, a host of political leaders, business tycoons and Bollywood stars have made national headlines with a holy dip since the festival opened on January 13.

The festival’s success was paramount for Modi and Adityanath, whose fortunes are linked to support from India’s one-billion-plus Hindus and, critics say, the marginalisation of its estimated 200 million Muslim minority.

Modi, elected for his third consecutive term last year, has championed a Hindu nationalist agenda intertwining the majority religion with politics and economy.

The Kumbh Mela, held at Prayagraj every 12 years, is the biggest milestone on the Hindu calendar.

Modi, speaking before the festival, said previous governments "did not care" about the festival and pointed out that his administration "respects the culture and hence sees it as a responsibility to provide all the facilities for devotees".

The BJP has long pushed massive projects in key Hindu pilgrimage sites including Ayodhya, also in Utter Pradesh, where a grand temple was opened last year on the site where a centuries-old mosque was torn down by zealots in 1992.

Before the festival, Modi and Adityanath -- who controlled lucrative service contracts -- boasted of massive infrastructure upgrades and investments. It has cemented diehard loyalty from supporters.

"Both Modi and Yogi are doing what no other government could do for us, and I just want them to stay in power forever," said Sonu Sharma, 48, from Prayagraj.

"They are kings, and the only thing a good king wants is whatever his subjects need.".

But many among Prayagraj’s Muslim population, who make up roughly a fifth of its seven million residents, viewed the festival with deep unease.

Many still use the city’s old name of Allahabad, given by a Muslim ruler more than 400 years ago, rather than the Hindu name of Prayagraj the BJP changed it to in 2018.

Critics say it was part of wider BJP efforts to smother Muslim identity.

Local political activist Mohammad Akram, 38, accused the BJP of trying to turn the ancient festival into a "tool for religious division".

Unlike earlier editions, warnings by hardline Hindu groups deterred many Muslim shopkeepers and hawkers from entering the festival grounds.

Mohammad Zahid, 52, a shopkeeper, said "99 percent of the local Muslims did not set up shops there out of fear".

He worried about the loss of the city’s Muslim past.

"You can rename the city, but how can you change this cultural fabric of brotherhood which is the foundation of Allahabad?" he asked.

Preacher Syed Farooq Ahmed, 55, whose family has lived in Prayagraj for generations, said he was "saddened" because division was "not the history of Allahabad’s shared cultural heritage".

Ahmed said his ancestor built their 300-year-old home and the mosque next to it, and had used the Ganges river to perform ceremonial washings before prayers.

"This river does not belong to any caste or religion," he said. "It belongs to those who have made it a part of themselves".
Tesla Is Again Showing Signs It Wants to Sell Cars in India (New York Times)
New York Times [2/22/2025 4:14 PM, Alex TravelliSuhasini Raj and Anupreeta Das, 831K]
Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, has long tried to crack into the Indian automobile market and has confronted trade barriers that made that hard to do.

Now, when Mr. Musk holds a position of power in the U.S. government as an aide to President Trump, there are signs that Tesla is making preparations to start selling electric cars in India.

Tesla formed a local subsidiary in 2021 and established a relationship with India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, a decade ago. The company has neither a manufacturing facility nor a concerted sales operation and has sold only a small number of cars in India.

But President Trump has made the sale of American cars in India a U.S. priority and is pushing Mr. Modi to loosen India’s trade barriers on auto imports.

Mr. Musk met with Mr. Modi this month when the prime minister was in Washington for bilateral meetings with Mr. Trump.

Three business people familiar with the real estate markets in New Delhi and Mumbai, two of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Tesla was pursuing leases for large commercial spaces in both cities.

Tesla has posted listings for a variety of jobs in Mumbai, some of them with descriptions that involve work in New Delhi as well. The roster of positions, including service managers, operations analysts and salespeople, suggests that the company is planning to open showrooms. One of the new hires in India, the Tesla site said, will “engage walk-in guests promptly, personally and with the goal of opening the conversation and ensuring they feel welcome.”

News that Tesla was prospecting for commercial real estate was reported earlier by Reuters.

Mr. Modi’s meeting with Mr. Musk came on Feb. 13, when the Indian leader was in Washington to visit with President Trump. “I assume he wants to do business in India,” Mr. Trump said about the Musk-Modi meeting. India’s official statement was that they “discussed strengthening collaboration between Indian and U.S. entities in innovation, space exploration, artificial intelligence, and sustainable development.”

India’s total tariff on fully assembled electric vehicles stands at 110 percent. Mr. Musk took note of India’s trade policy when interviewed on Fox News this week along with Mr. Trump: “The tariffs are, like, 100 percent import duty.”

The Economic Times, an Indian newspaper, reported on Thursday that the rate could be cut to 15 percent by an upcoming change in government policy, for any company that commits $500 million to production in India. But the lower rate would only apply to 8,000 units a year; any more would be taxed at the higher rate.

Even if import barriers vanished, Tesla would have a tough time breaking into India. Local manufacturers like Mahindra and Tata are producing popular electric cars that retail for just under $15,000. Teslas start at around $40,000. And there is no Supercharger network in India. Those charging stations have helped drive demand for Teslas on American highways.

Vinkesh Gulati, a longtime executive in the Indian auto industry, said Tesla was “scouting for talent and showrooms in India.” He said he believed that the company was eager to show the Indian government that it was interested in entering the market. He said, however, that Tesla would probably push to raise or eliminate the planned 8,000-per-year limit for low-tariff imports.

Mr. Musk has shown an interest in India for years. “I am fan of Modi,” he said at a news conference in 2023. Early last year, he said on X that India deserved a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. Two months later, Mr. Modi’s government said it would reduce tariffs on exporters like Tesla — provided they build factories in India — and Mr. Musk said he would visit Mr. Modi in New Delhi. But the trip was canceled and no factory was built.

Tesla purchases a relatively small amount of parts for its vehicles from Indian suppliers. The company sourced $1 billion from India in 2023, according to government data.

Mr. Musk’s internet satellite service, Starlink, which is also hoping for favorable policy changes in India, looks like a much bigger opportunity for coordination between the world’s richest tycoon and its most populous nation.
American Airlines flight from New York to New Delhi lands safely in Rome after security concern (AP)
AP [2/23/2025 7:58 PM, Staff, 12036K]
An American Airlines flight from New York to New Delhi landed safely in Rome on Sunday afternoon after it was diverted due to a security concern, which later proved to be “non-credible,” the airline said.

American Airlines said Flight 292 “was inspected by law enforcement” after landing at Leonardo da Vinci International Airport and “cleared to re-depart.”

It didn’t clarify the cause of the security concern, but added an inspection was required by protocol before the flight could land in New Delhi.

“The flight will stay in Rome overnight to allow for required crew rest before continuing to Delhi as soon as possible tomorrow,” the airline said.

An Associated Press reporter filmed two fighter jets flying over the airport shortly before the unscheduled landing. Fire trucks were visible on the landing strip on one side of the plane after it landed.

Neeraj Chopra, one of the passengers on board, said the captain announced that the plane had to turn around about three hours before it was supposed to land in New Delhi because of a change in “security status.”

Chopra, who was traveling from Detroit to visit family, described the mood on the plane as calm after the initial announcement but said he began to feel stressed when the captain later announced that fighter jets would be escorting their plane to Rome.

“I felt a little panic of, okay, what’s going on here?” Chopra told the AP. “There’s got to be like something bigger going on here.”

Passenger Jonathan Bacon, 22, from Dayton, Ohio, started paying attention to the flight tracker on the seatback in front of him after the captain’s announcement of a “diversion due to a security issue,” observing the plane’s sharp turn away from New Delhi and route back toward Rome.

Passengers had no internet connection for much of the flight, Bacon said, with only some spotty access that clued them into early reports of the situation about two hours before landing.

After landing, Bacon said all passengers were loaded onto buses and taken to the terminal, where each passenger and their personal items underwent additional security screenings that were time-consuming and felt “slightly heightened,” especially for arrivals. More than two hours after landing, Bacon and his friend said they were still waiting for their checked baggage, which they said was also undergoing security screenings.

“It was definitely the longest flight to Europe I’ve ever taken,” Bacon said.

A spokesperson for the airport said it was continuing to operate normally.
Indian teenager alleges rape over five years by nearly 60 schoolmates, neighbors, relatives and strangers (CNN)
CNN [2/22/2025 11:51 PM, Esha Mitra and Lex Harvey, 129344K]
Five years ago, a 13-year-old girl, the daughter of poor wage laborers from one of India’s most marginalized communities, was allegedly sexually abused by one of her neighbors in the village where she lived.

Her alleged abuser filmed it and police are investigating whether he used the images to blackmail and manipulate the girl into being raped and sexually abused by dozens of other men and boys over the next five years.

Police say the allegations only came to light after the girl, now 18, spoke to a counselor visiting her college in Kerala state and detailed the years of horrific abuse.

A total of 58 men and boys have been arrested and accused of the sexual assault, rape and gang rape of the girl. Another two men wanted in connection with the case have fled the country, Kerala Police Deputy Inspector General Ajeetha Begum told CNN.

Among the accused are her schoolmates, her relatives, her neighbors – men from all corners of her life, ranging from minors to men in their mid-40s, according to case documents reviewed by CNN and interviews with local police.

Charges have not yet been filed and the 58 men remain in detention. None of the accused has spoken publicly about the allegations. Under Indian rape laws, the girl has not been identified.

Violence against women is rampant in India due to entrenched sexism and patriarchy, despite laws being amended to include more severe punishments for abusers.

In August the rape and murder of a trainee medic in the eastern city of Kolkata sparked a nationwide doctors’ strike that brought tens of thousands into the streets to demand change.

The Kerala case has not sparked similar outrage.

Experts and activists say that’s because the victim is from the Dalit community at the bottom of the Hindu caste system, a 3,000-year-old social and religious hierarchy that categorizes people at birth and defines their place in society.

Dalits traditionally carry out occupations viewed as ritually "unclean" by Hindu scripture, such as manual scavenging, waste picking and street sweeping.

They are often banned from visiting temples and forced to live apart from higher-caste communities, often in squalor and farther from access to services.

Despite legislation banning discrimination based on caste, activists say the stigma leaves India’s more than 260 million Dalits vulnerable to abuse and less able to seek redress for crimes committed against them.

"When it’s Dalit women, in general the outrage is less across the country," said Cynthia Stephen, a Dalit rights activist and social policy researcher.

There is a sense that "this girl is not ‘one of us,’" she said.

Manipulated, kidnapped and abused

The alleged abuse began when the young man from the village molested the girl and took sexually explicit videos and photos, police told CNN.

At least three of her abusers promised to marry her, according to police. One threatened to kill her if she reported the abuse.

Some of the men acted alone, police said. But others are accused of gang rape. "It’s not that all the cases are connected. But in one case, there might be four or five accused," said Begum, from Kerala Police.

Many of the men contacted the young girl on her father’s phone, through social media apps such as Instagram and WhatsApp, late at night after he went to sleep, police said.

The alleged abuse took place in private and public spaces, in homes and in cars, at bus stops and in fields. Some of the cases allegedly involved men who were strangers, living in towns dozens of miles away.

Some of the cases involve allegations of human trafficking, because the men forced the girl to travel outside her village, police said.

The allegations have sent shock waves through the girl’s village in the green hills of Kerala, where many work as wage laborers in low-paid jobs like construction and farming.

Police say the girl’s parents worked long hours and did not know about the alleged abuse of their daughter.

When the allegations emerged in January, some women in the community were sympathetic toward the accused and angry at the survivor, according to local media outlet The News Minute.

The women criticized the girl’s clothing and lifestyle and blamed her mother for not watching over her more closely, The News Minute reported.

One mother, whose son was among the accused, said he was innocent. She said he had known the girl since she was a baby and "had raised the girl in his arms," according to the outlet.

‘Monsters in her own backyard’

More than half of Dalits in Kerala live in designated areas called "colonies," known for cramped and harsh living conditions, after years of being denied land ownership under historical laws.

Many women and girls living in these colonies lack resources and privacy, making them more vulnerable to abuse, Rekha Raj, a Dalit feminist activist from Kerala, told CNN.

Madhumita Pandey, a professor in criminology and gender justice at Sheffield Hallam University in the United Kingdom, said the tight-knit nature of communities such as these colonies could explain why the alleged abuse of the teenage girl was not reported until recently.

"They could sometimes be your friend, uncle or neighbor," she said.

It can be harder to report abuse when "the so-called monsters are in our own backyard," she said.

Official statistics support her point: the alleged perpetrator is known to the victim in more than 98% of reported rape cases in Kerala, according to government data.

There were 4,241 reported cases of rape against women from oppressed castes in India, including Dalit women, in 2022, the most recent year for which data exists, according to India’s National Crime Records Bureau. That’s equivalent to more than 10 rapes per day.

There were more than 31,500 rapes reported overall in 2022, according to the NCRB.

However, given the difficulties in reporting such crimes, especially for the Dalit community, the true figure is likely higher.

Furthermore, in close communities, and especially in Dalit communities, women and girls also risk isolating themselves or being seen as bringing dishonor upon their families if they report abuse, Pandey said.

In at least 16 of the cases from the alleged Kerala village abuse, the accused men are from more privileged castes, according to police. If found guilty, these men could face harsher punishments under Indian laws designed to protect disadvantaged castes.

A 2020 report by the NGO Equality Now found that sexual violence is used by dominant castes to oppress Dalit women and girls, who are often denied justice because of a "prevalent culture of impunity, particularly when the perpetrators are from a dominant caste.".

Even when Dalit women report sexual abuse, they face an uphill battle to justice.

The Equality Now report followed 40 cases of rape against Dalit women and girls, and the seven cases that resulted in convictions involved either rape and murder together or were committed against girls under the age of 6.

N Rajeev, the head of the Child Welfare Committee in Pathanamthitta, the Kerala district where the girl is from, said an increase in reported child sexual abuse cases was in part thanks to campaigns in schools that help children identify and disclose abuse. The number of reported child sexual abuse cases in the state has surged to 4,663 in 2023, more than four times the 1,002 reported in 2013, according to government data.

The Dalit girl is now living in a shelter where she is receiving counseling and support, Begum, the police officer, said. The girl’s mother is also being given counseling and has the option to stay in a women’s shelter if she feels unsafe in the neighborhood. Begum said police have dedicated "maximum manpower" to the case.

The case will likely take years to go through the courts.

Across India, rape has one of the lowest conviction rates of major crimes, with 27% of cases resulting in convictions in 2022, according to the NCRB.

While child sexual abuse continues to be a "a grim reality" in Kerala, the fact that the Dalit girl was able to report the case is a step in the right direction, Stephen said.

"Otherwise, this would have just gone on unreported for years on end, then she would have nobody to help her.".
India bans two drugs behind opioid crisis in West Africa (BBC)
BBC [2/23/2025 3:32 AM, Vicky Wong, 76163K]
Indian authorities have banned two highly-addictive opioids in response to a BBC investigation which found they were fuelling a public health crisis in parts of West Africa.

In a letter seen by the BBC from India’s Drugs Controller General, Dr Rajeev Singh Raghuvanshi said permission to manufacture and export the drugs had been withdrawn.

BBC Eye found one pharmaceutical company, Aveo, had been illegally exporting a harmful mix of tapentadol and carisoprodol in countries like Ghana, Nigeria, and Cote D’Ivoire.

India’s Food and Drug Administration said the company’s factory in Mumbai had since been raided and its entire stock seized.

The circular from Dr Raghuvanshi, dated to Friday, cited the BBC investigation in his decision to ban all combinations of tapentadol and carisoprodol, which was to be implemented with immediate effect.

He said this also came after officials had looked into "the potential of drug abuse and its harmful impact on population".

Tapentadol is a powerful opioid, and carisoprodol is a muscle relaxant so addictive it is banned in Europe.

Carisoprodol is approved for use in the US, but only for short periods of up to three weeks. Withdrawal symptoms include anxiety, insomnia and hallucinations.

The combination of the two drugs is not licensed for use anywhere in the world as they can cause breathing difficulties and seizures and an overdose can kill.

Despite the risks, these opioids are popular street drugs in many West African countries, because they are so cheap and widely available.

Publicly-available export data show that Aveo Pharmaceuticals, along with a sister company called Westfin International, has shipped millions of these tablets to Ghana and other West African countries.

The BBC World Service also found packets of these pills with the Aveo logo for sale on the streets of Nigeria, and in Ivoirian towns and cities.

Nigeria, with a population of 225 million people, provides the biggest market for these pills. It has been estimated that about four million Nigerians abuse some form of opioid, according to the nation’s National Bureau of Statistics.

As part of the investigation, the BBC also sent an undercover operative - posing as an African businessman looking to supply opioids to Nigeria - inside one of Aveo’s factories in India, where they filmed one of Aveo’s directors, Vinod Sharma, showing off the same dangerous products the BBC found for sale across West Africa.

In the secretly recorded footage, the operative tells Sharma that his plan is to sell the pills to teenagers in Nigeria "who all love this product".

Sharma in response replies "OK," before explaining that if users take two or three pills at once, they can "relax" and agrees they can get "high".

Towards the end of the meeting, Sharma says: "This is very harmful for the health," adding that "nowadays, this is business".

Sharma and Aveo Pharmaceuticals did not respond to a request for comment when the BBC’s initial investigation was published.

India’s Food and Drug Administration said a sting operation saw Aveo’s entire stock seized and further production halted in a statement on Friday. Further legal action will be taken against the company, it added.

The agency said it was "fully prepared" to take action against anyone involved in "illegal activities that tarnish the reputation of the country".

The FDA has been instructed to carry out further inspections to prevent the supply of the drugs, it said.
India’s Super Active Chief Diplomat At A Time Of Global Stress (Forbes – opinion)
Forbes [2/23/2025 11:38 AM, Vasuki Shastry, 102611K]
It is a bit dizzy to keep pace with Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar’s frenetic diplomatic itinerary. Since late December, the foreign minister has visited Washington D.C. thrice, Spain and the UAE for bilateral visits, Paris, Munich and Oman to attend conferences, and in Johannesburg for the G20 foreign ministers meeting.

I struggled to find a peer foreign minister in Asia who has a comparable peripatetic approach to diplomacy. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi does not even come close. He started the year with a traditional visit to Africa and has been visiting Europe and New York last week, and joined Jaishankar at Johannesburg. Other ministers from the region fall far, far behind in their efforts.

What explains India’s diplomatic surge and is it yielding dividends for the country? The answer, to put it diplomatically, is a qualified yes, with some nos, and a lot of ifs.

For starters, Jaishankar is a career diplomat turned foreign minister, which is an all too rare phenomenon on the world stage. India, on the other hand, has had a reasonable share of star diplomats turned politicians. It is of course never a given that a career diplomat in New Delhi’s South Block, where the External Affairs ministry is located, would have an opportunity to rise to ministerial office.

Indian politicians, given all of their faults, are natural talent spotters and this explains the rise of Jaishankar and more dramatically that of late Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who served as a career civil servant in the finance ministry and central bank for several years before jumping into politics.

Having served as Ambassador to Washington D.C., Beijing, Singapore, and the Czech republic, Jaishankar enjoys a huge comparative advantage over his global peers, because of his familiarity with the machine and machinations of modern diplomacy. He also became India’s foreign minister at a time of great flux in world affairs. The tussle between America, the incumbent superpower, and China, a rising one, will remain the most profound challenge for large middle powers like India. Navigating these geopolitical fault-lines requires adept and agile diplomacy, the ability to articulate national interests and security objectives and delivering on them.

India’s pursuit of multi-alignment - built on strong but fluid alliances with America, consistent ties with Russia (particularly in the aftermath of its invasion of Ukraine), and the developing world - has drawn its fair share of criticism at home and abroad. However, India stands alone as a country which, chameleon-like, is an active member of the Quad (alongside America, Japan, and Australia), the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (sponsored by China), BRICS (a joint effort by Brazil, Russia, India, and China), and is still be able to maintain strong, friendly ties with America.

In public interactions, Jaishankar has explained that India is not anti-West, but "non-West," a country which does not see a contradiction in cooperating with the G7 on many issues of common interest while pursuing other seemingly contradictory alliances and partnerships. India’s multi-aligned approach is being put to its biggest test with the return of President Trump, who has threatened to rain down tariffs on the country, and in managing the country’s still fragile relationship with China.

India’s economy has also sputtered over the previous year, diminishing the country’s bragging rights as being the fastest growing economy within the G20. While Jaishankar’s diplomacy is impressive, recognised no less by the late Henry Kissinger, much more work needs to be done by his government at home to reinforce the country’s global standing. This includes accelerating economic reforms, fixing governance, level the playing field for business, and building a truly inclusive India. Until that happens, India’s chief diplomat is the star lead violinist in a mostly under-performing orchestra.
NSB
Residents attack Bangladesh air force base in altercation with soldiers, leaving 1 dead (AP)
AP [2/24/2025 4:55 AM, Staff, 76163K]
A group of residents in southern Bangladesh on Monday attacked an air force base following an altercation, prompting soldiers to open fire that killed at least one and wounded several others, local media reports said.

The military in a statement blamed “miscreants” for attacking the air force base in Cox’s Bazar. It did not mention any casualties.

The country’s largest English-language Daily Star newspaper reported one dead.

The violence broke out after a man on a motorbike was challenged by air force soldiers for not wearing his helmet, according to the Bengali-language Prothom Alo newspaper. After an altercation, the man’s relatives and neighbors came forward and started attacking the base, the report said.

Bangladesh, which is run by an interim government headed by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, has faced numerous challenges in establishing order since the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in early August by a mass uprising spearheaded by students. Mob justice has become a concern.

The interim government launched a nationwide crackdown called “Operation Devil Hunt” on Feb. 8 and arrested more than 8,000 people across the country. Hasina’s Awami League party blamed the government for arresting their supporters.
Bangladeshi students, who ousted former PM Hasina, set to launch political party (Reuters)
Reuters [2/24/2025 12:33 AM, Staff, 5.2M]
Bangladeshi students, who were at the forefront of last year’s protests that ousted then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, are set to launch a political party this week, two sources with direct knowledge of the development said.

The Students Against Discrimination (SAD) group spearheaded the protests that began as a student-led movement against public sector job quotas but quickly morphed into a broader, nationwide uprising that forced Hasina to flee to India as the unrest peaked in early August.

The student group is finalising plans to launch the new party during an event likely on Wednesday, said the sources who did not want to be named as they are not authorised to speak to the media.

Nahid Islam, a student leader and adviser to the interim government that took charge of Bangladesh after Hasina’s exit, is expected to lead the party as convener, the sources said.

Islam has been a key figure in advocating for student interests within the interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus which has been at the helm of Bangladesh since August 2024. He is expected to resign from his current role to focus on leading the new political party.

Islam did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Yunus has said that elections could be held by the end of 2025, and many political analysts believe that a youth-led party could significantly reshape the country’s political landscape. Yunus has said he was not interested in running.

Yunus’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the launch of the student-led political party.

The South Asian nation has been grappling with political unrest since Hasina left following weeks of protests during which more than 1,000 people were killed.

Officials from Hasina’s former government and security apparatus systematically committed serious human rights violations against the protesters during the uprising, the U.N. human rights commission said this month.

Hasina and her party deny any wrongdoing.
Tourist, 53, Dies After Trying to Take Selfie While Leaning Out of Train: Reports (People)
People [2/23/2025 1:26 PM, Brenton Blanchet, 27233K]
A 53-year-old Russian tourist died this week while attempting to take a photo of herself on the footboard of a train in Sri Lanka.

On Wednesday, Feb. 19, Olga Perminova was traveling on the Podi Menike rail line when she tried to take a selfie while hanging from the train’s footboard, according to the local Daily Mirror newspaper, which cited Hali Ela Police.

While apparently posing for the image, the woman hit a rock and fell off the train, sustaining severe injures, per the outlet, which noteed that she later died at Badulla Teaching Hospital. According to Sri Lankan news aggregator Newswire — which also cited authorities, shared apparent footage of the aftermath but did not identify the woman — the fall occurred between the Badulla and Hali-Ela railway stations.

Perminova was part of a Russia tour group in Sri Lanka, according to Metro and the U.S. Sun, which shared an image of the woman apparently leaning off the side of the train in a pink dress before the accident.

The grandmother, per both outlets, was originally from Saratov and worked for a security company around Moscow. Diplomats in Russia were reportedly arranging to bring her home, the outlets shared.

Per the Sri Lankan Daily Mirror, the woman was initially treated for severe head injuries by Dr. Palitha Rajapaksa’s team at Badulla Teaching Hospital before succumbing to her injuries.

At the time of the accident, the train was reportedly headed toward Ella, which houses Sri Lanka’s famous Nine Arch Bridge — an over-100-year-old structure that the Visit Ella website described as "one of the engineering marvels in the early 20th century.".

The Russian tourist’s death is not the first time a visitor of another country has put themselves in danger in an attempt to take a photo.

In 2024, a 72-year-old Scottish tourist vacationing in Romania with her friend was mauled by a bear through her car window while trying to capture an image. The woman survived, which her friend credited to her wearing a thick jacket at the time and the bear getting "more jacket than arm.".

A 2018 study shared by the National Library of Medicine from the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care suggested that selfie-related deaths had "become an emerging problem," with at least 259 people having died internationally between October 2011 to November 2017.

The "topmost reasons for deaths caused by selfies," per the study, included drowning, transport, and falling — with the most deaths reported in India followed by Russia, the U.S. and Pakistan.

A study later published by the Journal of Travel Medicine suggested an estimated 379 people had died while snapping selfies between January 2008 and July 2021.
Central Asia
Who flew a reconnaissance drone into Kazakhstan? (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [2/21/2025 4:14 PM, Staff, 57.6K]
Kazakhstan is finding itself caught up in the Russia-Ukraine war after an unidentified drone crashed in the Bokeyorda District of the West Kazakhstan region, not far from the Russian city of Volgograd. Russian officials are trying to pin the incident on Ukraine, while Ukrainian experts have offered evidence that the drone was a Russian vehicle.

Kazakh sensitivities have been heightened by a February 17 drone attack carried out against a vital pumping station in Russia operated by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), part of a pipeline that connects Kazakhstan to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. The CPC pipeline is the main route used for Kazakh oil exports; the destruction caused during the attack will allegedly reduce the pipeline’s export capacity by roughly one-third for several months, according to Russian officials.

Ukrainian officials acknowledged the attack on the CPC facility in Krasnodar Krai and say attacks on Russian energy infrastructure will continue. “They not only support Russia’s military by supplying fuel to enemy forces but also play a crucial role in financing the war through oil profits,” the Kyiv Post quoted a Ukrainian Security Services source as saying.

The Kremlin reportedly wants members of the CPC consortium to shoulder the repair and upgrade costs for the damaged pumping station, including advanced firefighting equipment. The American oil giant Chevron and the Kazakh government-controlled energy entity KazMunayGaz are among the largest CPC shareholders.

The drone discovery in West Kazakhstan occurred the day after the CPC attack, according to Kazakh media reports. The crash site is situated in the vicinity of a Russian military training ground, Kapustin Yar.

Soon after Kazakh reports of a downed drone began circulating, Russian Telegram channels and web information portals began spreading unsubstantiated claims that the drone in question was a reconnaissance vehicle on a mission to coordinate a Ukrainian “kamikaze” drone attack on CPC infrastructure in Kazakh territory. Russian media described the drone as a French-made UAV used by the Ukrainian military.

The Ukrainian Military Center, a Kyiv-based public organization with strong ties to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, accused Russia of trying to stoke “an international provocation,” adding that the photo of the downed drone published by Kazakh media bears no resemblance to the design of the French-made drone that Russian sources say it is. The Ukrainian Military Center also posted visual evidence that indicates the vehicle is Russian-made, saying “the characteristic shape of the hull, fuselage elements and the drone’s camera unequivocally confirm that it was the Orlan-10 drone that went down in Kazakhstan.”

According to Kazakh media reports, the drone is now being analyzed by Kazakh military experts at a facility in the regional capital Uralsk.

The Kazakh Foreign Ministry announced it will seek discussions with Ukrainian officials about drone attacks. “This is a very important issue for the economy of Kazakhstan, and we will certainly discuss this situation with our Ukrainian partners through diplomatic channels,” the official Kazinform news agency quoted a ministry spokesman as saying.

Kazakh officials at the same time are downplaying the impact of the February 17 attack on the CPC pumping station, saying it “will not pose risks to the transportation of Kazakh oil,” according to the Kazinform report.

Export data raises questions about the reliability of Russian damage estimates to the CPC pumping station. The Reuters news agency reported that Kazakhstan pumped a record high volume of oil on February 19, two days after the Ukrainian drone attack on the pumping station. “It was not immediately clear how Kazakhstan had been able to pump record volumes given output increases need to correspond with export pipeline capacity,” the Reuters report states.
US, Uzbekistan reaffirm commitment to Central Asia security (VOA)
VOA [2/22/2025 6:38 PM, Navbahor Imamova, 2.7M]
As the Trump administration begins to engage with Central Asia, Uzbekistan has expressed eagerness to expand its strategic partnership, highlighting what it calls its "enhanced" political dialogue on bilateral and regional issues and security cooperation, including its "solid connection" with the Mississippi National Guard.

The U.S. recently got back its seven Black Hawk helicopters from Uzbekistan that Afghan military pilots had flown there in 2021 while fleeing the Taliban.

This transfer and other bilateral exchanges within the last month have underscored Tashkent’s role as Washington’s key partner in Central Asia, according to U.S. officials. However, analysts see the military relationship as largely transactional and shaped by geopolitical complexities and regional tensions.

Talk between diplomats

In a phone conversation on February 21 with Uzbek Foreign Minister Bakhtiyor Saidov, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated U.S. support for the country’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity, according to State Department’s spokesperson Tammy Bruce.

They discussed a joint effort through the C5+1 diplomatic platform, launched nearly a decade ago between Washington and five Central Asian republics. The Trump administration is interested in using this platform to support "a more peaceful and prosperous Central Asia."

Saidov described his talk with Rubio as "candid and productive," aiming to expand the "strategic partnership between our nations in all spheres without an exception. Building strong bridges between business communities, increasing trade volume in both directions, ensuring prosperous development in Central Asia."

Cooperation with Pentagon, ties with Mississippi

Uzbek Ambassador Furqat Sidikov says his country’s forces "have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Mississippi National Guard in the best ways," citing joint exercises and Pentagon-sponsored professional exchanges.

"We are a reliable partner of the United States in the region," Sidikov said at a January 31 embassy reception, pointing to defense reforms and improvements in the Uzbek military’s equipment.

Mississippi National Guard Adjutant General Major General Bobby Ginn emphasized at the event that since 2012, the partnership has facilitated more than 170 engagements between U.S. and Uzbek soldiers, strengthening disaster response and readiness.

"Uzbekistan’s commitment to regional stability and contributions to counterterrorism efforts and border security" demonstrate the power of its armed forces, Ginn said.

Davis Florick, the Pentagon’s acting principal director for Eurasia, also attending the reception, thanked Tashkent for "storing" U.S. aircraft and diligently working with America toward the mutually beneficial solution. He confirmed that the seven Black Hawks were part of a fleet from Afghanistan that, according to multiple sources, included 24 helicopters, among them Mi-17s and UH-60s, and 22 fixed-wing aircraft, most of which were transferred to Uzbekistan last year.

Another high-level Pentagon official, Rear Admiral Erin Osborne, speaking at the same gathering, praised Uzbekistan as a "critical ally" that offered its airspace and an air base during the initial years of the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan. The republic was also part of Pentagon’s Northern Distribution Network, delivering nonmilitary goods to the international coalition fighting in the neighboring country.

Osborne said that mutual trust and understanding were reflected in "capacity-building initiatives and the sharing of intelligence to counter common threats."

The U.S., she added, is committed to working with Uzbekistan "to ensure its stability and sovereignty, as well as the stability and sovereignty of the entire Central Asian region."

The Taliban and the Afghanistan factor

Even though the transfer of the Black Hawks back to the U.S. was disclosed at the embassy event, Uzbek officials have been tight-lipped about this collaboration to avoid any tension with the Taliban, which has condemned the handovers as an infringement on Afghanistan’s sovereignty. The Taliban’s Defense Ministry issued a statement denouncing the transfer as "unacceptable" and demanding the return of the aircraft.

Eighteen U.S. aircraft also ended up in Tajikistan in 2021, but Washington and Dushanbe have yet to settle the matter.

During a visit to the region in June 2022, U.S. Central Command commander General Michael Kurilla said the aircraft would not be returned to Afghanistan "because they do not belong to the Taliban … Our hope is to be able to hand over some or all of the aircraft to the Tajik government."

Washington analysts view Uzbekistan as the most active U.S. military partner in the region, comparing it with the activities other republics in Central Asia have with their state partners, specifically Kazakhstan with Arizona, Tajikistan with Virginia, and Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan with Montana.

Still, they characterize Tashkent-Washington security relationship as more transactional than strategic.

"The Uzbeks want training and equipment. What do we want from them? A reliable partner in the region," said a former U.S. official with extensive experience in Central Asia, speaking to VOA on the condition of anonymity for professional reasons.

The U.S. has trained Uzbek pilots to operate and maintain the transferred aircraft, but continued congressional funding — amounting to several million dollars — is crucial for sustained cooperation.

"There will be questions from Congress, of course," the former official said. "The primary justification so far has been that these assets would help counter extremists from Afghanistan."

Meanwhile, experts in Tashkent support Uzbekistan’s cautious approach to the Taliban. As officials have said, Uzbekistan will engage with whoever governs Afghanistan. While it does not officially recognize the Taliban, the administration of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has forged stable diplomatic relations with Kabul, holds significant investment and business agreements with the country, and provides humanitarian aid to the Afghan people. Last summer, Uzbekistan opened a free economic zone in the city of Termez on the border with Afghanistan, inviting neighbors to foster entrepreneurial cooperation.

U.S. interests and Central Asian security

The U.S. maintains military cooperation agreements with each Central Asian republic, with plans reviewed annually and subject to funding approval.

Despite intelligence-sharing efforts, there is no U.S.-Uzbekistan overflight agreement. Tashkent does not allow its territory to be used for strikes on neighboring soil, even against terrorist targets.

"The Trump administration may question this," said the former U.S. official. "It complicates the case for cooperation with Uzbekistan because they’re centrally located, yet we must fly around them. It’s hard to justify what we’re getting in return."

For years, the U.S. has also supported regional border security initiatives.

"That’s the big program," the former U.S. official said, but added: "How many terrorists have we stopped? How many have been disrupted, killed, or captured? Do we have those hard numbers? We are still in the nascent stages of setting up the program."
Twitter
Afghanistan
Sara Wahedi
@SaraWahedi
[2/21/2025 10:45 AM, 97K followers, 1 retweet, 30 likes]
With Azizi Group’s planned $10B investment in Afghanistan and the closure of USAID and NGO funding drains, we’re witnessing a big shift. It’ll be an unprecedented private-public dynamic emerging in countries like Afghanistan and Syria, where the ‘west’ won’t be the funder.

Sara Wahedi
@SaraWahedi
[2/21/2025 10:45 AM, 97K followers, 14 likes]
I pose this as an observation. It’s undeniable that the Taliban, much like Trump’s isolationism, is shifting the pendulum away from aid dependence. The process and outcome of this will be important to watch. Will be monumental for approach/ethics of aid/intervention/etc.

Hafiz Zia Ahmad
@HafizZiaAhmad
[2/22/2025 5:51 AM, 108.6K followers, 40 retweets, 268 likes]
IEA-Defense Minister: We are committed to having constructive engagement with the international community in line with our Islamic values & national interests. https://x.com/i/status/1893252351974105133
Pakistan
Government of Pakistan
@GovtofPakistan
[2/23/2025 5:11 AM, 3.1M followers, 8 retweets, 29 likes]
Historic Success! The Government of Pakistan recovered Rs. 23 billion from 16 banks in just 24 hours after the Sindh High Court’s verdict. This marks a major step toward ending tax evasion and legal manipulation by powerful corporate interests.

Government of Pakistan
@GovtofPakistan
[2/23/2025 5:11 AM, 3.1M followers, 3 retweets, 6 likes]
Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif personally led the campaign, ensuring that Pakistan’s tax system becomes stronger and more just. The era of tax evasion is over

Government of Pakistan
@GovtofPakistan
[2/22/2025 12:19 PM, 3.1M followers, 10 retweets, 43 likes]
Dera Ghazi Khan: Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif unveils the plaque of groundbreaking of National Highway N-55 (Rajanpur-D.G. Khan-D.I.Khan). #PMShehbazInDGKhan

Shehbaz Sharif
@CMShehbaz
[2/23/2025 10:23 AM, 6.7M followers, 374 retweets, 1.4K likes]
Landed in the beautiful city of Baku, where the past and future converge in a vibrant embrace. The city looks even more enchanting under a blanket of snow! Looking forward to productive discussions for further strengthening the deep rooted bonds between Pakistan and Azerbaijan. We also seek to enhance our trade and investment ties.

Zalmay Khalilzad
@realZalmayMK
[2/23/2025 10:00 AM, 254.6K followers, 5.7K retweets, 12K likes]
The military dominates #Pakistan’s politics and government. According to @FT, it is taking over the country’s economy. Of course, it is in charge of security. The result is that all three are doing badly. The military must reform and focus on what should be its core mission, national security. @FreeImranKhan. @ImranKhanPTI https://ft.com/content/f3dae0
India
Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/24/2025 1:35 AM, 105.5M followers, 848 retweets, 4.1K likes]
The first 50 days of 2025 have witnessed fast-paced growth!

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/24/2025 1:21 AM, 105.5M followers, 1.5K retweets, 10K likes]
The Global Investors Summit in Madhya Pradesh is a commendable initiative. It serves as a vital platform to showcase the state’s immense potential in industry, innovation and infrastructure. By attracting global investors, it is paving the way for economic growth and job creation. Happy to see Madhya Pradesh emerge as a key hub for business and entrepreneurship.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/23/2025 8:22 AM, 105.5M followers, 10K retweets, 66K likes]
A very special visit to Bageshwar Dham. I commend their noble effort of working to improve healthcare and serve society.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/22/2025 9:24 AM, 105.5M followers, 4.4K retweets, 27K likes]
Starting tomorrow, 23rd February, I will be attending various programmes in Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Assam. These programmes cover different sectors and will positively impact crores of lives. The first programme will be the laying of the foundation stone for the Bageshwar Dham Medical and Science Research Institute in Chhatarpur, Madhya Pradesh. This is a commendable effort, which will cater to people’s healthcare needs. It is also indicative of our centuries old emphasis on serving society. On the 24th, I will be addressing the Investors Summit of Madhya Pradesh, a state with immense potential for investment and growth. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePa

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/22/2025 9:24 AM, 105.5M followers, 854 retweets, 2.1K likes]
Ours is a Government devoted to the welfare of farmers. Taking that spirit forward, the 19th instalment of PM-KISAN will be distributed to crores of farmers from the programme in Bhagalpur. Other projects which will be inaugurated and dedicated to the nation include:
Centre of Excellence for Indigenous Breeds in Motihari.
Milk Product Plant in Barauni.
Ismailpur - Rafiganj Road Over Bridge.
Doubling of Warisaliganj – Nawada – Tilaiya rail section.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/22/2025 9:24 AM, 105.5M followers, 800 retweets, 2K likes]
On the 24th evening, I will be at the Jhumoir Binandini programme in the vibrant city of Guwahati. This programme celebrates the culture of Assam, especially the tea tribes and other tribal communities of the state. The Central and Assam Government are working continuously for their welfare. On the 25th, I will take part in the Advantage Assam Investment Summit, which seeks to add momentum to the state’s development journey.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/21/2025 9:53 AM, 105.5M followers, 4K retweets, 16K likes]
Leadership is about duty and service. @LeadWithSOUL will shape India’s next generation of leaders for a Viksit Bharat by blending aspects of ancient wisdom with modern governance.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/21/2025 8:20 AM, 105.5M followers, 7.2K retweets, 51K likes]
Pleasure to once again meet my friend PM Tshering Tobgay. Appreciate his address at the Leadership Conclave @LeadWithSOUL. We remain committed to deepening the unique and historical partnership between India and Bhutan. @tsheringtobgay

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[2/23/2025 2:58 AM, 3.3M followers, 12 retweets, 82 likes]
My remarks at the inaugural session of conference on ‘#WomenInPeacekeeping : A Global South Perspective.’ @UNPeacekeeping #WomenPeaceSecurity https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1vAxRDodkaPGl

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[2/23/2025 10:29 PM, 3.3M followers, 306 retweets, 3K likes]
An early morning safari @kaziranga_ National Park, along with Ambassadors. Assam’s natural wildlife scenes are indeed stunning and pristine. Next stop- Advantage Assam 2.0.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[2/23/2025 6:44 AM, 3.3M followers, 114 retweets, 901 likes]
Delighted to interact with students of @IITBHU_Varanasi, alongside foreign Ambassadors. Underlined growing expectations of and responsibilities as India’s engagement with the world deepens. And how our traditions and culture will continue to shape our foreign policy.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[2/23/2025 2:39 AM, 3.3M followers, 201 retweets, 1.2K likes]
Pleased to interact with delegates, while joining foreign ambassadors, participating in @KTSangamam 3.0 in our spiritual capital Varanasi. #KashiTamilSangamam is a celebration of the special age old connect between Kashi and Tamil Nadu. It reflects the underlying beliefs, cultures and traditions driving #EkBharatShreshtaBharat.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[2/22/2025 9:24 AM, 3.3M followers, 158 retweets, 909 likes]
Enjoyed discussing my book #WhyBharatMatters today @dulitfest.
Underlined that:
- Foreign policy today impacts and matters to every Indian.
- A more chaotic world needs a nimble and flexible diplomacy.
- India should think through its own solutions and draw on its culture and heritage

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[2/22/2025 9:01 AM, 3.3M followers, 221 retweets, 1.7K likes]
Pleased to address the 12th International Health Dialogue in New Delhi today. Highlighted India’s many contribution to global health security, as a first responder, a development partner, a supply chain link, a health solution provider, a knowledge centre and exemplar. Confident that the conference imbibed a stronger sense of purpose, a greater awareness and fostered experience sharing for advancing international health cooperation.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[2/23/2025 6:57 AM, 3.3M followers, 130 retweets, 687 likes]
Spoke at the G20 FMM session III on G20@20.
Highlighted that:
- G20 must retain its leadership and be accurately reflective of global challenges in their entirety.
- Priorities of the South African Presidency jell with what India has advocated.
- Indian initiatives on disaster response, debt sustainability, just energy transition, critical minerals and inclusive growth has allowed developmental issues to maintain their salience in the global agenda.
Confident that G20 will continue to provide leadership and solutions on the key issues of our times. India will surely be working in this direction. : https://mea.gov.in/Speeches-State

Rahul Gandhi
@RahulGandhi
[2/23/2025 10:46 AM, 27.6M followers, 3.4K retweets, 12K likes]
Deeply distressed to learn about the tunnel roof collapse in Telangana. My thoughts are with those trapped inside and their families at this difficult time. I have been informed that rescue operations are underway, and the state government along with disaster relief teams are doing everything possible to expeditiously bring back those in danger.
NSB
Chief Adviser of the Government of Bangladesh
@ChiefAdviserGoB
[2/22/2025 4:55 AM, 116.6K followers, 345 retweets, 2.6K likes]
Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus has invited top US businessman and Chief Executive Officer of SpaceX @elonmusk to visit Bangladesh and launch Starlink satellite service in the country. #Bangladesh #ChiefAdviser #Starlink

Sabria Chowdhury Balland
@sabriaballand
[2/23/2025 12:30 PM, 7.8K followers]
#Bangladesh Chief Adviser Prof Muhammad Yunus today (23 February) sought the UN Special Envoy’s support to help ease the humanitarian crisis in the civil war-wracked Rakhine state and prevent the influx of new #Rohingya refugees fleeing Western Myanmar.

Sabria Chowdhury Balland
@sabriaballand
[2/22/2025 9:46 AM, 7.8K followers, 2 retweets]
In my new piece, I analyze what could be the #Trump administration’s relationship with #Bangladesh: The Trump administration’s foreign policy and Bangladesh https://www.dhakatribune.com/374442

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[2/24/2025 1:09 AM, 112.1K followers, 58 retweets, 57 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu meets with the residents of Dh. Maaen’boodhoo. The President reaffirmed his Administration’s unwavering dedication to fulfilling his pledges. #RayyithunGaathah #DhaaluVisit

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[2/24/2025 12:22 AM, 112.1K followers, 75 retweets, 72 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu meets with the Maaen’boodhoo Island Council, Women’s Development Committee (WDC), and Heads of Institutions. The President assured them that the Administration would address all issues raised during the meeting. #RayyithunGaathah #DhaaluVisit

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[2/24/2025 12:17 AM, 112.1K followers, 92 retweets, 86 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu inaugurates the new @bankofmaldives ATM service on Dh. Maaen’boodhoo. During this year’s Presidential Address, he reaffirmed the Government’s commitment to strengthening essential services, including accessible banking across all inhabited islands. In line with this commitment, this initiative enhances financial connectivity and convenience for all Maldivians. #RayyithunGaathah #DhaaluVisit

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[2/23/2025 11:48 PM, 112.1K followers, 89 retweets, 94 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu inaugurates the Dh. Maaen’boodhoo Health Centre extension project. The new wing features a public health unit, offices, a garage, laundry facilities, medical and non-medical storage areas, and a conference hall. This initiative will significantly enhance healthcare services for island residents by providing improved facilities and extended service hours. #RayyithunGaathah #DhaaluVisit

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[2/23/2025 12:32 PM, 112.1K followers, 121 retweets, 119 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu meets with the residents of Kudahuvadhoo of South Nilandhe Atoll. The President reassured the Administration’s commitment to carrying out developmental projects in all islands nationwide. #RayyithunGaathah #DhaaluVisit

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[2/23/2025 12:12 PM, 112.1K followers, 131 retweets, 126 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu attends the signing ceremony for the development of a commercial port in Kudahuvadhoo, a project aimed at enhancing trade, boosting economic growth, and strengthening the nation’s logistics and connectivity. #RayyithunGaathah #DhaaluVisit

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maldives
@BDMOFA
[2/23/2025 7:25 AM, 73.3K followers, 5 retweets, 110 likes]
Ambassador Tracey Ann Jacobson, Chargé d’Affaires a.i. of the United States Embassy in Dhaka, called on Foreign Secretary Ambassador Md. Jashim Uddin today at his office. Ambassador Jacobson conveyed the commitment of the US Administration in the ongoing democratic transformation and strengthening Bangladesh-US relationship in the areas of mutual interest including trade, investment, development cooperation, energy security, public health as well as institution building and forcibly displaced Rohingyas. Having welcomed the US CDA, the Foreign Secretary reiterated the commitment of the Interim Government led by Professor Muhammad Yunus to arrange a free, fair, and credible election. They also discussed issues relating to the Ukraine- Russia War.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake
@anuradisanayake
[2/23/2025 5:40 AM, 145.8K followers, 20 retweets, 175 likes]
Today (23), I had the privilege of visiting the historic Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic in Kandy to pay homage and receive blessings. I’m pleased to announce a special exposition of the Sacred Tooth Relic for the public after the Sinhala and Tamil New Year! I also visited the Malwathu & Asgiriya Maha Viharayas & received the blessings of the Chief Prelates.

Karu Jayasuriya
@KaruOnline
[2/22/2025 7:41 AM, 53.8K followers, 4 retweets, 11 likes]
The rise in murders, gun violence & drug wars is a national crisis, threatening public safety & key industries like tourism. Strong, definitive, and legal action on illegal firearms is urgent. No more impunity—it’s time to reclaim our streets!
Central Asia
Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[2/21/2025 10:28 AM, 212.6K followers, 5 retweets, 15 likes]
President and Supreme Commander-in-Chief Shavkat #Mirziyoyev chaired a meeting on strengthening #Uzbekistan’s military security and defense capacity. In the coming years the focus will be placed on adapting to modern threats, including drone warfare, cyber defense, and AI-driven military technologies. Key priorities include improving combat readiness, developing a unified AI-based troop management system, enhancing military education.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[2/21/2025 5:24 AM, 212.6K followers, 3 retweets, 22 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev visited the Defense Industry Agency’s Center of Innovative Technologies to assess industrial capacities, advanced developments and #military production. New prototypes and projects were presented, with directives to integrate AI and engage the private sector. Strategic goals include enhancing quality, expanding production and strengthening Uzbekistan’s global defense market position.

Bakhtiyor Saidov
@FM_Saidov
[2/21/2025 10:46 AM, 12.9K followers, 25 retweets, 36 likes]
Together with U.S. Secretary of State H.E. @SecRubio, we had a candid and productive conversation over the phone. Discussed key topics of UZ-US bilateral and multilateral ties. Agreed that @UzbekMFA and @StateDept will continue close cooperation in expanding strategic partnership between our nations in all spheres without an exception. Building strong bridges between business communities, increasing trade volume in both directions, ensuring prosperous development in #CentralAsia and beyond were on the top of our agenda.

Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[2/23/2025 9:51 PM, 24.1K followers, 1 retweet, 3 likes]
The U.S. has trained Uzbek pilots to operate and maintain the transferred aircraft, but continued congressional funding — amounting to several million dollars — is crucial for sustained cooperation. @VOANews

Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[2/23/2025 9:28 PM, 24.1K followers, 1 retweet, 1 like]
As the Trump administration begins to engage with Central Asia, Uzbekistan has expressed eagerness to expand its strategic partnership @VOANews

Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[2/23/2025 9:28 PM, 24.1K followers, 1 retweet, 1 like]
Secretary Rubio thanked Uzbekistan for its cooperation in curbing illegal migration and its joint counterterrorism efforts. US wants to work with UZ on critical minerals among other things. https://www.state.gov/secretary-rubios-call-with-uzbekistan-foreign-minister-saidov/

Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[2/21/2025 7:37 AM, 24.1K followers, 2 retweets, 4 likes]
Uzbekistan’s Supreme Court reviewed the administrative case against individuals arrested following the assassination attempt on former presidential administration official Komil Allamjonov and dismissed it due to a lack of evidence.

{End of Report}
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