SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS
Prepared for the U.S. Department of State
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
TO: | SCA & Staff |
DATE: | Monday, January 6, 2025 6:30 AM ET |
Afghanistan
Afghans Seeking US Immigrant Visas Arrive in the Philippines (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [1/5/2025 10:57 PM, Cliff Harvey Venzon, 5.5M, Neutral]
Up to 300 Afghan nationals seeking to resettle in the US arrived in the Philippines on Monday to process their visas, part of an earlier agreement between Manila and Washington.
The Afghan nationals, including women and children, arrived via a chartered fight, according to photos released by the US Embassy in Manila.
In August, Washington said it reached a deal with Manila allowing a limited number of Afghans to transit to the Southeast Asian nation to complete their special immigrant visa processing.
Senator Imee Marcos, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s sister and chair of Senate’s foreign relations committee, had questioned the agreement, citing risks to national security and public safety. President Marcos earlier said he would like to “manifest the Filipino instinct of hospitality.”
All visa applicants completed extensive security vetting by the Philippines’ national security agencies, Manila’s Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Monday. Afghans arrive in the Philippines to complete visa processing for resettlement in US (AP)
AP [1/6/2025 4:51 AM, Aaron Favila and Eileen Ng, 456K, Neutral]
A group of Afghan nationals arrived in the Philippines on Monday to process special immigrant visas for their resettlement in the United States, as part of an agreement between Manila and Washington.
The Philippines agreed last July to temporarily host a U.S. immigrant visa processing center for a limited number of Afghan nationals aspiring to resettle in America.Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Teresita Daza said the Afghan nationals who landed in the Philippines on Monday were provided entry visas. She said they had completed extensive security vetting and undergone full medical screenings prior to their arrival.
The U.S. government will cover the costs for the Afghan nationals’ stay in the Philippines, including their food, housing, security, medical and transportation expenses, she said.
She didn’t specify how many Afghans arrived or how long the visa processing will take. Under the Philippines’ rules, visa applicants can stay for no longer than 59 days.
A senior Philippine official told The Associated Press last year that only 150 to 300 applicants would be accommodated in the Philippines under the “one-time” deal. The official who had knowledge of the negotiations agreed to speak on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authority to speak publicly.
The Afghan nationals seeking resettlement primarily worked for the U.S. government in Afghanistan or were deemed eligible for U.S. special immigrant visas but were left behind when Washington withdrew from the country and Taliban militants took back power in a chaotic period in 2021.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken first relayed the request to his Philippines counterpart in 2022, and President Joe Biden discussed the request with Philippines leader Ferdinand Marcos Jr. when he visited the U.S. last year, Philippine officials said.
Marcos has rekindled relations with the U.S. since winning the presidency by a landslide margin two years ago. In February last year, he allowed an expansion of the American military presence under a 2014 defense agreement in a decision that upset China. Emeralds for Sale: The Taliban Look Below Ground to Revive the Economy (New York Times)
New York Times [1/6/2025 12:01 AM, David Zucchino, 831K, Neutral]
In a chilly auditorium in Afghanistan, heaps of freshly mined green emeralds glowed under bright table lamps as bearded gemstone dealers inspected them for purity and quality.
An auctioneer asked for bids on the first lot, which weighed 256 carats. With that, the Taliban’s weekly gemstone auction was underway.
These sales, in the emerald-rich Panjshir Province of eastern Afghanistan, are part of an effort by the Taliban government to cash in on the country’s vast mineral and gemstone potential.
Since seizing power in August 2021, the Taliban say they have signed deals with scores of investors to mine gemstones, gold, copper, iron and other valuable minerals, like chromite. These buried treasures offer a potentially lucrative lifeline for a feeble economy.
China has led the way in investments under its Belt and Road Initiative, an aggressive effort to spread Chinese influence worldwide. Russian and Iranian investors have also signed mining licenses, filling the void left by the chaotic U.S. withdrawal in 2021.The U.S. government estimates that at least $1 trillion in mineral deposits lie beneath Afghanistan’s rugged landscape. The country is rich in copper, gold, zinc, chromite, cobalt, lithium and industrial minerals, as well as in precious and semiprecious gemstones like emeralds, rubies, sapphires, garnets and lapis lazuli.
Afghanistan also holds a trove of rare earth elements, according to the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, a U.S. agency that will close this year. Such elements are used in an array of modern technology, like mobile phones, laptops and electric vehicles.
The Taliban are trying to do what the United States could not during its 20-year occupation. The U.S. government spent nearly a billion dollars to develop mining projects in Afghanistan, but “tangible progress was negligible and not sustained,” the special inspector general concluded in a report published in January 2023.
Many of the hurdles from that time could still apply: a lack of security, poor infrastructure, corruption, inconsistent government policies and regulations, and frequent turnover of government officials.
The Taliban are nonetheless giving it a shot, desperate for revenue after Afghanistan’s precipitous loss of aid with the U.S. withdrawal.
During the war, the United States provided roughly $143 billion in development and humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, propping up the U.S.-aligned government. Since 2021, the United States has given $2.6 billion in such aid, delivered by a private contractor in shrink-wrapped cash bundles on flights to Kabul, according to the special inspector general.
The Afghan economy has shrunk by 26 percent over the past two years, the World Bank reported in April. The sharp decline in international aid, the bank said, has left Afghanistan “without any internal engines of growth.”
On top of that, the Taliban’s ban on opium production has cost farmers $1.3 billion in income, or 8 percent of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product, the World Bank said. The ban has led to the loss of 450,000 jobs and reduced land under poppy cultivation by 95 percent, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime reported.
Mining could help replace poppies as a steady revenue stream. Turkey and Qatar, along with China and Iran, have invested in iron, copper, gold and cement mines. Uzbek companies have signed deals to extract oil in northern Afghanistan, according to the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum.
The Taliban are already collecting tax from emerald sales.
Under the previous government, the emerald trade was a corrupt free-for-all. Warlords and politically connected dealers dominated the trade, and tax collection was haphazard at best.
But as the Taliban government has instituted the weekly emerald auctions, it has controlled and taxed all sales. Dealers who buy emeralds at the auctions do not receive the gems until they pay the 10 percent levy.
The Taliban are taxing other precious stones as well, including rubies and sapphires.
Rahmatullah Sharifi, a gemstone dealer who bought two sets of emeralds at the auction, said he didn’t mind paying the tax.“The government needs the money to develop the country,” he said. “The question is: Will they spend it on helping the Afghan people?”
In Panjshir Province, where most Afghan emeralds are mined, the government has issued 560 emerald licenses to foreign and Afghan investors, said Hamayoon Afghan, a spokesman for the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum.
The ministry has also granted licenses to mine rubies in Panjshir and Kabul Provinces, Mr. Afghan said, and plans are underway for emerald and precious stone licenses in three other provinces.
But many new licenses are for mines that have yet to open. And many existing mines are hobbled by poor infrastructure and a dearth of experienced engineers and technical experts.
Mr. Afghan conceded that the country needed more engineers and technicians. Foreign investors bring in experienced experts, he said, and they are obligated under licenses to employ Afghans and teach them technical and engineering skills.
Most of the emeralds bought at the weekly auctions are resold to foreign buyers, dealers said. Among the dealers buying emeralds one day in November was Haji Ghazi, who sells gemstones from a tiny cell-like room within a darkened warren of shops in downtown Kabul.
Two days after the auction, Mr. Ghazi bolted his shop’s door, closed the curtains and unlocked an ancient safe. He withdrew several caches of emeralds and rubies, each one wrapped in a plain white sheet of paper.
Mr. Ghazi’s largest set of emeralds was worth perhaps $250,000, he said. He estimated that a much smaller cache of bright rubies was worth $20,000.
In a corner, Mr. Ghazi had piled heavy chunks of rock bearing thick blue veins of lapis lazuli, a semiprecious stone. Much of the world’s supply of lapis is mined in northern Afghanistan.
Mr. Ghazi sells most of his gemstones to buyers from the United Arab Emirates, India, Iran and Thailand. He said he missed the days, before the Taliban takeover, when the occupation brought eager buyers from the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Australia.
In an adjacent shop, Azizullah Niyazi switched on a desk lamp to illuminate a collection of lapis lazuli, rubies, sapphires and emeralds spread across a small table. He was still awaiting his first customer of the morning.
Mr. Niyazi said sales were not as robust as during the 13 years he was allowed to sell gemstones one day a week from a small shop on a U.S. coalition military base. His profits soared as soldiers and civilian contractors lined up to buy gemstones every Friday — and they rarely haggled over prices, unlike Afghan or Arab buyers, he said. He paid a 7 percent tax on his profits, he said.
These days, Mr. Niyazi must travel to increase sales: He said he had opened a shop in China, where he made regular visits. In Kabul, he sells to buyers from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, as well as from Pakistan, Iran and a handful of other countries.
He has few Afghan customers.“Not many Afghans can afford to pay $1,000 or $2,000 for a stone to make a ring,” he said with a shrug. Blinken says he has ‘no apologies’ for ending America’s ‘longest war in Afghanistan’ (FOX News)
FOX News [1/5/2025 4:00 PM, Hanna Panreck, 57114K, Negative]
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he wouldn’t make any apologies for ending the war in Afghanistan, which left 13 Americans dead and the Taliban in charge, during an interview with The New York Times ahead of the Biden administration’s exit.
"I’m not at all sure that the election turned on any one or even a collection of foreign-policy issues. Most elections don’t. But leaving that aside: Americans don’t want us in conflict. They don’t want us in war. We went through 20 years where we had hundreds of thousands of Americans deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. People were tired of that, understandably. Well, when President Biden was vice president, he presided over the end of our engagement in Iraq. As president, he ended the longest war in our history, Afghanistan," he said, responding to a question about the election.
The New York Times spoke to Blinken ahead of his exit from the White House and said that Americans were skeptical of Biden’s foreign policy early on due to the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, which left more than a dozen American service members dead and led to the Taliban retaking control. The interviewer asked how the Afghanistan "failure" damaged America’s credibility.
"First, I make no apologies for ending America’s longest war. This, I think, is a signal achievement of the president’s. The fact that we will not have another generation of Americans fighting and dying in Afghanistan, that’s an important achievement in and of itself," Blinken responded.
The Times pushed back, noting that the Taliban has made it much harder for women in the country.
The interviewer said, "In every possible way, the manner in which this was done and the state in which Afghanistan has been left could not have been what the United States desired.".
"There was never going to be an easy way to extricate ourselves from 20 years of war. I think the question was what we were going to do moving forward from the withdrawal. We also had to learn lessons from Afghanistan itself," Blinken added.
The Biden administration was hit with pushback after the chaotic withdrawal. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan even reportedly offered to resign over the decision, according to The Washington Post’s David Ignatius.
Sullivan also reportedly had concerns about the exit, but ultimately said it would have been challenging no matter what they did.
"You cannot end a war like Afghanistan, where you’ve built up dependencies and pathologies, without the end being complex and challenging," Sullivan told the Post columnist. "The choice was: Leave, and it would not be easy, or stay forever.".
He added that "leaving Kabul freed the [United States] to deal with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in ways that might have been impossible if we had stayed.".
Ignatius reported that the Afghanistan withdrawal "broke the early comity" of the Biden administration’s national security team, and created a riff between Sullivan and Blinken. CNN goes on trial over its report alleging ‘black market’ for Afghan rescues (NPR)
NPR [1/5/2025 8:00 AM, David Folkenflik, 35747K, Neutral]
After the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021, many people were desperate to flee the country. CNN reported that a security consultant was among those offering to evacuate them — for a price — as part of an investigation into claims of "black market" rescue operations.
CNN’s story, which aired on Nov. 11, 2021, showed a photo of Zachary Young, head of Florida-based Nemex Enterprises. The caption below warned of "exorbitant fees" and "no guarantee of safety or success." Chief national security correspondent Alex Marquardt told viewers that CNN could not confirm that Young had successfully evacuated anyone who had paid him to leave the country.
Young has sued CNN for defamation. In his complaint, his attorneys say CNN gave him just hours to respond to its questions before it first aired that story on The Lead with Jake Tapper. They say Young had, in fact, successfully evacuated dozens of people from Afghanistan.
In rebutting those allegations in court, CNN has since cast doubt on Young’s claim of the successful evacuations. Behind the scenes, however, some editors expressed qualms about the reporting, court filings show.
The trial kicks off Monday in the Florida Panhandle, a deeply red part of the country, at a time when public perceptions of the media are increasingly ideologically polarized and the incoming president, Donald Trump, has made political and legal attacks on the press part of his regular repertoire.
Just last month, Trump settled the defamation case he had filed against ABC News — also in Florida. It focused on anchor George Stephanopoulos’ repeated characterization of Trump as being found liable for rape. In fact, the New York jury had found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation. It had declined to find Trump liable for rape.The network’s parent company, Disney, agreed to make a $15 million donation to a future Trump foundation and pay $1 million toward Trump’s legal fees to resolve the suit. Many legal observers thought Disney would have been likely to prevail in court.
On-air apology fails to satisfy
Young’s attorneys say he is a logistics and security expert who helped U.S. and European corporations and nongovernmental organizations extract people from Afghanistan during a dangerous time. His lawsuit alleges that CNN unfairly implied on the air and online through a subsequent written story and social media posts that he was profiting from illegal tactics. And in his legal complaint, his lawyers write that Young’s business has lost millions of dollars in revenues as a result of the hit to his reputation.
Four months after the initial broadcast, as Young’s lawyers demanded a retraction, CNN offered a correction on Tapper’s show. A substitute anchor told viewers that the term "black market" should not have been used in the story at all and that the network "did not intend to suggest that Mr. Young participated in a black market." The anchor, Pamela Brown, concluded by telling viewers: "We regret the error. And to Mr. Young, we apologize.".
The TV version of the story was taken down. Although Tapper was deposed under oath, no materials that have become public suggest that he had a hand in the story’s preparation or vetting.
In a statement to NPR, a CNN spokesperson said, "When all the facts come to light, we are confident we will have a verdict in our favor." The network has argued in court papers that reporters were pursuing a story that reflected Afghans’ concern that security consultants, including Young, were charging far more than they could afford to escape the country. It contends that many of the characterizations are opinions rather than factual claims. CNN also says the network has since learned more about Young that undermines his credibility.
"At the time of its reporting, CNN knew little about Young’s financials, his model, or whether he’d successfully evacuated anyone because whenever anyone [including CNN] asked Young to explain his business, he obfuscated, behaved unprofessionally, lied, and hid," CNN’s lawyers say.
They assert that Young "largely refused to cooperate with CNN’s reporting efforts, providing little in the way of information and, in many cases, providing false information.".
"CNN has since learned, through discovery in this case, that Young’s operation was very different from how he publicly portrayed it," CNN’s legal team wrote in a motion filed in August. "He never planned any evacuation or created any evacuation procedures.".
Young’s lead attorney, Devin Freedman, counters that the case represents "a critical inflection point for anyone who values journalism.".
"It offers a chance for the media to reorient itself toward accuracy, accountability and renewed public trust — righting the ship on the misinformation and sensationalism that undermines Americans’ commitment to the truth," Freedman wrote to NPR.
CNN editors worry about the story
The story presented two Afghans who wanted to get relatives out of the country; the identities of each were hidden to protect the safety of their families. One, who was living in California, was shown in silhouette; the face of the other, interviewed by Skype in Kabul, had been digitally obscured. Each said they had sought people who could help and found it would cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Marquardt then says one of the Afghans found Young online. He says Young communicated with potential customers through LinkedIn. In one exchange, he said it would cost $75,000 to evacuate a vehicle with five or six passengers from Kabul to Pakistan. Young asks if the potential customer has a corporate sponsor and cites companies including Audible and Bloomberg as clients.
In the story, CNN flashes the LinkedIn messages on the screen. The caption below reads "AFGHANS TRYING TO FLEE TALIBAN FACE BLACK MARKETS, EXORBITANT FEES, NO GUARANTEE OF SAFETY OR SUCCESS.".
Young is the only contractor named in the story.
Young’s complaint says that his LinkedIn post is targeted toward groups with the funding to pay for evacuations. His attorneys say he does not seek to extract money from desperate individuals.
As internal CNN exchanges released in court documents show, editors at the network harbored doubts about the report. In one exchange, a senior editor signaled his concerns.
"Tell me if I’m wrong," Tom Lumley, CNN’s senior national security editor, wrote privately on Slack to a colleague on the evening of Nov. 12, 2021. It was the day after the television segment aired, but before the written piece was posted online. "I think the Alex [Marquardt] story is a mess.".
Lumley appeared to suggest that the network post the video without a written version: "I just want it to live as a TV piece and they can program the video. I’m not even sure it’s easily salvageable.".
Megan Trimble, a senior breaking news editor, replied: "No, it’s messy.".
"I’d tell you if I thought we should put [it] up," Trimble wrote, "but it has some very sweeping claims up top without the details clearly showing what’s going on.".
Lumley responded, "We can’t say whether these people are con artists or not," calling the story "incomplete.".
Trimble wrote, "I can see why it could make a quick hit video." Lumley shot back, "Needs more reporting." Trimble responded, "it’s not fleshed out for digital.".
The written piece was posted a day later.
It is not clear from the publicly available evidence how extensively the posted story was edited following those exchanges.
Yet Young’s attorneys argue that CNN drew a distinction between the journalistic care given to video pieces and written articles.
They also contend that the network did not follow its typical procedures in approving the story.
Court documents reflect that several CNN editors privately noted that the process for evaluating the story’s accuracy, fairness and context prior to broadcast or publication bypassed the inclusion of editors with knowledge of related national security matters. "Obviously this isn’t how it’s meant to work," wrote Allison Hoffman, the executive editor of CNN Politics, according to court documents.
According to court filings, Marquardt, the lead reporter, messaged an assistant managing editor, "We gonna nail this Zachary Young mf*****." The editor, Matthew Philips, who holds responsibilities for enterprise reporting and editorial standards, shot back: "gonna hold you to that cowboy!".
Separately, a CNN producer, Michael Conte, wrote to Marquardt that Young had "a punchable face"; Marquardt’s reporting colleague, Katie Bo Lillis, called Young expletives at least twice.
Legal observer: CNN should "admit you’re wrong".
The exchanges that have become public through the litigation are, by definition, incomplete and may not convey full context. But they are red flags, legal observers say. University of Florida law professor Lyrissa Lidsky calls them "damning.".
"The internal communications certainly make it sound as if the main journalist on the story wanted to ruin the plaintiff, and that there were reasons to believe that ... he was overplaying their hand factually," Lidsky, who specializes in First Amendment law, tells NPR in an email.
"My advice to CNN would be to cough it up. Settle," says Charles Glasser, former global media counsel for Bloomberg News. "Admit you’re wrong. Admit your hyperbole was out of line, and move on.".
The sufficiency of the CNN apology in March 2022 will be among the questions at issue during the trial. A Florida appeals court ruled that Young is entitled to seek punitive damages should a jury find CNN liable for defaming him. The presiding circuit court judge, William Henry, dismissed Young’s company, Nemex, as a plaintiff, because the story never named it.
The judge ruled that Young is not a public figure. If he were, his legal team’s burden of proof would be far higher, showing the reporters knew or had reason to know what they were publishing was false and harmful. (The two outside legal observers interviewed by NPR for this story suggested that might be a matter for appeal if CNN loses.) As it is, Young’s attorneys must convince the jury that CNN was negligent in failing to nail down the facts. Visit Afghanistan, land of culture, cricket and women closeted in their own homes (The Guardian – opinion)
The Guardian [1/5/2025 2:00 AM, Catherine Bennett, 12.9M, Negative]
Having denied Afghan women jobs, education and free movement, ordered them to be totally covered, banned them from parks, removed their critical healthcare and silenced them with a ban on audible speech, the Taliban have plainly reached the point where the joy of torturing half the population has to be balanced, like any sensible exercise in mass persecution, with the needs and enjoyment of the male and free.
What, for example, to do about windows? Doubly enraging to the ruling obsessives, in that they offer female slaves the pleasure of daylight as well as allowing non-residents occasional evidence of their existence, these openings do, on the other hand, benefit the women’s male owners and their sons.
To immure or not to immure? Solomon-like, the Taliban’s supreme leader has now banned windows only on walls that overlook areas where women are still, by domestic necessity, allowed outside. Until such time as Afghan women can be kept – for sex, breeding and housework – perpetually underground, the latest edict stipulates that new buildings should not have windows from which “the courtyard, kitchen, neighbour’s well and other places usually used by women” are visible.
Last week the Taliban government’s spokesman confirmed on X that, to men like himself, even a fully covered woman with, say, an erect mop, is a sexual stimulus too far. “Seeing women working in kitchens, in courtyards or collecting water from wells can lead to obscene acts.”
If, as occasionally seems the case, the Taliban do consider opinion in the outside world, they appear again to have been correct in thinking that a further inventively ghastly addition to female misery is unlikely to provoke – to a point that sheds an unhappy light on priorities in many ostensibly enlightened jurisdictions – a meaningful reprisal.
The windows edict, for instance, is still not sufficient evidence of the Taliban’s gender apartheid for the English cricket authorities to want to cancel their match against the Afghan cricket team in Lahore next month. Cricket stands firm, too, against the urgings of women’s organisations explaining that gender apartheid in Afghanistan is as egregious as the racial apartheid that once made the ICC end fixtures with South Africa’s team.
Ecstatic street celebrations after the Afghan cricketers reached the World Cup semi-finals last year confirmed that international cricket is such an important source of pride to male Afghans that, by gifting it, fellow participants remove a valuable means of influence. As for the Afghan team’s coach, Jonathan Trott, the former England cricketer, if that job does not put him in contact with the misogynistic thugs captured in the brilliant fly-on-the-wall documentary Hollywoodgate, it’s only because he has never visited the country since he took the job (in 2022, after women had already been banned from schools and the workforce) as the team play home matches in exile in UAE. But maybe, courtesy of the team’s patrons, Trott still gets to hear some of the Taliban-style bantz recorded in Hollywoodgate: “An uncovered woman is like an unwrapped chocolate.”
No less valuable for the Taliban, as they continue to disregard the UN’s feeble reminders that women are human too, is their collaboration with foreign companies equally keen to revive Afghanistan as a tourist destination. To judge by online reviews, visitor numbers to Afghanistan having soared since 2021, the torture of the female half of the population has yet to come near race apartheid as a tourism inhibitor, such that vacationers show awareness their leisure choice might be considered despicable. On the contrary, the Taliban are often presented in some itineraries and comments in an attractive light, for having made Afghanistan safe. Unless, of course, you are an Afghan woman. UN officials have reported a “sharp increase” in women’s attempted suicides, directly attributed to female despair in the face of Taliban repression.
Specialist travel companies, if they even allude to gender apartheid, are in some cases adopting euphemisms that suggest that the Taliban’s continually intensifying attack on women’s human dignity is one of those fascinating cultural differences, like living in a tent or a team game with a dead goat, that makes adventure holidays so rewarding. The country’s very troubles, without going into who suffers at whose hands, only testify to the visitor’s personal taste for authentic, challenging travel.
Campaigners once headlined a factsheet dissuading visits to South Africa “Apartheid is no holiday”. It is now. Richard Bennett, the UN’s special rapporteur on Afghanistan, has concluded that the Taliban’s deprivations of human rights and their enforcement “may amount to crimes against humanity, in particular the crime of gender persecution”. But the very nature of that persecution, by erasure from public life, assists apparent attempts at normalisation by specialist travel companies, who urge visitors to “see beyond the turbulent current era and experience a beautiful country with a rich cultural history”. Although it would have been richer still, obviously, if the Taliban hadn’t blown up the Buddhas of Bamiyan, in 2001.
Now the Taliban are themselves advertised by one company as a delightful cultural attraction. One past Safarat excursion, for instance, offers “a good chance to have a chat with members of the Taliban who will accompany us on the walk”. Or else.
If no women can contribute, being banned from chatting, it could not be clearer from reviews on TripAdvisor and elsewhere that many current holidaymakers require, for whatever reason, even less encouragement to overlook human rights anomalies than did visitors to apartheid South Africa. In contrast to earlier tourists, or idiots, seeking to know the “real” USSR, real Third Reich, or real South Africa, reviews from Afghanistan suggest that zero evidence of contentment on the part of the subjugated is now required for a rewarding trip.
In the 1980s, it’s true, tour operators were not only mocking sanctions but the ANC, the Anti-Apartheid Movement, vigorous UN leadership and the UK government’s “voluntary ban” on South Africa tourism, reflecting “the strong opposition in Britain to the principles and practice of apartheid”. Women in Afghanistan are still waiting. Pakistan
A Long Fight to Keep a Closer Eye on Madrasas Unravels in Pakistan (New York Times)
New York Times [1/3/2025 4:14 PM, Zia ur-Rehman, 831K, Neutral]
They draw millions of poor Pakistani children with the simple promise of free education, meals and housing. For devout families, they offer Islamic learning rooted in ancient tradition.
But to the Pakistani government and Western counterterrorism officials, the religious seminaries known as madrasas also represent a potential threat. The institutions have long been accused of contributing to violence and radicalization, supplying recruits for the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other militant groups.
Now, Pakistan’s Islamic schools are at the center of an intense political clash — one that jeopardizes years of hard-won progress toward bringing the seminaries under the government’s regulatory umbrella.
The conflict goes back to 2019, when the government enacted a sweeping overhaul requiring madrasas to register with the Ministry of Education. The effort, meant to increase accountability for institutions that have historically operated with minimal state oversight, was strongly backed by Pakistan’s military but faced vehement resistance from Islamist political parties.
In October 2024, the largest of those parties, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, secured a deal with the government to end the registration requirement. Under the agreement, madrasas would be registered as they had been before 2019, under a colonial-era law governing charitable, scientific and educational groups. That law provides little oversight of curriculums, activities or funding.
In exchange, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam agreed to support unrelated constitutional amendments on judicial appointments that had set off a firestorm of controversy.
As the end of the year approached, however, the government had still not implemented the change. It cited concerns that reverting to the older system could undermine counterterrorism efforts, weaken oversight and breach international commitments to combat money laundering and terrorism financing.
The delay triggered threats of anti-government protests in Islamabad, the capital, adding to the government’s challenges amid frequent marches by supporters of Imran Khan, the ousted prime minister.“We are firm on the agreed madrasa registration terms and will ensure they are upheld,” Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the chief of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, warned in Parliament last month. “If the government deviates, the decision won’t be made in Parliament, but on the streets.”
Late last week, the government finally approved the new registration provision, allowing madrasas to choose between modern oversight and the colonial-era framework. The move, in effect, discards the 2019 efforts to reform religious schools in favor of short-term political stability.
When Pakistan was created 77 years ago, madrasas numbered in the dozens. They gained prominence and grew significantly in the 1980s, when U.S. and Arab funding transformed them into recruitment hubs for Islamic volunteers to fight Soviet forces in neighboring Afghanistan. Today, there are about 30,000 madrasas in Pakistan.
Many future Taliban leaders were educated in these institutions, where some teachers endorsed the anti-U.S. ideology of Al Qaeda.
Pakistan came under increased pressure to regulate the religious schools after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, said Abdur Rehman Shah, a madrasa affairs expert affiliated with Tongji University in Shanghai.“The post-9/11 war on terror and events like the 2005 London bombings raised global concerns about the lack of effective madrasa monitoring,” Mr. Shah said.
After militants attacked a military-run school in northwestern Pakistan in 2014, killing more than 145 people — mostly children — observation of madrasas became central to counterterrorism efforts. Security agencies used GPS to map the schools and carried out raids and interrogations targeting seminaries suspected of militant links, Mr. Shah said.
In 2019, the government established the new regulatory framework to curb Islamist parties’ influence over the seminary boards that govern madrasas. More than 17,500 madrasas enrolling 2.2 million students were registered with the Ministry of Education, according to official data.
Registration streamlined visa processing for international students, as madrasas attracted increasing interest not only from the Pakistani diaspora but also from students in African and Southeast Asian countries.
However, many seminaries, particularly those aligned with Islamist parties, including the country’s largest and most prominent ones, resisted integration into the formal system, citing fear of government interference in religious education.
After the government agreed last October to end the requirement for registration with the Ministry of Education, officials hesitated to move forward in part because of intensified scrutiny from the Financial Action Task Force, a global watchdog based in Paris.
The task force had placed Pakistan on its “gray list” from 2018 to 2022 for deficiencies in combating money laundering and terrorism financing — a designation that often leads to reduced foreign investment and heightened financial oversight.“F.A.T.F.’s main demand was a crackdown on terrorism financing, particularly targeting U.N.-designated individuals and entities, including their madrasas,” said Sanaa Ahmed, an assistant professor of law at the University of Calgary who researches illicit financial flows and terrorism financing.
To comply with the task force’s requirements, Pakistan in 2019 seized control of several madrasas linked to banned militant groups such as Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba.
But after more than two decades of increased examination of madrasas, education experts argue that the efforts overlook a deeper crisis: the country’s struggling public education system, which fails to meet the needs of millions of children, particularly from low-income families.
Pakistan has the second-highest number of out-of-school children globally, with 22.8 million ages 5 to 16 not attending school — 44 percent of this age group, according to UNICEF.Madrasas, supported by private donations, partly fill the gaps in the public system. For many poor families, they are the only viable option.
One recent day, in a modest building in a low-income neighborhood in southern Pakistan, the air was filled with young voices reciting verses from the Quran.
Inside, hundreds of young men — some barely in their teens — sat cross-legged on woven mats. Their heads, covered with cotton-knit caps, were bowed over Islamic books, fingers tracing the Arabic script. Some were memorizing the holy verses.
Madrasas emphasize Islamic theology, often with sectarian leanings, and Arabic, a language not widely spoken in Pakistan. While not all of the schools are linked to militancy, many promote a narrow interpretation of Islam, emphasizing doctrinal purity and the defense of Islam against other faiths.
Critical thinking and open dialogue are not primary focuses. Madrasas’ resistance to incorporating subjects like computer science or mathematics leaves graduates ill-equipped for the contemporary job market.
For many families, it is not poverty, but religious conviction, that drives them to enroll children in madrasas.“I could send my children to private schools to study computers and science, but I’m sending them to a madrasa because I want them to study Islamic education,” said Abdul Wahab, a real estate dealer in Karachi, in southern Pakistan.
Like many devout people in Pakistan, Mr. Wahab believes that a child who memorizes the Quran will bring blessings to the family, including the promise of taking 10 others to paradise in the afterlife.
Despite concerns over radicalization, madrasa administrators say they are unfairly blamed for militancy. “There are many people who go to liberal schools and are radicalized,” said Qari Shahid Gul, a teacher at a madrasa in Karachi.
He cited Saad Aziz, a graduate of a prestigious business school who was sentenced to death after confessing to involvement in several terrorist activities, including the killing of 45 members of the Ismaili sect of Shiite Islam.“Terrorism must be curbed, but scapegoating madrasas is not the solution,” Mr. Gul said. Six Killed In Blast Claimed By Pakistan Separatists: Officials (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [1/4/2025 1:21 PM, Staff, 9355K, Negative]
At least six people including Pakistani paramilitary troops were killed and scores injured on Saturday, in a bombing claimed by separatists in volatile southwestern Balochistan province, officials said.
A bus carrying paramilitary troops of the Frontier Corps (FC) was travelling from the port city of Karachi to southwestern Turbat city when it was targeted around 7km (4 miles) west of the city.
"At least six people, including FC soldiers and civilians, were killed in a bomb attack on a bus," senior local police official Rashid-ur-Rehman told Agence France-Presse.
More than 25 people were injured in the incident, he said, declining to provide further details.
A senior local security official said it was an apparent suicide attack and the paramilitary troops were targeted.The official also confirmed the death toll to AFP.Jeeyand Baloch, spokesperson for the separatist group Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), claimed responsibility for the attack, stating it was a suicide bombing targeting a Pakistani army convoy.The BLA frequently claims deadly attacks against security forces or Pakistanis from other provinces, notably Punjabis in Balochistan province.Pakistan has witnessed a dramatic uptick in attacks in recent months, particularly in Balochistan and northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.In 2024 alone, the military has reported 383 soldiers and 925 militants killed in various clashes.Security forces have been battling sectarian, ethnic and separatist violence for decades in impoverished Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.Militants have in the past targeted energy projects with foreign financing -- most notably from China -- accusing outsiders of exploiting the resource-rich region while excluding residents in the poorest part of Pakistan.In November, separatists claimed responsibility for a bombing at Quetta’s main railway station that killed at least 26 people, including 14 soldiers.In August, the BLA claimed responsibility for coordinated attacks by dozens of assailants who killed at least 39 people, one of the highest tolls to hit the region. Deadly bomb targets convoy carrying Pakistan security forces (VOA)
VOA [1/4/2025 3:45 PM, Ayaz Gul, 2717K, Negative]
Police in southwestern Pakistan said Saturday that at least four people were killed and dozens more were injured when a bomb explosion targeted both civilian and security forces vehicles.
The deadly attack occurred in the city of Turbat in the sparsely populated Balochistan province, which is well-known for its abundant natural resources. Most of the victims were reportedly members of the Frontier Corps paramilitary force. The FC protects Pakistan’s borders and handles counterinsurgency operations.
Rabia Tariq, a spokesperson for the provincial police, confirmed the casualty toll to the English-language DAWN newspaper.
Witness accounts and footage from the scene showed a convoy of vehicles traversing the city when an explosion erupted, engulfing one vehicle in flames.
An area police officer, Roshan Baloch, told VOA by phone that an explosive device was concealed within a car parked on the roadside and detonated remotely. He said that several of the wounded people were transferred to a local hospital in critical condition.
The Baloch Liberation Army, a separatist organization, swiftly claimed responsibility for the attack, asserting that one of its suicide bombers was the perpetrator. The veracity of the claim could not be ascertained immediately.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the bombing and expressed his condolences to the families of those "martyred in the bomb explosion," his office said in a statement in Islamabad, the national capital.
Balochistan, the largest province in Pakistan, has regularly experienced attacks claimed by or blamed on the BLA and several smaller ethnic Baloch separatist groups. The insurgents justify their violent campaign, saying they are fighting for the independence of the province from Pakistan.
Separately, authorities in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province reported a gun attack on a government convoy en route to the besieged Kurram district on the Afghan border. The district deputy commissioner was among at least four individuals injured in the attack.
The victims were on their way to oversee the distribution of essential supplies, including food, fuel, and medicine, to hundreds of thousands of residents of Kurram, which has been the scene of months of violent clashes between its heavily armed Shiite and Sunni Muslim tribes in connection with a land dispute.
The violence has left hundreds of people dead and injured in recent months. The latest clashes between the rival groups prompted the provincial government to close all roads leading in and out of Kurram for weeks.
A peace deal brokered between the warring sides earlier in the week had raised hopes of sending essential supplies into the district, but Saturday’s gun attack forced authorities to halt the aid convoy. There were no claims of responsibility for the shooting incident.
Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, both bordering Afghanistan, have experienced a dramatic surge in militant attacks over the past year, killing more than 1,600 Pakistani civilians and security forces. Gunmen ambush Pakistan aid convoy despite sectarian truce (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [1/4/2025 6:00 AM, Staff, 9355K, Negative]
Gunmen ambushed a Pakistan convoy travelling to bring aid to a region besieged by sectarian fighting on Saturday, local government said, wounding several officials despite a ceasefire announced three days ago.The Kurram region of northwest Pakistan has been wracked by Sunni-Shiite violence for decades, but around 200 people have been killed since a fresh bout of fighting broke out in November.
As feuding tribes have battled with machine guns and heavy weapons, the remote and mountainous region bordering Afghanistan has been largely cut off from the outside world.
After a truce was called on January 1, the convoy was attacked while travelling to collect the first delivery of food and medical aid sent by road since November, officials said.
Kurram’s deputy commissioner was wounded "along with two other administration officials, two policemen and two Frontier Corps soldiers", local government official Motasim Billah told journalists.
He said the attack took place around 11:00am.The deputy commissioner "came under an attack by unidentified miscreants" but his "condition is out of danger" according to Muhammad Ali Saif, the spokesman of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province."The convoy has been temporarily halted due to security concerns," he added in a statement.Numerous ceasefires have been touted by the provincial government since the latest fighting broke out, only to be broken with renewed clashes hours later.Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said in a statement the attack was "a conspiracy" intended to undo the ceasefire agreed on New Year’s Day following a council of tribal leaders from both sides."Mischievous elements carried out the firing to harm the peace agreement," he said in a statement.Pakistan is a Sunni-majority country but Shiites make up between 10 and 15 percent of the population.The communities live side-by-side in Kurram, but feuding is regularly resparked over land disputes before igniting along sectarian divides.This current round of violence started in November when two separate convoys of Shiite Muslims travelling under police escort were ambushed, with 40 people killed. China-Pakistan friendship will hold fast against all weather (South China Morning Post – opinion)
South China Morning Post [1/5/2025 7:30 AM, Muhammad Asif Khan, 9355K, Neutral]
Since the launch of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a vital part of China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, China and Pakistan have proudly declared themselves "all weather" friends. Over the years, however, both nations have faced internal, economic and geopolitical challenges that tested their relationship.
Despite seismic events like the Covid-19 pandemic and shifting regional dynamics, the partnership remains central for both countries’ strategic outlooks. How did this "friendship" play out in 2024?
To begin with, the year showed the endurance of Sino-Pakistan relations. Despite geopolitical chaos, security threats and economic uncertainties, the bilateral partnership displayed resilience. The fostering of economic collaboration and people-to-people ties stood out as defining achievements.
Key milestones in the year included an upgrade of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the inauguration of the Beijing-funded Gwadar international airport, Islamabad’s hosting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit and the setting up of a "China Corner" at the library of the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad, the first such section to be established at a think tank in Pakistan.
These initiatives underscore a shared commitment to long-term cooperation. Furthermore, the year marked two significant anniversaries: 73 years of diplomatic relations and 11 years of the comprehensive strategic partnership.
The first quarter of the year proved turbulent for bilateral ties. In March, Pakistan experienced three suicide bomb attacks that were widely seen as targeting Chinese interests and personnel in the country. Among the dead were five Chinese nationals working on a Chinese-funded hydropower project. Despite the shock and gravity of these events, both governments agreed to stay optimistic about their belt and road projects, which include the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor initiative.Soon after, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said: “No attempt to sabotage China–Pakistan cooperation will ever succeed.” This determination was practically proven when months later, both countries decided to upgrade the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.The first phase of the initiative, launched in 2015, primarily focused on infrastructure development, addressing energy shortages and expanding road networks across Pakistan. This phase successfully delivered 38 completed projects worth US$25.2 billion, with 26 ongoing projects valued at US$26.8 billion. The second phase, dubbed CPEC 2.0, is expected to take a more holistic approach, emphasising five strategic corridors.These are named the innovation corridor, green corridor, livelihood-enhancing corridor, growth corridor and opening-up/regional connectivity corridor. These projects, which broadly align with the UN sustainable development goals, have the potential to transform the traditional market into a digital market system while eradicating unemployment through enhanced job opportunities.Last September, Pakistan concluded its 22nd agreement with the International Monetary Fund for multi-year economic assistance. The securing of a US$7 billion loan to avoid bankruptcy would not have been possible without the support of China, its biggest debtor. The IMF loan was conditional on the rolling over of the US$12 billion that Pakistan altogether owes China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.China’s support highlights the strategic depth of the economic partnership during Pakistan’s period of significant financial vulnerability.China is also helping Pakistan in its energy transition through nuclear power projects, including the addition of a fifth nuclear power plant at the Chasma facility in Punjab. The US$4.8 billion deal was signed in June 2023 and the power plant will be capable of producing 1,200MW of electricity a year. The project, which has begun construction, is expected to create up to 40,000 jobs.Beyond economics, both countries also progressed in their academic and cultural collaboration. For a start, Pakistan supports China’s Global Civilisational Initiative and last August, the China-Pakistan Study Centre at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad organised a seminar on it.One speaker, Xiang Yang, director of the China Study Centre at Pakistan’s National University of Science and Technology (NUST), highlighted the bilateral cultural exchanges, innovations and initiatives such as the establishment of Zhenghe College at NUST, which reflect the long history of exchanges between the two countries.Political ties between Pakistan and China reached their zenith in October when Chinese Premier Li Qiang visited Pakistan at the invitation of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. It was the highest-level official visit from China in nearly a decade. Both the premiers emphasised the maintenance of mutual trust, advancement of projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and security measures for Chinese personnel in Pakistan.They agreed to foster industrial, defence and cultural exchanges. Additionally, they expressed their support for efforts to help stabilise Afghanistan and foster its integration into the international community. The meeting concluded with 13 agreements in areas from science and technology to trade.Looking ahead, the special relationship between China and Pakistan will be further tested as China’s rivalry with the US intensifies under a second Trump presidency. With the evolution of America’s Indo-Pacific strategy, aimed at countering increased Chinese influence, Pakistan has come under criticism for its increased reliance on China.India’s government has also consistently opposed the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor initiative.Yet the trajectory of the past year shows that the governments of both China and Pakistan have the political will to remain committed to their special partnership, based on mutual interest and win-win collaboration. India
The last high-profile trip to India by the Biden administration will focus on technology (AP)
AP [1/3/2025 6:24 PM, Staff, 1129K, Negative]
National security adviser Jake Sullivan will travel to India for a visit focusing on cooperation on strategic technology, including in defense, space and artificial intelligence.
The Biden administration said Sullivan’s visit on Sunday and Monday will include a speech at the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi in which he will stress that the outgoing administration sees the U.S. partnership with India as central to its regional and global priorities, and one with support from both major political parties. It’s expected to be the last high-profile visit to India by the Biden administration.
Sullivan is expected to meet with Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
India and the U.S. launched a technology initiative in 2022 outlining collaboration on semiconductor production and developing artificial intelligence. The accord was critical in sealing a deal to allow U.S.-based General Electric to partner with India’s Hindustan Aeronautics to produce jet engines in India.
India and the U.S. have grown closer recently, in part in response to China’s growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region. Biden threw Prime Minister Narendra Modi a state dinner last year.
But ties have also been strained by U.S. prosecutors’ accusation in 2023 that an official in Modi’s government was involved in a foiled assassination plot against an activist of India’s Sikh minority in New York, and the killing of another Sikh activist in Canada. US national security adviser to discuss Chinese dams in India visit (Reuters)
Reuters [1/3/2025 7:03 PM, Kanishka Singh and Trevor Hunnicut, 48128K, Neutral]
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan’s visit to New Delhi from Jan. 5-6 is expected to include discussions with Indian counterparts about the impact of Chinese dams, a senior U.S. official said late on Friday.
Washington and its Western allies have long viewed India as a counter to China’s rising influence in Asia and beyond.
"We’ve certainly seen in many places in the Indo-Pacific that upstream dams that the Chinese have created, including in the Mekong region, can have really potentially damaging environmental but also climate impacts on downstream countries," a senior U.S. official said ahead of Sullivan’s visit.
The official added that Washington will discuss New Delhi’s concerns in the visit.
The Indian government says it has conveyed its concerns to Beijing about China’s plan to build a hydropower dam in Tibet on the Yarlung Zangbo River which flows into India. Chinese officials say that hydropower projects in Tibet will not have a major impact on the environment or on downstream water supplies.
The construction of that dam, which will be the largest of its kind in the world with an estimated capacity of 300 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, was approved last month.Washington also expects that topics such as civilian nuclear cooperation, artificial intelligence, space, military licensing and Chinese economic overcapacity will be brought up in the visit, the U.S. official said.
American officials will not be meeting the Dalai Lama during the visit, another U.S. official said.
Washington and New Delhi have built close ties in recent years with occasional differences over issues like minority abuse in India, New Delhi’s ties with Russia amid Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and alleged assassination plots against Sikh separatists on U.S. and Canadian soil. Biden’s top aide to make China-focused visit to India (VOA)
VOA [1/3/2025 8:31 PM, Patsy Widakuswara, 2717K, Neutral]
President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, will make his final visit to India next week to emphasize Washington’s partnership with New Delhi, the White House announced Friday.
The visit will cap the Biden administration’s efforts to maximize ties with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, in its strategic focus to counter China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific.
Strengthening ties with India has been a "real foreign policy priority and area of legacy achievement for the Biden administration," a senior administration official said on condition of anonymity in a briefing to reporters Friday.
Sullivan will visit New Delhi January 5-6 to discuss a range of issues, including civil nuclear partnership, China’s overcapacity on semiconductor and biopharma supply chains, strategic technology cooperation and other shared security priorities, a second administration official said.
Sullivan’s visit comes as tension is brewing between India and China over Beijing’s plan to build what it calls the "world’s largest" hydro dam on the Yarlung Zangbo River on the eastern rim of the Tibetan plateau, which could affect millions downstream in India and Bangladesh.
Sullivan is expected to discuss the dam along with other regional issues of concern, said the first administration official in response to VOA’s question. "What matters to us is that when it comes to water resources that have to be managed across countries, that those are being handled fairly and in an equitable way," the official said.
Technology initiative
A key focus of the visit is the U.S.-India initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET) – an effort that Biden and Modi announced in May 2022 to bolster their strategic technology partnership and defense-industrial cooperation between their governments, businesses and academic institutions across various domains, from AI to quantum computing, and from semiconductors to space.
Sullivan’s visit will take place just two weeks before President-elect Donald Trump assumes office January 20. Many expect iCET to continue under his administration."There is broad bipartisan support for some of the goals of iCET," said the second administration official in response to VOA’s question. They include "strengthening the resilience of technology supply chains, working with allies and partners to position ourselves to offset PRC [People Republic of China’s] advancements in certain technologies, and efforts to dominate some of the supply chains.".
The U.S. strategic partnership with New Delhi is "based upon a bet that India’s economic, technological and military rise is critical to pushing back and containing China’s dominance in these fields," said Aparna Pande, director of the Initiative on the Future of India and South Asia at the Hudson Institute.
Irritants have not derailed bilateral ties. Those include India’s democratic backsliding, and the case of a former Indian government employee charged in New York last year with murder-for-hire over his role in directing a foiled plot to assassinate a Sikh separatist and Modi critic.
Most of Biden’s policies on India will likely continue, Pande told VOA, as Trump’s desire to "push back or contain China’s rise – economic, technological and military – will help ensure that India is seen as a partner in this endeavor.".
During his first administration, Trump had a warm relationship with Modi. Trump attended a 2019 "Howdy Modi" rally in Texas, and Modi reciprocated by hosting a "Namaste Trump" rally in Ahmedabad in 2020. India says it conveyed concerns to China over hydropower dam in Tibet (Reuters)
Reuters [1/3/2025 7:18 AM, Sakshi Dayal and Sudipto Ganguly, 5.2M, Neutral]
India’s foreign ministry said on Friday that New Delhi has conveyed its concerns to Beijing about China’s plan to build a hydropower dam in Tibet on the Yarlung Zangbo river which flows into India.
Chinese officials say that hydropower projects in Tibet will not have a major impact on the environment or on downstream water supplies but India and Bangladesh have nevertheless raised concerns about the dam.
The Yarlung Zangbo becomes the Brahmaputra river as it leaves Tibet and flows south into India’s Arunachal Pradesh and Assam states and finally into Bangladesh.
"The Chinese side has been urged to ensure that the interests of downstream states of the Brahmaputra are not harmed by activities in upstream areas," Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told a weekly media briefing.
"We will continue to monitor and take necessary measures to protect our interests," he said.
The construction of the dam, which will be the largest of its kind in the world with an estimated capacity of 300 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, was approved last month.
Jaiswal said that New Delhi had also lodged a "solemn protest" with Beijing against its creation of two new counties - one of which includes a disputed area also claimed by India - last month."Creation of new counties will neither have a bearing on India’s longstanding and consistent position regarding our sovereignty over the area nor lend legitimacy to China’s illegal and forcible occupation of the same," he said.
Relations between Asian giants India and China, that were strained after a deadly military clash on their disputed border in 2020, have been on the mend since they reached an agreement in October to pull back troops from their last two stand-off points in the western Himalayas.
The two armies have stepped back following the agreement and senior officials held formal talks for the first time in five years last month where they agreed to take small steps to improve relations. India says US H1B visas benefit both countries after Trump, Musk backing (Reuters)
Reuters [1/3/2025 7:08 AM, Krishna N. Das, 5.2M, Neutral]
The movement of skilled professionals is an important part of India-U.S. ties and benefits both countries, New Delhi said on Friday amid a debate over H-1B visas on which President-elect Donald Trump and his backer Elon Musk commented recently.
India, known for its massive pool of IT professionals, many of whom work across the world, accounts for the bulk of such visas issued by the United States.
Late last month, Trump said he fully backed the H1B programme for foreign workers opposed by some of his supporters after Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla (TSLA.O) and SpaceX, vowed to go to "war" to defend it.
India said such visas provided mutual benefits.
"Our countries have a strong and growing economic and technological partnership and within this ambit, mobility of skilled professionals is an important component," India’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, told a press conference when asked about the H1B visa discussions in the U.S.
"India-U.S economic ties benefit a lot from the technical expertise provided by skilled professionals, with both sides leveraging their strengths and competitive value. We look forward to further deepening India-U.S economic ties which are to our mutual benefit."
India received about 78% of the 265,777 H1B visas issued by the United States in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2023.
The country is keen to strengthen ties under Trump, Jaiswal said, noting that India’s foreign minister and foreign secretary recently visited the United States and held meetings with Trump’s transition team. Body of missing Indian journalist found in septic tank (BBC)
BBC [1/5/2025 11:20 AM, Anbarasan Ethirajan, 76163K, Negative]
The body of an Indian journalist who had reported on alleged corruption in the country has been found in a septic tank in Chhattisgarh state.Mukesh Chandrakar, 32, went missing on New Year’s Day and his family registered a complaint with the police.
His body was found on Friday in the compound of a road construction contractor in the Bijapur town area after officers tracked his mobile phone.
Three people have been arrested in connection with his death, reportedly including two of his relatives. A media watchdog has demanded a thorough investigation.
Police in the Bijapur district did not find anything during an initial visit to the compound on 2 January.
"However, after further inspection on 3 January, we discovered Mukesh’s body in the newly floored septic tank near the badminton court," a senior police officer said, referring to the fact concrete slabs had been placed on top of the tank.
Police said his body showed severe injuries consistent with a blunt-force attack.
Mr Chandrakar, a freelance journalist, had reported widely on alleged corruption in public construction projects.
He also ran a popular YouTube channel, Bastar Junction.
Following his death, the Press Council of India called for a report "on the facts of the case" from the state’s government.
The chief minister of the state described Mr Chandrakar’s death as "heartbreaking".
In a post on X, he said a special investigation team had been formed to investigate the case.
It has been reported in Indian media that one of those under arrest over the journalist’s death is his cousin.
One of the main suspects - compound owner Suresh Chandrakar, also a relative - is on the run.
Local journalists have held a protest demanding strict action against the alleged perpetrators.
Attacks on journalists reporting on corruption or environmental degradation is not uncommon in India.
In May 2022, Subhash Kumar Mahto, a freelance journalist known for his reporting on people involved in illegal sand mining, was fatally shot in the head by four unidentified men outside his home in Bihar.
Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders has said that an average of three or four journalists are killed in connection with their work in India every year, making it one of the world’s most dangerous countries for the media. Mukesh Chandrakar: Indian media bodies seek probe into murder of journalist (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera [1/5/2025 8:16 AM, Staff, 19588K, Negative]
India’s media watchdog and other journalism organisations have demanded a thorough investigation after the body of a freelance journalist, who had exposed alleged corruption in a road construction project, was found stuffed in a septic tank in Bijapur in the central state of Chhattisgarh.Police have arrested at least three people, including two of his cousins, in connection with the murder of Mukesh Chandrakar, 28.Chandrakar had reported widely on corruption and Maoist rebellion in the mineral-rich state. He ran a popular YouTube channel “Bastar Junction”.The Press Council of India expressed “concern” over Chandrakar’s killing, calling for a report on the “facts of the case” in a statement late on Saturday.The Editors Guild of India also said it was “deeply disturbed” by the development. “The safety of journalists – especially those working in smaller towns and rural areas – is of paramount importance,” it said in a statement.“The Editors Guild calls on the government of Chhattisgarh to spare no efforts in investigating the case speedily and bringing the guilty to book.”Chandrakar’s body was found on January 3 in Bijapur after police tracked his mobile phone records following his family reporting him missing.Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai, from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), called Chandrakar’s death “heartbreaking” and promised the “harshest punishment” for those found responsible.Congress party leader Priyanka Gandhi expressed her shock at the incident and demanded strict action against the perpetrators.“I demand from the state government that strict and immediate action should be taken in this case, the culprits should be given severe punishment and proper compensation and job should be considered for the family of the deceased,” she said.India was ranked 159th last year on the World Press Freedom Index, run by Reporters Without Borders. Indian press groups call for investigation after journalist’s body found in septic tank (The Guardian)
The Guardian [1/6/2025 1:34 AM, Hannah Ellis-Petersen, 12.9M, Neutral]
Indian media rights groups have called for an investigation after the body of a missing journalist was found hidden in a septic tank.
Mukesh Chandrakar, 32, was a well-known freelance journalist in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh who contributed to some of the country’s biggest news channels. He had also widely reported on alleged corruption in the construction industry on his popular YouTube channel.
His family had reported Chandrakar missing on New Year’s Day. On Friday, police found his body in the compound of a construction contractor in the town of Bijapur.
According to local police, his body was found in a septic tank that had concrete slabs newly placed on top of it. Officers said Chandrakar’s body showed evidence of a blunt force attack, indicating foul play in his killing.
Police told Indian media they suspected Chandrakar’s death was related to a recent report he had done into an alleged road construction scam in Bijapur which had resulted in a police investigation.
Three people have been arrested so far over Chandrakar’s death and another of the main suspects, Suresh Chandrakar, who owned the construction compound where Chandrakar’s body was found, is still on the run, police have said.
The discovery of his body prompted an outpouring of anger among Indian press watchdogs and local journalists, who held a protest in the state. In a statement, the Press Council of India expressed concern over the suspected murder of Chandrakar and called for a report on the “facts of the case”.
The president of the local Bastar Journalist Association, Manish Gupta, described the incident as a “dark chapter” and called on the police and government to provide better safety to journalists working in dangerous environments in the state.
Vishnu Deo Sai, the chief minister of Chhattisgarh from the ruling Bharatiya Janata party, called Chandrakar’s death “heartbreaking” and promised the “harshest punishment” for those found responsible.
India remains a highly dangerous place for journalists, according to global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, with 28 journalists killed over the past decade due to their reporting. India steps up security after annexation threat from Bangladesh (The Telegraph)
The Telegraph [1/4/2025 2:12 PM, Aditya Anand Kumar and Zia Chowdhury, 57114K, Negative]
India has stepped up security on its border with Bangladesh after an official in the country’s new government threatened to annex part of the north-east.
Mahfuz Alam, a senior adviser to new interim leader Muhammad Yunus, accused the Indian government in a Facebook post on Dec 16 of "ghettoising" and "colonising" the population in West Bengal, Tripura and Assam.
Bengali-speaking Muslims are the largest minority in all three states.
For Bangladesh to succeed as a country following the overthrow last year of pro-India prime minister Sheikh Hasina, it must grow geographically, Mr Alam wrote.
"A small, limited, landlocked" nation, he argued, would be doomed to fail, adding that the culture of north-east India has more in common with Muslim-dominated Dhaka than Hindu-majority Delhi.
Mahfuz Alam accused the Indian government of ‘ghettoising’ and ‘colonising’ the population in West Bengal, Tripura and Assam - Nahid Hossai/Wiki Media.
"To ensure true freedom from India," Mr Alam continued, the country needed another revolution, posting a picture of a map where Bangladesh’s borders extended across the three states.
The Facebook post was deleted within two hours but it has led to a deterioration of already-tense ties between the neighbouring nations.
India’s foreign ministry said it had taken up the comments with Dhaka and a spokesperson said the remarks "underline the need for responsibility in public articulation".
On Friday, it emerged that India’s Borders Security Force (BSF) has built new floating border outposts on the rivers that cross India’s border with Bangladesh, including the Ganga, Brahmaputra and Sunderbans.
"Waters are always vulnerable," a BSF source told the New18 website on Friday. "We are patrolling the areas 24/7. More floating outposts will definitely help us. They are the need of the hour.".
India fears that Bangladesh’s new government could facilitate the movement of terrorists into the north-east through the river routes, which were used by Pakistan to ferry fighters across the border before Bangladesh gained independence in 1970.
There are also concerns over potential funding and support of separatist movements.
Ms Hasina’s ousted Awami League party included members of Bangladesh’s minority Hindu population, and she has taken refuge in India since street protests ended her 15-year rule.
The government of Hindu nationalist prime minister Narendra Modi viewed Ms Hasina as a key ally, hoping to lure Bangladesh away from closer ties with China.
Since she was ousted, Mr Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have repeatedly called on the new government in Bangladesh to protect its Hindu population amid a wave of violence.
Muhammad Yunus, the new interim leader of Bangladesh - Kazi Salahuddin Razu/NurPhoto via Getty Images.
Kirti Vardhan Singh, India’s minister for external affairs, last month estimated that 2,200 attacks against minorities including Hindu were carried out in Bangladesh until Dec 8, up from 302 last year.
The press office of Mr Yunus, an economist and Nobel laureate, called this figure exaggerated and said only 138 attacks took place until November.
With tensions rising following Mr Alam’s Facebook post, Bangladesh’s army chief, General Waker-Uz-Zaman, last week said Dhaka would do nothing to destabilise India’s north-east.
"We will not do anything with our neighbour that goes against their strategic interests," he told local newspaper Prothom Alo.
But the offer was contingent on Delhi doing "nothing that is contrary to our interests".
Hindu protesters in Kolkata at the arrest of a Bangladeshi priest - Rupak De Chowdhuri/NurPhoto via Getty Images.
Dhaka blames Mr Modi for whipping up opposition to its fledgling government.
On Dec 2, Indian demonstrators stormed Bangladesh’s diplomatic mission in the north-eastern city of Argatala, protesting against the arrest of a Hindu monk in the Bangladeshi capital.
Dhaka immediately suspended all consular services in the mission and summoned New Delhi’s envoy in protest.
"India is constantly spreading misinformation against Bangladesh and the July revolution, aiming to isolate Bangladesh internationally and portray it as an Islamist stronghold," Asif Nazrul, law minister in the interim government, told The Telegraph.
In a meeting with multiple political parties after the Agartala incident, Mr Nazrul proposed organising a rally to counter what he branded Indian propaganda.
He added: "It may be true that during the July revolution and later, a few Hindu persons were attacked or imprisoned. But the reason for these attacks was their criminal activities with the Awami League.".
Hindus make up about eight per cent of Bangladesh’s 170 million population.
On Dec 6, activists in Dhaka marched towards the Indian High Commission, calling on Delhi to stop painting Bangladesh as unsafe for minorities.
"Bangladesh is a perfect example of religious harmony and India would be the first in oppressing the minorities," Sharif Osman Hadi, an organiser of the march, told the Telegraph. "So we don’t want any big brother approach from them.
In her first public speech since her overthrow, Ms Hasina last month criticised Mr Yunus for an alleged "genocide" against minorities.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Asif Mahmud, a youth leader during the summer protests and currently an adviser in the Yunus administration, hit out at India for giving sanctuary to Ms Hasina.
"They (the Indian government) are now even giving Hasina, who is accused of crimes against humanity, state facilities," he said. "That is why Bangladeshi people are angry with the Indian government’s stance.".
When asked what could restore friendly relations between the two subcontinental neighbours, Mr Nazrul said, "Forgetting the dream of reinstalling her puppet rule, honouring Bangladesh’s sovereignty and people’s verdict expressed through the July revolution and rebuilding friendly relations with Bangladesh based on equal dignity and rights.".
Ms Hasina was toppled in early August by popular protests sparked by perceived favouritism in the allocation of prized government jobs. She ordered the army to shoot protesters before she was forced to flee, killing an estimated 400 to 800 people.
India’s foreign ministry confirmed last week that it received a request from Bangladesh to extradite Ms Hasina, but did not comment on whether it would do so. Medical victims: Indian visa curbs amid Bangladesh tensions hurt patients (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera [1/3/2025 11:19 PM, Moudud Ahmmed Sujan, 19588K, Neutral]
Khadiza Khatun’s life took a devastating turn in September when doctors at Dhaka Medical College Hospital informed her that her 37-year-old husband, Mohammad Nuri Alam, urgently needed a liver transplant – a procedure unavailable in Bangladesh.After careful research, they decided to go to India’s Asian Institute of Gastroenterology in Hyderabad, a trusted destination for many Bangladeshi patients.But three months later, they are yet to secure visas for the trip. Amid escalating tensions between India and Bangladesh since the August ouster of Sheikh Hasina, an ally of New Delhi’s, from Dhaka, Indian authorities have significantly scaled back visa operations in Bangladesh.The result: Khadiza and her husband have already missed two hospital appointments, on November 20 and December 20, and are unsure about whether they’ll be able to get to India in time for January 10, the next date the medical facility in Hyderabad has given them.“We’ve tried everything since October – approaching travel agencies, seeking help from friends in government,” she told Al Jazeera. “India remains our only hope.”Faced with unaffordable treatment options in Thailand and other countries, Khadiza is left watching her husband’s health deteriorate while relying on daily symptomatic treatment in Dhaka hospitals – hoping that the new year will bring her the visas her husband and she desperately need. “I feel helpless, running between hospitals without a solution,” said the mother of two.Khadiza’s struggle reflects a larger crisis affecting thousands of Bangladeshi patients, who rely on India’s affordable healthcare, because of the visa restrictions introduced by the Indian authorities. The Indian visa centre, on its website, says that it is only “offering limited appointment slots for Bangladesh nationals requiring urgent medical and student visas” and is “currently processing only a limited number of visas of emergency and humanitarian nature”.According to an Indian visa centre official in Bangladesh, daily online visa slots across five Indian visa centres in Bangladesh, including Dhaka, have “plummeted to around 500” from over 7,000 since the onset of the protests in July that led to Hasina’s removal from office.For many Bangladeshis, like Khadiza, the real likelihood of getting visas feels even slimmer.The slide in tiesIndia-Bangladesh relations have deteriorated since Hasina fled the country for New Delhi on August 5 after a weeks-long student-led protest against her increasingly authoritarian rule.India has since sheltered Hasina, straining ties – the interim Bangladesh government of Nobel laureate, Muhammad Yunus, last week sent New Delhi a diplomatic note seeking her extradition.Meanwhile, the Indian government has told Bangladesh it is concerned about a spate of attacks against Bangladeshi Hindus. Dhaka, on its part, insists that most attacks have been political in nature – against perceived supporters of Sheikh Hasina – rather than religious in their character. Bangladesh has also accused Indian media channels of exaggerating the scale of violence against Hindus.These tensions between the two governments have also impacted visa issuances. On August 26, a protest broke out at the Indian visa centre in Dhaka over processing delays, after the authority resumed “limited operations” in protest-hit Bangladesh on August 13. Across the border, a Bangladeshi diplomatic mission in the northeast Indian city of Agartala was attacked by a mob in early December, prompting a strong protest from Dhaka.On January 1, the usually bustling premises of the Indian visa centre in Dhaka appeared nearly deserted. Only a few applicants were waiting to submit their documents. Most applicants received calls to submit their visa applications and fees at the visa centre after manually providing a copy to the Indian High Commission in Dhaka days earlier.However, Khadiza, who followed the same process a month ago, was unsuccessful. A visa centre official told Al Jazeera that the high commission has begun accepting more emergency applications, though online submission options remain limited.Some Bangladeshis, who delayed their travel to India for treatment as they waited for tensions to ease, are now stuck with expired visas.“My and my wife’s visas were valid until December 10, but we didn’t travel then due to tensions over Bangladesh-related issues in India,” said 40-year-old Shariful Islam, from Joypurhat in northwestern Bangladesh.Islam suffers from a lung disease. He and five other family members – each with their own health issues, including his wife and father – have for the past four years been travelling regularly to the eastern Indian city of Kolkata and the southern city of Vellore for medical treatment.In a rural area of Joypurhat, Ridowan Hossain, who runs a visa support agency, has meanwhile been struggling to secure visa appointment slots for patients, including a cancer patient urgently seeking treatment in India. Over 10 days, he repeatedly attempted to complete the online application process but consistently faced failures at the payment stage, he said.When he called a helpline, he said he was just told to try again.“I process over 300 Indian visas annually, but I haven’t been able to process a single one since July,” he said.Now, many Bangladeshi patients are seeking alternative treatment options in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Turkiye.Mazadul Noyon, manager of Suea Noi Fit & Fly, a Bangkok-based medical and tour operator agency, told Al Jazeera that inquiries from Bangladesh have doubled compared to before August. “Although around 80 percent of patients consider Thailand after failing to secure an Indian visa, most abandon the idea upon learning of the 10-15 times higher costs in Thailand,” he said.For example, the initial treatment cost for Khadiza’s husband – covering diagnosis, medicine, consultation, and related expenses – along with travel and accommodation, would range from US$1,000 to US$2,000 in India, compared to at least US$10,000 to US$15,000 in Thailand.For a cardiac ring implant, costs in Thailand range from $5,000 to $20,000 – depending on the hospital, excluding travel and accommodation. In India, $2,000 covers top-quality rings and medical care. The cost of these procedures is even higher in countries like Malaysia, Singapore and Turkiye, making them unaffordable for most Bangladeshis.A lose-lose situationBut it isn’t just Bangladeshi patients who are suffering – India’s “medical tourism” industry, which offers high-quality treatment to patients from the developing world at relatively lower prices than in the West, has taken a hit too.Industry data shows that 60 percent of India’s two million international patients annually are from Bangladesh. However, since late August, the number of Bangladeshi patients has dropped by 80 percent. India’s medical tourism industry was worth an estimated $9bn in 2023.Amitabha Chattopadhyay, a paediatric cardiologist at Narayana Superspeciality Hospital in Kolkata, told Al Jazeera that his hospital has seen a 5 percent decline in Bangladeshi patients.“But the hospitals treating chronic conditions are facing even greater challenges,” he said.Hospitals in Kolkata, the nearest city to Bangladesh and culturally similar, are the worst affected.At Peerless Hospital, a 500-bed multi-speciality hospital in Kolkata, daily outpatient visits from Bangladeshi patients have dropped from 150 to under 30, with nearly no admissions, The Print, an Indian digital publication, has reported, citing the hospital’s CEO, Sudipta Mitra.Other key impacted hospitals include Narayana Health in Bengaluru, Apollo in Chennai, and Christian Medical College in Vellore, according to Alexander Thomas from the Association of Healthcare Providers of India.Meanwhile, two hospitals in Kolkata and Tripura reportedly refused Bangladeshi patients, citing alleged disrespect to the Indian flag, further straining ties, according to local news reports in early December.‘Very difficult’Touhid Hossain, the acting head of Bangladesh’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, acknowledged that the country’s patients were struggling because of Indian visa restrictions.“Not just difficult. It has become very difficult,” Hossain told Al Jazeera.M Humayun Kabir, a former diplomat and president of Bangladesh Enterprise Institute who previously served at the Bangladesh mission in Kolkata, echoed this sentiment.“Emergency visas were supposed to be processed, but I’ve received reports otherwise … It appears there hasn’t much opportunity to obtain [Indian] visas,” he told Al Jazeera.Bilateral relations appeared to be thawing when Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri visited Dhaka on December 9, marking the first high-level meeting between India and Bangladesh since the recent political changes in Bangladesh.Hossain confirmed that Bangladeshi authorities raised visa-related concerns with their Indian counterparts during the visit. “They assured us that they would increase visa issuance and prioritise urgent cases,” he said.Yet there has been no change so far, say patients and visa agents.India’s Foreign Ministry and the High Commission of India in Dhaka did not respond to a request from Al Jazeera for comments on the criticism of New Delhi over visa restrictions.But during a meeting with diplomatic correspondents in Dhaka on December 24, Indian High Commissioner Pranay Verma claimed that India’s visa issuance in Bangladesh still surpasses that of “probably all other embassies combined”.He also said that he remains optimistic about the future of Dhaka-New Delhi relations – a sentiment that Hossain, the de facto foreign minister of Bangladesh, echoed when speaking with Al Jazeera.Analysts, however, remain sceptical.“Both parties speak about good relations, but the reality suggests otherwise,” said Snigdhendu Bhattacharya, an independent Indian journalist specialising in South Asian issues.Kabir, the retired Bangladesh diplomat, said he hoped the two governments would be able to insulate visa issuances from their broader diplomatic tensions.If they don’t, the neighbours could face consequences, he cautioned.“Such stances create a negative mindset among the public and can harm long-term people-to-people relations,” Kabir said.But Khadiza doesn’t have the luxury of waiting much longer.“The visa support agency still hasn’t submitted the application,” she said, her voice heavy with disappointment. She’s mentally preparing herself for the update that the application couldn’t be submitted – even as the clock ticks away for Alam, her husband. India rises as destination for Japanese business growth (Nikkei Asia)
Nikkei Asia [1/5/2025 8:40 AM, Shigeru Seno, 1286K, Neutral]
India has become one of the most promising markets for Japanese companies, business surveys show, with the country’s rise reflecting the waning appeal of China as an investment destination even as it presents a different set of risks.
India topped a list of countries where Japanese companies plan to expand in the next one to two years, with 80.3% of respondents saying they are looking to grow there, according to a survey released by the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) in November. This is a 4.7-point increase from the previous year’s survey.The share for China, meanwhile, fell to 21.7%, the lowest in comparable data going back to 2007. In Thailand, where the political situation is unstable, the share of Japanese businesses planning to scale up fell by 8.1 points from the previous year to 34.1%."We’re continuing to see an India boom," said Masashi Kono of JETRO’s research department.Earnings growth is underpinning these expansion plans. In the same JETRO survey, 55.0% of responding companies expected higher operating profits in India in 2024, the highest share for any economy.The percentage of companies forecasting an operating profit in India rose by 6.8 points to 77.7%, marking the highest level since 2008.According to the Japan Bank for International Cooperation’s (JBIC) "Outlook for Japanese Foreign Direct Investment" released in December, 58.7% of Japanese manufacturers saw India as a "promising country" over the next three years.This figure marks a 10.1-point increase on the previous year, and represents the third consecutive year that India ranked first by this measure. In the same survey, the percentage for China fell to an all-time low of 17.4%.The trend comes as India is enjoying strong economic growth. The world’s most populous nation expanded at 8.2% in real terms in 2023, according to the International Monetary Fund. The pace of growth is projected to slow to 7.0% in 2024 and to 6.5% in 2025, but remain among the fastest in the world.The IMF expects India’s nominal gross domestic product to surpass Japan’s in 2026, making India the fourth-largest economy, after the U.S., China and Germany. India is on track to overtake Germany and become the third-largest economy in 2028.With India’s middle class all but guaranteed to expand rapidly in the coming years, Japanese companies are eager to ride a groundswell of demand in a nation of more than 1.4 billion people.There are some signs of uncertainty, however.Cracks have emerged in the government’s once-solid base of power. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party lost seats in the legislature in last year’s general election. More recently, bribery allegations surrounding the conglomerate Adani Group have raised fresh concerns about opaque business practices in India.Although Indian government data indicates that overall foreign direct investment into India decreased in 2023, investment from Japan has been increasing steadily. The amount of Japanese investment between January and October 2024 already exceeded that of the 2022 calendar year, according to Japan’s finance ministry.There are still risks associated with doing business in India. In recent years, government agencies have been rapidly expanding the scope of products subject to Bureau of Indian Standards certification, without which goods cannot be imported.Some observers see this as a way to curb imports from China and boost domestic manufacturing, but it has a broad impact.Japanese companies with complex supply chains extending into Southeast Asia, for example, often export components to India for assembly into finished goods. With more products now requiring certification, some of these businesses say they cannot ship parts into India from Japan, forcing them to change their production plans.Other new challenges to doing business in India are emerging, including high labor costs and rising employee turnover. These come atop cumbersome tax rules that have long been a hurdle for foreign multinationals.The number of Japanese companies operating in India has been edging down and may be at a plateau. While Japanese companies are increasing their outposts in India, most of this growth is by those already in the market, not newcomers.Japanese companies that have stuck with the Indian market are finally seeing some rewards for their efforts, according to the JETRO survey.About 90% of Japanese manufacturers operating in India for a decade or longer are forecasting operating profits, versus only about 60% of those there for less than 10 years.A long road to profitability may be deterring smaller companies from taking the risk. Small and midsize enterprises make up only about 15% of Japanese companies operating in the country. Why Trump’s blow-hot, blow-cold on China worries India (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera [1/5/2025 4:14 PM, Sanjay Kapoor, 19.6M, Neutral]
When China announced the creation of new counties last week, it marked out borders that included swaths of land that India claims as part of Ladakh, a region administered federally by New Delhi.
India was quick to respond with a public protest. The country’s Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, said New Delhi had “never accepted the illegal Chinese occupation of Indian territory in this area”. China’s announcement, he said, would not give any “legitimacy” to Beijing’s territorial claims.
The latest spat between the Asian giants underscores the fragility of a detente they declared along their contested border in October, after a four-year-long eyeball-to-eyeball standoff between their troops. The neighbours withdrew many of their soldiers, even though questions about the future of land that was previously Indian-controlled but that China has allegedly grabbed since 2020 remain unanswered by both sides.
Now, the India-China relationship appears poised for another big test, say analysts: United States President-elect Donald Trump.
Trump, who effectively launched a trade war with China in his first term, has threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs on imports from China. But while describing Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a “good man”, Trump has also threatened tariffs against India.
As the date of his inauguration – January 20 – approaches, Trump appears to have mellowed a little on China, a country central to the business interests of the incoming US president’s ally, billionaire Elon Musk, who is poised to also have a role in the administration. All of that is sparking unease in sections of India’s strategic community.
Trump “has the tendency to flatter his enemies and unsettle his friends”, said Jayant Prasad, a former Indian diplomat.
In November, soon after winning the US presidential election, Trump said he would “save” the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok, which he had once sought to ban. Trump has also extended an invite to Chinese President Xi Jinping for his inauguration. Beijing has neither accepted nor – at least publicly – rejected the invitation, though some analysts have said that Xi is unlikely to turn up.
On the other hand, Trump is not known to have sent a similar invitation to Modi, with whom the US leader held two joint rallies in 2019 and 2020, in Houston and the Indian city of Ahmedabad. Indian social media is full of memes mocking Modi, suggesting that Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar’s visit to Washington late last month was aimed at pleading with team Trump for an invitation for his boss.
Trump’s ambivalence towards China troubles New Delhi, said analysts, who warned that either extreme – an extra-harsh anti-China campaign from Washington or a deal with Beijing – would be bad for India.“There are twin dangers for India in the second [Trump] term,” said Christopher Clary, non-resident fellow of the Stimson Center, and an associate professor of political science at the University of Albany.“Trump and his team might be more hawkish than New Delhi’s preferences, especially on trade and investment flows that compel India to make choices it would not like to make,” he told Al Jazeera. “Alternatively, it [Trump’s team] may try to make a grand bargain with China to burnish his credentials as the ultimate deal maker. It would leave India in the lurch.”
Prasad too said that while he expected India-US relations to stay strong, there could be hiccups if Trump decides to strengthen ties with Beijing.
In an editorial, the Global Times, the Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpiece, last week argued for an approach to ties that focuses on cooperation between Beijing and Washington, especially in fields like technology. The US, under President Joe Biden, has imposed a series of sanctions and other restrictions on Chinese tech, especially on semiconductors. China has hit back with its own curbs, including on the export of critical minerals to the US.
India, for its part, is trying to ride the uncertainty over Trump’s approach to China. Modi is expected to host a meeting between leaders of the Quad grouping – which includes the US, India, Japan and Australia – in 2025, for which New Delhi wants Trump to travel to India. Meanwhile, China will host the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation this year, for which Modi might travel there.
After clashes between Indian and Chinese troops in Ladakh’s Galwan in May 2020 left at least 20 Indian soldiers dead, New Delhi cracked down on Chinese apps – banning TikTok. India increased its scrutiny of Chinese investments and infrastructure projects in the country, citing national security concerns. But as incoming foreign investment overall slowed down, India’s Ministry of Finance in 2024 made a case for encouraging Chinese investment again.
Amitabh Mathur, a former special secretary at the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency, said he believed that the US had been aggressive in its approach towards China in recent years and had succeeded in positioning itself as a leading power in the Asia Pacific. Stronger US-India ties have been central to Washington’s pushback against Beijing in the region.
While most experts expect Trump to continue with that broad approach, the presence of allies like Musk in his team could temper what the US president does, some point out.“I think the US pivot towards India is unlikely to change in the broader Indo-Pacific context — while he will try to have a better deal with China,” said Anil Trigunayat, a retired Indian diplomat and strategic analyst. “Musk and other industrialists in his team will no doubt try to tamper with his excessive tariff plans.”
Just how much is the question India will want an answer to. NSB
UK Minister Under Scrutiny Over Ties to Ousted Bangladesh PM (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [1/5/2025 5:08 AM, Kwaku Gyasi and Greg Ritchie, 21617K, Negative]
UK City Minister Tulip Siddiq is coming under growing scrutiny after reports she was given a central London property by a developer associated with Bangladesh’s former government.
Siddiq received a two-bedroom apartment near King’s Cross in 2004 without making a payment for it, the Financial Times reported Friday, citing Land Registry filings. The documents show that the apartment was registered to Abdul Motalif, a developer linked to the Awami League, the political party led by Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s former prime minister and Siddiq’s aunt.Siddiq also used a separate north London property given to her family in 2009 by Moin Ghani, a Bangladeshi lawyer who has represented Hasina’s government, the Sunday Times reported. Hasina was ousted in August and fled the country amid protests.The revelations are likely to increase pressure on Siddiq, who last month denied any involvement in allegations of corruption after being named in an investigation in the South Asian country. The allegations are also awkward for the UK government because her role as city minister includes responsibility for tackling financial corruption.“Any suggestion that Tulip Siddiq’s ownership of this property, or any other property is in any way linked to support for the Awami League would be categorically wrong,” a spokesperson for the minister said regarding the Kings’ Cross apartment on Sunday.Motalif confirmed to the FT that he had purchased the property but declined to say what he did with it. Ghani declined to comment to the Sunday Times. Treasury minister ‘given London flat by developer linked to ousted Bangladesh regime’ (Daily Mail)
Daily Mail [1/3/2025 8:00 PM, Kumail Jaffer, 63029K, Negative]
Treasury minister Tulip Siddiq was given a two-bedroom apartment by a figure connected to the recently deposed Bangladeshi government, it was reported last night.
Developer Abdul Motalif is understood to have donated the two-bedroom home in central London to Ms Siddiq in 2004, without a payment being made.
Mr Motalif has links to Ms Siddiq’s aunt, the former prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, who ruled the country with an iron fist.
She fled Bangladesh to India in August with Ms Siddiq’s mother Sheikh Rehana after the deaths of hundreds of protesters.
The King’s Cross property, which Ms Siddiq still owns, was purchased in January 2001 for £195,000. A neighbouring property recently sold for £650,000, according to the Financial Times.
Ms Siddiq faced calls to step back from anti-corruption work last month amid claims she helped her family embezzle £4 billion from a nuclear power project.
The Rooppur nuclear plant was built in Bangladesh by Russian state-owned company Rosatom.
But the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation – which Ms Siddiq oversees – has imposed at least 45 measures on companies and individuals linked to Rosatom over the war on Ukraine.
Actions against Rosatom subsidiaries must be regularly reviewed by Hampstead MP Ms Siddiq.
Bangladesh’s high court has heard claims that Ms Siddiq, 42, may have helped to ‘broker’ the nuclear plant deal, worth £10billion.
It was signed in the Kremlin in 2013 by Hasina and Vladimir Putin in the presence of Ms Siddiq – then a Labour councillor.
Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) says the alleged embezzlement was between 2009 and 2023 while Ms Hasina was prime minister.
The ACC is also investigating Ms Siddiq’s mother, 69, her ex-PM aunt, 77, and two other relatives. They are alleged to have siphoned off £3.9billion through fake companies and Malaysian bank accounts.
Reports last night reveal electoral roll data show that Mr Motalif allowed Moin Ghani, a lawyer who went on to represent the government led by Ms Hasina’s Awami League, to live in the King’s Cross flat before Ms Siddiq did in the early 2000s.
Mr Motalif also shared an address with Mojibul Islam, the son of a former Awami League MP, between 2014 and 2024, indicating his links with the Hasina government.
Last night sources told the Mail the property was transferred to Ms Siddiq as an act of gratitude after her parents provided financial support to Mr Motalif during a ‘challenging time in his life’.
Questions have already been raised over Ms Siddiq’s involvement with the Awami League before she became a Labour MP.
She is believed to have worked for the party’s EU and UK ‘lobbying unit and election strategy team’.
Since 2022, she has rented a £2.1million home owned by Abdul Karim, a member of the UK wing of the Awami League. Last month, she was forced to deny allegations that she co-ordinated meetings with Bangladeshi and Russian officials over the new nuclear plant deal.
No 10 have maintained that the Prime Minister ‘has confidence’ in her. As the Treasury’s Economic Secretary, Ms Siddiq is responsible for tackling corruption in UK financial markets.
A spokesman for Ms Siddiq said: ‘Any suggestion that Tulip Siddiq’s ownership of this property, or any other property is in any way linked to support for the Awami League, would be categorically wrong.’. Central Asia
Amid Russia Pain, Central Asian Migrants Find New Destinations, Fresh Problems (Radio Free Europe)
Unable to find work at home, millions of Central Asians have left to find employment in Russia over the years.
But the stagnating Russian economy and rising attacks on migrants is leading an increasing number of Central Asian workers to look for job opportunities in East Asia and the West.
While the salaries are generally higher than in Russia, migrants face new obstacles. Moving from job to job is far harder and many struggle with language barriers and cultural differences.
Sanat Zhusipbek moved to South Korea from his native Kazakhstan in 2017 in search of better paid work. But the ongoing political crisis in the East Asian country and its slowing economy have taken a toll on his earnings.
“There are fewer orders [from customers], my salary is lower, and there are more [police] raids on migrants,” said Zhusipbek, who works as a porter outside the capital, Seoul.
The 33-year-old said he took an illegal side job in a factory to cover his losses.
Despite his struggles, he has no plans to go back to Kazakhstan, where the value of the national currency fell by 10 percent against the dollar in the second half of 2024 amid sluggish growth.
Tighter Regulations And More Scams
For decades, Russia has been the main destination for workers from Central Asia, where young populations have outgrown weak economies.
But increasing fear and economic uncertainty have weakened Russia’s pull for Central Asians.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which triggered international sanctions, has hit the economy and diminished the value of the ruble.
Meanwhile, Russia has deported or banned entry to tens of thousands of Central Asian migrants since a terrorist attack on a concert hall outside Moscow in March that killed around 140 people.
More recently, an Uzbek migrant worker was charged over the assassination of a Russian general in Moscow in December, triggering further fear and panic among Central Asian migrants in Russia.
Some Central Asians are choosing to leave Russia of their own accord, fearful of deportation and uncertain about their economic future.
More are travelling for work to South Korea, which has been a popular destination for Central Asian migrants. The East Asian country has increased its intake of foreign workers in recent years.
Figures published by Uzbekistan’s Central Bank in December showed a 70 percent increase in the remittances sent by Uzbek migrant workers from South Korea. In the first 10 months of 2024, the remittances amounted to over $450 million, the Central Bank said.
Money sent from Russia still accounts for 78 percent of the $12.6 billion in total remittances sent to Uzbekistan, the figures showed.
According to Uzbekistan’s Migration Service, some 100,000 Uzbeks are currently working in South Korea.
But the Migration Service warned citizens in a communication in December that the country’s quota for work placements in South Korea may be "seriously" endangered by the roughly 9,000 nationals that it said were currently living and working illegally in the country.
Meanwhile, Kyrgyzstan’s Foreign Minister Jeenbek Kulubaev said on December 30 that around 350,000 Kyrgyz were registered as working in Russia, compared to 600,000 in 2023.
The number of Central Asian workers moving to the West is also increasing.
But the trend has been accompanied by scams that see migrants duped into making large payments in exchange for promised work in the European Union and the United States.
Bakhodir, a resident of the Uzbek city of Bukhara, fell victim to a scam in October. He came across a Facebook post offering a job as a bus driver in the Czech Republic with a monthly salary of over $3,500.
When he enquired about the job, a woman introducing herself as Elina Borzikova, an employee of Czech Power Consulting, said he needed to pay up front for a visa and insurance. The woman said it was standard practice, and his money would be returned when he started the job.
But Bakhodir, who only gave his first name, never heard from her again after he transferred the money. Despite appeals to the Czech police and the Czech Embassy in Uzbekistan, he is still no closer to recovering the roughly 1,000 euros ($1,100) he sent.
Doston Mustafoyev, another Uzbek, said he lost $20,000 after being scammed by two men. One of them, he said, was a distant relative who promised him a work visa and employment in the United States.
He met the men in the Uzbek city of Samarkand and handed them the money in cash. But he never saw the men -- or his money -- again.
“I had been working in Turkey, earning $700 to $800 per month. [They told me] I could earn in one year in America what I made in 10 years in Turkey,” Mustafoyev said.
Twitter
Afghanistan
Michael Kugelman@MichaelKugelman
[1/5/2025 1:32 PM, 217.3K followers, 28 retweets, 124 likes]
Trump’s approach to terror threats in Afghanistan will be something to watch. It’s taken on more urgency given the growing global threat posed by ISK, the IS-inspired attack in New Orleans & incoming NSA Waltz’s recent Fox interview on the attack that showed his concerns re Afg.
Michael Kugelman@MichaelKugelman
[1/5/2025 1:32 PM, 217.3K followers, 7 likes]
In the Fox interview, Waltz said Afghanistan is a "caliphate" where AQ & IS "are brewing." Waltz along with Trump’s DoD/DoS picks, Hegseth/Rubio, are harsh critics of the Taliban & label them as terrorists. They’re unlikely to favor any kind of US engagement with the Taliban.
Michael Kugelman@MichaelKugelman
[1/5/2025 1:32 PM, 217.3K followers, 4 likes]
Trump’s position on the Taliban is more restrained. He’ll want to curb the growing clout of IS-K after having claimed he defeated IS. He inked the Doha deal w/Taliban & may look favorably on Taliban anti-ISK ops. The issue may become a point of contention in his administration.
Michael Kugelman@MichaelKugelman
[1/5/2025 1:32 PM, 217.3K followers, 11 likes]
Pakistan will likely exploit these rising Afghanistan-based terrorism concerns & pitch itself to the new admin as a useful CT partner (it’s done this w/the current admin). But it’s hard to imagine the Trump team being at all receptive to such a pitch.
Jahanzeb Wesa@jahanzeb_Wesa
[1/5/2025 9:57 AM, 5.2K followers, 47 retweets, 70 likes]
Women’s rights activists in Kabul protested against the Taliban’s oppression, demanding justice for Afghan women. They condemn Amina Mohammed for allegedly lobbying for the Taliban and urge the UN to take action. The UN must stand with victims, not empower their oppressors. https://x.com/i/status/1875919677698064789
Jahanzeb Wesa@jahanzeb_Wesa
[1/5/2025 7:57 AM, 5.2K followers, 54 retweets, 85 likes]
The Taliban’s new ban on women working in the carpet weaving industry has left many widows and sole breadwinners unemployed. These labor-intensive jobs were often the only means of survival for many Afghan women. Another blow to their rights and livelihoods.
Jahanzeb Wesa@jahanzeb_Wesa[1/5/2025 6:43 AM, 5.2K followers, 323 retweets, 393 likes]
Women in Afghanistan:-No work,-No education,-No voice,-No freedom,-No speaking in public.
The only permission they have is to gather charity in the freezing cold, on snow-covered streets. Pakistan
Shehbaz Sharif@CMShehbaz
[1/6/2025 3:19 AM, 6.7M followers, 58 retweets, 175 likes]
Today, we commemorate the martyrdom of Shaheed Aitezaz Hasan, a true son of the soil from District Hangu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, whose extraordinary courage stands as a beacon of hope and resilience. At just 15 years of age, Aitezaz displayed unparalleled bravery, valiantly sacrificing his life to shield his school and classmates from a devastating attack. His selflessness and unwavering resolve remind us of the lasting impact a single act of courage can have on countless lives. Aitezaz’s legacy will continue to inspire future generations.
Government of Pakistan@GovtofPakistan
[1/6/2025 12:45 AM, 3.1M followers, 11 retweets, 27 likes]
A record-breaking year for Pakistan’s telecom sector: Rs. 955 billion in revenue (+17% YoY), 91% population coverage with cellular services, and 81% with 4G. Total subscribers now stand at 196 million. #DigitalConnectivity (PTA Annual Report 2024)
Government of Pakistan@GovtofPakistan
[1/5/2025 2:27 AM, 3.1M followers, 14 retweets, 23 likes]
Message of the Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif on Right to Self-Determination Day for the People of Jammu & Kashmir “Pakistan reaffirms its strong resolve to continue extending its moral, political and diplomatic support to Kashmiri people for realization of their right to self-determination.”
Government of Pakistan@GovtofPakistan
[1/4/2025 9:09 AM, 3.1M followers, 11 retweets, 46 likes]
Lahore: Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif chairs a meeting on promotion of Small and Medium Enterprises in Pakistan.
Anas Mallick@AnasMallick
[1/5/2025 1:09 PM, 75.3K followers, 156 retweets, 374 likes]
Banned Terror group TTP in its statement says that it will now target military linked businesses while specifically naming NLC, FWO, Askari Bank, Fauji Fertilizers, Pakistan Ordnance Factories, Fauji Foundation, Askari Fuels, and DHA — Same entities that PTI had asked for a boycott recently.
Madiha Afzal@MadihaAfzal
[1/3/2025 1:37 PM, 43K followers, 15 retweets, 23 likes]
Pakistan is facing strains and uncertainty on the foreign policy front, including in its relationships with the United States, China, and Afghanistan. In Dawn, I discuss those issues as well as four other challenges Pakistan confronts in 2025: https://www.dawn.com/news/1882255/five-for-2025-the-key-challenges-pakistan-must-tackle-head-on-in-the-new-year
Madiha Afzal@MadihaAfzal
[1/3/2025 11:23 PM, 43K followers, 1 retweet, 4 likes]
One point of opportunity for Pakistan: it began its 2-year term as a (non-permanent) member of the UN Security Council this week. India
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[1/5/2025 5:07 AM, 104.5M followers, 7.5K retweets, 46K likes]
Here are some glimpses from the Ahmedabad International Flower Show. I have a strong attachment with this show, as I saw it grow during my tenure as CM. Such shows celebrate nature’s beauty and inspire awareness about sustainability. They give a platform for local farmers, gardeners and enthusiasts to showcase their creativity.
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[1/4/2025 1:54 AM, 104.5M followers, 3.3K retweets, 22K likes]
Deeply saddened by the demise of Dr. Rajagopala Chidambaram. He was one of the key architects of India’s nuclear programme and made ground-breaking contributions in strengthening India’s scientific and strategic capabilities. He will be remembered with gratitude by the whole nation and his efforts will inspire generations to come.
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[1/4/2025 12:41 AM, 104.5M followers, 3.8K retweets, 15K likes]
Our vision is to empower rural India by transforming villages into vibrant centres of growth and opportunity. Addressing the Grameen Bharat Mahotsav in Delhi. https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1MYGNMnqlrpKw
President of India@rashtrapatibhvn
[1/3/2025 7:24 AM, 26.2M followers, 222 retweets, 1.1K likes]
President Droupadi Murmu inaugurated KLE Cancer Hospital at Belagavi, Karnataka. The President said that every doctor, more so a doctor taking care of a cancer patient should strive to become a kind-hearted healthcare professional, after talking to whom, the patients not only become well informed about the treatment but also feel reassured. This can lead to better health outcomes, enhanced patient satisfaction and an overall positive experience for them.
Dr. S. Jaishankar@DrSJaishankar
[1/6/2025 1:04 AM, 3.3M followers, 125 retweets, 790 likes]
Delighted to meet US NSA @JakeSullivan46 in New Delhi today morning. Continued our ongoing discussions on deepening bilateral, regional and global cooperation. Valued the openness of our conversations in the last four years. Appreciated his personal contribution to forging a closer and stronger IN-US partnership.
Dr. S. Jaishankar@DrSJaishankar
[1/5/2025 7:21 AM, 3.3M followers, 217 retweets, 1.4K likes]
Received Deputy FM @TakhtRavanchi of Iran this evening. Discussed our bilateral ties, progress in Chabahar port and regional developments. Confident that the Foreign Office Consultations will give a momentum to our partnership.
Dr. S. Jaishankar@DrSJaishankar
[1/3/2025 4:51 AM, 3.3M followers, 309 retweets, 1.5K likes]
Pleased to welcome FM @abkhaleel of Maldives to New Delhi. Discussed our development cooperation and economic, security, fintech and people to people ties. Also signed agreement on implementing the next phase of High Impact Community Development Projects #HICDP in Maldives. India will continue to be a steadfast supporter of Maldives’ progress and prosperity, in line with our Neighbourhood First policy and vision SAGAR. NSB
The President’s Office, Maldives@presidencymv
[1/6/2025 3:22 AM, 111.6K followers, 46 retweets, 51 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu attends the signing ceremony for the development of K. Gulhifalhu roads and municipal infrastructure. This initiative demonstrates the Government’s commitment to sustainable infrastructure development that addresses the needs of the citizens and developmental aims.
The President’s Office, Maldives@presidencymv
[1/6/2025 2:16 AM, 111.6K followers, 37 retweets, 40 likes]
The High Commissioner of Pakistan presents credentials to the President https://presidency.gov.mv/Press/Article/32687
The President’s Office, Maldives@presidencymv
[1/6/2025 2:15 AM, 111.6K followers, 54 retweets, 59 likes]
The High Commissioner of India presents credentials to the President https://presidency.gov.mv/Press/Article/32686
The President’s Office, Maldives@presidencymv[1/5/2025 7:58 AM, 111.6K followers, 147 retweets, 139 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu meets with the residents of K. Gulhi to reaffirm the administration’s commitment to addressing their concerns. He outlined the nation’s key challenges, detailing the Administration’s ongoing efforts to tackle these issues, and shared details about the national development plan. The event took place at K. Gulhi School.
The President’s Office, Maldives@presidencymv
[1/4/2025 3:20 AM, 111.6K followers, 129 retweets, 137 likes]
President applauds efforts to advocate for the rights of people with visual impairments in message on World Braille Day https://presidency.gov.mv/Press/Article/32671
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maldives@MoFAmv
[1/3/2025 6:31 AM, 55.2K followers, 59 retweets, 65 likes]
FM @abkhaleel had a productive meeting with his counterpart, MEA @DrSJaishankar during his Official visit to #India today. After the meeting, Ministers signed the HICDP MoU, launching the Third Phase of project-based cooperation between MV & IN | https://t.ly/ZIroR
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maldives@MoFAmv
[1/4/2025 9:47 PM, 55.2K followers, 22 retweets, 26 likes]
Minister @abkhaleel concludes his first Official Visit to India. Minister @abkhaleel and Minister @DrSJaishankar reviewed the entire spectrum of bilateral cooperation and explored new avenues of cooperation between #Maldives and #India Press Release | https://t.ly/ZKroY
Anura Kumara Dissanayake@anuradisanayake
[1/4/2025 4:50 AM, 143.8K followers, 19 retweets, 223 likes]
Just inaugurated FACETS Sri Lanka - 2025, Asia’s leading gem and jewellery exhibition! I’m thrilled to see local entrepreneurs showcasing their exceptional craftsmanship alongside global industry professionals. Let’s work together to exceed USD 1 billion in gem and jewellery exports!
Sabria Chowdhury Balland@sabriaballand
[1/5/2025 9:03 PM, 7.7K followers, 2 likes]
#Bangladesh’s interim government has cancelled a planned training programme for 50 judges and judicial officers in India, amidst the ongoing diplomatic spat between Dhaka and New Delhi. https://msn.com/en-in/news/world/amid-strained-ties-bangladesh-cancels-judges-training-programme-in-india/ar-AA1wZ6LN
Sabria Chowdhury Balland@sabriaballand
[1/5/2025 9:00 PM, 7.7K followers]
India has scaled back visa operations in #Bangladesh,as reported by Al Jazeera. This affects Bangladeshis who get medical treatments in India. It has been at least a year that the #BoycottIndia movement started for good reason. Bangladeshis can choose other medical destinations. Central Asia
Yerzhan Ashikbayev@KZAmbUS
[1/4/2025 8:02 AM, 2.7K followers, 6 retweets, 17 likes]
President @TokayevKZ reaffirms his vision for Kazakhstan: building a resilient economy, enhancing sovereignty, and addressing global challenges through sustainable reforms and unity. Progress and solidarity at the forefront.
Yerzhan Ashikbayev@KZAmbUS
[1/4/2025 8:02 AM, 2.7K followers, 1 like]
He emphasized the vital role of middle powers in addressing the crisis of international trust and the deficit in responsible global leadership. He also reaffirmed indispensable and universal role of the @UN as the “common home of all humanity.”
Yerzhan Ashikbayev@KZAmbUS
[1/4/2025 8:02 AM, 2.7K followers, 2 likes]
Regarding KZ-US relations, he emphasized that trade, investment, nuclear non-proliferation, and security will continue to form the foundation of our collaboration with the new administration at the White House.
Yerzhan Ashikbayev@KZAmbUS
[1/4/2025 8:02 AM, 2.7K followers, 1 like]
President noted that KZ is not seeking to position as a mediator. On the international stage, we act within Kazakhstan’s potential and capabilities, but we are always ready to assist in resolving global issues.
Navbahor Imamova@Navbahor
[1/5/2025 12:08 PM, 24K followers, 8 likes]
Uzbekistan: Last summer in Andijan, I met many women who, after years of migrant work in Russia, were attending vocational training. The classes are free, with transport and lunch also provided by the state. Many of them shared simple goals: self-employment, running a tailoring shop or catering business, for example—home-based work suitable for any age. 1/2
Navbahor Imamova@Navbahor
[1/5/2025 12:08 PM, 24K followers, 2 likes]
Andijan, Uzbekistan #VocationalTraining : Some of these women have already reached those goals, including one woman who is 58. She spent years working as a cleaner in Russia, returned after losing her husband, and struggled to make a living. Her neighbor told her about this opportunity, which is available to anyone unemployed up to the age of 60. 2/2Navbahor Imamova@Navbahor
[1/5/2025 12:37 PM, 24K followers, 1 like]
Andijan, Uzbekistan: The vocational training center is filled with propaganda about “New Uzbekistan,” like the rest of the country, but both the students and the people outside seemed indifferent, focused instead on what they can achieve in the real Uzbekistan.
Navbahor Imamova@Navbahor
[1/4/2025 11:18 AM, 24K followers, 2 likes]
US-Uzbekistan #Outsourcing: Pennsylvania-based Cargo Prime now has five logistics centers in UZ, employing over 300 young people. We checked out its office in Urgench, Khorezm, where 30 people work.{End of Report} To subscribe to the SCA Morning Press Clips, please email SCA-PressOfficers@state.gov. Please do not reply directly to this email.