epubdos : Afghanistan
SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS
Prepared for the U.S. Department of State
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
TO:
SCA & Staff
DATE:
Tuesday, January 7, 2025 6:30 AM ET

Afghanistan
Afghans land in the Philippines for visa processing ahead of resettlement in US (FOX News)
FOX News [1/7/2025 3:32 AM, Landon Mion, Neutral]
A group of Afghan nationals landed in the Philippines on Monday for the processing of special immigrant visas for their resettlement in the U.S.

Their arrival comes as part of an agreement between the Filipino and U.S. governments.

The Philippines agreed in July to temporarily host a U.S. immigrant visa processing center for a limited number of Afghan nationals seeking to make America their new home.

Afghan nationals who landed in the Philippines on Monday were given entry visas, according to Teresita Daza, a spokesperson for the Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs.

Daza said the Afghan nationals had completed extensive security vetting and undergone full medical screenings before they arrived. She also said the U.S. government is covering the costs of their stay in the Philippines, including food, housing, security, medical and transportation expenses.

It is unclear how many Afghan nationals arrived in the Philippines or how long the visa processing will take, but the Philippines’ rules state that visa applicants cannot stay for longer than 59 days.

A senior Filipino official said last year that only 150 to 300 applicants would be accommodated in the Philippines under the "one-time" deal with the U.S. government.

The Afghan nationals seeking to resettle in America primarily worked for the U.S. government in Afghanistan or were considered eligible for U.S. special immigrant visas but were left behind during the chaotic withdrawal of troops and civilians from the country in 2021, which resulted in the Taliban taking back control of the region.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken first made the request for the Philippines to host the processing center to his Filipino counterpart in 2022. President Biden later discussed the request with Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. when he visited the U.S. last year.

Marcos Jr. has renewed relations with the U.S. since coasting to a presidential election win two years ago. Nearly a year ago, he allowed the American military to expand its presence under a 2014 defense agreement, a move that upset Chinese officials.
How Carter’s covert aid to Afghan rebels redefined his foreign policy record (VOA)
VOA [1/6/2025 4:14 PM, Masood Farivar, 2.7M, Neutral]
President Ronald Reagan is often credited with defeating the Soviet Union, in part by helping Afghan rebels, but it was the administration of President Jimmy Carter that laid the groundwork.

Considered a foreign policy novice by many when he entered the White House, Carter made the early decision to provide covert aid to Afghan insurgents months before the Soviet invasion. The move offers a window into one of the defining issues of his presidency, showing a president unafraid to confront the Soviets while pursuing a policy of détente.

“I think people’s image of Carter as a deeply religious man, a deeply moral man, is very much influenced by the activities he’s done after he left office. [But] he definitely had a ruthless side to him, and he had a side that was very willing to use force, including nuclear weapons,” said David Gibbs, a history professor at the University of Arizona.

The covert aid program initiated under Carter became the backbone of the Afghan insurgency, setting the stage for the Soviet Union’s eventual withdrawal in 1989.

In a bold move six months before the Soviets’ December 1979 invasion, Carter signed a secret directive known as a “presidential finding” that authorized the CIA to provide nonlethal aid to rebels fighting Afghanistan’s Soviet-backed communist government.

That finding stayed under wraps for nearly two decades, coming to light only when several Carter administration officials, including former CIA Director Robert Gates and national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, disclosed its existence in the 1990s, suggesting the Carter administration aimed to lure the Soviets into a Vietnam-style quagmire.

‘Afghan trap’

Brzezinski’s revelations were the most striking. In a 1998 interview with a French magazine, Carter’s Polish-born, ardently anti-communist adviser denied provoking the Soviets but claimed the administration had “knowingly increased the probability” of a Soviet invasion. Calling the program “an excellent idea,” he said it had the “effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap.”

Although Brzezinski later disputed the accuracy of the interview and never repeated the claim, the so-called “Afghan trap” thesis gained traction, with critics excoriating the Carter administration for instigating the Soviet invasion and causing decades of conflict in Afghanistan.

Among scholars who see the aid program as a deliberate provocation, Gibbs said he was initially loath to read too much into the Brzezinski interview before becoming convinced of its veracity.

As Gibbs described it to VOA, a military aide once told historian Jonathan Haslam that Brzezinski, upon learning of the Soviet invasion, “pumped his first in the air in triumph and said, ‘They’ve taken the bait!’”

“The implication was that the decision to supply aid to the mujahideen was bait,” Gibbs said. “That, to me, is a strong indication that what he said is true, because it was said twice over a period of time, and it’s from the horse’s mouth.”

The Afghan trap thesis has permeated the works of other prominent experts, although most now dismiss it as baseless, according to historian Conor Tobin of the University College Dublin, who has researched it.

The problem with the theory, Tobin argues, is that it views the Carter administration’s involvement in Afghanistan through a 21st century lens, “working backwards from the events of 9/11.”

“They rely almost exclusively on Gates’ memoirs, the controversial French interview and other circumstantial and limited anecdotal evidence without exploring the subject in detail, and without using any other sources to corroborate the statements made,” Tobin told VOA via email.

A close look at recently declassified Carter-era documents tells a different story, Tobin said.

“It reveals that there was no attempt to ensnare the Soviet Union in the Afghan trap, and U.S. policies were in fact marginal in leading to the Soviet military intervention,” he said.

Nonlethal aid

What is not up for debate, however, is that the aid program was launched in response to rising Soviet influence in Afghanistan. A communist coup in April 1978 toppled the government of President Mohammad Daoud. The new regime then initiated radical reforms, sparking public opposition and eventually a full-blown insurgency.

According to Tobin, the Carter administration initially took a “wait-and-see” approach. That policy ended with the kidnapping and murder of U.S. Ambassador Adolph Dubs the following February. Brzezinski then ordered a new plan for Afghanistan.

“Should we help any insurgents?” he asked an aide to investigate, according to Tobin. “With whom would we have to work?”

A popular revolt in the western Afghan city of Herat, however, “led to a shift in attitude in Washington and the consensus began to slide towards a more active role,” Tobin wrote in his analysis, “The Myth of the ‘Afghan Trap’.”

CIA operatives sprang into action, developing a plan of action while reaching out to U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Several options were formulated, ranging from small-scale propaganda campaigns and nonlethal support to lethal arms supplies and military training via a third country.

After determining that military assistance may “provoke vigorous Soviet countermeasures,” the administration settled on nonlethal aid.

“The decision-making process demonstrated caution, rather than an effort to induce an invasion,” Tobin wrote.

On July 3, 1979, Carter authorized the CIA to provide up to $695,000 in aid to the insurgents. By mid-August, $575,000 of the funds had been allocated for cash, medical equipment and radio transmitters to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, who then delivered them to the mujahideen, according to Tobin’s account.

The aid program, says Tobin, was modest but significant in two key respects. It helped establish links with the mujahideen through Pakistani intelligence that would prove invaluable after the Soviet invasion. It also underscored American resolve to allies Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, reassuring them at a time when concerns about diminishing U.S. influence in the region were mounting.

The aid program came against a backdrop of escalating Cold War tensions. The Iranian Revolution of February 1979 had robbed the U.S. of a key strategic ally in the region. Rather than seeking to provoke the Soviets, Brzezinski worried about a “creeping intervention” in Afghanistan, fearing ‘‘Moscow would continue to expand its influence until a de factor invasion had taken place,’’ Tobin wrote.

“The objectives in mid-1979 were essentially to do something, anything, to counter the Soviet advance in Afghanistan,” Tobin said.

Historian Scott Kaufman of Francis Marion University and author of a book on Carter’s foreign policy, said the late president also had to consider his bid for re-election the following year.

“He was already under attack for having ‘lost’ Nicaragua to communists and for being ‘soft’ on the Soviet Union,” Kaufman told VOA via email. “How would it look to voters if Carter, who wanted to get SALT II [Strategic Arms Limitations Talks] approved, made moves that encouraged what would be seen by them as further Soviet aggression.”

‘Carter Doctrine’

Kaufman took issue with the popular perception of Carter as a foreign policy novice. Though he lacked the foreign policy experience of a Richard Nixon or even Gerald Ford, Carter sat on the Trilateral Commission and had traveled overseas as governor of Georgia, Kaufman noted.

“That said, his support for the mujahideen reflected a foreign policy that since at least 1978 reflected a hardening insofar as U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union,” he said.

Carter’s tougher stance, Kaufman said, was driven by growing anti-Soviet sentiment in Congress, Brzezinski’s influence, and his personal disdain for Soviet repression and machinations.

“This does not mean that he had given up on seeking detente with the Soviets, as reflected by his desire to get SALT II ratified,” he said. “But his foreign policy vis-a-vis the U.S.S.R. [Soviet Union] demonstrated a preparedness to take a harder line.”

Nothing demonstrated Carter’s resolve more forcefully than the “Carter Doctrine,” his bold Persian Gulf policy adopted in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Unveiling the new policy during his 1980 State of the Union address, Carter warned that the U.S. was prepared to use “any means necessary” to prevent a Soviet takeover of the Persian Gulf region.

With the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Carter administration upped the ante. On December 28, 1979, the day after Soviet commandos assassinated Afghan President Hafizullah Amin in Kabul, Carter signed a new finding that authorized the supply of weapons and training for the mujahideen. The first batch of weapons arrived in Pakistan in less than two weeks.

Carter went on to lose the 1980 election to Reagan, whose administration largely continued Carter’s Afghan policy for several years before dramatically building up the covert aid program to the tune of several hundred million dollars a year. Instead of merely harassing the Soviets, the Reagan administration sought its defeat, according to Tobin.

“The criticism of the Carter administration as weak on defense, therefore, is unjustified, with Carter largely laying the groundwork for the renewed global containment of the 1980s,” Tobin said.

“So, despite enduring orthodox assessments of Carter as a foreign policy failure, he departed office in January 1981 leaving a clear foreign policy direction for the incoming Reagan administration that arguably contributed to the end of the Cold War a decade later — an outcome that was almost incomprehensible as the Carter administration took office in January 1977.”
A long time under the snow for the women of Afghanistan (Washington Post – opinion)
Washington Post [1/6/2025 6:30 AM, Shabana Basij-Rasikh, 40736K, Neutral]
December marked two years since women could attend college in Afghanistan. March will mark three years since girls could go to school past sixth grade. And only a few weeks ago, the Taliban barred women from studying to become midwives or nurses.

For a long time, Afghanistan was the country with the highest rate of maternal mortality. That’s no longer the case: That awful distinction is now held by South Sudan. But Afghanistan’s rate remains the highest of any nation outside Africa. And that’s only on the national level. Certain remote regions of Afghanistan see a maternal mortality rate that’s much higher than the national one, particularly regions such as Badakhshan in the northeast.

A few weeks ago, I talked to a 13-year-old girl in Badakhshan over Zoom.

She was telling me about her parents. Both are nurses. Her mother is no longer permitted to work in a clinic, but she can see patients at their home, and she has seen many of them. These home visits inspired the girl.

“I want to be an OB/GYN,” she told me. “Women die here when they give birth. So many women die here. If I become a doctor, I can serve my people and I can change that.”

“If I don’t find a way to study, I’ll have a dark future here,” she said. “I’ll keep trying. Failure is a part of life. I have lots of plans. I will make them happen. I’m going to build a clinic in this village someday.”

“I want to study. I want to go to school. I’m living in a place that is two seasons under the snow,” she said. She’s right. Winters last a long time in Badakhshan.

Two days after the girl and I spoke, the Taliban issued its decree forbidding women to become nurses like the girl’s mother.

A different 13-year-old girl told me that she dreams of leaving Afghanistan to study. She said she sees many girls her age hoping to find some way out of their homeland, too, though via a different path. They are looking to find Afghan men living overseas to whom they can offer themselves as wives. Thirteen-year-old girls.

Some girls reach for the humor in anger. They bitterly mock the Taliban in private. One girl told me how proud she was to already be a graduate, which means she made it through sixth grade. What an accomplishment. And now a whole world of opportunity awaits.

Others keep working to get out despite the obstacles. One girl told me she was taking online classes to learn to code when she realized they wouldn’t help her get into any international university, as she still lacked some sort of widely accepted credential. Which is why she and a small group of her friends are working with a teacher online to get their GEDs, the U.S.-based high school certification.

I’ve spoken to girls who climb up on the roofs of their homes every day to get a usable cellular signal. One girl from the provinces would even climb into the hills so that she could be alone and speak freely.

As parents of older teens in the United States will know, it’s early decision and early action season for college acceptances. Recently, an Afghan high school student I had come to know, a girl enrolled outside of Afghanistan, invited me to virtually join her and her family on the morning she would learn whether she had been accepted to the college of her choice. There was a lot of excitement and plenty of nerves. The morning came, and there I was online with this girl and her family, who were dialing in from Badakhshan.

I saw her father, mother and siblings by the illumination of a solar-powered light. They were gathered near a sawdust-burning stove. There was a little girl there who looked quite young. I learned later that she’s 4, and she’s the student’s little sister. The sisters have seen each other in person only once ever.

We all watched as the student — their sister, their daughter — opened the message she’d received from the school she wanted so badly to attend.

Silence for a moment and then jubilation. She was laughing. We all were. I saw her father’s and her mother’s faces so clearly: They were crying. Happiness. Pride. She’d gotten in. She’d done it.

It’s easy to say there’s not much hope to be found in Afghanistan today. And there’s not. But hope is not extinct. It exists only in small bursts, in hidden places, under the snow. It exists in the relentless spirit of girls on winter rooftops. It exists in the faces of a father and mother in the Badakhshan cold, sitting by a sawdust stove, warmed and illuminated by a girl and a dream that she made real.

It’s rare and precious. But it exists.
Pakistan
Taliban Militants Say They Will Target Pakistan Army-Owned Firms (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [1/6/2025 7:01 AM, Ismail Dilawar, 5.5M, Negative]
Militants belonging to Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan or TTP said they will now target local businesses, including listed firms, owned by the South Asian nation’s powerful army. The statement by the terrorist group loosely affiliated with Afghanistan Taliban on Sunday evening comes days after the two nations clashed at the border.

TTP’s target include Fauji Cement Company Ltd., Askari Bank Ltd., Fauji Fertilizer Company Ltd., Fauji Foods Ltd., Askari Cement Ltd., Askari Fuels, National Logistic Cell, Frontier Works Organization, Pakistan Ordnance Factory, Fauji Foundation, the Defence Housing Authority and all the institutions that have military’s shares in them.

The main source of strength for Pakistan Army “is its sources of income due to which it keeps itself imposed on the country for the past 70 years,” said TTP spokesperson Mohammad Khorasani in the statement.

Late last month, Kabul said it hit “several points” including military posts inside Pakistan in retaliation for the deadly air strikes allegedly carried out by Pakistan against Afghanistan on December 24.

Islamabad has accused Kabul of allowing TTP militants to use Afghanistan as a base for carrying out attacks on Pakistan. Kabul denies the claim.

Terrorism has surged in Pakistan and the threat has increased after the Taliban coming to power in Afghanistan as it is said to have emboldened TTP to step up its attacks on Pakistan’s security forces.

In a separate statement, the militants said they killed 1,284 security personnel in hundreds of attacks carried out throughout Pakistan last year.

Pakistan’s army spokesperson Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry last month said it killed more than 900 terrorists in 2024, the most in past five years, including “high value targets” and suicide bombers from neighboring Afghanistan.

Besides vowing to target army’s businesses, the Pakistani Taliban have set a three-month deadline for investors holding shares in military-owned companies to sell those and avoid potential losses.

“The shopkeepers who are selling military products are given two months to finish their available stock and buy alternative products,” Khorasani said.
Pakistan Taliban threatens military-run businesses amid rising violence (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera [1/6/2025 8:02 AM, Abid Hussain, 19588K, Negative]
The outlawed armed group Pakistan Taliban, known by the acronym TTP, has issued a warning to the Pakistani army, stating that it will continue targeting security personnel and expand its attacks to the military’s business interests.

In a statement issued on Sunday, the TTP pledged to go after various commercial enterprises run by the Pakistani military.

Among the companies the group named were the National Logistics Cell, a Rawalpindi-based logistics firm; the Frontier Works Organisation, which specialises in engineering and construction; Fauji Fertiliser Company, a fertiliser manufacturer; military-run housing authorities across Pakistan; a commercial bank; and several other entities.

The Pakistan Taliban warned civilians to divest from military-run organisations within three months, urging employees of these companies to find alternative sources of income.

The military has not issued any response to the Pakistan Taliban statement as yet. Al Jazeera also reached out to Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military’s media wing, for a response but did not receive a reply.

Foreshadowing retaliation?

The TTP warning comes amid growing tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan over the group’s activities.

Last month, the Pakistani military launched air raids in Afghanistan, targeting alleged hideouts of the armed group.

Pakistan accuses the Taliban, which has ruled Afghanistan since August 2021, of providing safe havens for TTP fighters, allowing them to carry out cross-border attacks on law enforcement personnel within Pakistan. The Taliban in Afghanistan denies these allegations.

The Pakistan Taliban is ideologically aligned with the Afghan Taliban. It was founded in 2007 during the so-called “war on terror” by the United States and has been waging a rebellion against the state of Pakistan for more than a decade.

The group’s demands include the imposition of strict Islamic law, the release of its imprisoned members, and a reversal of the merger of Pakistan’s tribal areas with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Since the Taliban’s ascension to power in Kabul, TTP activities in Pakistan have surged dramatically, with nearly 1,000 people — mostly security personnel — killed in 2023.

Violence persisted in 2024, which the Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), an Islamabad-based think tank, described as the deadliest year in nearly a decade.

According to CRSS, 2,526 people were killed in attacks last year — including nearly 700 security personnel, more than 900 civilians and some 900 armed fighters. These deaths represent a nine-year high, exceeding the previous peak record of 2,432 deaths in 2016.

Imtiaz Gul, executive director of the CRSS, warned that the Pakistan Taliban’s warning should not be dismissed.

“They know full well that the Pakistani army is the linchpin against them in this fight, and their objective is to hurt the army and undermine its interests,” Gul told Al Jazeera.

Security researcher Abdul Sayed, based in Sweden, said the Pakistan Taliban’s statement signals a “significant policy shift” in the group’s strategy.

“Under Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud, the leader of the TTP since July 2018, a policy was introduced to limit attacks primarily to security forces. However, recent air strikes in Afghanistan’s Bermal district, which also resulted in civilian casualties, likely led internal hardliners within the group to revise this approach,” Sayed told Al Jazeera.

TTP and Pakistan’s political divisions

While the timing of the Pakistan Taliban’s statement may align with escalating military operations, including a campaign launched in June last year, analysts suggest that the group is also exploiting the country’s political divisions.

Qamar Cheema, an expert on international affairs and executive director of the Sanober Institute, pointed out that known supporters of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the country’s popular opposition party, recently promoted social media campaigns to boycott products from military-run businesses.

The PTI, headed by former Prime Minister Imran Khan, has accused the military of orchestrating his removal from power in April 2022 in collusion with the United States and his political rivals.

Since his ousting, Khan, who has been jailed since August 2023, and his supporters have maintained a critical stance towards the military.

After large-scale protests by PTI in late November, in which 12 party workers and supporters were killed, they launched a social media campaign urging citizens to boycott entities associated with the military’s business arm. The online campaign gained further momentum after Khan threatened to initiate a civil disobedience movement.

“If the PTI had not politicised state institutions, perhaps the TTP might not have been in a position to think of targeting this domain,” Cheema said.

In a news conference last year, ISPR chief General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry defended the military’s economic role, revealing that it had directly contributed more than 100 billion rupees ($359m) to the national exchequer in duties and taxes. He said military-affiliated organisations paid an additional 260 billion rupees ($934m) in taxes.

Sayed, the researcher, pointed out that the Pakistan Taliban seeks to capitalise on this fractured political landscape, where the military is facing regular criticism.

Return of urban violence?

Following its establishment in 2007, the Pakistan Taliban was responsible for some of the country’s deadliest attacks, including a 2014 massacre at Peshawar’s Army Public School, where more than 130 children were killed.

Analysts worry the group’s new strategy could signal a return to widespread violence, particularly in urban areas.

Cheema said the Pakistan Taliban has recently threatened members of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

“We have seen the TTP targeting political parties before. However, this indiscriminate targeting of civilians will likely backfire, though I believe they may have the Afghan Taliban’s support,” he said.

Gul of the CRSS suggested that the Pakistan Taliban’s rationale is to pressure the military into halting cross-border strikes into Afghanistan.

“The tensions with the Afghan government stem from Pakistan’s hardline military strategy of launching air strikes on their soil. The TTP probably assumes that threatening attacks on commercial interests might dissuade the army from further aggression,” he said.

Sayed, though, believes that this policy shift will lead to expansion and scope of the conflict into urban areas.

“A key advantage for the TTP lies in its ability to generate funds, as businesses and individuals associated with them may resort to paying extortion to avoid being targeted,” he said.
UAE agrees to roll over payment of $2 bln due by Pakistan (Reuters)
Reuters [1/7/2025 4:07 AM, Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam, 5.2M, Neutral]
The United Arab Emirates has agreed to roll over the payment of $2 billion due by Pakistan this month, the South Asian nation’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Tuesday.

Sharif said he met with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahya while he was on a personal visit to Pakistan on Sunday.

"In a one-on-one meeting he said...there is a $2 billion dollar repayment due and we are extending this," Sharif told reporters in a televised press conference..

"I asked for the UAE to invest a few billion dollars in key investment projects and that would be helpful," Sharif added.

"He said the UAE was committed to this investment and the two countries share brotherly ties," he said.

Securing external financing has previously been a key condition for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to approve bail-out deals for the cash-strapped nation.

The next review by the IMF of its $7 billion, 37-month loan programe to Pakistan is expected in February.

Pakistan’s $350 billion economy has struggled for decades with boom-and-bust cycles, needing 23 IMF bailouts since 1958.
Demonstrators block a key Pakistan-China trade route over power outages (AP)
AP [1/7/2025 3:33 AM, Staff, 456K, Negative]
Hundreds of protesters angered by power outages have blocked a key highway in northern Pakistan, officials said on Tuesday. The blockade is disrupting bilateral trade with neighboring China and forcing tourists to take longer routes to visit the region.

The protest initially began with a rally over the weekend and expanded the following day when demonstrators in the city of Aliabad in the Gilgit Baltistan region blocked the main Karakoram highway, said government spokesperson Faizullah Faraq.

He said authorities are in talks with the protesters to persuade them to end the protest.

People in energy-starved Pakistan often face hourslong power cuts, especially during the summer, but residents in Aliabad say they have been experiencing up to 20-hour power outages in the midst of a harsh winter.

The protest comes at a time when Pakistan is hoping to attract greater Chinese investment to revive its ailing economy under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which includes enhancing bilateral trade and building and improving roads and rail systems to link western China’s Xinjiang region to Pakistan’s Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea.

CPEC is part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative to increase trade by building infrastructure around the world.

Imran Ali, President of the Gilgit Baltistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry told local media that 700 trucks carrying various items for China were stuck at a dry port because of the blockade of the road, while the closure of the road is also affecting the supply of goods to and from the region across Pakistan.
India
After a last visit from Biden’s team, India readies itself for Trump (Washington Post)
Washington Post [1/6/2025 12:04 PM, Karishma Mehrotra, 40736K, Neutral]
On Monday, national security adviser Jake Sullivan announced in New Delhi a last hurrah for a bilateral relationship that he has personally worked hard to cement.

“The United States is now finalizing the necessary steps to remove long-standing regulations that have prevented civil nuclear cooperation between India’s leading nuclear entities and U.S. companies,” he said.

Sullivan’s trip — which he said was probably his last overseas one in his current role — marked the close of one chapter of the U.S.-Indian relationship and the start of a new one with the Trump administration that India is viewing with optimism, apart from some obvious friction points, such as trade and immigration.

“I know, today, a lot of countries are nervous about the U.S.,” Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar told reporters shortly after the election. “Let’s be honest about it: We are not one of them.”

The fact that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President-elect Donald Trump are “ideological bedfellows” is bound to help, said Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute. They share a high-profile bond and a disdain for Islamist terrorism, the media and criticism over democratic backsliding.

At the same time, said Ashley Tellis, a former State Department and National Security Council official and now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, there are real differences in relations that will come up. “Both sides often exaggerate the extent of their strategic convergence in an effort to obscure the differences.”

Here are the areas that the United States and India are expected to focus on during the second Trump administration.

‘Most protectionist country’

The United States is India’s largest trade partner, with an annual trade valued at $190 billion. Importantly, India exports far more to the United States than it imports into its heavily protected economy, with a $45 billion deficit in its favor.

“In Trump’s mind, India is the tariff king,” said C. Raja Mohan, director of the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. “It’s locked in his brain.”

Trump’s stump speeches have repeatedly denounced India’s protectionism and fixated on tariffs against particular products, such as Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

In 2019, Trump revoked special trade privileges to India abruptly, said Lisa Curtis, former National Security Council senior director for South and Central Asia from 2017 to 2021. Curtis, who is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, said the move came from the “influence” of U.S. Trade Representative Robert E. Lighthizer, who in a 2023 book called India “the most protectionist country.”

Ajay Srivastava, a former foreign trade director in India’s Commerce Ministry who helped formulate the response to Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum at the time, said he expects India will counter any new tariffs in “equal measure,” raising the specter of a trade war.

More importantly, though, he said, India has not been able to fully take advantage of the United States’ push to diversify supply chains away from China, even with new Apple manufacturing plants in India. A combination of burdensome regulations, tax policies and a lack of ease of doing business have kept U.S. investment below what it could be.

While India will be especially attentive to the new administration’s emphasis on the technology partnership between the two countries, some analysts say India should be prepared for asks related to Elon Musk’s Tesla and Starlink, which have not yet taken off in the country.

Unsealed indictments

The Justice Department has recently unsealed two major indictments involving India. In 2023, one accused an Indian government official of a murder-for-hire plot on U.S. soil of an American citizen who is a Sikh separatist. In 2024, the other hit Indian billionaire Gautam Adani with fraud-related charges.

India hopes the Trump administration will do what it can to soften the blows in both, according to analysts. Perhaps with that in mind, Adani promised to invest $10 billion in the United States after Trump’s win.

As some Sikhs in the United States continue to call for a separate state, New Delhi has repeatedly argued that the United States has not done enough to clamp down, while Washington has been torn on pushing for higher accountability, unsure of whether India would try such an act again.

A drone delivery to India was held up in the Senate in February because of these concerns.

Consensus on China

India and the United States see China as their long-term strategic adversary — a convergence that in recent years has convinced both Democrats and Republicans to seek closer ties.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) — Trump’s choice for secretary of state — in July introduced legislation that pushed for stronger defense ties with New Delhi in the context of China. Michael Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser pick, as a House member in 2021 called for a formal alliance and trade deal with India to counter China.

This year, India is slated to host a multilateral engagement meeting with Australia, Japan and the United States, known as the Quad, which Trump revived in his first term as a buttress against China.

If Trump’s national security apparatus continues prioritizing the threat from China, not only will India continue being the “answer to the China problem,” said Mohan of the National University of Singapore, but it may also force China to “recalculate and be a little nicer to its neighbors.”

Many in India speculate that an agreement between India and China on patrolling their shared border — reached in October, four years after bloody clashes between the nations’ border guards tanked bilateral relations — came about because of China’s anticipation of a Trump win.

Some experts in India, however, worry that Trump could try to improve his relationship with the Chinese, especially under the influence of Musk and other interests seeking better U.S.-Chinese business ties. Trump has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to his inauguration, while he hasn’t invited Modi.

“It is not clear that Trump has, or will pursue, a coherent anti-China strategy that sensibly incorporates India,” said Tellis of Carnegie.

Immigration

Indians make up the largest group of unauthorized migrants in the United States outside of Latin Americans, ranking third in 2021 — a prime target for the deportations that Trump has vowed as part of his hard-line anti-immigration agenda.

New Delhi hopes American business interests will protect the coveted H-1B visa program for high-skilled migrants. In December, Musk publicly supported the program, unleashing a fight with far-right activists, and Trump eventually sided with Musk.

The Bangladesh theory

One of the most destabilizing events of the past year for India was the fall of Sheikh Hasina, a Bangladeshi prime minister India saw as crucial to the country’s interests and security.

While on the surface this should have little to do with U.S.-Indian relations, Tellis said that the “widespread” and “fictitious” theory “including in official circles” in India that Americans had a hand in the revolution “is a good example of the still-persistent differences” between the two.

India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party publicly blamed the U.S. State Department and the “deep state” for conspiring against India, in a veiled response to both the indictments and the events in Bangladesh.

The public condemnation is yet another example of the BJP’s “hardball approach on foreign policy issues,” Curtis said. “Perhaps the Biden administration could have done more to message its policy on Bangladesh, but it is also incumbent on the Indian government to rein in this narrative.”

In a move that would please the BJP, Trump in October posted on X that he condemned the “barbaric violence” against Hindus in Bangladesh.
US, India Make Progress On Civil Nuclear Deal, Sullivan Says (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [1/6/2025 10:24 PM, Dan Strumpf, 21617K, Neutral]
The US is finalizing steps to remove longstanding barriers to civil nuclear cooperation with India as the two countries look to bolster relations further.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, in likely his last official trip overseas, said “formal paperwork will be done soon” to scrap regulations that prevented Indian entities and American companies from cooperating on nuclear energy projects.

“This will be an opportunity to turn the page on some of the frictions of the past,” he said Monday in a speech at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. “This is a statement of confidence in the progress we’ve made and the progress we will continue to make as strategic partners.”

India, one of the world’s biggest carbon dioxide emitters, is seeking to rapidly expand its use of nuclear power over the next decade as it aims to both decarbonize and meet rising energy demand.

The remarks followed a meeting between Sullivan and India’s Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar earlier Monday. The visit by Sullivan — which also included meetings with Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Prime Minister Narendra Modi — is likely the last trip by a senior Biden administration official to India, Asia’s third-largest economy that the US has sought to cultivate as a regional partner and a counterweight to China.

In his meeting with Doval, Sullivan briefed his Indian counterpart on updates to US missile export-control policies that will bolster space cooperation with India, the White House said in a statement. India’s Ministry of External Affairs said Sullivan handed a letter to Modi from President Biden, and the two sides discussed progress in areas including technology, defense, chips and artificial intelligence.

President-elect Donald Trump also prioritized closer ties with India during his first term and is expected to continue to bolster links in his second. Even so, he’s criticized India’s high tariffs on imported goods, and his pledge to impose across-the-board duties threatens the South Asian nation’s trade surplus with the US.
US to end restrictions on Indian nuclear entities to boost energy ties, Sullivan says (Reuters)
Reuters [1/6/2025 9:28 AM, Shivam Patel, 48128K, Neutral]
The U.S. government is in the process of removing restrictions on Indian nuclear entities, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Monday, in a bid to forge deeper energy ties with New Delhi and bolster a 20-year old landmark nuclear deal.

Washington and New Delhi have been discussing supply of U.S. nuclear reactors to energy-hungry India since the mid-2000s and a deal signed by then President George W. Bush in 2007 allowed the United States to sell civilian nuclear technology to India.

But a longstanding obstacle has been the need to bring Indian liability rules in line with global norms which require the costs of any accident to be channeled to the operator rather than the maker of a nuclear power plant.

"United States is now finalizing the necessary steps to remove long-standing regulations that have prevented civil nuclear cooperation between India’s leading nuclear entities and U.S. companies," Sullivan said at an event in New Delhi on the second day of a two-day visit.

It was not immediately clear what changes would be made to the regulation, and U.S. and Indian officials did not share any further details.

"The formal paperwork will be done soon, but this will be an opportunity to turn the page on some of the frictions of the past and create opportunities for entities that have been on restricted lists in the United States to come off those lists," he added.

The United States had placed restrictions on more than 200 Indian entities after India tested nuclear weapons in 1998, but many have been taken off the list over the years as bilateral ties evolved, an Indian official said, requesting anonymity.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s list currently includes at least four entities of India’s Department of Atomic Energy, and some Indian nuclear reactors and nuclear power plants.

India’s stringent nuclear compensation laws have previously hurt deals with foreign power plant builders, leading the country to defer its target to add 20,000 MW of nuclear power from 2020 to 2030.

In 2019, India and the U.S. agreed to build six U.S. nuclear power plants in India.
US to remove barriers to civil nuclear cooperation with India (VOA)
VOA [1/6/2025 10:47 PM, Anjana Pasricha, 2717K, Neutral]
The United States is finalizing steps to lift barriers on civil nuclear cooperation with Indian firms, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in New Delhi on Monday, calling it a significant step in cementing the bilateral partnership between the two countries.

A landmark deal signed in 2007 between India and the United States had ended three decades of sanctions imposed on New Delhi for conducting nuclear tests and opened the door for India to get civil nuclear technology. The agreement was expected to help India meet its burgeoning energy needs.

But Indian rules which require the liability in the case of accidents to be met by the firm that sets up a nuclear power plant rather than the operator — which do not align with global norms — had posed a hurdle to U.S. companies establishing power plants in India.

Saying that the "formal paperwork" to remove long-standing regulations on civil nuclear cooperation will be done soon, Sullivan said that "this will be an opportunity to turn the page on some of the frictions of the past and create opportunities for entities that have been on restricted list in the United States to come off those lists and enter into deep collaborations with our private sector, with our scientists and technologists.".

Sullivan’s visit to India came two weeks before a new administration under incoming President-elect Donald Trump takes charge. Speaking at the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi, he called India-U.S. collaboration crucial for peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.

Analysts say the visit underlines the strong Indo-U.S. partnership built in recent years and the likely continuity in those ties amid common concerns over China and strong bipartisan support for the relationship.

In an editorial, The Indian Express newspaper noted that an important common thread between Trump’s previous term and President Biden’s administration has been the U.S. policy to strengthen the strategic partnership with India. "These bilateral conversations during the final days of the transition between two administrations in Washington underline a growing strategic congruence," the newspaper said.

Sullivan said that an initiative launched by the two countries two years ago to bolster their strategic technology partnership was an important component of the relationship.

Under the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology, both countries are moving to deepen cooperation in areas like quantum computing, defense, artificial intelligence, 5G wireless networks and semiconductors — areas in which China has acquired a dominant position.

Pointing out that supply chains are moving out of China, he said that the "United States, India and other key democratic partners have been reminded abruptly and sharply that we cannot ignore the ways in which interdependencies can be weaponized against us.".

"The visit is basically a signal from the Biden administration that the India-U.S. relationship is important and their cooperation on critical technologies is an important aspect of this relationship," according to Manoj Joshi, distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. "But while the stars are all aligned for New Delhi and Washington, we really don’t know how it will all play out under Trump.".

Sullivan met Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval and Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in New Delhi. In a post on social media platform X, Jaishankar said "Continued our ongoing discussions on deepening bilateral, regional and global cooperation. Valued the openness of our conversations in the last four years.".

New Delhi and Washington have built close ties in recent years despite differences over India’s continuing ties with Moscow since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and tensions over the alleged involvement of a former Indian government employee in a foiled plot in 2023 to assassinate a Sikh separatist who is a U.S. national.
Eight policemen, driver killed by Maoist bomb in central India (Reuters)
Reuters [1/6/2025 5:27 AM, Jatindra Dash, 1286K, Negative]
At least eight policemen and a driver were killed in a bomb blast set off by Maoist rebels in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, police said on Monday.

The police vehicle in which the victims were travelling was hit by a blast in the Bijapur district of the state on Monday, a police statement said.

This is the latest in a series of sporadic attacks on security forces in the state. It follows frequent gunbattles between the forces and the rebels in which several rebels have been killed in recent months.

Chhattisgarh and its neighbouring states in central and eastern India have been affected by a decades-long insurgency by Maoist rebels, although the areas they operate in have reduced significantly over the years.

The rebels subscribe to a form of communism propagated by late Chinese leader Mao Zedong, and have waged a guerrilla-style offensive against the government, leading to periodic clashes and casualties on both sides.

Maoists say they are fighting to give poor Indian farmers and landless labourers more control over their land and a greater claim to its minerals currently exploited by major mining companies.
Three miners feared dead in India’s Assam state, six others trapped (Reuters)
Reuters [1/7/2025 4:23 AM, Tora Agarwala, 5.2M, Negative]
Three miners were feared dead inside a flooded coal mine in a remote district of India’s northeastern Assam state, authorities said on Tuesday, and the men were part of a total of nine still trapped as rescue teams worked to reach them.

The mine, in an area controlled by the state government, appeared to be illegal, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on social media platform X, adding that local police had arrested one person in connection with the case.

Rescuers have spotted three bodies but have not yet recovered them, the local government said in a statement, a day after the nine miners were trapped by heavy flooding that police said was likely triggered underground.

"The well is about 150 feet deep, of which almost a hundred feet is filled with water," Kaushik Rai, a local minister who is at the site, told Reuters.

"Three teams have attempted to enter it since morning and have managed to go as far as 30 to 35 feet."

Police said the flooding likely took place inside the mine.

"They (the miners) probably hit some water channel and water came out and flooded it," Mayank Kumar, district police chief in Dima Hasao said.

Army teams deployed divers, helicopters and engineers to aid rescue efforts in Assam’s hilly Dima Hasao district, the army said in a statement.

Rescue teams lowered divers in a container using a pulley into a large shaft that leads to the mine, according to video from news agency ANI, in which Reuters has a minority stake.

Photographs shared by the army on social media showed rescue workers with ropes, cranes and other equipment standing at the edge of a large, vertical mine.

Coal mine-related disasters in the remote northeastern part of India are not uncommon. In one of the biggest incidents, in 2019, at least 15 miners were buried while working in an illegal mine in the neighbouring state of Meghalaya after it was flooded by water from a nearby river.
India Plans About $3 Billion Aid, Tariff Cuts for Electronics (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [1/6/2025 10:50 PM, Shruti Srivastava, Sankalp Phartiyal, and Ruchi Bhatia, 1450K, Positive]
India’s government is considering fresh subsidies for electronic component-makers and cutting tariffs on imports to help boost local manufacturing, especially of smartphones made by companies like Apple Inc.

The Ministry of Electronics and IT proposed giving manufacturers of components like batteries and camera parts at least 230 billion rupees ($2.7 billion) in support, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified as the discussions are private.

The ministry also recommended reducing tariffs on some electronic components, an industry demand that will help bring down production costs, one of the people said.

A final decision on the proposals will be made by the cabinet, and if approved, details may be announced in the government’s upcoming budget in February, the people said.

India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT and Finance Ministry didn’t immediately respond to requests for further information. The Economic Times of India earlier reported on the subsidy plan.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has spent billions of dollars in incentives to lure companies like Apple and Samsung Electronics Co. to set up manufacturing plants in the South Asian country. Apple’s iPhone exports from India have grown at a rapid clip as a result.

Authorities now want to build on that momentum by creating a broader supply chain for smartphone makers, who import the bulk of their electronics parts from countries including China.

Some of the components being targeted by the proposed subsidy include microprocessors, memory, storage, multi-layered printed circuit boards, camera components such as lens, and lithium-ion cells, one of the people said. The subsidies are likely to differ depending on the component, another person said.

"This is one of the major ways to incentivise companies to get into global value chains, though the benefits would be visible only in the medium to long run," said Madhavi Arora, lead economist at Emkay Global Financial Services. "The earlier subsidies in the sector have established efficiencies and this is how the government can build on it.".

Government think-tank Niti Aayog said in a report last year that the government should rationalize its tariffs and provide fiscal incentives to bolster electronic components production in India. The South Asian country faces tough competition from rivals like Vietnam in luring foreign businesses looking to diversify their supply chains from China.

India’s current tariffs on electronics components — ranging from zero to 20% — is about 5%-6% higher than countries such as China and Malaysia, according to research from Niti Aayog.
China exports push Nippon Steel to seek growth in US, India after blocked deal (Reuters)
Reuters [1/7/2025 3:01 AM, Katya Golubkova and Yuka Obayashi, 5.2M, Neutral]
Nippon Steel (5401.T)is poised to expand its operations in the U.S. and India as it hunts for growth and protection from cheap Chinese exports after its bid for U.S. Steel (X.N)
was blocked by the White House, analysts say.

Japan’s top steelmaker, battling declining domestic demand, made the $14.9 billion bid for the U.S. producer in an attempt to grow its footprint in a stronger market. But its hopes of salvaging the deal after President Joe Biden’s rejection on national security grounds are dependent on a lawsuit that is viewed as a long-shot.

China, by far the world’s largest steel producer, has flooded the market with near-decade high export volumes as its struggling property sector weighs on domestic demand, upending the global steel industry and leading Nippon Steel to invest more in raw materials and in production outside its home market.

"China’s over-capacity is likely to continue to place pressure on steel exporters... and heighten the need for Nippon Steel to access jurisdictions with growing domestic demand," said Kyle Lundin, principal consultant at Wood Mackenzie.

Nippon Steel, the world’s fourth-largest steel producer, has a long-term plan of boosting crude steel production capacity to over 100 million metric tons a year from about 65 million tons at present and lifting profits toward 1 trillion yen ($6.32 billion) a year from a 780 billion yen target in the financial year ending in March.

"To be a ‘truly’ global steel producer, greater production capacity above current state is likely required," said Wood Mackenzie’s Lundin.

Greater production capacity gives flexibility to cut output in one place and increase it in another where demand is more solid in order to boost margins.

The United States is the most promising market among developed countries with a large demand for advanced steel products like the ones used in electric cars, Nippon Steel CEO Eiji Hashimoto told reporters on Tuesday.

He said the company was not yet considering alternatives to the U.S. Steel plan, adding it would not give up on expanding in the United States.

"Considering the current industrial and energy policies, the demand for advanced steel will increase even more in the future. At any rate, the U.S. business is essential to our global strategy," Hashimoto said.

Nippon Steel has operated in the country since the 1980s and has a number of U.S. assets, including its prime facility, a joint venture with ArcelorMittal (MT.LU) in Calvert, Alabama, purchased a decade ago.

"While domestic demand in the U.S. is increasing, its production capacity is smaller than that of domestic demand, making it a net importer," said Ryunosuke Shibata, an analyst at SBI Securities in Tokyo.

The Calvert plant produces steel sheets using semi-finished products secured at home and overseas and the joint venture is investing nearly $800 million in an electric arc furnace of 1.5 million tons of annual capacity to reduce dependence on third-party supplies.

Wood Mackenzie’s Lundin said Nippon Steel could also look at other U.S. investments and acquisitions that may not pose the same political and national security hurdles.

U.S. Steel, founded in 1901 by business icons Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan and Charles Schwab, has a heavily unionised workforce and a brand once seen as a symbol of the country’s industrial might.

INDIA OPPORTUNITIES

Nippon Steel has been recently strengthening its raw material operations by snapping up mining assets globally, including purchases of iron ore and coking coal assets in Canada and Australia over the last year.

It has also asked the Japanese government to restrict imports of steel from China to protect the local market where production is shrinking due to slow demand from the manufacturing and construction sectors.

"Japan’s domestic demand is decreasing, so they have to go global and India currently is doing well," said SBI’s Shibata.

India is the world’s second-biggest steel producer, but like the U.S. it is a net importer as demand increases.

India’s domestic steel demand is seen growing 8.5% this year, according to the World Steel Association, versus a 1.2% rise in global consumption.

China was India’s top steel supplier in April-November last year, the latest data available, with imports reaching an all-time high of nearly 2 million tons, a 23% increase year-on-year, government data showed.

With India considering an increase to import tariffs for protection against Chinese steel, the market could offer solid growth opportunities.

"The foundation of our global strategy is to operate in markets with growing demand where we can leverage our technological strengths," Hashimoto said on Tuesday. "In line with this approach, we are actively expanding our business in India and ASEAN countries, particularly Thailand."

In India, Nippon Steel has had a joint venture with ArcelorMittal since 2019, but it is a smaller player compared to Tata Steel (TISC.NS) and JSW Steel (JSTL.NS) according to Lakshmanan R, senior research analyst at CreditSights Singapore.

To narrow the gap, the joint venture, India’s fourth-largest steelmaker, plans to increase steel production capacity to 15 million tons per year by the end of 2026 from 9 million tons annually now.

"The attractiveness of the Indian market lies in its growth of demand," Nippon Steel Vice Chairman Takahiro Mori said in November. "In this growing market, we are determined to steadily expand and further raise our market share in accordance with our plans."
2 Indian Companies Indicted for Smuggling Chemicals Used in Fentanyl (AP)
AP [1/6/2025 4:40 PM, Staff, 56005K, Negative]
Two pharmaceutical companies based in India were charged Monday with smuggling chemicals used in the production of the deadly drug fentanyl, federal prosecutors in New York announced.

Raxuter Chemicals and Athos Chemicals were charged in separate indictments with criminal conspiracy to distribute and import chemicals into the U.S., Mexico and elsewhere knowing they would be used to manufacture the synthetic opioid, according to U.S. District Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace’s office.

Bhavesh Lathiya, a founder and senior executive of Raxuter Chemicals, was also indicted on similar charges.

The 36-year-old executive, who also goes by “Bhavesh Patel” and “Bhavesh Bhai,” was arrested Saturday in New York City and ordered detained at his arraignment in Brooklyn federal court, prosecutors said.

His public defender declined to comment Monday. Representatives for the two companies didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment about the indictments.

Lathiya previously worked at Athos as a director until 2022 before leaving to start Raxuter, according to Peace’s office.

Prosecutors say the companies, both located in Surat, a city in the Indian state of Gujarat, smuggled into the U.S. and Mexico all the materials necessary for the manufacture of fentanyl, which federal authorities say is approximately 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine.

The companies employed deceptive and fraudulent practices to avoid detection, such as mislabeling packages, falsifying customs forms and making false declarations at border crossings, prosecutors said.

One such package sent to New York City last June by Raxuter Chemicals had a false manifest listing its contents as Vitamin C, they said. In another instance, Lathiya’s company purposefully mislabeled another fentanyl chemical as an antacid, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said the violent Sinaloa Cartel and other Mexican drug trafficking groups use chemicals such as those shipped by the two companies to produce the highly addictive drug on a massive scale in their clandestine laboratories.

“We made a promise that the Justice Department would never forget the victims of the fentanyl epidemic, and that we would never stop working to hold accountable those who bear responsibility for it — that is what we have done, and that is what we will continue to do,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement announcing the indictments.
HMPV: Two Babies Diagnosed With Virus in India (Newsweek)
Newsweek [1/6/2025 6:49 AM, Chloe Mayer, 56005K, Neutral]
There are fears that human metapneumovirus (HMPV) is spreading further across Asia after two sick babies were hospitalized and diagnosed with the virus in India.

China earlier revealed it has been grappling with a spike of patients suffering from the flu-like respiratory infection caused by the virus this winter. The surge in cases—which seems to have particularly affected children—has swept across northern China, but the country has played down fears of another Covid-style pandemic, with politicians noting that such illnesses are common during the winter months.

Officials at the Indian Council of Medical Research confirmed the discovery of two HMPV cases within its own borders on January 6, after testing the infants in the southwestern state of Karnataka, according to the Hindustan Times.

Newsweek reached out by email to India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare seeking further information and comment.

Why It Matters

The spread of HMPV has sparked global concern, as cases have begun to be reported outside of mainland China. There have already been confirmed infections in Hong Kong and Malaysia, and this week’s announcement means that HMPV is circulating in India.

The Chinese government and the World Health Organization have not declared a public health emergency regarding the virus.

What to Know

The HMPV virus causes symptoms similar to the flu or common cold, such as a cough, fever, stuffy or runny nose, sore throat, wheezing and shortness of breath. It may even cause a rash, according to the Cleveland Clinic. The virus has been around for more than two decades and, in the spring of 2023, the U.S. saw its own outbreak, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

As with the common cold, there is no specific treatment for HMPV and no vaccine. And it’s spread in a similar way: via close contact with an infected person, touching contaminated surfaces and through airborne droplets from coughs or sneezes.

Cases tend to mild, but young children, adults over 65, and people with weakened immune systems are at a higher risk for serious illness. HMPV can sometimes go on to cause other respiratory infections such as pneumonia, and can worsen existing conditions such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

The Indian Council of Medical Research confirmed that two HMPV cases were detected in Karnataka hospitals during routine surveillance for viruses.

A three-month-old girl was diagnosed with HMPV after being admitted to the Baptist Hospital in Bengaluru and she has now been discharged, officials said on Monday. An eight-month-old boy also tested positive at the same hospital on January 3 and he is said to be "recovering" as he undergoes treatment, according to the Hindustan Times. Both children had a previous history of bronchopneumonia, the newspaper said.

Officials stressed that neither of the babies had traveled abroad, meaning that they must have contracted the illness inside India.

What People Are Saying

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters on Friday: "Respiratory infections tend to peak during the winter season. The diseases appear to be less severe and spread with a smaller scale compared to the previous year.".

Professor Paul Griffin, director of infectious diseases at Mater Health Services in Brisbane, Australia, told the Guardian newspaper: "I don’t think we’re necessarily concerned about a pandemic with this virus, but the surge in cases and impact it’s having are significant. A good lesson can be taken [from the Covid-19 pandemic] to reduce the spread, particularly given we don’t have vaccines or antivirals for HMPV... staying home, practising good cough and sneeze etiquette, and hand hygiene are so important during the winter season.".

Before the Indian cases were confirmed on Monday, India’s Kerala state Health Minister Veena George said last week that the country was braced for HMPV infections, telling The Indian Express: "Respiratory diseases especially in children and the elderly are being closely monitored. That apart, people coming from other countries, including China, will also be monitored if they develop respiratory symptoms. However, the present situation does not demand any restrictions for expatriates.".

Newsweek has reached out by email to India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare seeking comment.

What Happens Next

Indian hospitals are likely to screen further respiratory patients for the HMPV virus, while the World Health Organization, a United Nations agency, will continue to monitor the global situation.
China’s new super-dam carries both geopolitical and environmental risks (The Hill – opinion)
The Hill [1/6/2025 11:00 AM, Brahma Chellaney, 57114K, Neutral]
The Chinese Communist Party has long thrived on secrecy, and 2024 was no different. As the year was ending, it became clear that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s regime is pressing ahead with a controversial plan that will likely wreak environmental havoc by damming the world’s highest-altitude river as it passes through Earth’s largest canyon.

The dam, the biggest ever conceived, also holds geopolitical risks given its location next to the disputed and heavily militarized China-India border. Indeed, the mammoth dam is being built just before the Himalayan river Yarlung Tsangpo (known downstream as the Brahmaputra) enters India.

Sketchy reports in Chinese state media last month about China’s "approval" of the super-dam’s construction suggest that work is already well underway, given that the project received the go-ahead from the country’s rubber-stamp parliament in March 2021. In fact, Xi’s regime included this dam project in its 2021 five-year economic development plan.

The unparalleled dam, which will cost a staggering $127 billion, highlights the government’s continuing fixation on building the world’s tallest, largest, deepest, longest and highest projects. The new dam will dwarf the biggest dam in the world today, China’s own Three Gorges Dam, whose reservoir is longer than the largest of North America’s Great Lakes.

When completed, the super-dam in southeastern Tibet will generate up to 300 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity yearly — more than triple the 88.2 billion installed capacity of the Three Gorges Dam. Located in central China, the Three Gorges Dam officially uprooted 1.4 million residents to make way for its mammoth reservoir, which submerged two cities, 114 towns and 1,680 villages.

In keeping with its record of secrecy, China has disclosed few details of the super-dam or the number of local Tibetans likely to be displaced, other than to claim that the project would produce "clean" energy. China’s foreign ministry, without saying anything about the dam’s current status, flatly asserted on Dec. 27, "The project will not negatively affect the lower reaches" of the river basin.

In truth, the dam will likely have far-reaching downstream impacts in India and Bangladesh, including altering the cross-border flow and course of the river, which empties into the Bay of Bengal. It will also trap the river’s nutrient-rich silt that helps to naturally fertilize farmlands during the annual monsoonal flooding, as well as sustains marine life.

The dam, in fact, is being built in one of the world’s most species-rich mountainous regions that is known as a biodiversity hotspot. Tibet’s fragile ecosystems are already threatened by climate change and China’s reckless exploitation of the plateau’s vast mineral and water resources. And the super-dam threatens to cause lasting damage to these ecosystems, which play a central role in triggering Asia’s annual monsoons.

To make matters worse, the behemoth dam is in a seismically active area, which raises the specter of a geological disaster. Tibet’s southeastern region is earthquake-prone because it sits on the geological fault line where the Indian Plate and the Eurasian Plate collide. Building the huge dam close to this fault line makes the project potentially a ticking water bomb for downstream communities.

Geopolitically, the megaproject is likely to sharpen the Sino-Indian territorial and border disputes, which date back to China’s 1951 annexation of the then-autonomous Tibet. By occupying the water-rich Tibetan Plateau, where most of Asia’s great river systems originate, China gained significant upstream leverage over multiple neighboring countries to which rivers flow.

Now, the new dam project will give China control over cross-border river flows, thus allowing it to leverage its territorial claim to India’s sprawling, Tibet-bordering Arunachal Pradesh state, which is almost three times the area of Taiwan.

Since 2006, Beijing has been calling Arunachal Pradesh "South Tibet" to assert that it should be part of China. The purported basis of China’s claim to that Indian state, however, has only served to highlight that Tibet remains the core issue in China-India relations.

While maintaining a veil of secrecy over its super-dam project since it was conceived, Beijing has asserted a "legitimate right" to dam the river in a border area. This is in keeping with its longstanding claim that it has "indisputable sovereignty" over waters on its side of the international boundary, including the right to divert as much shared water as it wishes for its legitimate needs.

China is now the world’s most dammed country, with more large dams in operation than the rest of the world combined. China’s dam building has increasingly moved from dam-saturated internal rivers (a number of which are dying) to international rivers.

Over the years, Beijing has kept every major project on an international river under wraps until construction is far enough along that the dam can no longer be hidden from commercially available satellite imagery and the project becomes a fait accompli. In this fashion, China has built 11 giant dams on the Mekong River (and is constructing or planning at least eight more), thereby gaining geopolitical leverage over its Southeast Asian neighbors, but also wreaking serious environmental harms, including recurrent droughts, in the downriver basin.

Against this backdrop, there is growing concern among downstream countries that China is seeking to weaponize the water resources of the Tibetan Plateau, most of whose river systems are transnational in nature. Not content with the 87,000 dams it has, China remains engaged in dam-building frenzy.

Its colossal dam project will not only compel India to prepare for contingencies but also ensure that, despite recent conciliatory moves, mistrust and strategic rivalry continue to define the Sino-Indian relationship. More fundamentally, the project will impose incalculable environmental costs extending from the Himalayas to the delta in Bangladesh.
NSB
UK’s anti-corruption minister refers herself to ethics watchdog over links to ousted Bangladeshi PM (AP)
AP [1/6/2025 9:32 AM, Staff, 63029K, Neutral]
A British Treasury minister has referred herself to the U.K. government’s ethics watchdog following reports that she lived in London properties linked to her aunt Sheikh Hasina, the ousted Bangladeshi prime minister.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Monday that Treasury economic secretary Tulip Siddiq "acted entirely properly" by referring herself to his independent adviser on ministerial standards.

Siddiq, who is responsible for tackling corruption in financial markets, was named last month in an anti-corruption investigation in Bangladesh against Hasina. The investigation alleged that Siddiq’s family was involved in brokering a 2013 deal with Russia for a nuclear power plant in Bangladesh in which large sums of money were said to have been embezzled.

The minister faced further questions about her links to her aunt’s regime after reports in the Sunday Times and Financial Times newspapers alleged she had used two London apartments given to her by associates of Bangladesh’s Awami League, led by Hasina.

Hasina was Bangladesh’s longest-serving prime minister and ruled the country for 15 years until August 2024, when she was ousted amid a mass uprising in which hundreds of protesters were killed and thousands were injured. Hasina, who has fled to India, faces many court cases over the deaths, including some on charges of crimes against humanity.

Siddiq, 42, maintains she has done nothing wrong in her letter to the ministerial standards watchdog, adding: "For the avoidance of doubt, I would like you to independently establish the facts about these matters.".

Starmer said he had confidence in Siddiq, 42, who was elected lawmaker in north London in 2015. She had been due to join a U.K. government delegation to China later this week, but will now stay in Britain.
Tulip Siddiq refers herself to watchdog after Bangladesh-linked property claims (The Guardian)
The Guardian [1/6/2025 10:09 AM, Kiran Stacey, 82995K, Negative]
A senior Treasury minister has referred herself to the ministerial standards watchdog after days of allegations that she has lived in multiple properties tied to the ousted Bangladeshi government.

Tulip Siddiq, the City and anti-corruption minister, has asked Laurie Magnus, the prime minister’s independent adviser on ministerial standards, to investigate whether she might have broken the ministerial code.

Her request came after it was revealed that Siddiq had lived in multiple properties linked to her aunt Sheikh Hasina. Hasina recently resigned as Bangladesh’s prime minister after a popular uprising.

Siddiq wrote to Magnus: "In recent weeks I have been the subject of media reporting, much of it inaccurate, about my financial affairs and my family’s links to the former government of Bangladesh.

"I am clear that I have done nothing wrong. However, for the avoidance of doubt, I would like you to independently establish the facts about these matters.".

Labour officials said Siddiq would not travel with a Treasury delegation led by the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, to China this week as planned, and would instead "remain behind to assist with inquiries".

Siddiq is under pressure over her occupancy of several properties, including a two-bedroom flat near King’s Cross and a separate home in Hampstead.

The Financial Times revealed on Friday that the King’s Cross flat was bought in 2001 for £195,000 by Abdul Motalif, a developer with links to members of Hasina’s party, the Awami League. Siddiq became the owner of that flat in 2004 without paying for it.

The Mail on Sunday said Siddiq had previously told its reporters that the flat had been bought by her parents and given to her as a gift, prompting accusations she had misled the newspaper.

The Sunday Times then reported that she had lived in the separate Hampstead property after it had been bought by Moin Ghani, a lawyer who represented Hasina’s government, and transferred to Siddiq’s sister.

Siddiq is also renting a £2.1m home in East Finchley owned by Abdul Karim, an executive member of the UK wing of the Awami League.

Siddiq’s connections to her aunt’s party have caused her political problems in the past, including in 2017, when she refused to answer questions about Ahmad bin Quasem, a British-trained barrister in prison in Bangladesh.

She insisted at the time she had nothing to do with her aunt’s government, saying: "I’m a Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, I’m a British member of parliament.

"Be very careful. I’m not Bangladeshi and the person you are talking about, I have no idea about their case.".

Hasina was the world’s longest-serving female leader, but was criticised for crushing political dissent and twice fought elections that were boycotted by the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist party.

Last year she was forced to resign after widespread student-led protests against her government. Those protests, as well as the violent security response to them that Hasina oversaw, led to about 300 deaths.

Hasina fled the country she had led since 2009 by helicopter after protesters stormed her palace in the capital, Dhaka.

So far Siddiq has continued to enjoy Keir Starmer’s confidence even amid the revelations about her properties and links to senior figures in the Awami League.

Starmer said on Monday: "Tulip Siddiq has acted entirely properly by referring herself to the independent adviser, as she’s now done, and that’s why we brought in the new code.

"It’s to allow ministers to ask the adviser to establish the facts. And yes, I’ve got confidence in her, and that’s the process that will now be happening.".
Strong Earthquake Hits Remote Tibet in Western China, Killing Dozens (New York Times)
New York Times [1/7/2025 4:41 AM, David Pierson and Bhadra Sharma, 57114K, Negative]
Dozens of people were killed and hundreds of buildings were toppled after a 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck a region near one of Tibet’s holiest cities, close to the Himalayan border with Nepal on Tuesday. Tremors were felt in Nepal.

The quake struck shortly after 9 a.m. at a depth of 6.2 miles in Dingri County in Tibet, Chinese state media reported. They said at least 95 people had died and 130 were injured. Xinhua, the official news agency, published video of police removing rubble and lifting debris.

China’s state broadcaster reported that more than 1,000 houses had collapsed in Dingri County, which sits on the northern foothills of Mount Everest.

Several aftershocks were felt in the area, including in Nepal. The quake had a magnitude of 7.1, according to the United States Geological Survey, though it was measured as 6.8 by the China Earthquake Networks Center.

The nearest city to the earthquake’s epicenter was Shigatse, the second-largest city in Tibet, with a population of 640,000. Shigatse is regarded as a holy site as the seat of the Panchen Lama, one of the most senior figures in Tibetan Buddhism.

A tourist not far from Shigatse who spoke to The Times said she was in her hotel room when the earthquake started shaking her building. She said the electricity went out and that she and a friend squatted between the beds. When the shaking stopped, they ran out of the building.

The tourist, who only gave her surname, Xu, shared a video showing several single-story brick buildings with collapsed walls. Video posted on Chinese social media showed streets strewed with rubble, cars crushed by fallen bricks, and roads split open by the shifted ground. Ms. Xu said that she grabbed her down jacket before she ran out.

China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, ordered officials to minimize casualties and resettle survivors. The Chinese authorities deployed 1,500 rescuers and more than 250 vehicles for the search effort, which was taking place in frigid conditions, with temperatures dipping as low as 5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 15 degrees Celsius). In photos published by state media, rescuers appeared to be digging through piles of rubble from toppled houses using ropes, shovels and working by hand.

The Himalayan region is prone to powerful earthquakes. In 2015, a quake in Nepal with a magnitude of 7.8 killed nearly 9,000 people. In Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, residents streamed out of their homes in the morning as the earthquake rattled buildings.

At least two people, one in Kathmandu and another one in Sindhupalchowk, a district north of Kathmandu, sustained minor injuries from the quake, according to Nepalese police.

Nepal sent more than 2,500 police officers to assess damage and look for victims.

“Based on the magnitude of the earthquake, there could be some damages in mountains of eastern Nepal,” said Lok Bijaya Adhikari, a senior seismologist at Nepal’s National Earthquake Monitoring and Research Center.

Most residents from Nepal’s high mountain regions such as Everest, Makalu, Rolwaling and Kanchenjunga have migrated to lowland areas to avoid the extreme cold of winter.

“Although most people migrate to lower land during winter season, some are still there,” said Ang Tshering Sherpa, the former chief of the Nepal Mountaineering Association. “There’s always risk of avalanche and glacial lake outburst floods after earthquakes.”
Powerful earthquake kills nearly 100 in Tibet, rattles Nepal (Reuters)
Reuters [1/7/2025 3:22 AM, Joe Cash and Gopal Sharma, 5.2M, Negative]
A magnitude 6.8 earthquake rocked the northern foothills of the Himalayas near one of Tibet’s holiest cities on Tuesday, Chinese authorities said, killing at least 95 people and shaking buildings in neighbouring Nepal, Bhutan and India.

The quake hit at 9:05 a.m. (0105 GMT), with its epicentre located in Tingri, a rural county known as the northern gateway to the Everest region, at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles), according to the China Earthquake Networks Centre. The U.S. Geological Service put the quake’s magnitude at 7.1.

At least 95 people were known to have been killed and 130 injured on the Tibetan side, China’s state-run television reported six hours later. There were no reports of deaths elsewhere.

Southwestern parts of China, Nepal and northern India are frequently hit by earthquakes caused by the collision of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates.

Tuesday’s epicentre was around 80 km (50 miles) north of Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain and a popular destination for climbers and trekkers.

Winter is not a popular season for climbers and hikers in Nepal, with a German climber the lone mountaineer with a permit to climb Mount Everest. He had already left the base camp after failing to reach the summit, Lilathar Awasthi, a Department of Tourism official, said.

Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) said the tremors were felt in seven hill districts bordering Tibet.

"So far we have not received any information of any loss of life and property," NDRRMA spokesman Dizan Bhattarai told Reuters. "We have mobilised police, security forces and local authorities to collect information," he said.

Many villages in the Nepalese border area, which are sparsely populated, are remote and can only be reached by foot.

The impact of the quake was felt across the Shigatse region of Tibet, home to 800,000 people. The region is administered by Shigatse city, the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama, one of the most important figures in Tibetan Buddhism.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said all-out search and rescue efforts should be carried out to minimise casualties, properly resettle the affected people, and ensure a safe and warm winter.

More than 1,500 local firefighters and rescue workers have been dispatched to the affected areas, China’s Xinhua news agency reported.

Some 22,000 items including cotton tents, cotton coats, quilts and folding beds have also been sent to the quake-hit region, it said.

TREMORS, AFTERSHOCKS

Villages in Tingri, where the average elevation is around 4,000-5,000 metres (13,000-16,000 feet), reported strong shaking during the quake, which was followed by dozens of aftershocks with magnitudes of up to 4.4.

Crumbled shop fronts could be seen in a video on social media showing the aftermath in the town of Lhatse, with debris spilling out onto the road.

Reuters was able to confirm the location based on nearby buildings, windows, road layout, and signage that match satellite and street view imagery.

There are three townships and 27 villages within 20 km (12 miles) of the epicentre, with a total population of around 6,900, and more than 1,000 houses have been damaged, Xinhua reported.

Local government officials were liaising with nearby towns to gauge the impact of the quake and check for casualties, and China closed the Everest region to tourists after the quake, it added.

The Tingri tremor was caused by a rupture in what is known as the Lhasa block in an area under north-south compression and west-east stress, CCTV reported, citing Chinese experts.

Since 1950, there have been 21 earthquakes of magnitude 6 or above in the Lhasa block, the largest of which was the 6.9-magnitude quake in Mainling in 2017, according to CCTV.

Mainling is located in the lower reaches of Tibet’s Yarlung Zangbo river where China is planning to build the world’s largest hydropower dam.

A magnitude 7.8 tremor struck near Nepal’s capital Kathmandu in 2015, killing about 9,000 people and injuring thousands in the country’s worst ever earthquake. Among the dead were at least 18 people killed at the Mount Everest base camp when it was hit by an avalanche.

On Tuesday, tremors were felt in Kathmandu, some 400 km (250 miles) from the epicentre, and residents in the city ran out of their houses.

"The bed was shaking and I thought my child was moving the bed ... I didn’t pay that much attention but the shaking of (a) window made me understand that it’s an earthquake," said Kathmandu resident Meera Adhikarii. "I’m still shaking out of fear and am in shock."

One person was injured in Kathmandu when he jumped off the top of a house after feeling the strong tremors, Nepal Police spokesman Bishwa Adhikari said. The man was being treated in hospital.

The quake also jolted Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan, and the northern Indian state of Bihar which borders Nepal.

So far, no reports of any damage or loss to property have been received, officials in India and Bhutan said.
Jimmy Carter’s Nepal Connection (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [1/6/2025 4:30 AM, Birat Anupam, 857K, Neutral]
The death of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is being mourned far from his home in the Himalayan country of Nepal.

It has evoked memories of and gratitude for his role in the Nepali peace process, mainly in getting the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) to move away from their decade-long guerilla warfare to participate in mainstream politics, a rarity among Maoist movements worldwide. Carter was also the highest-ranking American figure to advocate for the de-listing of Nepal’s Maoists from the U.S.-designated terrorist list.

Carter came to Nepal in 2007, when he met Maoist leaders Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka "Prachanda" and Baburam Bhattarai for around an hour.

Following the meeting, Maoist chair Dahal told the media that while the Maoists want "friendly relations with the U.S.," the "U.S. government has put us on its terrorist watch list." He urged the U.S. to remove the Maoists from the terrorist list. The CPN-Maoist was included in the U.S. terrorist list in 2004.

In 2008, Carter expressed support for delisting Nepal’s Maoists from the terrorist list. "My hope is and my cautious expectation is that the U.S. will in the future recognize the authenticity and the non-terrorist nature of the commitment of the Maoists," he told journalists in Kathmandu.

In a letter dated May 28, 2009, Dahal, as did leaders of other parties, formally invited Carter’s organization, The Carter Center, to participate in Nepal’s peace process. Appreciating Carter’s "continued interest in Nepal’s ongoing peace and constitution drafting process," Dahal said he "would welcome further support from your side including a continued international observation presence at the local level to observe the constitution drafting and strengthen the implementation of the peace process.".

This marked a significant shift in the Maoists’ position. Hitherto, the Maoists had opposed any foreign role in Nepal’s internal affairs, describing it as "foreign interference." American involvement was derided as "American imperialism.".

In 2009, Carter, as a philanthropic private citizen of the U.S. running his Carter Center, met Dahal, who once again urged for the delisting of the Maoists.

It took eight more years for the Maoists to be delisted from the U.S. terrorist list. On September 6, 2012 — six years after they entered Nepal’s mainstream politics after inking the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of November 21, 2006, the U.S. removed the Maoists from the terrorist list.

A U.S. government statement said: "The Department of State has revoked the designation of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and its aliases as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity under Executive Order 13224, and as a "terrorist organization" from the Terrorist Exclusion List (TEL) under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).".

Explaining its decision to delist the organization, the U.S. statement said that "…in recent years, the Maoist party has been elected as the head of Nepal’s coalition government, has taken steps to dismantle its apparatus for the conduct of terrorist operations, and has demonstrated a credible commitment to pursuing the peace and reconciliation process in Nepal.".

Thus ended the 8-year-long terrorist designation of Nepal’s Maoists.

Besides, his advocacy role in getting the Maoists delisted from the terrorist list, Carter had worked for peace and democratization in Nepal. The Carter Center started its operations in Nepal in 2004. Its observers began visiting Nepal in 2007, and Carter was in Nepal to take stock of the situation during two consecutive Constituent Assembly elections, in 2008 and 2013.

Carter praised the inclusivity of Nepal’s Constituent Assembly. In an article for The Kathmandu Post and Kantipur Daily of Nepal, Carter wrote, "The Constituent Assembly elected in 2008 and dissolved in May 2012 was also the most inclusive and representative governing legislature in Nepal’s history, with leaders chosen by all parties and with more women parliamentarians than any equivalent ruling body in South Asia.".

Carter’s work in Nepal has prompted several Nepali leaders to remember his contribution to the peace process. In his condolence message, Dahal described Carter as a steadfast friend of Nepal.
Central Asia
Brazilian Lab Sends Data From Doomed Flight’s Recorders To Kazakh Investigators (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [1/6/2025 4:56 PM, Staff, 1089K, Negative]
A lab run by Brazil’s air force has sent data from the flight recorders recovered from the Brazilian-made Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed last month to the Kazakhstan authority investigating the crash.

The lab said in a statement on January 6 that it had completed the extraction of the data from the cockpit recorders of the Embraer plane and turned the material over to the investigators.

Kazakh authorities announced on December 29 that the recorders were being sent to Brazil amid accusations by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev that Russia was trying to "cover up" the cause of the tragedy.

The Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane was flying from the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, to Grozny in Russia’s Chechnya region on December 25 when it was diverted and crashed in Kazakhstan, killing 38 of the 67 people on board.

The Kazakh Transport Ministry said the commission in charge of the probe had sent the flight recorders to the Center for the Investigation and Prevention of Aeronautical Accidents in Brazil amid evidence that the jet was hit by a Russian air-defense missile before it went down near Aqtau in western Kazakhstan.

Aliyev said on December 29 that the plane was mistakenly shot at while approaching Grozny. He also said Russia had not admitted guilt or apologized to Azerbaijan but instead had presented "absurd theories" about a bird strike or an explosion of a gas cylinder on the plane.

Those theories, Aliyev said, showed "that the Russian side wanted to cover up the issue.".

The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to Aliyev but did not accept blame for the plane crash.

In a phone call with Aliyev on December 28, Putin said Russian air defenses were repelling an alleged Ukrainian drone attack on Grozny when the plane was trying to land at the airport there, a Kremlin statement said.

Russia’s Investigative Committee has opened a criminal investigation into the possible violation of flight safety rules, the statement said.
Brazil Hands Black Box Data From Crashed Plane To Kazakhstan (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [1/6/2025 5:15 PM, Staff, 82995K, Negative]
Brazil’s air force said Monday it had extracted the data from two black box recorders belonging to a crashed Azerbaijan Airlines plane that Baku claims was downed by Russia on Christmas Day.

The Brazilian-made Embraer 190, crash-landed in Kazakhstan after being diverted from a scheduled landing in the Chechen capital Grozny in southern Russia, killing 38 of the 67 people on board.

Azerbaijan believes the plane was shot down by Russian air defenses, which Moscow says were operational in the area at the time.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has apologized that the "incident" occurred in his country’s air space but has not responded to claims the plane was hit by Russian weapons.

The flight recorders, which capture cockpit dialogue and flight data from the plane, were analyzed in Brasilia, but Kazakhstan is in charge of releasing the results.

"All the data was handed over to the Kazakhstan Investigation Authority... in accordance with international protocols for investigating aircraft accidents," Brazil’s air force said in a statement.

Russia said Grozny was being attacked by Ukrainian drones when the airliner approached to make its landing through thick fog.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev -- a close ally of Moscow -- has demanded an apology, admission of guilt and the punishment of those found responsible for the "criminal" shooting of the plane.

In a rare rebuke on Monday, Aliyev said Russia’s "concealment" of the causes and "delusional versions" being put forward "cause us justifiable anger."

Investigators from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Russia traveled to Brazil for the investigation, officials said.

The black box data was examined by the Aeronautical Accidents Investigation and Prevention Center, a unit of the Brazilian air force.
Russia’s Ally Issues HMPV Update as 30 New Cases Recorded (Newsweek)
Newsweek [1/6/2025 4:45 PM, Brendan Cole, 6595K, Negative]
Kazakhstan has recorded a seasonal rise in the number of metapneumovirus (HMPV) cases. The health ministry in the Central Asian country, which borders Russia and has a close relationship with Moscow, said there had been 30 cases of the respiratory illness.

Newsweek contacted by email the World Health Organization (WHO) and Kazakhstan’s health ministry for comment.

Why It Matters

China has seen a rise in cases of the flu-like disease and there are also cases reported in India and Malaysia. Images of crowded Chinese hospitals where patients are being treated for the viral infection have sparked concerns about a potential health crisis akin to the COVID-19 pandemic.

What To Know

In a statement on Sunday in the Kazakh and Russian languages, Kazakhstan’s ministry of health said it had carried out 8,360 tests of infections and found that there were 30 cases of HMPV.

There were also "other types of infections that are actively circulating in space during the seasonal rise in the incidence of SARS and influenza," the statement said, which included 680 cases of rhinovirus, 226 of adenovirus, 206 of coronavirus and 178 of parainfluenza.

HMPV was discovered in 2001 and it has flu-like symptoms that can cause serious respiratory issues among children and vulnerable groups.

The virus causes upper and lower respiratory infections and can spark cough, fever, nasal congestion and shortness of breath with more serious cases leading to bronchitis or pneumonia. Able to spread through touch, it has an incubation period of between three and seven days, while a full recovery may take a bit longer.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said there are no antiviral treatments for the virus, but washing hands, avoiding touching the face with unwashed hands and avoiding close contact with sick people can protect you from the disease.

What People Are Saying

Kazakhstan’s health ministry said on Sunday: "Human metapneumovirus (HMPV) strains have been identified in Kazakhstan, along with other types of infections that actively circulate in the space during the seasonal increase in the incidence of acute respiratory viral infections and influenza.".

The World Health Organization (WHO) said of the cases in China: "There is a month-over-month increase of acute respiratory infections, including seasonal influenza, RSV and Human metapneumovirus (hMPV).".

What Happens Next

There is more likely to be herd immunity against HMPV than for a novel virus, such as COVID-19 during its first outbreak.

The WHO has not called the situation a global health emergency and there is not enough information on the extent and severity of a possible HMPV outbreak in China to accurately predict the risk of a pandemic.

When asked about the number of cases in China, a WHO spokesperson told Newsweek the latest report from the country’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention said as expected for the time of year, there was a month-over-month increase of acute respiratory infections.

These include HMPV, seasonal influenza and RSV, while the "reported year-over-year level of influenza activity is lower, meaning it is less than the same period last year.".
Leftover Shell Explodes in Kyrgyz Village (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [1/6/2025 11:10 AM, Catherine Putz, 857K, Negative]
Conflicts have consequences, even after the combatants have settled down to negotiate.

On January 5, in the village of Arka-2 in Leilek district – the far west end of Kyrgyzstan’s Batken Region – a 32-year-old woman and her 11-year-old daughter were reportedly injured by an exploding shell that likely had been left over from the September 2022 conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Leilek district is surrounded by Tajikistan’s Sughd Region to the south, west, and north.

Kyrgyzstan’s Border Service, under the country’s State Committee for National Security (SCNS), stated that the house where the shell exploded had been almost completely destroyed by fire during the 2022 conflict.

RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service, Azattyk, reported that the woman and her daughter were cleaning up the yard. They picked up a metal object and threw it onto the concrete near the house. It exploded, injuring both with shrapnel.

Authorities in Batken reported that the head of the Leilek district police had met with the head of Tajikistan’s Gafurov district – the part of Sughd Region that borders the area, to discuss the situation and "prevent panic among the population." They urged locals to be careful, not to touch suspicious objects, and to report any that they find to the authorities.

Since independence in 1991, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have wrestled over where exactly much of their mutual border lies. This contention has occasionally flared into violence, most prominently in 2021 and 2022. In 2021, more than 50 civilians were killed in a skirmish that escalated into a military clash, starting with a conflict over a water intake station near Kok-Tash, Kyrgyzstan but expanding to shootouts in the Batken and Leilek districts of Kyrgyzstan’s Batken region. The following year, more than 140 people were killed – both civilians and military personnel – in clashes that occurred along a much larger stretch of the border.

In the years since, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have made progress on an agreement over the border. In early December 2024, the two sides announced – after months of alternating negotiation meetings – that they had come to an agreement. In the following week, they announced that they had completed a draft description of the border.

In mid-December, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov claimed that under the agreement, "The disputed territories on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border were divided equally – 50/50." It was also reported in mid-December that the documents relating to the delimitation and demarcation of the Kyrgyz-Tajik border would be sent to the Jogorku Kenesh, Kyrgyzstan’s parliament, in January 2025.

Kamchybek Tashiev, the head of Kyrgyzstan’s SCNS, said that "the issue regarding the border will be discussed openly." Tashiev, whose remit includes the Border Service, has featured heavily in negotiations with Tajikistan about the border.

The explosion in Arka-2 is a sad reminder that conflicts can have lingering consequences, even after the two sides have made peace. In the course of the explanatory work that will be necessary among the local populations that live in the border regions in light of the final agreements, Kyrgyz and Tajik authorities will also need to raise awareness about the risks of unexploded ordnance and work to help people safely rebuild.

Unfortunately, regional governments have experience with this. In 2000, Uzbekistan began mining its undemarcated border with Tajikistan. After fits and starts over the ensuing years, in 2018 Uzbekistan again commenced demining – not coincidentally, this came alongside progress in border negotiations between the two sides. In 2020, the Uzbek side announced that demining work had been completed.
Uzbekistan has highest number of deportees from US among Eurasian states in 2024 (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [1/6/2025 4:14 PM, Staff, 57.6K, Neutral]
The deportation of citizens of Eurasian nations from the United States experienced a sharp uptick in 2024 over the previous year, according to the annual report released by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

Uzbekistan was the Eurasian state with the most deportees in 2024 at 572, a more than six-fold increase over 2023’s total of 88. Russia had 464 of its citizens deported, slightly more than double the number of deportees the previous year. In the Caucasus, Georgia registered the highest number of deportations in the just-concluded year at 162, up from 24 in 2023. Overall, every nation in the Caucasus and Central Asia experienced a sharp increase in the number of deportations of its citizens.

ICE organized a higher-than-usual number of charter flights in 2024 to return foreign nationals to their home countries. “These included the first large charter removal flight to the People’s Republic of China since FY2018 as well as large charter flights stopping in Albania, Angola, Egypt, Georgia, Ghana, Guinea, India, Mauritania, Romania, Senegal, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan,” the report states.

Despite the sharp rise in deportation rates, citizens of Eurasian states comprise only a miniscule percentage of the overall number of 271,484 deportees in 2024. The overwhelming majority came from Central American nations, including Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico.

At the outset of 2025, Russia ranked 10th with 1,319 in the category of highest number of detained citizens with final orders of removal. “After a noncitizen receives a final order of removal, [immigration authorities] coordinate with necessary partners to obtain proper travel documents and effectuate the noncitizen’s removal,” according to the report.

The deportation trend is expected to keep rising in coming years with Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency. Trump has vowed to overhaul the US immigration policies and target those already in the United States without proper documentation for deportation.
Twitter
Afghanistan
Embassy of Afghanistan in Islamabad
@AFinPak
[1/6/2025 11:56 AM, 27.6K followers, 138 retweets, 447 likes]
The Embassy of Afghanistan expresses its deep concern over the recent detention of approximately 800 Afghan nationals in Islamabad, including individuals holding valid visas, PoR, and ACC cards. The lack of clarity surrounding NOC requirements/issuance process has led to troubling cases of arbitrary detention and deportation.

Among those deported are 137 Afghan nationals whose visas had expired but who had already applied for extensions, as well as holders of temporary SHARP/UNHCR registration. This has caused the tragic separation of families, including women and children, many of whom remain stranded in Pakistan.

The Embassy is particularly alarmed by reports of unwarranted arrests, home searches, and extortion targeting Afghan nationals. We respectfully urge the Government of Pakistan to address these pressing concerns promptly.

The Embassy has officially communicated these issues to the relevant Pakistani authorities and calls on @UNHCR and other human rights organizations to intervene urgently. The dignity, rights, and safety of Afghan nationals residing in Pakistan is inevitable.

Freshta Razbaan
@RazbaanFreshta
[1/6/2025 12:55 PM, 5.1K followers, 22 retweets, 52 likes]
The Afghan refugees in Pakistan are living in unimaginable hardship, caught in a cruel limbo that leaves them vulnerable and desperate. These are families, mothers, fathers, children—ordinary people who fled the horror of terror and violence in search of safety and dignity. But instead of finding refuge, many now face the devastating reality of being forced back into a nation controlled by the very forces they escaped.

Imagine the heartbreak of a mother wondering how she will protect her children from the horrors waiting back home. Imagine the anguish of a father unable to shield his family from the nightmares of the past. These people have already suffered enough; they don’t deserve to be pushed into an abyss of fear once more.

We can’t stay silent while their cries for help echo unheard. Every voice matters. Every signature counts. Stand with Afghan refugees, and let’s demand a future where they can live with dignity and hope. Please, take a moment to sign this petition and share it widely. Together, we can make a difference. Kindly visit: https://chng.it/gQFRyc49wy

Freshta Razbaan
@RazbaanFreshta
[1/6/2025 12:37 PM, 5.1K followers, 7 retweets, 10 likes]
It’s heartbreaking to see the unimaginable suffering Afghan families are going through right now in Pakistan. Can you imagine being uprooted from your home, fleeing unimaginable danger, only to face detention and uncertainty in a foreign land? These women and children, who should be safe, are instead being taken from their homes to detention centers.

How do you explain this to a child who’s already seen too much for their age? How do you comfort a mother who just wanted safety for her family? It’s a tragedy that these families, who’ve already endured so much, now have to face this level of despair.

And the silence from organizations that are supposed to protect refugees is deafening. Afghan refugees deserve dignity, safety, and humanity—not this constant fear of being detained or deported. We owe them so much more. This isn’t just a political issue; it’s a human one. https://x.com/BushraGohar/st/BushraGohar/status/1876188856544117120

Jahanzeb Khan
@jahanebKhan
[1/6/2025 7:24 PM, 5.3K followers, 27 retweets, 45 likes]
The Taliban’s latest law banning windows that overlook areas where women are shows their continued effort to erase women from society. This is gender apartheid, and the world must act to stop it. Silence is complicity.

Jahanzeb Khan
@jahanebKhan
[1/6/2025 1:27 PM, 5.3K followers, 6 retweets, 11 likes]
Afghan journalists in exile face arrests, harassment, and deportation in Pakistan and other host countries. AJSO urges respect for their rights, protection, and expedited visa processes. Journalism is not a crime. #HumanRights #ProtectJournalists #HRW

Habib Khan
@HabibKhanT
[1/6/2025 3:39 PM, 247.4K followers, 244 retweets, 395 likes]
When Afghan women and girls flee Taliban tyranny, Pakistan jails them en masse. Despite UNHCR funding for Afghan refugees, Pakistan is treating them like animals. These mass arrests blatantly violate international humanitarian laws.

Madam Frogh
@FroghWazhma
[1/6/2025 4:05 PM, 174.8K followers, 2 retweets, 12 likes]
Continuously getting requests of help from Afghanistan& Pakistan to get out of the country, Afghans are living a nightmare. Human traffickers are making millions from promises of landing Afghans in EU & the western countries. I very well know the solution does not come from out

Madam Frogh
@FroghWazhma
[1/6/2025 4:05 PM, 174.8K followers, 4 likes]
Outside Afg, Afghans elders, politicians, business community, religious scholars, all the influentials need to come together & find a solution inside the country.
Pakistan
Imran Khan
@ImranKhanPTI
[1/6/2025 2:39 AM, 21M followers, 2.2K retweets, 3.4K likes]
Former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Conversation with his Lawyers and Representatives of Media at Adiala Jail January 6, 2025

"I have witnessed all Martial Laws imposed on Pakistan during my lifetime, including those under Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Zia-ul-Haq, and Musharraf. The Martial Laws under Yahya Khan and Zia-ul-Haq were the worst in Pakistan’s history, where democracy was completely crushed. In this regard Musharraf was relatively liberal. What is happening in the country today in the guise of democracy can only be compared to Yahya Khan’s era. In order to ensure that no one raises their voice against the ruler’s transgressions, the first targets in a martial law are democracy, independent judiciary, and free media. Free media is silenced because it criticises, and the judiciary’s powers are curtailed because it has the authority to take action against injustices. Under the facade of a so-called democracy, all these fascist measures are in full effect today. What kind of democracy is this where the name of the chairman of Pakistan’s largest and most popular political party cannot even be mentioned in the media?

As revealed by the Hamoodur Rahman Commission report, Yahya Khan destroyed the country’s system to hold on to power. The same thing is being done today. In order to save the bogus and fraudulent government produced by Forms 47, PTI is being relentlessly crushed, and democracy, rule of law, and judicial independence are being buried. Shehbaz Sharif is nothing more than a puppet and an orderly of General Asim Munir. Even Shaukat Aziz during Musharraf’s era was a more powerful prime minister because, at least, elections then did not witness the level of rigging seen in February 2024. This illegitimate but fragile group propped up by the fraudulent Forms 47 is a disgrace on the name of governance.

The Al-Qadir Trust case, like previous cases, is being dragged on only to pressure me, but I demand its immediate resolution because, just as you were exposed in the Toshakhana and the Cipher cases, the same will happen now.

The Al-Qadir case is entirely baseless and lacks any merit. I did not build a ‘Bilawal House’ but established a welfare institution in a remote village for the future of the nation’s children. I did not, and will not gain even a single Rupee from it. The Al-Qadir Trust University is a charitable institution run through public support, just like Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospitals and Namal University.

I want to make it very clear that I will not seek an NRO (National Reconciliation Ordinance) like Nawaz Sharif and Zardari did. I will fight my cases in the courts.

Bushra Khan has no contact with anyone. This is mere propaganda. Our negotiation committee is handling these matters. It has been six weeks since the Islamabad massacre, yet the government has made no progress in retrieving our missing persons. This highlights the government’s lack of seriousness in conducting successful negotiations.

Pakistan’s economy is at its worst. The growth rate is zero. Artificially controlling the exchange rate of the Dollar is not an economic achievement. Development in a country only comes through investment, and investment never comes to a country where there is no rule of law, courts are not independent, terrorism is prevalent, and genuine public representatives are in jails instead of in government. Such a country can never progress."

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[1/6/2025 1:51 PM, 217.3K followers, 898 retweets, 3.4K likes]
Today marks 11 years since the passing of one of Pakistan’s greatest young heroes: 15-year-old Aitzaz Hasan, who chased a suicide bomber away from his school. He sacrificed his life to stop a massacre. There were reportedly 2,000 students at his school that day. RIP.

Amnesty International South Asia, Regional Office
@amnestysasia
[1/7/2025 2:17 AM, 95.6K followers, 4 retweets, 22 likes]
PAKISTAN: In recent years, there has been a rise in ‘technology-facilitated gender-based violence’ (TfGBV) against the Khwajasira and transgender community in Pakistan. Learn more about online gender-based violence: https://amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/technology/online-violence/

Khwajasira and transgender people have faced organized hate campaigns that include leaks of their pre-transition images and national identity cards that reveal their personal information and deadnames. Manzil Foundation, a grassroots organization working on transgender rights in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), recorded several incidents of targeting and exploitation of Khwajasira and transgender individuals in the province.

@amnesty calls on the Pakistani authorities to ensure that cases of TfGBV against Khwajasira and transgender people are addressed through prompt and effective investigations in a gender-sensitive manner to ensure justice and reparations to the victims and survivors. The government of Pakistan should also implement comprehensive measures to recognise, prevent, document, investigate and address all forms of TfGBV and provide redress and support for survivors.

Dr. Shahbaz GiLL
@SHABAZGIL
[1/7/2025 2:21 AM, 4.6M followers, 774 retweets, 1.7K likes]
Military-backed journalist Asma Shirazi is accusing @RichardGrenell of behaving like a political worker for Imran Khan simply for speaking his mind! She thinks his tweets sound like he’s part of Khan’s team. Chilling attempt to stifle free speech.
India
Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[1/6/2025 9:04 AM, 104.5M followers, 4.8K retweets, 36K likes]
It was a pleasure to meet the US National Security Advisor @JakeSullivan46. The India-US Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership has scaled new heights, including in the areas of technology, defence, space, biotechnology and Artificial Intelligence. Look forward to building upon this momentum in ties between our two democracies for the benefit of our people and global good.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[1/6/2025 2:41 AM, 104.5M followers, 3.9K retweets, 14K likes]
The launch of rail infrastructure projects in Jammu-Kashmir, Telangana and Odisha will promote tourism and add to socio-economic development in these regions.

President of India
@rashtrapatibhvn
[1/6/2025 9:21 AM, 26.3M followers, 261 retweets, 1.7K likes]
A group of Scheduled Tribe women representatives of Panchayati Raj Institutions called on President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan Cultural Centre. The President said that Panchayati Raj Institutions have been the cornerstone of our democracy. They provide a platform for governance and community development at the grassroots level.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[1/7/2025 2:01 AM, 3.3M followers, 68 retweets, 523 likes]
Delighted to visit the magnificent Sun Temple in Konark today. A testimony to our heritage and creativity, Konark is a must-visit for all our Pravasi friends visiting Bhubaneshwar over the coming days. #PBD2025 #Odisha #IndiasBestKeptSecret

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[1/6/2025 11:57 AM, 217.3K followers, 43 retweets, 273 likes]
Trudeau’s resignation may provide an opportunity to stabilize a free-falling India-Canada relationship. New Delhi has directly blamed Trudeau for the deep tensions plaguing bilateral relations. Canada is the only Western state that’s seen worsening ties w/India in recent years.

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[1/6/2025 9:59 AM, 217.3K followers, 6 retweets, 21 likes]
Today at IIT-Delhi Jake Sullivan gave a detailed assessment of US-India security & tech relations. Interestingly, he linked democratic values to technological success. Also announced that remaining obstacles to the civil nuclear deal will soon be removed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyVkOq03ZK4
NSB
The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[1/7/2025 1:20 AM, 111.6K followers, 63 retweets, 62 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu officially inaugurates the newly established water and sewerage network system on Hoandehdhoo Island, South Huvadhoo Atoll. This project will provide safe drinking water, improve sanitation, and enhance the overall quality of life for the island’s residents.

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[1/6/2025 7:02 AM, 111.6K followers, 211 retweets, 216 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu graces the inauguration of Maldivian’s wide-body aircraft operations, fulfilling a Presidential Pledge. The event will also feature an airshow with Dash-8, Twin Otters, and ATR aircraft, visible from Usfasgandu in Malé and Hulhumalé.

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[1/6/2025 9:11 AM, 111.6K followers, 98 retweets, 101 likes]
Vice President Uz @HucenSembe accompanies the President at the inauguration of Maldivian’s wide-body aircraft operations. The event was marked by an airshow visible from multiple locations in Malé and Hulhumalé. The new Maldivian A330-200 aircraft features three cabin classes, accommodating a total of 264 passengers - 18 seats in Business Class, 36 in Premium Economy, and 210 in Economy Class.

MFA SriLanka
@MFA_SriLanka
[1/7/2025 2:47 AM, 38.9K followers, 3 retweets, 4 likes]
Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath launches the e-service for copies of Birth, Marriage and Death certificates for overseas Sri Lankans Read: https://mfa.gov.lk/foreign-minister-launches-e-service/ #DiplomacyLK #lka

Anura Kumara Dissanayake
@anuradisanayake
[1/7/2025 2:23 AM, 143.9K followers, 11 retweets, 44 likes]
Today (07), I appointed a High Commissioner and four Ambassadors to strengthen Sri Lanka’s diplomatic service. I urged them to enhance our bilateral ties and prioritize the welfare of our migrant workers abroad. Together, we can elevate Sri Lanka’s international image and foster mutual cooperation for economic growth!

Anura Kumara Dissanayake
@anuradisanayake
[1/6/2025 6:46 AM, 143.9K followers, 27 retweets, 198 likes]
Had a constructive discussion with the Attorney General and officials from the Attorney General’s Department today (06) at the Presidential Secretariat. I emphasized the importance of coordination among all institutions to strengthen the rule of law and rebuild public confidence in the judicial system. Our commitment to fairness and equity remains unwavering.

Karu Jayasuriya
@KaruOnline
[1/6/2025 6:14 AM, 53.7K followers, 4 likes]
Learning from past efforts to avoid shortages can help increase food security. Initiatives such as Cabinet subcommittee on cost of living and food security that met weekly and planned three months ahead is a case in point.
Central Asia
Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[1/6/2025 4:18 PM, 24K followers, 3 likes]
Otabek Nuritdinov spent 12 years in Russia as a migrant worker before returning to #Mirziyoyev’s Uzbekistan in 2018, inspired by the president’s reforms. Since then, Otabek has been leading a #greenproject in rural #Andijan, working to transform large, dry highlands into farmlands and forests. Despite facing constant bureaucratic hurdles and receiving almost no financial support, he remains determined. In this extended VOA/ @AmerikaOvozi video from his farm, Otabek shares his struggles and success so far: https://youtu.be/R9z1g_y1Aig

{End of Report}
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