Month: August 2022

Beijing, which claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has conducted military drills around the island to express its anger over US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei in early August.

The de facto US embassy in Taipei said the delegation is being led by Senator Ed Markey, who is being accompanied by four House lawmakers on what it described as part of a larger visit to the Indo-Pacific region.

Taiwan’s presidential office said the group would meet Tsai on Monday morning.

11 Chinese military aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defence zone

“Especially at a time when China is raising tensions in the Taiwan Strait and the region with military exercises, Markey leading a delegation to visit Taiwan once again demonstrates the United States Congress’ firm support for Taiwan,” it said in a statement.

Markey chairs the Senate Foreign Rela­tions East Asia, Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Subcommittee. The co-leaders of the visit are Representative John Garamendi of the congressional Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group and Representative Don Beyer, a spokesperson for Markey said.

Markey’s office said the lawmakers

“will reaffirm the United States’ support for Taiwan as guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, US-China Joint Comm­uniques, and Six Assurances, and will encourage stability and peace across the Taiwan Strait”.

The group will meet “elected leaders and members of the private sector to discuss shared interests including reducing tensions in the Taiwan Strait and expanding economic cooperation, including investments in semiconductors”, Markey’s office said.

Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry published pictures of four of the group being met at Taipei’s downtown Songshan airport having arrived on a US air force transport jet, while Markey arrived at the Taoyuan international airport.

“The delegation will meet with senior Taiwan leaders to discuss US-Taiwan relations, regional security, trade and investment, global supply chains, climate change, and other significant issues of mutual interest,” the de facto US embassy said.

While China’s drills around Taiwan have abated, it is still carrying out military activities.

Eleven Chinese military aircraft crossed the Taiwan Strait’s median line or entered Taiwan’s air defence zone on Sunday, Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said. Thirteen planes crossed the strait on Saturday, the ministry said.

A crucial debt restructuring — with the countries to which it owes billions agreeing to write off some of their dues — is a pre-condition before the IMF will approve a bailout for the country, where inflation is rampant and shortages of essentials widespread.

“Until you come to an agreement among the official creditors, it is not possible to go to the London Club,” Ranil Wickremesinghe told a forum, referring to subsequent debt talks with commercial lenders.

President Wickremesinghe did not name a single country, but analysts said he was referring to China, the largest single bilateral creditor, which is owed over 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s foreign debt.

Officials say that clinching an agreement with Beijing is crucial, but China has not publicly shifted from its offer of more loans rather than taking a haircut on existing credit.

The IMF is likely to insist on painful reforms as part of any bailout, and Wickremesinghe warned: “It may be bitter, but any medicine for recovery is bitter. You have to take injections.”

Previous presidents, including his immediate predecessor who fled abroad and resigned last month, borrowed heavily from Beijing for infrastructure projects, most of which became white elephants.

Analyst Victor Ivan said debt talks could be leveraged by Beijing to extract concessions in the South Asian country, which has become a geopolitical hotspot.

Unable to pay back a $1.4 billion loan, Colombo handed a Chinese-funded and — built deep sea port to a Beijing company in 2017 on a 99-year lease.

“China has done it in the past, but to do it so openly now could backfire on them due to Sri Lanka’s circumstances,” Ivan said.

Beijing has publicly offered Colombo more loans to pay off its debt to China, a move that is not acceptable to other creditors who want all lenders treated equally.

“Renegotiating the Chinese debt could be a sticking point,” former Central Bank of Sri Lanka deputy governor W. A. Wijewardena said. “There will have to be hard bargaining with them.”

The US appeared to nudge Sri Lanka’s creditors to cut a deal on their debts.

On the sidelines of an Asean meeting on Thursday, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said an IMF bailout “requires appropriate debt restructuring that has to be done on an equitable basis with all of the creditors doing what’s necessary”.

Sri Lanka defaulted on its $51 billion foreign debt in mid-April and sought talks with the IMF.

The country has also borrowed heavily from India this year to battle fuel shortage. Delhi is yet to declare its stance on restructuring.

Taiwan’s military said that the Chinese planes and ships operating in the Taiwan Strait are believed to be simulating an attack on its main island, reported AFP.

 

 

Taiwan’s defence ministry said in a statement that the forces “detected multiple batches of Communist planes and ships conducting activities around the Taiwan Strait, some of which crossed the median line.

They were judged to be conducting a simulation of an attack on Taiwan’s main island.”

“Multiple batches” of Chinese planes and ships were spotted crossing the median line of Taiwan Strait, according to the defence ministry. “They were judged to be conducting a simulation of an attack on Taiwan’s main island,” the ministry says in a statement.

PTI Chairman Imran Khan has decided that he will be contesting from all nine National Assembly constituencies that fell vacant after the National Assembly speaker accepted resignations from his party’s MNAs, The News reported.

The speaker accepted the resignations of 11 PTI MNAs — nine on general seats and two on reserved — under Article 64(1) of the Constitution of Pakistan. The MNAs had tendered their resignations in April.

But in a bid to secure the seats back after the party’s recent Punjab by-poll victory, Khan has decided to take on the coalition parties in the by-elections that will take place across Pakistan.

In the Punjab by-polls, Khan led PTI’s election campaign and his party managed to secure 15 out of the 20 seats that were up for grabs. Analysts also cite rising inflation and other problems as the reasons for PML-N’s loss in the by-polls.

ECP issues election schedule

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Friday issued the schedule for by-elections on the nine NA seats and fixed September 25 as the date for polling.

The ECP sought names from the PTI on the vacant reserved seats after two women members resigned. The nominations for the reserved women’s seats can be submitted from August 10 to 13.

As per the schedule, the list of nominees will be released on August 14, scrutiny will take place on August 17, appeals against the returning officer’s decision can be submitted by August 20, and a decision will be taken in the appellate tribunal on August 25.

The revised list of candidates will be released on August 26, after which candidates can withdraw their nomination papers till August 27.

Moreover, the final list of candidates will be released by August 29, and on the same day, election symbols will also be allotted.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Saturday condemned Israel’s killing of Palestinians in Gaza as fresh violence continued a second day, ending more than a year of relative calm along the border.

Israel on Friday said it had launched a special operation against the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, killing one of its senior commanders in a surprise daytime air strike on a high-rise building in Gaza City.

Health authorities in the enclave controlled by Hamas said 10 people had been killed by Israel’s bombardment, including a five-year-old girl, with 79 others injured. Israel’s army estimated that its operation had killed 15.

 

 

In a tweet, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the martyrdom of 10 Palestinians, including a five-year-old girl in Gaza, is the latest act of Israeli terrorism.

“If impunity and barbarism had a face, it would have been that of Israel, which has targeted Palestinians without any care for consequences. Pakistan strongly condemns Israeli airstrikes.”

In the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military said it had apprehended 19 Islamic Jihad members in overnight arrest raids.

Palestinian freedom fighters fired at least 160 rockets over the border, the military said, some deep into Israel toward the commercial hub Tel Aviv.

Most of the missiles were intercepted, and a few people were lightly injured when running to shelters.

Egypt, the United Nations and Qatar had begun mediating an end to the violence, according to a Palestinian official with knowledge of the efforts, “but no breakthrough yet”, the official said.

A Western-backed Palestinian Authority official condemned Israel’s attacks.

“We call on the international community to intervene and provide protection for our people,” Civil Affairs Minister Hussein al-Sheikh said on Twitter.

Further escalation would largely depend on Hamas, the group which controls Gaza, and whether it would opt to join the fighting.

Tensions rose this week after Israeli forces arrested an Islamic Jihad commander in the West Bank, drawing threats of retaliation from the group.

The frontier had been largely quiet since May 2021, when 11 days of fierce fighting between Israel and militants left at least 250 people in Gaza and 13 in Israel dead

Staying subdued about the annexation of disputed Jammu and Kashmir on this day in 2019, which the party opposed, and the stone-laying ceremony for the proposed temple at the site of the razed Babri Masjid later, to which it offered mixed response, the Congress focused instead on inflation, unfair trade taxes and authoritarian measures used to crush the protests.

Anybody who raised people’s issues and stood up against the “onset of dictatorship is viciously attacked and put in jail”, Rahul Gandhi said.

The issue also forced adjournments in both houses of parliament as Congress members registered their protest.

Wearing black clothes to protest against inflation and unemployment, Congress leaders hit the streets and were engaged in dramatic stand-offs with the police personnel outside the Parliament complex and the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters.

Top leaders, including Mr Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, Lok Sabha leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, general secretaries K.C. Venugopal, and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were detained by the police.

There were dramatic moments outside the AICC headquarters as Ms Vadra climbed over a barricade and sat on protest.

In parliament, after forcing both the houses to be adjourned, Congress members, including party chief Sonia Gandhi, assembled at Gate number 1 before attempting to march towards the Rashtrapati Bhavan. The Congress MPs were, however, stopped by the Delhi Police close to Vijay Chowk lawns and were not allowed to proceed towards the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Ms Gandhi, who along with other women MPs was holding a banner, didn’t take part in the march. The other MPs were detained by the police at Vijay Chowk.

Former Union Minister P. Chidam­baram, Manish Tewari, other Lok Sabha members Manickam Tagore and Gaurav Gogoi were among the 64 MPs who were taken away in a police bus to the Kingsway Camp police lines, The Hindu said.

“We are here to raise the issue of price rise,” Mr Gandhi said just before his arrest and added: “Democracy is being murdered”.

Alleging that his parliamentary colleagues were being manhandled, Mr Gandhi posted pictures of Dean Kuriakose being forcibly taken away and Mr Venugopal and Mr Chowdhury resisting police action by lying on the road. Videos released by the party showed the Congress leader trying to rescue his colleague, Deepender Hooda, who was being dragged by the police personnel.

KABUL: The Taliban said Thursday they had no knowledge of Ayman al-Zawahiri’s presence in Afghanistan, two days after US President Joe Biden announced the Al-Qaeda chief’s killing by a drone strike in Kabul.

“The leadership of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has instructed the intelligence agencies to hold a comprehensive and serious investigation,” said an official statement — the Taliban’s first mention of Zawahiri’s name since Biden’s announcement.

Zawahiri’s assassination is the biggest blow to Al-Qaeda since US special forces killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, and calls into question the Taliban’s promise not to harbour militant groups.

The Taliban reiterated in their statement Thursday that there was “no threat” to any country from Afghanistan’s soil.

In announcing Zawahiri’s death Tuesday, Biden declared “justice had been delivered” to the families of victims of the 9/11 attacks on the US.

Citizens in India’s north-eastern state of Assam have accused the local Muslim community of the devastating floods in the state.

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Nazir Hussain Laskar, who had worked for years to build flood protections, was arrested by the police who accused him of “damaging public property”.

Laskar said that he had worked for the government for 16 years building embankments.

“Why would I damage one?”

Laskar had to spend almost 20 days in prison after which he was released on bail.

The man was taken into custody without any evidence but social media is after him.

Despite floods being common in Assam during the monsoon season, many believe that this year’s rains caused floods heavier than usual because of Muslim men.

They claim that these men swamped the nearby Hindu-majority city of Silchar by damaging flood defences.

Netizens in the state have accused Laskar and three other men of waging “flood jihad”. Prominent personalities in the country have shared these posts and local media outlets have repeated the claims multiple times.

Laskar said that when his name appeared on the television with the term “flood jihad”, he “could not sleep that night”. He added that he was afraid other inmates might attack him.

On May 23, one of the embankments on the Barak River was damaged. The area of the breach is a Muslim-majority area causing heavy floods in a Hindu-majority one.

Nirmalya Choudhury, an associate professor at the Jamsetji Tata School of Disaster Studies, said that most of these breaches happened usually due to “the lack of repair and maintenance”.

Choudhry said that the claim of a flood jihad was an easy way out and that the problem required “a more mature response”.

“There is no such thing as ‘flood jihad’,” said superintendent of police Ramandeep Kaur.