Asia
Almost 100,000 Afghan children are in dire need of support, 3 months after earthquakes, UNICEF says
Almost 100,000 children in Afghanistan are in dire need of support, three months after earthquakes devastated the country's west, the U.N. children’s agency said Monday.
A 6.3-magnitude earthquake shook Herat province on Oct. 7 and a second strong quake struck the same province days later, on Oct. 11, killing more than 1,000 people. The majority of those dead in the quakes in Zinda Jan and Injil districts were women and children, and 21,000 homes were destroyed, UNICEF said in a statement.
“The atmosphere in these villages is thick with suffering even 100 days after the earthquakes in western Afghanistan when families lost absolutely everything," said Fran Equiza, UNICEF representative in Afghanistan.
"Children are still trying to cope with the loss and trauma. Schools and health centers, which children depend upon, are damaged beyond repair, or destroyed completely,” he added.
“As if this was not enough, winter has taken hold and temperatures hover below freezing," Equiza said. "Children and families without homes live in life-threatening conditions at night, with no way to heat their temporary shelters.”
Read: India’s main opposition party begins a cross-country march ahead of a crucial national vote
UNICEF said it urgently needs $1.4 billion in 2024 to meet the humanitarian and basic needs of 19.4 million Afghans, half of the population.
The Taliban’s failure to invest in public services has contributed to the deterioration of basic services, hindering the ability of vulnerable communities to recover from shocks and build resilience, the agency added..
“We are grateful to our donor partners who mobilized resources quickly, enabling UNICEF to respond within days to the urgent needs of children and their families in Herat,” Equiza said.
But more help is needed “to ensure that children not only survive the winter but have a chance to thrive in the months and years to come,” he added.
Daniel Timme, head of communications for UNICEF in Afghanistan, said schools, homes, health facilities and water systems were destroyed.
Read: Deaths from Japan earthquakes surpass 126
“We have money coming in but it’s not enough. These communities need to be independent again. It’s not enough to put out the fire. We need to make it (Afghanistan) more resilient," Timme said.
Separately and for all of Afghanistan, UNICEF said Monday that 23.3 million people, including 12.6 million children, are in need of humanitarian assistance" in 2024, "mainly due to the residual impacts of a protracted conflict, extreme climate shocks and the country’s severe economic decline.”
India’s main opposition party begins a cross-country march ahead of a crucial national vote
Thousands of members of India’s main opposition Congress party and its supporters began a 2-month cross-country march Sunday in a bid to regain some of the popularity it has lost to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist party ahead of a crucial national vote this year.
The march led by Rahul Gandhi, scion of the influential Gandhi family, began from the northeastern Manipur state’s Thoubal district. The “Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra,” or “Unite India Justice March,” is scheduled to cover 6,713 kilometers (4,171 miles) in 67 days, mostly in buses but also on foot, while passing through 110 districts in 15 states, the party said in a statement.
This is the second time the Congress party has hit the road in the last two years to rally support for elections.
In late 2022, Gandhi led the “Bharat Jodo Yatra,” or “Unite India March,” from Kanyakumari, a coastal town on the southernmost tip of India, to Indian-controlled Kashmir. The march traversed 3,570 kilometers (2,218 miles) across 12 states in five months, and challenged the Modi government over growing economic inequality and the rising religious polarization.
India is expected to vote in a national election in April or May, and the opposition is scrambling to put up a fight against the electoral juggernaut of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. It remains popular after nearly a decade in power and many surveys suggest Modi will win a third consecutive term this year.
India’s previously fractured opposition parties have joined hands and formed the INDIA alliance, which stands for Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance. However, it faced a setback in December when Modi’s party won in three of four crucial state elections.
Modi will seek reelection at a time when India’s global diplomatic reach is rising. At home he has faced a struggling economy, rising unemployment, religious tensions triggered by attacks on minority Muslims, and a shrinking space for dissent and free media.
In 2019, Modi’s party won 303 out of 543 parliamentary seats, in part due to its Hindu nationalist agenda. Congress was a distant second with 52 seats.
North Korea says it tested solid-fuel missile tipped with hypersonic weapon
North Korea on Monday said it flight-tested a new solid-fuel intermediate-range missile tipped with a hypersonic warhead as it pursues more powerful, harder-to-detect weapons designed to strike remote U.S. targets in the region.
The report by North Korea’s state media came a day after the South Korean and Japanese militaries detected the launch from a site near the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, in the North’s first ballistic test of 2024.
The launch came two months after North Korea said it successfully tested engines for a new solid-fuel intermediate-range missile, which reflected a push to advance its lineup of weapons targeting U.S. military bases in Guam and Japan.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said Sunday’s launch was aimed at verifying the reliability of the missile’s solid-fuel engines and the maneuverable flight capabilities of the hypersonic warhead. It described the test as a success.
KCNA did not mention whether North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was present at the test, which it said was part of the country’s regular weapons development activities.
“The test-fire never affected the security of any neighboring country and had nothing to do with the regional situation,” KCNA said.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missile flew about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) before landing in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. The North’s existing intermediate-range missiles, including the Hwasong-12 that may be able to reach the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, are powered by liquid-fuel engines, which need to be fueled before launch and cannot stay fueled for long periods of time.
Missiles with built-in solid propellants can be made ready to launch faster and are easier to move and conceal, which theoretically makes it harder for adversaries to detect and preempt the launch in advance.
The North since 2021 has also been testing hypersonic weapons, which are designed to fly at speeds in excess of Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound. If perfected, such systems could potentially pose a challenge to regional missile defense systems because of their speed and maneuverability.
Hypersonic weapons were part of a wish-list of sophisticated military assets Kim unveiled in 2021, along with multi-warhead missiles, spy satellites, solid-fuel long-range missiles and submarine-launched nuclear missiles.
The North last year tested a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time, which added to its arsenal of weapons targeting the U.S. mainland, and also launched its first military reconnaissance satellite in November.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at their highest point in years after Kim in recent months ramped up his weapons demonstrations. The United States and its allies Seoul and Tokyo responded by strengthening their combined military exercises and sharpening their nuclear deterrence strategies.
There are also concerns about an alleged arms cooperation between North Korea and Russia as they align in the face of separate, intensifying confrontations with Washington. In their latest sign of diplomacy, a North Korean delegation led by Kim’s foreign minister, Choe Sun Hui, left Pyongyang on Sunday for a visit to Russia at the invitation of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, KCNA said. The report did not specify what would be discussed.
The U.S. and South Korean governments have claimed that North Korea has been providing Russia with arms supplies, including artillery and missiles, to help prolong its invasion of Ukraine.
The Biden administration said it has evidence that missiles provided by North Korea to Russia had been used in the war in Ukraine. In a joint statement last week, the U.S., South Korea and their partners said the missile transfer supports Russia’s war of aggression and provides North Korea with valuable technical and military insights.
Some experts say that the North could try to further dial up pressure in an election year in South Korea and the United States.
North Korea earlier this month fired a barrage of artillery shells near the disputed western sea boundary with South Korea, prompting the South to conduct similar firing exercises in the area. Kim has also released verbal threats, using a political conference last week to define South Korea as the North’s “principal enemy” and threatened to annihilate it if provoked.
Experts say Kim likely wants to see South Korean liberals win a crucial parliamentary election in April to deal a blow to conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol, who has taken a hard line on the North. They say Kim may also want former U.S. President Donald Trump to be elected again, possibly thinking that would give him an easier shot at winning U.S. concessions over the nuclear standoff.
Trump met Kim three times during his term, but their diplomacy never recovered from the collapse of their second meeting in 2019, when the Americans rejected North Korea’s demand for major sanctions relief in exchange for a partial surrender of its nuclear capabilities.
Maldives leader demands removal of Indian military from the archipelago by mid-March amid spat
Maldives' President Mohamed Muizzu wants the Indian military personnel stationed in his archipelago nation withdrawn by March 15, an official with his office said Sunday.
Abdulla Nazim Ibrahim, a presidential aide, told reporters that Muizzu proposed the removal at a meeting with officials of the Indian Embassy in the Maldives and other visiting Indian officials.
The move comes a day after Muizzu returned from China, India's regional rival, and made comments critical of India.
Muizzu said his county's small size is not a license for anyone to bully the Maldives. His comments were an apparent response to social media calls in India to boycott Maldives tourism after three Maldives deputy ministers made derogatory posts on social media against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The dispute began last week when Modi posted pictures on X, formerly known as Twitter, of himself strolling on the beach and snorkeling in Lakshadweep, an Indian archipelago that his government believes has untapped potential for tourism.
Some in the Maldives saw it as an attempt to lure tourists away from its sandy white beaches and luxury island resorts.
Read: India’s main opposition party begins a cross-country march ahead of a crucial national vote
Muizzu suspended the deputy ministers, saying their comments did not reflect government policy. However, Muizzu on his return from China announced plans to free Maldives of its dependence on India and find alternate places for Maldivians to obtain education and health services and import staples and medicines.
Currently, Maldivians go to hospitals in India and Sri Lanka under the government- sponsored free health program and many of the country's staple foods are imported from India.
Muizzu said Maldivians will now be able to also go to hospitals in Thailand and the United Arab Emirates and staples will be imported from Turkey. He also said medicines will be imported directly from manufacturers in Europe and the United States.
India sent the highest number of tourists to the Maldives last year with a share of 11%. But Muizzu said China used to send the most before teh pandemic and steps will be taken to double that number.
India and China are competing for influence in the Maldives, which is located strategically along a key shipping route between the east and the west.
At least 75 Indian military personnel are stationed in the Maldives and Muizzu, who is considered pro-China, campaigned on a promise of removing them in the run-up to the presidential election last November. His party had waged an “India Out” campaign for months.
Read: A global day of protests draws thousands in Washington and other cities in pro-Palestinian marches
Muizzu had accused his election rival and predecessor of compromising national sovereignty by allowing India to have its military personnel in the Maldivian islands.
Known activities of the Indian military include operating two aircraft donated by India and assisting in the rescue of people stranded or faced with calamities at sea.
Regarding the donated aircraft, Ibrahim said: “If military personnel are here, military people will have to leave this country and it’s okay if civilians ... are here to operate them, that’s what’s being discussed in these meetings.”
India’s main opposition party begins a cross-country march ahead of a crucial national vote
Thousands of members of India’s main opposition Congress party and its supporters began a 2-month cross-country march Sunday in a bid to regain some of the popularity it has lost to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist party ahead of a crucial national vote this year.
The march led by Rahul Gandhi, scion of the influential Gandhi family, began from the northeastern Manipur state’s Thoubal district. The “Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra,” or “Unite India Justice March,” is scheduled to cover 6,713 kilometers (4,171 miles) in 67 days, mostly in buses but also on foot, while passing through 110 districts in 15 states, the party said in a statement.
This is the second time the Congress party has hit the road in the last two years to rally support for elections.
In late 2022, Gandhi led the “Bharat Jodo Yatra,” or “Unite India March,” from Kanyakumari, a coastal town on the southernmost tip of India, to Indian-controlled Kashmir. The march traversed 3,570 kilometers (2,218 miles) across 12 states in five months, and challenged the Modi government over growing economic inequality and the rising religious polarization.
India is expected to vote in a national election in April or May, and the opposition is scrambling to put up a fight against the electoral juggernaut of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. It remains popular after nearly a decade in power and many surveys suggest Modi will win a third consecutive term this year.
Read: India, China, Russia, S Asian countries congratulate PM Hasina on election victory
India’s previously fractured opposition parties have joined hands and formed the INDIA alliance, which stands for Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance. However, it faced a setback in December when Modi’s party won in three of four crucial state elections.
Modi will seek reelection at a time when India’s global diplomatic reach is rising. At home he has faced a struggling economy, rising unemployment, religious tensions triggered by attacks on minority Muslims, and a shrinking space for dissent and free media.
In 2019, Modi’s party won 303 out of 543 parliamentary seats, in part due to its Hindu nationalist agenda. Congress was a distant second with 52 seats.
North Korea launches a ballistic missile toward the sea in its first missile test this year
North Korea fired a ballistic missile toward the sea on Sunday, its neighbors said, in its first missile launch this year, as the North is expected to further raise regional animosities in an election year for its rivals South Korea and the United States.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea launched an unidentified ballistic missile off the North's east coast but gave no further details like how far the weapon flew.
Japan’s Defense Ministry also said it detected a possible ballistic missile launch by North Korea. Japan's Coast Guard, quoting the Defense Ministry, said the suspected missile was believed to have landed in the ocean.
Read: South Korea outlaws dog meat industry
It was the North’s first missile launch in 2024. The last time North Korea performed a public missile launch was Dec. 18, when it test-fired its Hwasong-18 solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile, the North’s most advanced weapon. The Hwasong-18 is designed to strike the mainland U.S.
In recent days, North Korea has also been escalating its warlike, inflammatory rhetoric against its rivals. Leader Kim Jong Un, during visits last week to munitions factories, called South Korea “our principal enemy” and threatened to annihilate it if provoked, the North's state media said Wednesday.
Sunday’s launch came days after North Korea fired a barrage of artillery shells near the disputed western sea boundary with South Korea, prompting South Korea to conduct similar firing exercises in the same area. The site is where the navies of the two Koreas have fought three bloody sea battles since 1999 and attacks blamed on North Korea killed 50 South Koreans in 2010.
Experts say Kim will likely further raise animosities by conducting more missile tests and possibly launching limited physical attacks on South Korea to try to raise the stakes in the standoff with his rivals and influence the results of South Korea’s parliamentary elections in April and the U.S. presidential election in November.
Read: Thousands forced from homes by quake face stress and exhaustion as Japan mourns at least 161 deaths
Experts say Kim likely wants to see South Korean liberals pursue rapprochement with North Korea while maintaining a parliamentary majority status and for former U.S. President Donald Trump to be elected again. They say Kim might believe he could win U.S. concessions like sanctions relief if Trump returns to the White House.
In a key ruling party meeting in late December, Kim vowed to expand his nuclear arsenal and launch additional spy satellites to cope with what he called U.S.-led confrontational moves.
Flyers on Indian flight stuck in Dhaka Airport for over 12 hours. Here’s why
An IndiGo plane from India’s Mumbai to Guwahati had to make an emergency landing at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka early today (January 13, 2024).
The diverted plane landed in Dhaka at 4 am after failing to land at the Guwahati airport owing to poor visibility, reports NDTV.
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According to the airline, the passengers who are still onboard the plane have been served refreshments, and a replacement crew is being organised to transport them to Guwahati.
"IndiGo flight 6E 5319 from Mumbai to Guwahati was diverted to Dhaka, Bangladesh due to bad weather in Guwahati. Due to operational reasons, an alternate set of crew is being arranged to operate the flight from Dhaka to Guwahati. The passengers were kept informed of updates and were served with refreshments on board. We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused," an IndiGo statement said.
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Several passengers resorted to social media to express their dissatisfaction with the extended wait following the unexpected reroute. Former Mumbai Youth Congress head Suraj Singh Thakur, who was on his way to Imphal to participate in the Congress' Bharat Jodo Nyaya Yatra, wrote on X that the passengers had been on the flight for several hours.
"I took IndiGo6E flight 6E 5319 from Mumbai to Guwahati. But due to dense fog, the flight couldn't land in Guwahati. Instead, it landed in Dhaka," he wrote.
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Another flier wrote on X that the 178 passengers had been waiting for more than four hours for another crew to fly them back to their location.
"IndiGo6E stuck inside aircraft with 178 passengers for 9 hours now, flying 6E 5319 from Mumbai to Guwahati. We made a landing in Dhaka around 4am because of lower visibility in the North East. We have been waiting for another crew for 4 hours now, can we please expedite?" He wrote.
Nepal's spiritual leader known as 'Buddha Boy' arrested on charges of rape and kidnapping
A controversial Nepalese spiritual leader known as “Buddha Boy” was arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a minor and involvement in the disappearance of at least four of his followers from his camps, police said Wednesday.
Ram Bahadur Bamjan is believed by many Nepalese to be the reincarnation of Siddhartha Gautama, who was born in southwestern Nepal some 2,600 years ago and became revered as Buddha. Buddhist scholars have been skeptical of Bamjan's claims.
Bamjan was arrested late Tuesday from his house in a suburb of Kathmandu, the country's capital, according to Nabaraj Adhikari of the Central Investigation Bureau.
Read: India court restores life prison sentences for 11 Hindu men who raped a Muslim woman in 2002 riots
Police brought him before the media in handcuffs on Wednesday and said that he had tried to flee by jumping two floors from a window when the officers arrived but was unsuccessful and was taken into custody.
Officials also displayed a stack of Nepalese banknotes they said was equivalent to $227,000 and other foreign currencies amounting to $23,000 seized from the house at the time of the arrest.
Bamjan is expected to be taken to a court in southern Nepal, where the alleged crimes occurred, to appear before a judge there.
Several dozen of his followers gathered later Wednesday outside the Central Investigation Bureau offices in Katmandu where Bamjan was being held but were pushed back by riot police.
Bamjan, also known as Buddha Boy, became famous in southern Nepal in 2005 when many believed he was able to meditate without moving for months while sitting beneath a tree with no food or water. He has remained popular despite accusations of sexually and physically assaulting his followers.
Read: Deaths from Japan earthquakes surpass 126
His popularity has since declined but he still maintains camps in southern Nepal where thousands of his followers come to live and worship him or to visit.
Buddhism, founded in India around 500 B.C. is considered the world’s fourth-largest religious tradition after Christianity, Islam and Hinduism.
South Korea outlaws dog meat industry
South Korea’s parliament on Tuesday endorsed landmark legislation outlawing the country’s dwindling dog meat industry, as public calls for the ban have grown sharply amid animal rights campaigns and worries about the country’s international image.
Some angry dog farmers said they plan to file a constitutional appeal and launch rallies in protest, a suggestion that heated debate over the ban would continue.
Dog meat consumption, a centuries-old practice on the Korean Peninsula, is neither explicitly banned nor legalized in South Korea. Recent surveys show more people want its ban and a majority of South Koreans don’t eat dog meat any longer. But the surveys also indicated one in every three South Koreans still oppose the ban even though they don’t eat dog meat.
On Tuesday, the National Assembly passed the bill by a 208-0 vote Tuesday. President Yoon Suk Yeol’s government supports the ban, so the subsequent steps to make it law are considered formality.
“This law is aimed at contributing to realizing the values of animal rights, which pursue respect for life and a harmonious co-existence between humans and animals,” the legislation reads.
The bill would make the slaughtering, breeding, trade and sales of dog meat for human consumption illegal from 2027 and punish such acts with 2-3 years in prison. But it doesn’t stipulate penalties for eating dog meat.
The bill would offer assistance to farmers and others in the industry for shutting down their businesses or shifting to alternatives. Details of outlawing the industry would be worked out among government officials, farmers, experts and animal rights activists, according to the bill.
Humane Society International called the legislation’s passage “history in the making.”
“I never thought I would see in my lifetime a ban on the cruel dog meat industry in South Korea, but this historic win for animals is testament to the passion and determination of our animal protection movement,” said JungAh Chae, executive director of HSI’s Korea office.
The legislation left farmers extremely upset and frustrated.
“This is a clear state violence as they’re infringing upon freedom of occupational option. We can’t just sit idly,” said Son Won Hak, a farmer and leader of a farmers’ association.
Son said dog farmers will file a petition to the constitutional court and launch rallies in protest. He said farmers will meet Wednesday to discuss other future steps.
There is no reliable official data on the exact size of South Korea’s dog meat industry. Activists and farmers say hundreds of thousands of dogs are slaughtered for meat each year in South Korea.
India court restores life prison sentences for 11 Hindu men who raped a Muslim woman in 2002 riots
India’s top court on Monday restored life prison sentences for 11 Hindu men who raped a Muslim woman during deadly religious rioting two decades ago and asked the convicts to surrender to the authorities within two weeks.
The Hindu men were convicted in 2008 of rape and murder. They were released in 2022 after serving 14 years in prison.
Read: Thousands forced from homes by quake face stress and exhaustion as Japan mourns at least 161 deaths
The victim, who is now in her 40s, was pregnant when she was brutally gang-raped in 2002 in western Gujarat state during communal rioting that was some of India's worst religious violence with over 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, killed.
Seven members of the woman’s family, including her 3-year-old daughter, were killed during the riots. The Associated Press generally doesn’t identify victims of sexual assault.
The men were eligible for remission of their sentence under a policy that was in place at the time of their convictions. At the time of their release, officials in Gujarat, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party holds power, had said the convicts were granted remission because they had completed over 14 years in jail.
A revised policy adopted in 2014 by the federal government prohibits remission release for those convicted of certain crimes, including rape and murder.
Read: North Korea's Kim orders increased production of mobile launch vehicles as tensions grow with US
Following the release of the convicts, the victim had filed a petition with the Supreme Court, saying “the en masse premature release of the convicts… has shaken the conscience of the society."
The 2002 riots have long hounded Modi, who was Gujarat’s top elected official at the time, amid allegations that authorities allowed and even encouraged the bloodshed. Modi has repeatedly denied having any role and the Supreme Court has said it found no evidence to prosecute him.