Asia
Police break up Muslim gathering in Kashmir, dozens detained
Police on Sunday detained dozens of people in Indian-controlled Kashmir as they dispersed Shiite Muslims who attempted to participate in processions marking the Muslim month of Muharram.
Scores of Muslims defied severe security restrictions in parts of the main city of Srinagar and took to streets chanting religious slogans. The restrictions include a ban on the Shiite religious procession.
Muharram is among the holiest months for Shiites across the world and and includes large processions of mourners beating their chests while reciting elegies and chanting slogans to mourn the death of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Hussein and 72 companions in the battle of Karbala in present-day Iraq.
Sunday’s procession marked the eighth day of Muharram, two days before its peak on the day of Ashura.
Read: Fmr Bengal governor elected India's next Vice-President
In 2020, dozens were injured as Indian forces fired shotgun pellets and tear gas to disperse the procession.
Some main Muharram processions have been banned in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir since an armed insurgency broke out in 1989 demanding the region’s independence from India or its merger with neighboring Pakistan. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.
Kashmiri Muslims have long complained that the government is curbing their religious freedom on the pretext of maintaining law and order while promoting an annual Hindu pilgrimage to the Himalayan Amarnath Shrine in Kashmir that draws hundreds of thousands of visitors.
The ongoing Hindu pilgrimage has drawn hundreds of thousands of visitors from across India amid massive security with tens of thousands of soldiers guarding the routes leading to the cave shrine.
China keeps up pressure on Taiwan with 4th day of drills
China said Sunday it carried out its fourth consecutive day of military drills in the air and sea around Taiwan in the wake of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to the self-ruled island, despite international calls to calm the tensions.
The People’s Liberation Army said the exercises focused on testing its long-range air and ground strikes. It did not say if it will continue the drills after Sunday.
Taiwan said that it continued to detect several batches of Chinese aircraft, ships and drones operating around the Taiwan Strait, which separates the island and mainland China, and “simulating attacks on the island of Taiwan and our ships at sea.” Taiwan's defence ministry said it detected a total of 66 Chinese aircraft and 14 Chinese warships conducting joint naval and air exercises around the Taiwan Strait. In response, Taiwan deployed air reconnaissance patrols, naval ships, and shore-based missiles, and said that it will continue to closely monitor the situation.
Taiwan’s official Central News Agency meanwhile reported that Taiwan’s army will conduct live-fire artillery drills in southern Pingtung County on Tuesday and Thursday, in response to the Chinese exercises.
The drills will include snipers, combat vehicles, armored vehicles as well as attack helicopters, said the report, which cited an anonymous source.
Read:Taiwan says China military drills appear to simulate attack
China set up no-go areas around Taiwan for the four-day drills it announced immediately after Pelosi’s trip to Taipei on Tuesday and Wednesday that infuriated Beijing, which saw it as a violation of the “one-China” policy. China claims Taiwan and has threatened to annex it by force if necessary. The two sides split in 1949 after a civil war, but Beijing considers visits to Taiwan by foreign officials as recognizing its sovereignty.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense emphasized that its military was surveilling the situation and had dispatched aircraft and ships to respond accordingly.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has called on the international community to “support democratic Taiwan” and “halt any escalation of the regional security situation.”
China has so far conducted missiles strikes on targets in the seas around Taiwan, and sent warships across the Taiwan Straits median line. It has also cut off defense and climate talks with the U.S. and imposed sanctions on Pelosi in retaliation for her visit.
The Biden administration and Pelosi say the U.S. remains committed to the “one-China” policy that recognizes Beijing as the legitimate government but allows informal relations and defense ties with Taipei.
The U.S. however criticized Beijing’s actions in the Taiwan Strait, with White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre calling them “fundamentally irresponsible.”
“There’s no need and no reason for this escalation,” Jean-Pierre said.
Singapore’s coordinating minister for national security Teo Chee Hean said in a Facebook post Saturday that the U.S.-China tensions over Taiwan is “an issue that can lead to conflict and war to the detriment of all parties involved, especially the people in Taiwan.”
The tensions have a negative impact on Southeast Asia, Teo said, adding: "We hope that wisdom will prevail.”
Gunmen kill 4 in attack targeting lawmaker in NW Pakistan
Gunmen shot dead four people including two police in northwestern Pakistan in an attack targeting a provincial lawmaker from former Prime Minister Imran Khan's political party, police said.
Lawmaker Malik Liaqat Khan — no relation to Imran Khan — of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party was wounded in the attack late Saturday along with three others and was hospitalized in the provincial capital of Peshawar, police said.
Read: Pakistan says army general, 5 others die in helicopter crash
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
The assault took place in the Maidan area of the Lower Dir district of conservative Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which is governed by Khan’s party.
Police officer Zar Badshah said among those killed were the nephew and brother of the PTI lawmaker, who was returning home after attending a funeral late Saturday.
The area has been a stronghold of late religious leader Sufi Mohammad, who preached a strict version of Islam in the 1990s and later led his followers in fighting in Afghanistan against the U.S. and allied forces. It remained under the influence of the Pakistani Taliban until 2009.
Taiwan says China military drills appear to simulate attack
Taiwan said Saturday that China’s military drills appear to simulate an attack on the self-ruled island, after multiple Chinese warships and aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait following U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei that infuriated Beijing.
Taiwan's armed forces issued an alert, dispatched air and naval patrols around the island, and activated land-based missile systems in response to the Chinese exercises, the Ministry of National Defense said. As of 5 p.m., 20 Chinese aircraft and 14 ships continued to carry out sea and air exercises around the Taiwan Strait, it said.
The ministry said that zones declared by China as no-go areas during the exercises for other ships and aircraft had “seriously damaged the peace." It emphasized that Taiwan's military does not seek war, but would prepare and respond for it accordingly.
China's Ministry of Defense said in a statement Saturday that it had carried out military exercises as planned in the sea and airspaces to the north, southwest, and east of Taiwan, with a focus on “testing the capabilities” of its land strike and sea assault systems.
China launched live-fire military drills following Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan earlier this week, saying it violated the “one-China” policy. China sees the island as a breakaway province to be annexed by force if necessary, and considers visits to Taiwan by foreign officials as recognizing its sovereignty.
Taiwan's army also said it detected four unmanned aerial vehicles flying in the vicinity of the offshore county of Kinmen on Friday night and fired warning flares in response.
The four drones, which Taiwan believed were Chinese, were spotted over waters around the Kinmen island group and the nearby Lieyu Island and Beiding islet, according to Taiwan’s Kinmen Defense Command.
Kinmen, also known as Quemoy, is a group of islands only 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) east of the Chinese coastal city of Xiamen in Fujian province in the Taiwan Strait, which divides the two sides that split amid civil war in 1949.
“Our government & military are closely monitoring China’s military exercises & information warfare operations, ready to respond as necessary,” Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen said in a tweet.
“I call on the international community to support democratic Taiwan & halt any escalation of the regional security situation,” she added.
The Chinese military exercises began Thursday and are expected to last until Sunday. So far, the drills have included missile strikes on targets in the seas north and south of the island in an echo of the last major Chinese military drills in 1995 and 1996 aimed at intimidating Taiwan’s leaders and voters.
Taiwan has put its military on alert and staged civil defense drills, while the U.S. has deployed numerous naval assets in the area.
Read: China sanctions Pelosi, sends 100 warplanes to Taiwan drills
The Biden administration and Pelosi have said the U.S. remains committed to a “one-China” policy, which recognizes Beijing as the government of China but allows informal relations and defense ties with Taipei. The administration discouraged but did not prevent Pelosi from visiting.
China has also cut off defense and climate talks with the U.S. and imposed sanctions on Pelosi in retaliation for the visit.
Pelosi said Friday in Tokyo, the last stop of her Asia tour, that China will not be able to isolate Taiwan by preventing U.S. officials from traveling there.
Pelosi has been a long-time advocate of human rights in China. She, along with other lawmakers, visited Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1991 to support democracy two years after a bloody military crackdown on protesters at the square.
Meanwhile, cyberattacks aimed at bringing down the website of Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had doubled between Thursday to Friday, compared to similar attacks ahead of Pelosi’s visit, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency. The ministry did not specify the origin of the attack.
Other ministries and government agencies, such as the Ministry of Interior, also faced similar attacks on their websites, according to the report.
A distributed-denial-of-service attack is aimed at overloading a website with requests for information that eventually crashes it, making it inaccessible to other users.
Also Saturday, the Central News Agency reported that the deputy head of the Taiwan Defense Ministry’s research and development unit, Ou Yang Li-hsing, was found dead in his hotel room after suffering a heart attack. He was 57, and had supervised several missile production projects.
The report said his hotel room in the southern county of Pingtung, where he was on a business trip, showed no signs of intrusion.
Taiwanese overwhelmingly favor maintaining the status quo of the island's de facto independence and reject China’s demands that the island unify with the mainland under Communist control.
Globally, most countries subscribe to the “one-China" policy, which is a requirement to maintain diplomatic relations with Beijing.
Any company that fails to recognize Taiwan as part of China often faces swift backlash, often with Chinese consumers pledging to boycott its products.
On Friday, Mars Wrigley, the manufacturer of the Snickers candy bar, apologized after it released a video and materials featuring South Korean boy band BTS that had referred to Taiwan as a country, drawing swift criticism from Chinese users.
In a statement on its Weibo account, the company expressed “deep apologies."
“Mars Wrigley respects China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity and conducts business operations in strict compliance with local Chinese laws and regulations,” the statement said.
In a separate post, the firm added that there is “only one China” and said that “Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory.”
Fmr Bengal governor elected India's next Vice-President
Former governor of the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, Jagdeep Dhankhar, was elected as the country's next Vice-President on Saturday.
Dhankhar, who was fielded by India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, defeated his main challenger and opposition candidate Margaret Alva, also a former state governor and federal minister, by a huge margin.
Voting to elect India's 14th Vice-President was held earlier in the day. Dhankhar will replace incumbent Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu whose five-year term ends on August 10.
Also read: Indian oppn leader Rahul Gandhi released from detention
The Vice-President is elected by an electoral college consisting of members of both Houses of Parliament -- the Rajya Sabha (Upper House) and the Lok Sabha (Lower House).
The Vice-President is the second-highest constitutional office in India. The Vice-President serves as the chairperson of the Rajya Sabha and also acts as the chancellor of the central universities.
Who's Dhankhar?
Born on 18 May, 1951, in Kithana, a small village in the western state of Rajasthan, to a farmer family, Dhankhar completed his graduation in law and entered politics at a very young age.
Also read: India raises interest rate to 5.4%, in 3rd hike since May
He subsequently became a member of the Rajasthan state assembly and then India's Parliament. He also practiced as a senior advocate in India's Supreme Court.
Israel and Gaza militants exchange fire after deadly strikes
Israeli jets pounded militant targets in Gaza on Saturday and rocket barrages into southern Israel persisted, raising fears of an escalation after a wave of Israeli airstrikes on the coastal enclave killed at least 12 people, including a senior militant and a 5-year-old girl.
The fighting began with Israel’s killing of a senior commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in a strike Friday. Gaza’s Hamas rulers so far appeared to stay on the sidelines of the conflict, keeping its intensity somewhat contained, for now. Israel and Hamas have fought four wars and several smaller battles over the last 15 years at a staggering cost to the territory’s 2 million Palestinian residents.
Shortly before noon Saturday, Israeli warplanes stepped up airstrikes. After warning residents in phone calls, fighter jets dropped two bombs on the house of an Islamic Jihad member in a residential area of Gaza City, flattening the two-story structure and badly damaging surrounding homes. Women and children rushed out of the area, and there were no casualties.
“Warned us? They warned us with rockets and we fled without taking anything,” said Huda Shamalakh, who lived next door. She said 15 people lived in the targeted home.
Another airstrike hit an Islamic Jihad site nearby. Gaza militants continued to launch rounds of rockets into southern Israel around every half hour, though there were no reports of casualties.
The lone power plant in Gaza ground to a halt at noon Saturday for lack of fuel as Israel has kept its crossing points into Gaza closed since Tuesday. The shutdown deepens the densely packed territory’s chronic power crisis amid peak summer heat. With the new disruption, Gazans can get only 4 hours of electricity a day, increasing their reliance on private generators.
The latest round of Israel-Gaza violence was sparked by the arrest this week of a senior Islamic Jihad leader in the West Bank, part of a monthlong Israeli military operation in the territory. Citing a security threat, Israel then sealed roads around the Gaza Strip and on Friday killed Islamic Jihad’s commander for northern Gaza, Taiseer al-Jabari, in a targeted strike.
An Israeli military spokesman said the strikes were in response to an “imminent threat” from two militant squads armed with anti-tank missiles.
Read: Israeli strikes on Gaza kill 10, including senior militant
“This government has a zero-tolerance policy for any attempted attacks — of any kind — from Gaza towards Israeli territory,” Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said in a televised speech Friday. “Israel will not sit idly by when there are those who are trying to harm its civilians.”
“Israel isn’t interested in a broader conflict in Gaza but will not shy away from one either.” he added.
The violence poses an early test for Lapid, who assumed the role of caretaker prime minister ahead of elections in November, when he hopes to keep the position.
Lapid, a centrist former TV host and author, has experience in diplomacy having served as foreign minister in the outgoing government, but has thin security credentials. A conflict with Gaza could burnish his standing and give him a boost as he faces off against former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a security hawk who led the country during three of its four wars with Hamas.
Hamas also faces a dilemma in deciding whether to join a new battle barely a year after the last war caused widespread devastation. There has been almost no reconstruction since then, and the isolated coastal territory is mired in poverty, with unemployment hovering around 50%.
Egypt intensified efforts to prevent escalation, communicating with Israel, the Palestinians and the U.S. to keep Hamas from joining the fighting, an Egyptian intelligence official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief media.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said a 5-year-old girl and a 23-year-old woman were among 12 killed in Gaza, along with more than 80 wounded. It did not differentiate between civilians and militants. The Israeli military said early estimates were that around 15 fighters were killed.
Hundreds marched in a funeral procession for the Jihad commander al-Jabari and others who were killed, with many mourners waving Palestinian and Islamic Jihad flags and calling for revenge. Al-Jabari had succeeded another militant killed in an airstrike in 2019, which at the time also set off a round of heavy fighting.
ASEAN special envoy to Myanmar warns on further executions
Efforts by Myanmar’s neighbors to help restore peace and normalcy to the strife-torn Southeast Asian nation were hindered by the country’s recent executions of four political activists, Cambodia’s foreign minister said Saturday.
Prak Sokhonn, speaking in his capacity as special envoy to Myanmar of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, warned that further executions would force the regional grouping to reconsider how it engages with fellow member Myanmar.
Cambodia is the current chair of the regional grouping, and Myanmar is not welcome to send members of its ruling military government to ASEAN meetings because of its failure to cooperate with a plan agreed upon last year to work toward restoring peace.
Myanmar’s military rulers initially agreed to the plan, a five-point consensus, but have since made little effort to implement it. The country has slipped into a situation that some U.N. experts have characterized as a civil war.
Prak Sokhonn was speaking at a news conference after a weeklong meeting in Cambodia of ASEAN foreign ministers. The meeting’s final communique, issued Friday, included a section criticizing Myanmar for its lack of progress in ending violence there, but with weaker language than several countries had hoped for.
On Saturday, he described the executions of Myanmar dissidents as a “setback” to his mediation efforts and said the nine ASEAN members aside from Myanmar had “agreed to see how things will evolve in the coming weeks and months.”
Read: Wang Yi’s visit to "elevate" ties with Dhaka to a new level: Beijing
He said “if more executions are conducted, then things will have to be reconsidered,” which suggested that ASEAN is prepared to downgrade its engagement with Myanmar’s military government. ASEAN has been criticized by some of its own members as well as other countries for doing too little to pressure Myanmar to implement the five-point consensus.
Myanmar’s army in February last year ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and then violently cracked down on widespread protests against its actions. After security forces unleashed lethal force against peaceful demonstrators, some opponents of military rule took up arms.
Myanmar’s foreign ministry issued a statement Friday saying it objected to a reference in the ASEAN joint statement to a “lack of progress” in implementing the five-point consensus because “it neglects Myanmar’s efforts on its implementation.”
It also said that the four men recently executed were not punished because they were political activists but because they were “found guilty of masterminding, inciting, supporting, arming and committing terrorist activities which caused tremendous loss of innocent lives.”
Prak Sokhonn said progress has been made on providing humanitarian aid to Myanmar, but not on the other main points in ASEAN’s plan: stopping the violence and opening up a political dialogue among all the country’s contending parties.
“The only will I see now is to continue to fight,” he said. “Why? Because of the lack of trust and the execution of the activists, whether it is legal or illegal.”
Taliban: 2 civilians killed in a bomb blast in Afghanistan
A bomb hidden in a cart went off on Friday near a mosque in a minority Shiite neighborhood of the Afghan capital, killing two civilians and wounding another three, a Taliban official said.
According to Khalid Zadran, the Taliban-appointed spokesman for the Kabul police chief, the attack happened in western Kabul, in the Sar-e Karez area. There were fears the casualty numbers could rise after further reports come in.
Read: Taliban under scrutiny as US kills al-Qaida leader in Kabul
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but blame is likely to fall on the Islamic State group, which has targeted Afghanistan’s minority Shiites in large-scale attacks in the past.
The regional affiliate of IS, known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, has increased attacks on mosques and minorities across the country since the Taliban seized power last August. It has been operating in Afghanistan since 2014.
IS is seen as the greatest security challenge facing the country’s Taliban rulers. Following their takeover of Afghanistan, the Taliban have launched a sweeping crackdown against the IS headquarters in the country's east.
On Wednesday, in a gunbattle between the Taliban and IS gunmen killed five, including two Taliban fighters. The fighting erupted near the Sakhi shrine in the Karti Sakhi neighborhood as people were busy preparing for Ashoura, which commemorates the 7th century death in battle of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.
Indian oppn leader Rahul Gandhi released from detention
Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka were released by Delhi Police late on Friday evening, after over six hours of detention.
Rahul, Priyanka and other senior Congress leaders were detained by the cops during a protest by the country's principal opposition party against inflation and rising unemployment outside the grand old outfit's headquarters in Delhi this afternoon.
Around 1pm, Rahul, Priyanka and other senior leaders of the party were bundled into police jeeps and taken to Police Lines at Kingsway Camp as soon as they embarked on the protest. Around 7.15pm, all the leaders were released.
Read:Indian oppn leader Rahul Gandhi detained
"We're witnessing the death of democracy. What India has built brick by brick, starting almost a century ago, is being destroyed in front of your eyes. Anybody who stands against this idea of onset of dictatorship is viciously attacked, jailed, arrested and beaten up," Rahul said before his detention.
Earlier in the day, Rahul, his mother and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, and several lawmakers of the party wore black clothes in Parliament to register their protest against rising prices, particularly of essential commodities, and unemployment.
A senior police officer told the local media that they were compelled to crack down on the protesters in the wake of the imposition of prohibitory orders by the authorities. "We have also not given them permission to hold any protest in Delhi," he said.
Rahul, son of Sonia and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, is seen by many as a future prime minister of India. Apart from his father, his grandmother Indira Gandhi and great grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru have all served as prime ministers of India.
Indian oppn leader Rahul Gandhi detained
Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka were detained by police during the Congress party's protest against inflation and rising unemployment in Delhi on Friday.
Rahul, Priyanka and other senior leaders of the party were bundled into police jeeps and taken to Police Lines at Kingsway Camp as soon as they embarked on the protest near the Congress headquarters in the heart of the national capital.
"We're witnessing the death of democracy. What India has built brick by brick, starting almost a century ago, is being destroyed in front of your eyes. Anybody who stands against this idea of onset of dictatorship is viciously attacked, jailed, arrested and beaten up," Rahul told the media.
Also read: India raises interest rate to 5.4%, in 3rd hike since May
Earlier in the day, Rahul, his mother and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, and several lawmakers of the party wore black clothes in Parliament to register their protest against rising prices, particularly of essential commodities, and unemployment.
A senior police officer told the local media that they were compelled to crack down on the protesters in the wake of the imposition of prohibitory orders by the authorities. "We have also not given them permission to hold any protest in Delhi," he said.
Rahul, son of Sonia and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, is seen by many as a future prime minister of India. Apart from his father, his grandmother Indira Gandhi and great grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru have all served as prime ministers of India.
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