Asia
India declares national mourning for ex-Japan PM Shinzo Abe
India on Friday declared a one-day national mourning on Saturday in memory of former Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed "shock" at the assassination of "one of my dearest friends".
"I am shocked and saddened beyond words at the tragic demise of one of my dearest friends, Shinzo Abe. He was a towering global statesman, an outstanding leader, and a remarkable administrator. He dedicated his life to make Japan and the world a better place," Modi tweeted.
Read: Japan ex-leader Shinzo Abe assassinated while giving speech
PM Modi also lauded 67-year-old Abe for his "immense contribution to elevating India-Japan relations to the level of a Special Strategic and Global Partnership".
"Today, whole India mourns with Japan and we stand in solidarity with our Japanese brothers and sisters in this difficult moment. As a mark of our deepest respect for former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, a one day national mourning shall be observed on 9 July 2022," he wrote.
Recalling his association with Abe, Modi said that he had got to know him "during my tenure as Gujarat CM and our friendship continued after I became PM". "His sharp insights on economy and global affairs always made a deep impression on me."
Read: Japan ex-leader Shinzo Abe apparently shot, in heart failure
"During my recent visit to Japan, I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Abe again and discuss many issues. He was witty and insightful as always. Little did I know that this would be our last meeting. My heartfelt condolences to his family and the Japanese people," the Indian PM wrote.
The former Japanese PM was assassinated by a former Navy personnel while giving a campaign speech in the southern city of Nara. He was pronounced dead five hours later at a hospital where he was airlifted to.
Japan ex-leader Shinzo Abe assassinated while giving speech
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a divisive arch-conservative and one of his nation's most powerful and influential figures, has died after being shot during a campaign speech Friday in western Japan, hospital officials said.
Abe, 67, was shot from behind minutes after he started his speech in Nara. He was airlifted to a hospital for emergency treatment but was not breathing and his heart had stopped. He was later pronounced dead despite emergency treatment that included massive blood transfusions, hospital officials said.
Police arrested the suspected gunman at the scene of an attack that shocked many in Japan, which is one of the world’s safest nations and has some of the strictest gun control laws anywhere.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his Cabinet ministers hastily returned to Tokyo from campaign events around the country after the shooting, which he called “dastardly and barbaric."
Read: Japan ex-leader Shinzo Abe apparently shot, in heart failure
Nara Medical University emergency department chief Hidetada Fukushima said Abe suffered major damage to his heart in addition to two neck wounds that damaged an artery, causing extensive bleeding. He was in a state of cardio and pulmonary arrest when he arrived at the hospital and never regained his vital signs, Fukushima said.
Abe was Japan’s longest-serving leader before stepping down in 2020.
Public television NHK aired a dramatic video of Abe giving a speech outside a train station in the western city of Nara. He is standing, dressed in a navy blue suit, raising his fist, when two gunshots are heard. The video then shows Abe collapsed on the street, with security guards running toward him. He holds his chest, his shirt smeared with blood.
In the next moment, security guards leap on top of a man in gray shirt who lies face down on the pavement. A double-barreled device that appeared to be a handmade gun is seen on the ground.
Nara prefectural police confirmed the arrest of Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, on suspicion of attempted murder. NHK reported that the suspect served in the Maritime Self-Defense Force for three years in the 2000s.
Other videos from the scene showed campaign officials surrounding Abe. The former leader was still highly influential in the governing Liberal Democratic Party and headed its largest faction, Seiwakai. Elections for Japan's upper house, the less powerful chamber of its parliament, are Sunday.
“I use the harshest words to condemn (the act),” Kishida said as he struggled to control his emotions. He said the government planned to review the security situation, but added that Abe had the highest protection.
Opposition leaders condemned the attack as a challenge to Japan’s democracy. In Tokyo, people stopped on the street to grab extra editions of newspapers or watch TV coverage of the shooting.
When he resigned as prime minister, Abe said he had a recurrence of the ulcerative colitis he'd had since he was a teenager.
He told reporters at the time that it was “gut wrenching” to leave many of his goals unfinished. He spoke of his failure to resolve the issue of Japanese abducted years ago by North Korea, a territorial dispute with Russia and a revision of Japan’s war-renouncing constitution.
That last goal was a big reason he was such a divisive figure.
His ultra-nationalism riled the Koreas and China, and his push to create what he saw as a more normal defense posture angered many Japanese. Abe failed to achieve his cherished goal of formally rewriting the U.S.-drafted pacifist constitution because of poor public support.
Loyalists said that his legacy was a stronger U.S.-Japan relationship that was meant to bolster Japan’s defense capability. But Abe made enemies by forcing his defense goals and other contentious issues through parliament, despite strong public opposition.
Abe was a political blue blood who was groomed to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi. His political rhetoric often focused on making Japan a “normal” and “beautiful” nation with a stronger military and bigger role in international affairs.
Read: Dhaka condemns attack on Abe, wishes his quick recovery
Many foreign officials expressed shock over the shooting.
Abe said he was proud of working while leader for a stronger Japan-U.S. security alliance and shepherding the first visit by a serving U.S. president to the atom-bombed city of Hiroshima. He also helped Tokyo gain the right to host the 2020 Olympics by pledging that a disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant was “under control” when it was not.
Abe became Japan’s youngest prime minister in 2006, at age 52, but his overly nationalistic first stint abruptly ended a year later, also because of his health.
The end of Abe’s scandal-laden first stint as prime minister was the beginning of six years of annual leadership change, remembered as an era of “revolving door” politics that lacked stability and long-term policies.
When he returned to office in 2012, Abe vowed to revitalize the nation and get its economy out of its deflationary doldrums with his “Abenomics” formula, which combines fiscal stimulus, monetary easing and structural reforms.
He won six national elections and built a rock-solid grip on power, bolstering Japan’s defense role and capability and its security alliance with the U.S. He also stepped up patriotic education at schools and raised Japan’s international profile.
Japan ex-leader Shinzo Abe apparently shot, in heart failure
Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in heart failure after apparently being shot during a campaign speech Friday in western Japan, NHK public television said Friday.
Also read: Japan PM Shinzo Abe resigns for health reasons
The broadcaster aired footage showing Abe collapsed on the street, with several security guards running toward him. Abe was holding his chest when he collapsed, with his shirt smeared with blood. NHK says Abe was rushed to a hospital.
Witnesses reported hearing gunshots in the apparent attack in Nara. He was standing while making an election campaign speech ahead of Sunday’s election for the parliament's upper house.
Also read: Police: Gunfire at mall; no one shot, but 3 hurt fleeing
Police arrested a male suspect at the scene on suspicion of attempted murder, NHK said.
Sri Lanka's central bank raises key rates to curb inflation
Sri Lanka’s Central Bank has raised its key interest rates to their highest levels in more than 20 years to try to contain inflation that has added to the country’s economic woes.
Recent price hikes have been a severe blow, especially for the South Asian country’s poor and vulnerable groups as they endure their country’s worst economic crisis in memory, struggling with acute shortages of essentials such as food, fuel, cooking gas and medicines.
Two weeks ago, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told lawmakers the economy had “collapsed." On Wednesday, he announced he had called Russian leader Vladimir Putin to request credit support to help the country import fuel.
Also read: Sri Lanka PM says talks with IMF difficult due to bankruptcy
The central bank said it had raised its Standing Deposit Facility Rate by 100 basis points to 14.50%. The move is expected to help draw more funds into the banking sector. It also raised the Standing Lending Facility Rate that it charges commercial banks by 100 basis points, to 15.50%.
Those rates were last that high in 2001.
The bank said it expects to tighten its monetary policy further to fully curb inflation, which rose to nearly 55% in June, while food inflation topped 80%.
The bank raised its policy rates by 700 basis points each in April, roughly doubling them and surprising economists as it struggled to drive inflation lower. Earlier, Fitch Solutions Country Risk & Industry Research forecast that it would push the Standing Deposit Facility Rate to 16.50% and the Standing Lending Facility Rate to 17.50% by the year’s end.
“Our priority is to bring down inflation to at least a reasonable level as soon as possible. The sooner the better,” said the central bank governor, Nandalal Weerasinghe.
Many central banks, most notably the U.S. Federal Reserve, have been raising interest rates to prevent inflation from spiraling out of control. But Sri Lanka faces troubles on a different scale.
Also read: With no fuel and no cash, Sri Lanka keeps schools closed
“What the central bank has done is a measure in the right direction, but it's too short given the high inflation rate of 55 per cent right now which will accelerate to more than 80 to 100 per cent in the next two to three months,” said W.A. Wijewardena, an economist and former deputy governor of Sri Lanka's Central Bank.
Prices of most essentials have tripled in recent months and the most people are struggling to pay for their basic needs. About 70% of Sri Lankan households surveyed by UNICEF in May reported cutting back on food consumption. Many families rely on government rice handouts and charitable donations.
The central bank said Sri Lanka’s economy is estimated to have contracted 1.6% from a year earlier in the first quarter of the year. Shortages of fuel and electricity have further crimped economic activity in April-June.
Even though the economy already has slowed, the interest rate hikes would help temper expectations for further price increases, helping bring inflation down to a target of 6%-7%, the central bank said in a statement.
Due to the acute fuel and power shortages, Sri Lanka has kept schools shut for weeks, while the government has asked state employees other than those in essential services to work from home.
This week, daily three-hour power cuts went into effect.
Strapped by dwindling foreign reserves, Sri Lanka has suspended repayment on foreign debts worth about $7 billion that were due this year.
The country is negotiating with the International Monetary Fund on a bailout package, but Wickremesinghe, the prime minister, said this week that negotiations were proving complex and difficult because Sri Lanka is effectively bankrupt.
The economic meltdown has triggered a political crisis, with widespread anti-government protests erupting across the country. Protesters have blocked main roads to demand gas and fuel, and television stations showed people in some areas fighting over limited stocks.
In the capital, Colombo, protesters have been occupying the entrance to the president’s office for more than two months to demand President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation. They accuse him and his powerful family, which includes several siblings who until recently held top government positions, of precipitating the crisis through corruption and misrule.
India puts curbs on wheat flour exports
After banning wheat exports, India has put curbs on exports of wheat flour and other related products to curb rising domestic prices.
The curbs will come into effect from July 12, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has said in a notification.
"Global supply disruptions in wheat and wheat flour have created many new players and have led to price fluctuations and potential quality-related issues. Therefore, it is imperative to maintain the quality of wheat flour exports from India," the notification said.
Also read: Russia offers to sell 2 lakh metric tons of wheat to Bangladesh: Food minister
'The export policy of wheat flour (atta) remains ‘Free’ but exports will be subject to the recommendation of the inter-ministerial committee (IMC) on export of wheat," the DGFT notification added.
The move comes in the wake of domestic wheat flour prices shooting up since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February this year.
In May, India banned wheat exports.
Also read: Tipu discounts wheat crisis amid rising price
India is the world's second-biggest wheat producer. And neighbouring Bangladesh is India's top importer of wheat. India exported 7 million tonnes of wheat in the 2021-22 financial year.
Turkey again asks Sweden, Finland to extradite suspects
Turkey has sent letters to Sweden and Finland renewing its request for the extradition of people it considers terror suspects, the Turkish justice minister said Wednesday.
Turkey last week lifted its deal-breaking objections to Sweden and Finland’s NATO accession. But Ankara has warned that it could still block the process if the two Nordic countries fail to meet its demand to extradite people suspected of links to outlawed Kurdish groups, or to the network of an exiled cleric accused over a failed coup in 2016.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag told Haber Global television in an interview that letters were sent renewing Turkey’s requests for the extradition of suspects for whom earlier requests had been rejected.
The letters also “reminded” the two countries about suspects whose cases are still pending, he said.
Turkey, Sweden and Finland signed a joint memorandum last week that allowed NATO to move ahead with inviting the Nordic countries to the military alliance that seeks to enlarge and strengthen in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
With the memorandum, Finland and Sweden agreed to address Turkey's “pending deportation or extradition requests of terror suspects expeditiously and thoroughly ... in accordance with the European Convention on Extradition.”
Turkey had objected to Finland and Sweden's membership, accusing them of supporting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, and other groups that it says pose a threat to its security. It demanded that Finland and Sweden extradite wanted individuals and lift arms restrictions imposed after Turkey’s 2019 military incursion into northeast Syria.
The Nordic countries’ accession still needs to be approved by the parliaments of all 30 NATO members — a process that could take months — and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened that Turkey's Parliament could refuse to do so.
Modi govt's Muslim face Mukhtar quits as Minister
Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government's prominent Muslim face Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi resigned as India's Minority Affairs Minister on Wednesday.
The 64-year-old's sudden resignation comes a day before his term as a member of Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament) ends, triggering speculation that he may run for the Vice-President of India.
Read: India’s Nupur Sharma battle reaches the judiciary
Earlier in the day, Naqvi met with Prime Minister Modi and BJP president JP Nadda."He has handed over his resignation to Modi after the meeting," sources told UNB.
Naqvi began his political career as a student leader and was jailed during the Emergency. He served as junior Information and Broadcasting Minister in former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government in the late 1990s.
Read: In Kashmir, ‘conscious music’ tests India’s limits on speech
Incumbent Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu's five-year term ends on August 10. The elections are slated for August 6.
China sees record rains, heat as weather turns volatile
From the snowcapped peaks of Tibet to the tropical island of Hainan, China is sweltering under the worst heatwave in decades while rainfall hit records in June.
Extreme heat is also battering Japan, and volatile weather is causing trouble for other parts of the world in what scientists say has all the hallmarks of climate change, with even more warming expected this century.
The northeastern provinces of Shandong, Jilin and Liaoning saw precipitation rise to the highest levels ever recorded in June, while the national average of 112.1 millimeters (4.4 inches) was 9.1 % higher than the same month last year, the China Meteorological Administration said in a report Tuesday.
Read:South China floods force tens of thousands to evacuate
The average temperature across the nation also hit 21.3 degrees Celsius (70.34 Fahrenheit) in June, up 0.9 C (1.8 F) from the same period month last year and the highest since 1961. No relief is in sight, with higher than usual temperatures and precipitation forecast in much of the country throughout July, the administration said.
In the northern province of Henan, Xuchang hit 42.1 C (107.8 F) and Dengfeng 41.6 C (106.9 F) on June 24 for their hottest days on record, according to global extreme weather tracker Maximiliano Herrera.
China has also seen seasonal flooding in several parts of the country, causing misery for hundreds of thousands, particularly in the hard-hit south that receives the bulk of rainfall as well as typhoons that sweep in from the South China Sea.
China is not alone in experiencing higher temperatures and more volatile weather. In Japan, authorities warned of greater than usual stress on the power grid and urged citizens to conserve energy.
Japanese officials announced the earliest end to the annual summer rainy season since the national meteorological agency began keeping records in 1951. The rains usually temper summer heat, often well into July.
On Friday, the cities of Tokamachi and Tsunan set all-time heat records while several others broke monthly marks.
Read: Heavy flooding, landslides destroy buildings, roads in China
Large parts of the Northern Hemisphere have seen extreme heat this summer, with regions from the normally chilly Russian Arctic to the traditionally sweltering American South recording unusually high temperatures and humidity.
In the United States, the National Weather Service has held 30 million Americans under some kind of heat advisory amid record-setting temperatures. The suffering and danger to health is most intense among those without air conditioning or who work outdoors, further reinforcing the economic disparities in dealing with extreme weather trends.
Sri Lanka PM says talks with IMF difficult due to bankruptcy
Sri Lanka’s negotiations with the International Monetary Fund are more complex and difficult than in the past because it is a bankrupt nation, the country’s prime minister said Tuesday.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told lawmakers that recent discussions with a visiting IMF mission were fruitful but not as straightforward as in the past.
“Our country has held talks with the IMF on many occasions before. But this time the situation is different from all those previous occasions. In the past, we have held discussions as a developing country," Wickremesinghe said.
Read: With no fuel and no cash, Sri Lanka keeps schools closed
“But now the situation is different. We are now participating in the negotiations as a bankrupt country. Therefore, we have to face a more difficult and complicated situation,” he said in explaining a roadmap for recovery from Sri Lanka's worst economic crisis in memory.
The crisis has resulted in acute shortages of essentials, food, fuel, cooking gas and medicines forcing people to stay in long lines to buy the limited supplies. The government has shut schools and asked employees other than those in essential services to work from home.
Wickremesinghe said earlier that a preliminary agreement has been submitted to the IMF's board of directors for approval. “But due to the state of bankruptcy our country is in, we have to submit a plan on our debt sustainability to them separately. Only when they are satisfied with that plan can we reach an agreement at the staff level. This is not a straight-forward process,” said Wickremesinghe.
He said Sri Lanka's financial legal advisors are working on a debt sustainability report to be submitted in August.
Discussions are underway with India, Japan and China to form an aid consortium once a staff-level agreement with the IMF is reached, Wickremesinghe said.
Sri Lanka suspended repayment on foreign debts worth about $7 billion that were due this year because its foreign exchange levels fell to record lows. The country's total foreign debt is $51 billion, $28 billion of which must be repaid by 2027, an average repayment of about $5 billion a year.
Read: Gas lines and scuffles: Sri Lanka faces humanitarian crisis
Frustrated people have been holding street protests for months and often scuffle among themselves and with police at fuel stations.
Wickremesinghe said the Central Bank is forecasting an economic contraction of 4% to 5% this year. The IMF estimates Sri Lanka's economy will shrink 6% to 7%.
Sri Lanka's economy has been gutted by the pandemic, which compounded longstanding problems of economic mismanagement. It's GDP fell to $76.2 billion in 2021, down from $94.4 billion in 2018 and won't recover to the level it was at in 2018 until 2026, Wickremesinghe said. He said one government target was to achieve minus 1% growth by the end of next year.
In Kashmir, ‘conscious music’ tests India’s limits on speech
Sarfaraz Javaid thumps his chest rhythmically in the music video, swaying to the guitar and letting his throaty voice ring out through the forest: “What kind of soot has shrouded the sky? It has turned my world dark. ... Why has the home been entrusted to strangers?”
“Khuaftan Baange” — Kashmiri for “the call to night’s prayer” — plays out like a groaning dirge for Muslim-majority Kashmir, the starkly beautiful Himalayan territory that’s home to decades of territorial conflict, gun-toting soldiers and harsh crackdowns on the populace. It is mournful in tone but lavish in lyrical symbolism inspired by Sufism, an Islamic mystic tradition. Its form is that of a Marsiya, a poetic rendition that is a lament for Muslim martyrs.
“I just express myself and scream, but when harmony is added, it becomes a song,” Javaid, a poet like his father and grandfather, said in an interview.
Javaid is among a movement of artists in disputed Kashmir, divided between India and Pakistan and claimed by both since 1947, who are forming a new musical tradition that blends progressive Sufi rock with hip-hop in an assertive expression of political aspirations. They call it “conscious music.”
Drawing on elements of Islam and spiritual poetry, it is often laced with religious metaphors to circumvent measures restricting some free speech in Indian-controlled Kashmir that have led many poets and singers to swallow their words. It also seeks to bridge tensions between Muslim tradition and modernism in a region that in many ways still clings to a conservative past.
“It’s like venting decades of pent-up emotions,” Javaid said.
Kashmir has a centuries-old tradition of spoken poetry that is heavily influenced by Islam, with mystical, rhapsodic verses often used when making supplications at mosques and shrines. After rebellion against Indian rule broke out in 1989, poetic renditions about liberation poured out from mosque loudspeakers and elegies inspired by historical Islamic events were sung at the funerals of fallen rebels.
Two decades of fighting left Kashmir and its people scarred with tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces dead before the armed struggle withered, paving the way for unarmed mass demonstrations that shook the region in 2008 and 2010. Around that time Kashmir also saw the rise of protest music in English-language hip-hop and rap, a new anthem of resistance.
Singer-songwriter Roushan Illahi, who performs under the name MC Kash, was the genre’s pioneer, making angry, grab-you-by-the-neck music that became a rallying cry for young people to use sharp rhymes and beats to challenge India’s sovereignty over the region.
Read: In Kashmir, India batters press freedom — and journalists
Kash’s songs treaded dangerously close to sedition, however, as questioning India’s claim to the restive region is illegal. The country has sharply restricted freedom of expression regarding the issue in Kashmir, including some curbs to the media, dissent and religious practices.
Frequent questioning by police pushed Kash to a point where he almost stopped making music. Some colleagues have continue to record and perform but began incorporating coded language, or moved away from politics altogether.
“First it was a chokehold,” Kash said, “but now it is a pillow on your mouth.”
Tensions escalated in 2016 when Indian troops put down another massive public uprising, leading to a renewed militancy. Three years later, in 2019, New Delhi revoked the region’s partial autonomy amid a communications blackout and a harsh crackdown on the press and other forms of free expression.
The situation has since worsened with India’s aggressive counterinsurgency operations leading to an uptick in gunfights between rebels and Indian troops. Deadly attacks by rebels have also increased against Kashmiri police officials, Indian migrant workers and the region’s minority Hindus.
The crackdown that began in 2019 has persisted. Nevertheless, many artists stuck to the music and have been catapulted to fame, their songs widely shared on social media. “Conscious music” has flourished further as artists more recently began incorporating Urdu and Kashmiri lyrics.
On a recent afternoon, a cohort of young artists gathered at the home studio of composer Zeeshan Nabi in the suburbs of Srinagar, Kashmir’s main city. Filling the room with coils of cigarette smoke, they passionately debated the essence of metaphors and religious references in their work.
“What (religious symbolism) is doing is constantly knocking at the door, either in the form of a reminder or a memory from the past,” Nabi said.
He expressed optimism that the gag is temporary: “For how long can you hold the grip? The oppressor can oppress till about a certain time.”
“We are dreamers,” Arif Farooq, a hip-hop artist who uses the stage name Qafilah, said with a chuckle.
Read: India landslide death toll reaches 47
Qafilah’s music video “Faraar” — “the runaway” — begins with a shot of a concertina wire and him sitting in the courtyard of a shrine to Kashmir’s most revered Sufi saint, Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani. It invokes the ancient Battle of Karbala, where the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson was martyred and which symbolizes the struggle against injustice and oppression.
“Our malady can only be cured by revolution, my friend. Every answer lies in Karbala, my friend,” Qafilah urges in the song.
Religious symbolism, Qafilah said, is a creative device to reflect Kashmir’s pain and also evade the state’s gaze.
“You want to steal, but you don’t want to be caught,” he said.
The symbolism of faith as subtext is hard to miss in this new form of music.
One recent video, “Inshallah” — “God willing” — has lyrics that evoke monotheism, the cornerstone of the Islamic faith. In it, singer Yawar Abdal imagines a Kashmir where people, blindfolded and with nooses around their necks, are liberated amid chants of “All shall be free.” The refrain “inshallah” is set against a booming chorus of morning prayers as chanted in mosques.
Another song — “Jhelum,” named for Kashmir’s main river — became an instant hit for contrasting the banality of daily life in Kashmir with the ongoing mourning for the dead. In online videos, users have since set the song to moving and still images of fallen fighters to memorialize them — it’s in part a way of resisting authorities’ policy since 2020 of burying suspected rebels in remote mountain graveyards, denying their families the opportunity to perform last rites.
“There’s this tension in the air that is shaping you in a certain manner,” said poet and singer Faheem Abdullah, the man behind “Jhelum.”
Poets and musicians receive state patronage in Kashmir, and government-sponsored musical events continue to be held regularly.
At least some Indian authorities take a dim view of the burgeoning movement of protest music, however; at one recent event, a top Indian military general lauded the region’s rich artistic heritage but deplored “the kind of rap songs which bring only sadness.”
On a recent evening, Javaid, the artist behind “Khuaftan Baange,” sat at the shore of Srinagar’s picturesque Dal Lake and belted out an elegy for his homeland. As the sun slipped behind the mountains and a drizzle began to fall, he ended by reciting the names of disappeared people. A distant relative was among the names.
“I reflect what I see,” Javaid said. “I see pain, agony and loss.”