Asia
5 killed as blast hits political rally in SW Pakistan
At least five people were killed and five others injured when a blast went off near a political rally in Pakistan's southwest Balochistan province on Tuesday, official sources said.
Pakistani court sentences former Prime Minister Imran Khan to 10 years for revealing state secrets
The incident happened around 5:35 p.m. local time (1235 GMT) when explosive materials fixed at a motorbike exploded in Sibi district of the province, the sources told Xinhua.
Pakistani court sentences former Prime Minister Imran Khan to 10 years for revealing state secrets
A Pakistani court on Tuesday sentenced former Prime Minister Imran Khan and one of his party deputies to 10 years in prison each, after finding them guilty of revealing official secrets.
The verdict was another blow to Khan, a former cricket star turned Islamist politician, who was ousted through a no-confidence vote in Parliament in April 2022 and is currently serving a three-year prison sentence in a graft case.
According to Zulfiqar Bukhari, spokesman for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, the court announced the verdict at a prison in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. Authorities said Khan and his deputy who also received a 10-year sentence, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, have the right to appeal Tuesday’s ruling in the case, popularly known as the Cipher case.
Read: India's Modi is set to open a controversial temple in Ayodhya in a grand event months before polls
The ruling comes ahead of the Feb. 8 parliamentary elections in Pakistan — a vote that Khan is barred from running in because of his previous criminal conviction.
Although Khan will not be on the ballot for the February election, he remains a potent political force because of his grassroots following and anti-establishment rhetoric. He says the legal cases against him were a plot to sideline him ahead of the vote.
Pakistan has seen violent demonstrations since after Khan’s May 2023 arrest. Authorities have cracked down on his supporters and party since then.
Pakistan’s independent human rights commission has said there is little chance of a free and fair parliamentary election next month because of “pre-poll rigging.” It also expressed concern about authorities rejecting the candidacies of Khan and senior figures from his party.
The Cipher case is one of more than 150 cases pending against Khan. Other charges range from contempt of court to terrorism and inciting violence.
In the secrets case, Khan is alleged to have waved a confidential document — a classified cable — at a rally after he was toppled. The document — dubbed Cipher — has not been made public by either the government or Khan’s lawyers but was apparently diplomatic correspondence between the Pakistani ambassador to Washington and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Islamabad.
During the speech, Khan claiming the document was proof he was being threatened and that his ouster was a U.S. conspiracy, allegedly executed by the military and the government in Pakistan. Washington and Pakistani officials have denied the claim.
Read: Iranian soldier kills 5 comrades in southeastern city where IS attack killed dozens, state TV says
Tuesday's verdict comes weeks after Khan and Qureshi were indicted in the case.
During the trial, Khan’s party and supporters had feared he could be sentenced to death for treason. Khan has maintained his innocence and says he didn’t disclose the exact contents of the cable. Qureshi was accused of manipulating the contents of a diplomatic cable to gain political advantage.
Political analyst Syed Muhammad Ali said the latest verdict was expected. The two “indeed damaged Pakistan’s diplomatic ties with the United States, and they also embarrassed the then-Pakistani Ambassador Asad Majeed to the United States,” he said.
South China Sea tensions and Myanmar violence top agenda for Southeast Asian envoys meeting in Laos
China’s growingly assertive posture in the South China Sea and escalating violence in Myanmar topped the agenda for Southeast Asian diplomats meeting in Laos on Monday.
The gathering is the first high-level meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations since Laos took over the rotating chairmanship.
The diplomats for the 10 nations with a combined population of nearly 650 million and GDP of more than $3 trillion will work to strategize on issues of regional peace, security and stability. They were also discussing economic cooperation and other issues under the year’s theme “enhancing connectivity and resilience.”
Of the ASEAN member nations, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Brunei and Laos, several have competing maritime claims in the South China Sea with China.
China claims virtually the entire South China Sea, through which an estimated $5 trillion in international trade passes each year, which has led it into direct confrontations, most notably with the Philippines and Vietnam.
Read: Two survivors rescued after landslide buried homes in freezing weather in southwest China, 11 died
The ASEAN meeting in the historic city of Luang Prabang comes on the same day that Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, was to be meeting with top officials in Hanoi, among other things to discuss the ongoing tensions in the South China Sea.
The Philippines has been looking for more support from its ASEAN neighbors, amid increasingly tense hostilities with China, primarily off of the Second Thomas Shoal, which many worry could escalate into a broader armed conflict that could involve Washington, Manila’s longtime treaty ally.
The Philippine government protested the Chinese coast guard’s use of water cannon, a military-grade laser and dangerous blocking maneuvers that had caused minor collisions off the Philippine-occupied shoal.
China and ASEAN agreed in 2012 to a declaration on conduct in the South China Sea, seeking to “enhance favorable conditions for a peaceful and durable solution of differences and disputes,” but there has been little sign of adherence to that in recent years.
Under last year's chair, Indonesia, ASEAN agreed with China on guidelines to accelerate negotiations for a South China Sea code of conduct, but that has yet to produce results.
With communist Laos' close ties with neighboring China, and the fact that it is landlocked so has no South China Sea claims of its own, many have been skeptical that it will be able to achieve any breakthrough during its year as ASEAN chair.
A draft copy of Laos' final statement to be issued later Monday, obtained by The Associated Press, makes no direct mention of China's claims, but does stress several times the need to respect the United Nations convention on the law of the sea.
Under that convention, a U.N.-backed tribunal ruled in 2016 that China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea on historical grounds were invalid and that Beijing had violated the right of Filipinos to fish in the shoal.
Read: Myanmar Supreme Court rejects ousted leader Suu Kyi's special appeal in bribery conviction
China has refused to participate in the arbitration, rejected its outcome and continues to defy it.
In its statement, Laos says ASEAN discussed concerns “of the land reclamations, activities, serious incidents in the area, including actions that put the safety of all persons at risk,” and “emphasized the importance of non-militarization and self-restraint in the conduct of all activities by claimants.”
Laos is the first ASEAN country that shares a border with Myanmar to serve as chair since the military seized control of the country in February 2021 from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
ASEAN has developed a “Five-Point Consensus” plan for peace, which calls for the immediate cessation of violence, a dialogue among all concerned parties, mediation by an ASEAN special envoy, provision of humanitarian aid through ASEAN channels, and a visit to Myanmar by the special envoy to meet all concerned parties.
The military leadership in Myanmar has so far ignored the plan. At the same time, a humanitarian crisis is growing, with more than 2.6 million people forced from their homes due to escalating violence, according to the United Nations.
Laos has already sent its special envoy to Myanmar for meetings with the head of the ruling military council and other top officials in an attempt to make progress on the five-point consensus.
Myanmar has been prohibited from sending its foreign minister or any political representative to the ASEAN meetings since the end of 2021 when it blocked the group's envoy from meeting with Suu Kyi. It is represented in Luang Prabang by a non-political Foreign Ministry official instead.
In the draft of its final statement, Laos called Myanmar an “integral part of ASEAN” and said the group was committed to “assisting Myanmar in finding a peaceful and durable solution to the ongoing crisis” through the implementation of the five-point consensus.
Sri Lanka passes bill allowing government to remove online posts and legally pursue internet users
Sri Lanka’s parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved an internet regulation bill that was highly criticized as a move to stifle speech in an election year while the Indian Ocean island nation copes with an economic crisis that required an international bailout.
The Online Safety bill would allow the government to set up a commission with a wide range of powers, which includes ordering people and internet service providers to remove online posts deemed “prohibited statements." It can also legally pursue people who publish such posts.
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The government led by President Ranil Wickremesinghe submitted the bill for debate on Tuesday, after which it was passed in the 225-member house, where the ruling coalition enjoys majority. Only 62 lawmakers voted against the bill.
Opposition lawmakers criticized the bill for creating “a very oppressive environment.” Media, internet and civil rights groups had asked the government to withdraw the bill, saying it would undermine freedoms.
Sri Lanka's central bank governor reflects on keeping economy afloat during year of turmoil
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said the bill would create a repressive law with broad and vague "speech-related offenses punishable by lengthy prison terms."
The Asia Internet Coalition, which has Apple, Amazon, Google and Yahoo as members, said the bill “would undermine potential growth and foreign direct investment into Sri Lanka’s digital economy."
The secretary of the Sri Lanka Professional Web Journalists Association, Kalum Shivantha, said the bill would severely impact how they do their job. "Online journalists might resort to self-censorship and even our news websites might get shut down,” he said.
World Bank forecasts Sri Lankan economy to grow by 1.7% in 2024
However, Public Security Minister Tiran Alles, who introduced the bill in Parliament, said it would address problems related to online fraud, abuse and false statements that threaten national security and stability. He said more than 8,000 complaints were filed last year related to online crimes, including sexual abuse, financial scams, cyber harassment, and data theft.
Alles added that the bill was not drafted to harass media or political opponents.
Sri Lanka is still reeling from its worst economic crisis, which hit the island nation two years ago. The country declared bankruptcy in 2022 with more than $83 billion in debt, more than half of it to foreign creditors.
The crisis caused severe shortages of food, fuel and other necessities. Strident public protests led to the ouster of then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
The IMF agreed last year to a $2.9 billion bailout package for the hard-hit country.
After Rajapaksa fled, then-Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was appointed as president by parliament. The shortages of necessities have largely decreased over the past year, but public dissatisfaction has spiked after the government imposing new high taxes on professionals and businesses and raised energy bills.
Rights groups say Wickremesinghe has moved to stifle dissent, by cracking down on anti-government protests and arresting protestors and activists.
Sri Lanka’s presidential election is set to be held later this year.
End/UNB/AP/MB
Saudi Arabia opens first liquor store for non-Muslim diplomats
A liquor store has opened in Saudi Arabia for the first time in over 70 years, a diplomat reported Wednesday, a further socially liberalizing step in the once-ultraconservative kingdom that is home to the holiest sites in Islam.
While restricted to non-Muslim diplomats, the store in Riyadh comes as Saudi Arabia's assertive Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman aims to make the kingdom a tourism and business destination as part of ambitious plans to slowly wean its economy away from crude oil.
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However, challenges remain both from the prince's international reputation after the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi as well as internally with the conservative Islamic mores that have governed its sandy expanses for decades.
The store sits next to a supermarket in Riyadh's Diplomatic Quarter, said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a socially sensitive topic in Saudi Arabia. The diplomat walked through the store Wednesday, describing it as similar to an upscale duty free shop at a major international airport.
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The store stocks liquor, wine and only two types of beer for the time being, the diplomat said. Workers at the store asked customers for their diplomatic identifications and for them to place their mobile phones inside of pouches while inside. A mobile phone app allows purchases on an allotment system, the diplomat said.
Saudi officials did not respond to a request for comment regarding the store.
Saudi Arabia says it will maintain production cuts that have helped drive oil prices up
However, the opening of the store coincides with a story run by the English-language newspaper Arab News, owned by the state-aligned Saudi Research and Media Group, on new rules governing alcohol sales to diplomats in the kingdom.
It described the rules as meant “to curb the uncontrolled importing of these special goods and liquors within the diplomatic consignments.” The rules took effect Monday, the newspaper reported.
For years, diplomats have been able to import liquor through a specialty service into the kingdom, for consumption on diplomatic grounds.
Those without access in the past have purchased liquor from bootleggers or brewed their own inside their homes. However, the U.S. State Department warns that those arrested and convicted for consuming alcohol can face “long jail sentences, heavy fines, public floggings and deportation.”
Drinking alcohol is considered haram, or forbidden, in Islam. Saudi Arabia remains one of the few nations in the world with a ban on alcohol, alongside its neighbor Kuwait and Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.
Saudi Arabia has banned alcohol since the early 1950s. Then-King Abdulaziz, Saudi Arabia's founding monarch, stopped its sale following a 1951 incident in which one of his sons, Prince Mishari, became intoxicated and used a shotgun to kill British vice consul Cyril Ousman in Jeddah.
Following Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution and a militant attack on the Grand Mosque at Mecca, Saudi Arabia’s rulers soon further embraced Wahhabism, an ultraconservative Islamic doctrine born in the kingdom. Strict gender separation, a women's driving ban and other measures were put in place.
Under Prince Mohammed and his father, King Salman, the kingdom has opened movie theaters, allowed women to drive and hosted major music festivals. But political speech and dissent remains strictly criminalized, potentially at the penalty of death.
As Saudi Arabia prepares for a $500 billion futuristic city project called Neom, reports have circulated that alcohol could be served at a beach resort there.
Sensitivities, however, remain. After an official suggested that “alcohol was not off the table” at Neom in 2022, within days he soon no longer was working at the project.
Death toll in China landslide rises to 31 while more remain missing
Authorities raised the confirmed death toll to 31 on Tuesday in a landslide in a remote, mountainous part of China's southwestern province of Yunnan, Chinese state media reported.
The disaster struck just before 6 a.m. on Monday in the village of Liangshui in the northeastern part of Yunnan.
Authorities said earlier Tuesday that a total of 44 people were either missing or had been found dead.
Search and rescue operations resumed after being suspended earlier in the day due to another landslide alert.
More than 1,000 rescuers were working amid freezing temperatures, with the help of excavators, drones and rescue dogs, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management. Two survivors were found Monday and were recovering at a local hospital.
Two survivors rescued after landslide buried homes in freezing weather in southwest China, 11 died
State news agency Xinhua, citing a preliminary investigation by local experts, said the landslide was triggered by the collapse of a steep clifftop area, with the collapsed mass measuring around 100 meters (330 feet) wide, 60 meters (200 feet) in height, and an average of 6 meters (20 feet) in thickness. It did not elaborate on what caused the initial collapse.
Aerial photos posted by Xinhua showed the side of a heavily terraced mountain had spilled over several village homes. More than 900 villagers were relocated.
Zhenxiong county lies about 2,250 kilometers (1,400 miles) southwest of Beijing, with altitudes ranging as high as 2,400 meters (7,900 feet).
7 people dead as landslide buries house in southern Philippines
Rescuers struggled with snow, icy roads and freezing temperatures that were forecast to persist for at least the next three days.
Heavy snow has been falling in many parts of China, causing transportation chaos and endangering lives.
Last week, rescuers evacuated tourists from a remote skiing area in northwestern China where dozens of avalanches triggered by heavy snow had trapped more than 1,000 people for a week. The avalanches blocked roads, stranding both tourists and residents in a village in Altay prefecture in the Xinjiang region, close to China's border with Mongolia, Russia and Kazakhstan.
Landslides, often caused by rain or unsafe construction work, are not uncommon in China. At least 70 people were killed in landslides last year, including more than 50 at an open-pit mine in the Inner Mongolia region.
In all, natural disasters in China left 691 people dead and missing last year, causing direct economic losses of about 345 billion yuan ($48 billion, according to the National Commission for Disaster Reduction and the Ministry of Emergency Management. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Natural Resources implemented emergency response measures for geological disasters and sent a work team of experts to the site.
Also on Tuesday, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck a sparsely populated part of China's western Xinjiang region, causing extensive damage but injuring just six people in freezing cold weather, authorities said. The tremors were felt hundreds of kilometers away. The quake was the latest in a series of seismic events and natural disasters to hit the country's western regions.
Girl dies, homes damaged as heavy rain triggers landslides in Sylhet
Only last month, China's deadliest earthquake in years struck the northwest in a remote region between Gansu and Qinghai provinces. At least 149 people were killed in the magnitude 6.2 temblor that struck on Dec. 18, reducing homes to rubble and triggering heavy mudslides that inundated two villages in Qinghai province. Nearly 1,000 people were injured and more than 14,000 homes were destroyed.
7.1 magnitude earthquake rattles part of western China, injuring 6 people and collapsing 47 homes
A magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck a sparsely populated part of China’s western Xinjiang region early Tuesday, injuring six people and damaging or collapsing more than 120 homes in freezing cold weather, authorities said. The quake was the latest in a series of seismic events and natural disasters to hit the vast country's western regions.
The quake rocked Uchturpan county in Aksu prefecture shortly after 2 a.m., the China Earthquake Networks Center said. Around 200 rescuers were dispatched to the epicenter. The county is called Wushi in the Mandarin language spoken by most Chinese.
Of the six people hurt, two had serious injuries and four were minor. In addition, 47 houses collapsed, 78 houses were damaged and some agricultural structures collapsed, the government of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region posted on its official Weibo social media account.
The quake downed power lines but electricity was quickly restored, Aksu authorities reported. Mountainous Uchturpan county had around 233,000 people in 2022, according to Xinjiang authorities.
Urumqi Railroad Bureau resumed services after 7 a.m. following safety checks that confirmed no problems on the train lines. The suspension had affected 23 trains, the bureau serving the Xinjiang capital said on its official Weibo account.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake measured 7.0 magnitude and occurred in the seismically active Tian Shan mountain range. It said the area's largest quake in the past century was 7.1 magnitude and occurred in 1978 about 200 kilometers (124 miles) to the north of one early Tuesday.
Multiple aftershocks were recorded, the strongest of them at 5.3 magnitude.
The rural area is populated mostly by Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnicity that is predominantly Muslim and has been the target of a state campaign of forced assimilation and mass detention. The region is heavily militarized and state broadcaster CCTV showed paramilitary troops moving in before dawn to clear rubble and set up tents for those displaced.
Uchturpan county is recording temperatures well below freezing, with lows down to negative 18 degrees C (just below zero F) forecast by the China Meteorological Administration this week.
In Yunnan province in China's southwest, rescue workers were still searching for victims buried by a landslide Monday in the village of Liangshui. Eleven bodies have been recovered, and two survivors were rescued from among the 47 people buried in 18 homes in freezing cold and falling snow.
The tremors from Tuesday's earthquake were felt hundreds of kilometers (miles) away. Ma Shengyi, a 30-year-old pet shop owner living in Tacheng, 600 kilometers (373 miles) from the epicenter, said her dogs started barking before she felt her apartment building shudder. The quake was so strong her neighbors ran downstairs. Ma rushed to her bathroom and started to cry.
“There’s no point in running away if it’s a big earthquake," Ma said. “I was scared to death."
Chandeliers swung, buildings were evacuated and a media office building near the epicenter shook for a full minute, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. A video posted by a Chinese internet user on Weibo showed residents standing outside on the streets bundled in winter jackets, and a photo posted by CCTV showed a cracked wall with chunks fallen off.
Tremors were felt across the Xinjiang region and in the neighboring countries Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. In the Kazakh capital of Almaty, people left their homes, the Russian news agency Tass reported. In both Xinjiang and Kazakhstan, classes were suspended to allow children to recover from the shock.
Videos posted on the Telegram messaging platform showed people in Almaty running down the stairs of apartment blocks and standing outside in the street after they felt strong tremors. Some people appeared to have left their homes quickly and were pictured standing outside in freezing temperatures in shorts.
Earthquakes are common in western China, including in Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, as well as the Xinjiang region and Tibet.
A 6.2 magnitude earthquake that struck Gansu in December killed 151 people and was China's deadliest quake in nine years. An earthquake that hit Sichuan in 2008 killed nearly 90,000 people. The collapse of schools and other buildings led to a yearslong effort to rebuild using more quake-resistant materials.
What's the significance of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya?
About 80 chartered flights have landed at the new international airport of India's holy city of Ayodhya for Monday’s partial opening of the controversial grand temple for one of Hinduism’s most revered deities, Lord Ram.
Ayodhya’s airport can barely accommodate the influx of private jets. “The planes will depart after dropping guests,” airport manager Saurabh Singh said.
The temple was built over an ancient razed mosque, and most political opposition leaders are boycotting the temple's opening, saying it doesn't befit a secular India.
However, the list of attendees boasts some of India's most influential people: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, industrialists Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani and Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan.
Ahead of the upcoming general election, Modi’s Hindu nationalist party is using the elaborate consecration ceremony to lobby the country's Hindu majority.
Read more: Ancient Temples of Bangladesh: Remembering Their Past Glory
THE LEGEND OF RAM, THE PRINCE OF AYODHYA
The temple will be the sacred abode of one of the Hindu pantheon's most popular gods Ram, who Hindus believe was born at the exact site in Ayodhya.
Millions of Hindus worship Lord Ram with an intense belief that chanting his name in times of adversity will bring peace and prosperity, and most of those who practice Hinduism keep idols of Ram in their homes. Major Hindu festivals like Dussehra and Diwali are associated with mythological tales of Ram extolling the virtues of truth, sacrifice and ethical governance.
The mythological Hindu epic “Ramayan," which tells the story of Ram’s journey from prince to king, has often been adapted in popular culture. One of the most-viewed fabled shows is the TV series “Ramayan” created in the 1980s which continues to have a faithful audience.
Ram’s divinity is not only the dominant religious force in India but also part of the ancient cultural heritage in countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Myanmar and Malaysia.
Read more: A Hindu temple built atop a razed mosque in India is helping Modi boost his political standing
A TEMPLE RISES
Spread over nearly 3 hectares, the temple — which is still being built— has an estimated cost of $217 million. It's made with pink sandstone, adorned with intricate carvings, and has 46 doors — 42 of which will have a layer of gold.
Anil Mishra, a member of the trust overseeing the construction, said the temple blends traditional design with cutting-edge technology and is “crafted without the use of iron, steel, or cement."
A 1.3-meter (4.25-foot) dark stone sculpture depicting Ram was installed in the temple’s inner sanctum for Monday’s consecration. The religious ritual of “Pran Pratishtha," which signifies giving life to the idol, will be conducted according to Hindu Vedic scriptures. The deity can then receive and bless devotees.
After the ceremony, the temple will open to the public and an estimated 100,000 devotees are likely to visit daily, authorities say.
AYODHYA, PAST AND PRESENT
The city known for its narrow lanes crowded with Hindu pilgrims and shops selling miniature Ram idols, has been given a facelift with modern infrastructure and services. Ayodhya’s modest airstrip has grown into an expansive international airport with a 2.2-kilometer (about 1.4-mile) runway in the first phase. The clean railway station has a daily passenger capacity of about 50,000 people.
“The historical and spiritual significance of Ayodhya makes it a compelling destination,” and a huge surge in demand is anticipated, said Ravi Singh, a representative of the Indian Hotels Company Limited.
THE CONTROVERSY
Ayodhya has been at the center of India’s turbulent politics and the Hindu majoritarian quest to redeem the country’s religious past for decades. Its diverse, multicultural past was overrun by strident Hindu nationalism after mobs demolished the 16th-century Babri mosque in 1992.
Hindus won a prolonged legal battle in 2019, allowing them to build the temple. Hindus make up about 80% of India’s population but the country is also home to some 200 million Muslims who have frequently come under attack by Hindu nationalists.
Modi has been the face of an unprecedented, and unapologetic, fusion of religion and politics in India and led the temple’s groundbreaking ceremony in 2020.
Critics say the idea of a diverse, constitutionally secular state leading a Hindu religious ritual is deplorable. Most opposition leaders have declined the invitation, saying the event is being used for political campaigning by Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which promised to build a Ram temple as part of its election strategy.
Modi has asked people to publicly celebrate the consecration by lighting lamps at homes and temples. The message is clear: Mobilization of Hindu voters will be a key issue in the upcoming national election as Modi looks to extend his rule for a record third-consecutive term.
Read more: India's Modi is set to open a controversial temple in Ayodhya in a grand event months before polls
India's Modi is set to open a controversial temple in Ayodhya in a grand event months before polls
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday (January 22, 2024) was set to open a contentious Hindu temple built on the ruins of an ancient mosque in the holy city of Ayodhya. The grand event, which will be attended by thousands, is expected to benefit the Indian leader in the polls just months before a general election.
The inauguration of the temple, which is still under construction, is dedicated to Hinduism’s most revered deity Lord Ram. It fulfills a demand made by millions of Hindus for over 100 years and delivers on a crucial campaign pledge from Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
Ayodhya, once dotted with tightly packed houses and rundown stalls, has undergone an elaborate makeover in the lead up to the inauguration. Narrow roads have been turned into a four-lane pilgrimage route leading to the temple, tourists are arriving at a new airport and sprawling railway station, and major hotel chains are building new properties.
On Monday morning, the mood in the city was jubilant. Devotees from across the country have arrived to celebrate the opening, with groups of them dancing to religious songs that blare from speakers on roads bedecked with flowers. Huge cut-outs of Lord Ram and billboards of Modi are ubiquitous across Ayodhya, where the borders have been sealed to prevent more people from coming in. Some 20,000 security personnel and more than 10,000 CCTV cameras have been deployed.
Harish Joshi arrived in Ayodhya from Uttarakhand state four days before the ceremony, hopeful that he may be able to get a glimpse of the ceremony. “I am here to see history unfolding before our eyes. For centuries, the story of Lord Ram has resonated in the hearts of millions," he said.
Read more: Ancient Temples of Bangladesh: Remembering Their Past Glory
The prime minister, alongside several Hindu priests, will attend the consecration ceremony later on Monday, for which a 1.3-meter (4.25-foot) stone sculpture of Lord Ram was installed in the temple’s inner sanctum. Overall, nearly 7,500 people, including the country’s most elite industrialists, politicians and movie stars, are also expected to attend.
Analysts and critics see Monday’s ceremony as the start of the election campaign for Modi, an avowed nationalist and one of India’s most consequential leaders who has sought to transform the country from a secular democracy into a distinctly Hindu state in his nearly 10 years in power.
The temple, located at one of India’s most vexed religious sites, is expected to embolden Modi’s chances of clinching a record third successive term by drawing on the religious sentiments of Hindus, who make up 80% of India’s population of 1.4 billion.
Built at an estimated cost of $217 million and spread over nearly 3 hectares (7.4 acres), the temple lies atop the debris of a 16th-century mosque. It was razed to the ground in 1992 by Hindu mobs who believed the Babri Mosque was built on temple ruins that marked the birthplace of Lord Ram.
The site has long been an intense religious flashpoint for the two communities, with the demolition of the mosque triggering bloody riots across India that killed 2,000 people, mostly Muslims.
Read more: A Hindu temple built atop a razed mosque in India is helping Modi boost his political standing
The dispute ended in 2019 when, in a controversial decision, India’s Supreme Court called the mosque’s destruction “an egregious violation” of the law, but granted the site to Hindus while giving Muslims a different plot of land.
The fraught history is still an open wound for many Muslims, who see the construction of the temple as a testament to Modi’s Hindu-first politics.
Officials say the temple, a three-story structure etched out of pink sandstone, will open to the public after the ceremony and they expect 100,000 devotees to visit daily. Builders are still working to finish 46 elaborate doors and intricate wall carvings.
The inauguration has morphed into a massive national event.
Modi’s government has planned live screenings across the country and even movie theaters in some cities will broadcast the event while offering free popcorn. BJP workers have gone door to door handing out religious flags, while Modi has encouraged people to celebrate by lighting lamps at homes and in local shrines. His government announced a half-day closure on Monday for all its offices, and numerous states have declared it a public holiday. Even the stock and money markets are closed for the day.
But not all are rejoicing. Four key Hindu religious authorities have refused to attend, saying consecrating an unfinished temple goes against Hindu scriptures. Some top leaders from India’s main opposition Congress party are also boycotting the event, with many opposition lawmakers accusing Modi of exploiting the temple for political points.
Read more: What's the significance of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya?
Two survivors rescued after landslide buried homes in freezing weather in southwest China, 11 died
At least 11 people died in a landslide Monday that buried 47 people in freezing weather in a remote mountainous area in southwestern China, and two survivors were rescued.
The disaster struck just before 6 a.m. in the village of Liangshui in the northeastern part of Yunnan province. By 10 p.m., 11 bodies had been retrieved and about 500 people were evacuated from the area.
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Rescue crews continued to try and find victims who were buried in about 18 homes, the Zhenxiong county publicity department said. Reports said the 11 bodies were from the group that was initially buried by the landslide.
State news agency Xinhua, citing a preliminary investigation by local experts, said the landslide was triggered by the collapse of a steep cliff-top area, with the collapsed mass measuring around 100 meters wide, 60 meters in height, and about an average of 6 meters in thickness. It did not elaborate what caused the initial collapse.
Rescuers struggled with snow, icy roads and freezing temperatures that were forecast to persist for at least the next three days.
Luo Dongmei, 35, was sleeping when the landslide struck, but she survived and was relocated to a school building by local authorities.
“I was asleep, but my brother knocked on the door and woke me up. They said there was a landslide and the bed was shaking, so they rushed upstairs and woke us up,” Luo said.
Luo, her husband and their three children, along with many other residents, have been provided with food at the school but are still waiting for blankets and other protection from the cold weather, she said.
Luo said she's been unable to contact her sister and aunt, who lived closer to the site of the landslide. “The only thing I can do is to wait,” she said.
Zhengxiong county lies about 2,250 kilometers (1,400 miles) southwest of Beijing, with altitudes ranging as high as 2,400 meters (7,900 feet).
Heavy snow has been falling in many parts of China, causing transportation chaos and endangering lives.
Read: Thousands forced from homes by quake face stress and exhaustion as Japan mourns at least 161 deaths
Last week, rescuers evacuated tourists from a remote skiing area in northwestern China where dozens of avalanches triggered by heavy snow had trapped more than 1,000 people for a week. The avalanches blocked roads, stranding both tourists and residents in a village in Altay prefecture in the Xinjiang region, close to China’s border with Mongolia, Russia and Kazakhstan.
Landslides, often caused by rain or unsafe construction work, are not uncommon in China. At least 70 people were killed in landslides last year, including more than 50 at an open pit mine in China's Inner Mongolia region.
In all, natural disasters in China left 691 people dead and missing and last year, causing direct economic losses of about 345 billion yuan ($48 billion, according to the National Commission for Disaster Reduction and the Ministry of Emergency Management. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Natural Resources enacted emergency response measures for geological disasters and sent a work team of experts to the site.
Minister of Emergency Management Wang Xiangxi has traveled to the landslide site to guide rescue operations, according to a statement from the ministry.
The landslide in Yunnan also came just over a month after China’s most powerful earthquake in years struck the northwest in a remote region between Gansu and Qinghai province. At least 149 people were killed in the magnitude 6.2 temblor that struck on Dec. 18, reducing homes to rubble and triggering heavy mudslides that inundated two villages in Qinghai province.
Nearly 1,000 people were injured and more than 14,000 homes were destroyed in what was China’s deadliest earthquake in nine years.