Asia
Jailed Malaysia ex-PM Najib acquitted in latest 1MDB trial
Malaysian former Prime Minister Najib Razak was acquitted Friday in the latest trial in response to the multibillion-dollar looting of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad state fund.
Najib, who is serving a 12-year prison term after losing the final appeal in his first of several corruption trials linked to the 1MDB scandal, was found not guilty on the charge of tampering with an audit report to cover up wrongdoings.
Defense lawyer Mohamad Shafee Abdullah said the High Court ruled that prosecutors did not have sufficient evidence to prove Najib guilty of abusing his position as Prime Minister and Finance Minister to order amendments to the 1MDB audit report in 2016 before it was presented to Parliament.
“My client is very grateful to Allah for the decision today because it really uplifted his spirit and the desire to fight for his innocence,” Shafee said Friday at a news conference.
The 1MDB development fund was set up months after Najib became prime minister in 2009.
Investigators allege more than $4.5 billion was stolen from the fund and laundered by Najib’s associates through layers of bank accounts in the United States and other countries to finance Hollywood films and extravagant purchases that included hotels, a luxury yacht, art and jewelry. More than $700 million landed in Najib’s bank accounts.
He and his wife, Rosmah Mansor, were hit with multiple graft charges after the saga led to his ruling coalition’s shocking defeat in 2018 general elections. Rosmah was sentenced in 2022 to 10 years in prison and a record fine of 970 million ringgit ($217 million) for corruption over a solar energy project and is out on bail pending an appeal.
Shafee said financer Low Taek Jho — believed to be the mastermind of the scandal — remained at large.
Former 1MDB CEO Arul Kanda Kandasamy, who was jointly charged with abetting Najib and appeared as a prosecution witness during the trial, was also acquitted by the court Friday.
Shafee has maintained that charges against Najib were politically motivated. Najib is seeking a review of the top court’s decision in August to reject his final appeal and is hoping for a favorable outcome later this month, he added.
Cambodian opposition leader gets 27 years on treason charge
A court in Cambodia on Friday found Kem Sokha, leader of the dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party, guilty of treason and sentenced him to 27 years imprisonment to be served under house arrest.
Judge Koy Sao of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court said Kem Sokha, backed by foreign powers, had used human rights and politics as a guise to organize people to stage a “color revolution” aimed at toppling the legal government. The maximum sentence on the charge is 30 years.
The opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party was dissolved shortly after his 2017 arrest on related charges.
The ruling, four months ahead of a general election, is the latest blow against the opposition, which has faced years of legal harassment from the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen. Kem Sokha, 69, is the country’s most prominent opposition politician not in exile — others having fled abroad to escape what were generally seen as politically inspired prosecutions.
The court said Kem Sokha is barred from all political activity, including voting, and not allowed to meet with outsiders, Cambodian or foreign, except for family members. He may leave the house only with the court's permission.
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His lawyer, Ang Udom, told reporters he will file an appeal within one month.
Kem Sokha was head of the Cambodia National Rescue Party when he was arrested in September 2017. The government charged that an old video of him speaking at a seminar about receiving advice from U.S. pro-democracy groups was proof of collusion with a foreign power to illegally take power.
His arrest marked the beginning of a fierce campaign by the government to use the courts — widely considered to be under its influence — to silence its critics in the political and media spheres or drive them out of the country.
Rights organizations decried Friday's court ruling. “The Cambodian justice system has once again shown its jaw-dropping lack of independence by convicting Kem Sokha on baseless, politically motivated charges,” Amnesty International Deputy Regional Director Ming Yu Hah said in an emailed statement. “This verdict is an unmistakable warning to opposition groups months before national elections. The use of the courts to hound opponents of Prime Minister Hun Sen knows no limits.”
The United States Embassy in Cambodia also said it was “deeply troubled” by the conviction. U.S. Ambassador Patrick Murphy, along with representatives of other Western nations, had attended Friday's hearing.
“Denying Kem Sokha and other political figures their freedom of expression and association undermines Cambodia’s constitution, international commitments, and past progress to develop as a pluralist and inclusive society,” said the U.S. statement, emailed to journalists.
Kem Sokha’s trial started in January 2020 but was soon suspended due to the coronavirus outbreak and resumed in 2022.
The popular CNRP was seen as an electoral threat to Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party ahead of the 2018 general election. Kem Sokha’s arrest was swiftly followed by the dissolution of the party by the Supreme Court in November 2017, after the government accused it of plotting its overthrow.
The CNRP had been the only credible opponent of Hun Sen’s party, which consequently swept all the seats in the National Assembly. Rights groups and Western nations charged that the election was neither free nor fair.
Crackdowns continued even after the 2018 polls, as more than 100 former CNRP members and civil society activists were targeted with the charge "incitement to commit a felony” for their nonviolent political activities.
Hun Sen’s 2023 election opponents have come under similar pressure. In October, Son Chhay, a deputy president of the Candlelight Party — the CNRP's de facto successor — was fined the equivalent of $750,000 for remarks he made alleging unfairness and irregularities in the 2022 local elections.
Thach Setha, another of the party’s leaders, was arrested in January for allegedly issuing several bounced checks in 2019.
Hun Sen has been in power for 38 years and has vowed to stay in office until 2028. He has endorsed one of his sons to succeed him. He uses guile and threats to exercise authoritarian power in the framework of electoral democracy.
Kem Sokha was released from prison on bail in September 2018, more than a year after he was arrested, and put under house arrest. In November 2019, he was freed from house arrest but still banned from political activity.
The co-founder of the CNRP, Sam Rainsy, has been in self-imposed exile since 2015, avoiding prison for a defamation conviction along with a slew of other legal charges brought by the government. As in Kem Sokha’s case, the charges are widely seen as politically motivated.
Sam Rainsy was the de facto leader of the party while Kem Sokha was in prison before his release on bail. Tensions grew between supporters of the two opposition leaders because some felt Kem Sokha faced more pressure from Hun Sen’s government while Sam Rainsy was free in exile.
The legal actions against Kem Sokha were widely seen as encouraging a split between the two. Hun Sen is an adroit political operator, and has a record of using divide-and-conquer tactics against his foes.
Kem Sokha’s political career began in 1993 when Cambodia held an election organized by the United Nations after more than two decades of war and unrest, and he was elected to the National Assembly. He established the independent Cambodian Center for Human Rights in 2002.
Rejoining politics in 2005, he founded the Human Rights Party, which finished third in the 2008 general election. In 2012, that party merged with Sam Rainsy’s original Candlelight Party to form the Cambodia National Rescue Party, which captured 55 seats out of 123 at stake in the 2013 election.
Quad FMs, wary of China's might, push Indo-Pacific option
The top diplomats of Australia, India, Japan and the United States said Friday their Indo-Pacific-focused bloc is not aimed at countering China but released a statement littered with buzzwords and phrases that reflect growing unease over China’s influence in the region.
Meeting in New Delhi, the four foreign ministers barely mentioned China by name and insisted that the so-called “Quad” is designed to boost their own national interests and improve those of others through enhanced cooperation in non-military areas.
Yet their comments at a joint public event and the written statement made clear the grouping exists to be an alternative to China with repeated references to the importance of democracy, rule of law, maritime security and the peaceful settlement of disputes all of which Beijing regards with suspicion when coming from Quad members.
“We strongly support the principles of freedom, rule of law, sovereignty and territorial integrity, peaceful settlement of disputes without resorting to threat or use of force and freedom of navigation and overflight, and oppose any unilateral attempt to change the status quo, all of which are essential to the peace, stability and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region and beyond,” the ministers said in the statement.
In a direct shot at China, which has become increasingly aggressive in the Pacific and alarmed its smaller neighbors by pushing claims to disputed maritime zones, the ministers said they viewed with concern “challenges to the maritime rules-based order, including in the South and East China Seas.”
“We strongly oppose any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo or increase tensions in the area,” they said. “We express serious concern at the militarization of disputed features, the dangerous use of coast guard vessels and maritime militia, and efforts to disrupt other countries’ offshore resource exploitation activities.”
In an oblique reference to China, as well as Russia, which have blocked actions at the U.N. Security Council and other institutions on matters ranging from Ukraine to Myanmar, North Korea, trade, technology and health, they said they "are committed to cooperate to address attempts to unilaterally subvert the UN and international system.”
And, just a day after China and Russia thwarted the Group of 20 largest industrialized and developing nations from adopting a joint communique on Russia's war against Ukraine, the Quad specifically endorsed language to which Beijing and Moscow objected. That included a line that said "the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible.”
“We underscored the need for a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine in accordance with international law, including the UN Charter,” they added, repeating another line China and Russia had refused to agree to at Thursday's G-20 foreign ministers meeting that was also held in the Indian capital.
Speaking at a group event at India's Raisina Dialogue, the four ministers maintained that the Quad does not seek conflict with China or to antagonize it but rather to promote democracy, good governance, transparency, digital security and global health and disaster relief.
“As long as China abides by the law and international norms and acts under international institutional standards this is not a conflicting issue between China and the Quad,” Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa said in a rare direct reference to China.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the group is not designed to blunt China's rise by demanding that countries align with Quad members or Beijing.
"Our proposition is not to say to countries in the region ‘You have to choose’," he said. “Our proposition is to offer a choice, a positive alternative.”
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar agreed.
"I prefer to think about what we are for, not about what we are against," Wong said.
"We do offer more choices." Jaishankar said. “We do collectively offer something different. Countries are interested, many of them are looking as the Indo-Pacific as a changing theater and how to define themselves.”
Quad FMs, wary of China’s might, push Indo-Pacific option
The top diplomats of Australia, India, Japan and the United States said Friday their Indo-Pacific-focused bloc is not aimed at countering China but released a statement littered with buzzwords and phrases that reflect growing unease over China’s influence in the region.
Meeting in New Delhi, the four foreign ministers barely mentioned China by name and insisted that the so-called “Quad” is designed to boost their own national interests and improve those of others through enhanced cooperation in non-military areas.
Yet their comments at a joint public event and the written statement made clear the grouping exists to be an alternative to China with repeated references to the importance of democracy, rule of law, maritime security and the peaceful settlement of disputes all of which Beijing regards with suspicion when coming from Quad members.
“We strongly support the principles of freedom, rule of law, sovereignty and territorial integrity, peaceful settlement of disputes without resorting to threat or use of force and freedom of navigation and overflight, and oppose any unilateral attempt to change the status quo, all of which are essential to the peace, stability and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region and beyond,” the ministers said in the statement.
In a direct shot at China, which has become increasingly aggressive in the Pacific and alarmed its smaller neighbors by pushing claims to disputed maritime zones, the ministers said they viewed with concern “challenges to the maritime rules-based order, including in the South and East China Seas.”
“We strongly oppose any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo or increase tensions in the area,” they said. “We express serious concern at the militarization of disputed features, the dangerous use of coast guard vessels and maritime militia, and efforts to disrupt other countries’ offshore resource exploitation activities.”
In an oblique reference to China, as well as Russia, which have blocked actions at the U.N. Security Council and other institutions on matters ranging from Ukraine to Myanmar, North Korea, trade, technology and health, they said they “are committed to cooperate to address attempts to unilaterally subvert the UN and international system.”
And, just a day after China and Russia thwarted the Group of 20 largest industrialized and developing nations from adopting a joint communique on Russia’s war against Ukraine, the Quad specifically endorsed language to which Beijing and Moscow objected. That included a line that said “the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible.”
“We underscored the need for a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine in accordance with international law, including the UN Charter,” they added, repeating another line China and Russia had refused to agree to at Thursday’s G-20 foreign ministers meeting that were also held in the Indian capital.
Speaking at a group event at India’s Raisina Dialogue, the four ministers maintained that the Quad does not seek conflict with China or to antagonize it but rather to promote democracy, good governance, transparency, digital security and global health and disaster relief.
“As long as China abides by the law and international norms and acts under international institutional standards this is not a conflicting issue between China and the Quad,” Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa said in a rare direct reference to China.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the group is not designed to blunt China’s rise by demanding that countries align with Quad members or Beijing.
“Our proposition is not to say to countries in the region ‘You have to choose’,” he said. “Our proposition is to offer a choice, a positive alternative.”
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar agreed.
“I prefer to think about what we are for, not about what we are against,” Wong said.
“We do offer more choices.” Jaishankar said. “We do collectively offer something different. Countries are interested, many of them are looking as the Indo-Pacific as a changing theater and how to define themselves.”
Malaysia’s PM urges ASEAN to speak up on Myanmar violence
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim urged the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to speak up and hold Myanmar’s military leaders accountable for blatant human rights violations, but said the country should remain in the regional bloc.
Anwar, who took office in November, has become one of the most vocal critics in ASEAN of Myanmar’s military, which seized power from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021.
In a visit to the Philippines, he discussed the Myanmar crisis with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Wednesday and called on ASEAN to explore new ways to persuade Myanmar’s ruling generals to halt the violence, saying it is affecting the region.
Read more: Dhaka wants foreign funds for moving 70,000 Rohingyas to Bhasan Char: PMO
“They need to do more because it is causing us a major problem, we have 200,000 (Myanmar) refugees in Malaysia alone,” Anwar told The Associated Press after delivering a lecture Thursday at the University of the Philippines, at which he received an honorary degree for advocating democracy and fighting corruption.
In his lecture, Anwar urged ASEAN to speak up on atrocities in Myanmar and not be restrained by the group’s bedrock principles of deciding by consensus and non-intervention in each other’s domestic affairs.
Deciding by consensus “does not mean that ASEAN should remain silent over developments in member states that affect the wider region or particularly egregious violations of the ASEAN charter by its own members,” Anwar said.
“In all honesty, I believe that non-interference is not a license for indifference,” he said.
Read more: 'Cuts in food rations for Rohingyas to have serious health impact'
By helping to hold those responsible for violence in Myanmar accountable, ASEAN would stay true to its key ideal of upholding justice and the rule of law, Anwar said.
He cited Philippine national hero Jose Rizal’s description of justice “as the foremost virtue of the civilizing races. It subdues the barbarous nations while injustice arouses the weakest.”
Since the military’s takeover in Myanmar, security forces have killed thousands of civilians and army sweeps through the countryside have displaced more than 1 million people. In 2017, a brutal counterinsurgency campaign against the Muslim Rohingya minority drove more than 740,000 to flee across the border into Bangladesh, where they remain in refugee camps.
ASEAN leaders later forged a five-point peace plan that called for an immediate end to the violence, a visit by an ASEAN special envoy to foster dialogue among contending parties and provision of humanitarian aid. Myanmar’s military government initially agreed to it but later stymied its implementation.
Western nations have taken stronger action, including political and economic sanctions against the generals and their cronies. Under intense international pressure to do more, ASEAN excluded top Myanmar officials from the bloc’s meetings starting in 2021.
Anwar told the AP he is not calling for Myanmar to be suspended from ASEAN membership, despite earlier mentioning a “need to temporarily carve out Myanmar.” Instead, ASEAN should explore more ways to end the crisis and not allow Myanmar to hamper the group’s political and economic progress, he said.
“I mean leave them aside,” Anwar said, without elaborating. Myanmar “should not frustrate our work.”
India, China foreign ministers hold talks to mend ties
The foreign ministers of India and China met Thursday on the sidelines of a gathering in New Delhi of top diplomats from the Group of 20 industrialized and developing nations, signaling a thaw in their relationship, which has been tense since 2020.
Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said the talks with his Chinese counterpart, Qin Gang, “focused on addressing current challenges to the bilateral relationship, especially peace and tranquility in the border areas.”
Read more: US, Russia hold highest-level talks since Ukraine invasion
“There are real problems in that relationship that need to be looked at, that need to be discussed very openly and candidly between us. That’s what we sought to do today,” Jaishankar told reporters.
Qin, who is in India for the G-20 meeting, met with Jaishankar a day after Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said “China attaches great importance to India.”
She added that maintaining good ties between the two countries is fundamental to their interests.
The relationship between New Delhi and Beijing has deteriorated since 2020, when Indian and Chinese soldiers clashed along their land border in the Ladakh region, with 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers killed. The skirmish turned into a long-running standoff in the rugged mountainous area, where each side has stationed tens of thousands of military personnel backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets.
Read more: At G-20, high expectations for India as rising global power
The standoff has continued despite 17 rounds of talks between Indian and Chinese military commanders.
Since 2020, China has been building dozens of large weatherproof structures along the de facto border, the Line of Actual Control, in eastern Ladakh for their troops to stay during the winter. New helipads, widened airstrips, new barracks, new surface-to-air missile sites and radar locations have also been reported by Indian media.
In February last year, India and China withdrew troops from some locations on the northern and southern banks of Pangong Tso, Gogra and Galwan Valley in Ladakh. Both sides, however, continue to maintain extra troops as part of a multi-tier deployment.
India says China is occupying 38,000 square kilometers (15,000 square miles) of its territory in the Aksai Chin Plateau, which India considers part of Ladakh.
India and China fought a war over the border in 1962.
New leaders, economy to dominate China's legislative session
The installation of new leaders and the need to shore up a flagging economy will dominate the annual session of China’s rubber-stamp parliament that kicks off Sunday.
The nearly 3,000 delegates attending the meeting of the largely powerless National People's Congress will hear reports on the work of government that lay out the ruling Communist Party’s priorities.
Don’t expect open debates or criticism. All documents, decisions and appointments are expected to receive unanimous support.
Below are some of the issues surrounding the roughly 10-day event.
WHAT’S SPECIAL ABOUT THIS YEAR?
This year’s gathering comes at the start of China’s latest five-year political cycle, as an addendum to the ruling Communist Party’s 20th annual congress in October.
That event saw the appointment of a new Politburo Standing Committee, the apex of political power in China, led by Secretary General Xi Jinping, China’s president who has eliminated term limits to allow him to rule for life.
The congress will see Xi renamed head of state along with the replacement of Li Keqiang as premier and the appointment of other top members of the State Council, China’s Cabinet.
China’s economy was battered by pandemic-related lockdowns, quarantines and other harsh measures imposed under the “zero-COVID” strategy, adding to the woes of a hugely indebted real estate sector and the precarious state of local government finances.
Despite optimistic talk from Beijing, many analysts say the economy is in serious trouble.
At the same time, China’s assertive, often adventurous foreign policy has put it at odds with the U.S. and its allies over issues from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to threats against Taiwan and even the banning of the Chinese short video app TikTok by foreign governments on national security grounds.
WHAT ARE SOME OTHER THEMES?
The gathering is expected to pick up on a move to increase centralization — always a key priority for communist states — by shifting responsibilities from government bodies to those directly under the party’s Central Committee.
That could be most pronounced in the security field, where the responsibilities of the Ministry of Public Security in charge of the police, and the Ministry of State Security that handles foreign and domestic intelligence, could by taken over by party commissions.
Similar moves have been proposed for the semi-autonomous region of Hong Kong, where the party has steadily ratcheted up control since months of anti-government protests in 2019 and a subsequent crackdown on civil liberties and political opposition.
Measures to boost a flagging birthrate are also expected to be discussed, following the abandonment of the much-criticized and highly punitive one-child policy in 2016. That followed the announcement in January that the population fell by 850,000 last year as a result of a cratering birthrate and aging population, the first decline in 61 years.
Local governments are offering subsidized childcare, cash payments of 5,000 yuan ($700) or more and even free apartments to couples who decide to start families, especially if they’re having more than one child.
In Sichuan province, authorities this year moved to legally recognize children born to unwed mothers. More localities are expected to follow. Previously, women were not banned from having children on their own, but faced bureaucratic hurdles making it almost impossible to register them for school and other social services. IVF services are being expanded, although surrogacy remains illegal.
The issue of Taiwan, which split from the mainland in 1949 and has never been governed by the Communist Party, is also seen as growing more pressing, especially given heightened tensions with Taiwan’s top ally, the United States.
Since the NPC’s passage in 2005 of an “anti-secession law,” leaders have debated enacting tougher measures to back up Beijing’s threat to use force to annex the island it considers its own territory.
“Now, of course, some people may think (the NPC) is more conservative. That’s true,” said Cheng Li, an expert on Chinese politics and leadership issues at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, D.C.
Xi has shifted policy so that “the top priority is state security. It’s national security at a time that war becomes more likely,” Cheng said.
WHAT IS THE NPC AND WHAT DOES IT DO?
Made up of regional delegations and one from the People's Liberation Army, the National People’s Congress is technically the highest law-making body in China, although the vast majority of its legislative work is performed by its 175-member Standing Committee that meets year-round.
Its annual gathering at the hulking Great Hall of the People in the heart of Beijing is the main public forum for communicating the government’s priorities and goals, both economic and political.
A key document is the premier’s work report that will set the GDP growth target and the defense budget.
There is also a limited opportunity for feedback, as top officials meet with the various delegation heads, but there is none of the open discussion or tabling of bills typical of other legislatures. That is also the case with the congress’ advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, which meets concurrently.
“The purpose of the annual session is a signaling exercise of what the leadership’s goals are and what they want everyone to think about going forward,” said Scott Kennedy, an expert on the Chinese economy at the Center for Strategic & International Studies.
WHAT’S IT SAY ABOUT CHINA’S POLITICAL SYSTEM?
NPC delegates almost all belong to the ruling Communist Party, which has brooked no opposition and very little criticism since seizing power amid civil war in 1949.
Delegates are generally far better traveled, better educated and more politically astute than in the past. Yet, that hasn’t produced any apparent desire to turn the NPC into a more representative body that could act as a check on government and the ruling party. With few exceptions, the NPC has been a loyal adjunct to the party leadership, offering a patina of democracy to an increasingly authoritarian one-party police state.
And in case there is any question, the party routinely issues decrees and takes real steps to quash any push for reform smacking of Western-style liberalism. Dissidents have been imprisoned, exiled or intimidated into silence, while human rights lawyers and legal activists have been under massive pressure since a sweeping 2015 roundup.
Just days before the NPC’s opening, the party’s General Office issued a directive telling law professors and their students to “oppose and resist Western erroneous views such as ‘constitutional government,’ ‘separation of three powers,’ and ’independence of the judiciary.'”
British navy seizes Iran missiles, parts likely Yemen bound
The British navy seized anti-tank missiles and fins for ballistic missile assemblies during a raid on a small boat heading from Iran likely to Yemen, authorities said Thursday, the latest such seizure in the Gulf of Oman.
The seizure by the Royal Navy comes after other seizures by French and U.S. forces in the region as Western powers increase their pressure on Iran, as it now enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels. It also comes as regional and international powers try to find an end to the yearslong war gripping Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, and as Iran arms Russia in its war on Ukraine.
The raid took place Feb. 23 after an American aircraft detected a small motorboat with cargo covered by a gray tarp heading from Iran, with a helicopter from the Royal Navy frigate HMS Lancaster chasing the vessel as it ignored being hailed by radio, the British Defense Ministry said. The boat tried to reenter Iranian territorial water, but was stopped before it could.
Inside the boat, British troops found Russian 9M133 Kornet anti-tank guided missiles, known in Iran as “Dehlavieh,” the U.S. Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet and the British navy said. Those weapons have been seen in other seizures suspected to be from Iran and bound for Yemen.
Also on board were small fins that the U.S. Navy identified as jet vanes for medium-range ballistic missiles. Also on board were devices the Navy identified as “impact sensor covers” that go on the tips of those missiles.
While the British did not identify where it suspected the weapons would go, the U.S. Navy described the seziure as happening “along a route historically used to traffic weapons unlawfully to Yemen.”
Iranian components have helped build a missile arsenal for Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who have held the country’s capital, Sanaa, since 2014.
A United Nations resolution bans arms transfers to Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. Tehran long has denied arming the rebels, despite physical evidence, numerous seizures and experts tying the weapons back to Iran.
“This seizure by HMS Lancaster and the permanent presence of the Royal Navy in the Gulf region supports our commitment to uphold international law and tackle activity that threatens peace and security around the world,” British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said.
Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of the American 5th Fleet, said in a statement that this was the “seventh illegal weapon or drug interdiction in the last three months and yet another example of Iran’s increasing malign maritime activity across the region.” In that time, the Navy said, its sailors and allies have seized more than 5,000 weapons, 1.6 million rounds of ammunition, 30 anti-tank missiles and other weapon components.
Iranian state media did not immediately acknowledge the seizure. Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The war in Yemen has deteriorated largely into a stalemate and spawned one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. However, Saudi-led airstrikes haven’t been recorded in Yemen since the kingdom began a cease-fire at the end of March 2022, according to the Yemen Data Project.
That cease-fire expired in October despite diplomatic efforts to renew it. That has led to fears the war could again escalate. More than 150,000 people have been killed in Yemen during the fighting, including over 14,500 civilians.
At G-20, high expectations for India as rising global power
With the foreign ministers of the Group of 20 leading economies meeting Thursday in New Delhi, host India is promoting itself as a rising superpower while leveraging its position on the global stage to bridge the gap between the West and Russia.
Experts expect India to be at the center of bitter global divisions, particularly over Russia’s war in Ukraine. But it’s also an opportunity for the South Asian nation to position itself as the voice of the Global South and as a potential mediator between the West and Moscow.
Read more: Modi urges G20 foreign ministers to overcome differences
India is expected to adopt a neutral stance on Ukraine, as it has in the past. The event is likely to be overshadowed by the war in Europe and its impact on global energy and food security. However, senior foreign ministry officials said Wednesday that India was determined to focus on “equally important” issues of rising inflation, debt stress, health, climate change and food and energy security in developing nations.
“I really do believe that India stands the best chance of all countries to try to hold peace negotiations between Russia and not just the U.S., but the West, actually,” said Derek Grossman, an analyst focused on the Indo-Pacific at the RAND Corporation.
He credited India’s non-alignment and its rise as a global power for why it could be a potential peacemaker.
Read more: Modi urges G20 finance leaders to focus on ‘most vulnerable’
But the South Asian country has its own challenges, particularly with regional rival China. Tensions between New Delhi and Beijing remain high after a deadly border clash in 2020.
On Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said the country’s foreign minister would be attending the G-20 meeting, and that “China attaches great importance with India.” She added maintaining good ties between the two countries is fundamental to their interests.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar “have done a good job of steering this middle path in very turbulent times,” Grossman said.
“You now have American, Russian and even Chinese diplomats supporting India. The country really is at the geopolitical crossroads of everything now that involves the Global South,” he added.
So far, India has refrained from directly criticizing Russia. The two have been allies since the cold war era and New Delhi depends on Moscow for nearly 60% of its defense equipment. India has increasingly scooped up Russian oil since the invasion a year ago, initially facing scrutiny from the U.S. and other allies over its growing purchases. That pressure has since waned and India has continued to abstain from voting in U.N. resolutions that condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“It may appear unfathomable to many in the West that the reaction of the world’s largest democracy to such a cold-blooded, egregious aggression would be so subdued. But for anyone who understands India’s foreign policy, it’s not surprising at all,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute.
Read more: India’s Supreme Court orders investigation of Adani business group
“New Delhi has a special relationship with Moscow, and it’s not about to jeopardize it by turning on a longstanding partner,” he said.
Thursday’s meeting will nonetheless be challenging for India, especially after it was forced to issue a compromised chair’s summary at the conclusion of the G-20 finance ministers meeting last week. Russia and China objected to a joint communique that retained language on the war in Ukraine drawn directly from last year’s G-20 leaders summit declaration in Indonesia.
India has said that it stands by the Bali declaration in which major world powers strongly condemned the war in Ukraine, warning that the conflict was intensifying fragilities in the world’s economy.
Grossman said it was concerning that the final statement issued in Bengaluru last week was watered down from the Bali declaration at the insistence of China and Russia. He said New Delhi allowing that to happen was worrisome, but India’s “awkward predicament” to ensure a successful G-20 with everyone there, including Russia and China, meant the country has to make “compromises.”
“I think that’s what India is trying to do now,” he said.
The summits are particularly important for Modi and his ruling party ahead of the 2024 general elections. A strong show during India’s year as G-20 president will allow Modi’s party to signal its diplomatic reach and project power both at home and abroad.
Kugelman said the summit, due later this year, will advance important domestic political goals for New Delhi, and Modi’s ultimate goal would be to “successfully manage the myriad geopolitical rivalries within the G-20, signal that India can rise above intense great power competition and seemingly intractable issues like the Ukraine war, and guide the prestigious club toward tangible achievements.”
“In effect, Modi wants its G-20 presidency to yield meaningful achievements. That’s a tall order, for sure, but it’s important for New Delhi’s foreign policy and domestic political goals alike,” he said.
India’s Supreme Court orders investigation of Adani business group
India’s Supreme Court today ordered an expert committee to investigate any regulatory failures related to the country’s second-largest conglomerate, the Adani Group.
The investigation was prompted by allegations made by U.S. short-seller Hindenburg Research in a report that accused Adani companies of engaging in market manipulation and other fraudulent practices.
Shares in the group’s flagship, Adani Enterprises, and other affiliated companies have lost tens of billions of dollars in market value since Hindenburg issued its report.
The Adani Group has denied any wrongdoing, defending itself against the allegations in a 413 page rebuttal. In a tweet Thursday, it welcomed the court order.
``It will bring finality in a time-bound manner. Trust will prevail,” the company said.
The expert committee will submit its findings to the Supreme Court within two months, said Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and justices P.S. Narasimha and J.B. Pardiwala.
The top court also directed the government-run Securities and Exchange Board of India to investigate whether there had been a violation of rules or manipulation of stock prices by the Adani Group.
The court acted on petitions filed by some activists and lawyers.
Apart from investigating allegations against Adani, the expert committee is to suggest measures to improve regulatory oversight and protections for investors.
Adani Enterprises canceled a share offering meant to raise $2.5 billion last month after Hindenburg issued its report and its share price plummeted.
Opposition lawmakers blocked parliamentary proceedings last month demanding a probe into the business dealings of coal tycoon Gautam Adani, who is said to enjoy close ties with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.