asia
Indian officials probe BBC for 3rd day, alleging tax dodge
India’s tax officials were searching the BBC offices in New Delhi and Mumbai for a third straight day on Thursday seeking information about the organization’s business operations amid allegations of tax evasion, as opposition political parties and other media organizations criticized the move as an attempt to intimidate the media.
Some news staff members were questioned overnight but the tax officials on Thursday restricted themselves to the company's business executives and their offices, said some staff members who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to media.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's critics questioned the timing of the searches, which came weeks after the BBC aired a documentary critical of Modi in the U.K.
Kanchan Gupta, an adviser to India’s Information and Broadcasting Ministry, said there was no connection between the two.
"Whether you are a media organization or you are a manufacturer, the purpose of tax laws apply equally to everybody. And if you are found in violation of those tax laws, the appropriate action is taken as the due process of law,” Gupta said in an interview with Mirror Now television news channel.
The Indian tax department hasn’t so far issued any statement on what prompted the searches of the BBC offices since officials arrived there Tuesday morning.
Britain’s publicly funded national broadcaster said on Tuesday it was cooperating fully with Indian authorities and hoped “to have this situation resolved as soon as possible.”
“Many staff has now left the building but some have been asked to remain and are continuing to cooperate with the ongoing inquiries,” it said, adding: “Our output and journalism continue as normal.” BBC management told editorial and other staff members to work from home.
The Press Trust of India news agency cited unnamed officials as saying on Thursday that investigators collected financial data from select BBC staffers and made copies of electronic and paper data from the news organization.
The survey is being carried out to investigate issues related to international taxation and transfer pricing of BBC subsidiary companies, the agency said.
India’s News Broadcasters and Digital Association criticized the income tax “surveys” at the BBC offices.
Read more: India to help Bangladesh import hydropower from Nepal, Bhutan: FS
While the association “maintains that no institution is above the law, it condemns any attempt to muzzle and intimidate the media and interfere with the free functioning of journalists and media organizations," it said in a statement on Wednesday.
The main opposition Congress party leader, Mallikarjun Kharge described the government action as an assault on freedom of the press under Modi’s government.
The documentary, “India: The Modi Question,” was broadcast in the U.K. last month, examining the prime minister’s role in the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in the western state of Gujarat, where he was chief minister at the time. More than 1,000 people were killed in the violence.
Modi has denied allegations that authorities under his watch allowed and even encouraged the bloodshed, and the Supreme Court said it found no evidence to prosecute him. Last year, the court dismissed a petition filed by a Muslim victim questioning Modi’s exoneration.
The second portion of the two-part documentary examined “the track record of Narendra Modi’s government following his re-election in 2019,” according to the BBC website.
The program drew an immediate backlash from India’s government, which invoked emergency powers under its information technology laws to block it from being shown in the country. Local authorities scrambled to stop screenings organized at Indian universities, and social media platforms including Twitter and YouTube complied with government requests to remove links to the documentary.
The BBC said at the time that the documentary was “rigorously researched” and involved a wide range of voices and opinions.
“We offered the Indian Government a right to reply to the matters raised in the series — it declined to respond,” its statement said.
India’s Foreign Ministry called the documentary a “propaganda piece designed to push a particularly discredited narrative” that lacked objectivity.
Press freedom in India has been on a steady decline in recent years. The country fell eight places, to 150 out of 180 countries, in the 2022 Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders. Media watchdog groups accuse the Modi government of silencing criticism on social media under a sweeping internet law that puts digital platforms including Twitter and Facebook under direct government oversight.
Some media outlets critical of the government have been subjected to tax searches.
Authorities searched the offices of the left-leaning website NewsClick and independent media portal Newslaundry on the same day in 2021. Tax officials also accused the Dainik Bhaskar newspaper of tax evasion in 2021 after it published reports of mass funeral pyres and floating corpses that challenged the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2017, the government’s investigation bureau said it was probing cases of loan defaults when it raided the offices of New Delhi Television, known for its liberal slant.
Philippines quake causes hospital evacuation, minor damage
A strong earthquake rocked a central Philippine province on Thursday, sending people out of their homes at night, prompting dozens of patients to be evacuated from a hospital and causing minor damage to a government coliseum and business establishments, officials said.
There were no immediate reports of injuries or major damage from the magnitude 6 quake that was set off by a local fault line at a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles), about 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) west of the coastal town of Batuan in Masbate province, officials said.
The quake struck about two hours after midnight, rousing many people from their sleep, Masbate provincial disaster-mitigation officer Adonis Dilao said.
“The first jolt was really strong followed by shaking that woke me up and my baby,” Red Cross officer MJ Oxemer told The Associated Press by telephone from the provincial capital of Masbate city. “We could hear the rumbling of the ground.”
Dozens of patients from a Masbate provincial hospital were evacuated but later brought back after the quake caused some cracks in the three-story building. A part of the ceiling on a small government coliseum in Masbate city was also damaged, Dilao said.
Cracks were also spotted in the concrete pillars of some business establishments, including grocery and drug stores in Masbate city’s downtown area, and in some houses, Dilao told The AP by telephone.
Although business owners have discretion when to reopen, Dilao said they should heed the advice of government safety inspectors because at least two strong aftershocks were felt following the quake. “Unlike typhoons, which can be predicted to give people time to brace, earthquakes can just suddenly hit,” he said.
The quake knocked out power in many areas of Masbate and nearby Ticao island, and some school classes were suspended, the Office of Civil Defense said, adding that damage assessments by local officials were underway.
The Philippines lies along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of faults around the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s earthquakes occur. Each year it is also hit by about 20 typhoons and tropical storms, making it one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.
A magnitude 7.7 quake killed nearly 2,000 people in the northern Philippines in 1990.
Indian officials search BBC offices for second straight day
India’s tax officials searched BBC offices in India for a second straight day on Wednesday questioning staff about the organization's business operations in the country, some staff members said.
BBC management told editorial and other staff members to work from home after they were able to leave the office on Tuesday night, said staff who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to talk to media.
The searches came weeks after the BBC aired a documentary critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the U.K.
There was no overnight break in the search and investigators scanned the desktops of some employees who were earlier told not to use their phones and keep them aside, the staff members said.
Indian income tax officials have not made any statements since the searches were launched in the BBC’s New Delhi and Mumbai offices on Tuesday morning.
The Press Trust of India news agency said the officials were making copies of electronic and paper-based financial data from the organization.
Rights groups and opposition politicians denounced the move by India's Income Tax Department as an attempt to intimidate the media.
Britain's publicly funded national broadcaster said it was cooperating fully with authorities and hoped "to have this situation resolved as soon as possible.” Late in the evening, the BBC said officials were still at the two offices.
“Many staff have now left the building but some have been asked to remain and are continuing to cooperate with the ongoing inquiries,” it said, adding: “Our output and journalism continue as normal.”
While there has been no British government statement so far, U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Tuesday: “We are aware of the search of the BBC offices in Delhi by Indian tax authorities."
“We support the importance of a free press around the world. We continue to highlight the importance of freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief as human rights that contribute to strengthening democracies around the world. It has strengthened this democracy here in this country. It has strengthened India’s democracy,” Price told reporters in Washington.
India's News Broadcasters and Digital Association criticized the income tax "surveys" at the BBC offices.
While the association "maintains that no institution is above the law, it condemns any attempt to muzzle and intimidate the media and interfere with the free functioning of journalists and media organizations,'' it said in a statement.
Read more: ‘…As long as you don't spew venom’: BJP spokesperson on BBC
Gaurav Bhatia, a spokesperson for Modi's governing Bharatiya Janata Party, said the BBC should have nothing to fear if it follows Indian laws. But he added that the broadcaster's history is “tainted” and “full of hatred” for India and called it corrupt, without offering any specifics.
The documentary, “India: The Modi Question,” was broadcast in the U.K. last month, examining the prime minister's role in 2002 anti-Muslim riots in the western state of Gujarat, where he was chief minister at the time. More than 1,000 people were killed in the violence.
Modi has denied allegations that authorities under his watch allowed and even encouraged the bloodshed, and the Supreme Court said it found no evidence to prosecute him. Last year, the court dismissed a petition filed by a Muslim victim questioning Modi’s exoneration.
The second portion of the two-part documentary examined “the track record of Narendra Modi’s government following his re-election in 2019,” according to the BBC website.
The program drew an immediate backlash from India's government, which invoked emergency powers under its information technology laws to block it from being shown in the country. Local authorities scrambled to stop screenings organized at Indian universities, and social media platforms including Twitter and YouTube complied with government requests to remove links to the documentary.
The BBC said at the time that the documentary was “rigorously researched” and involved a wide range of voices and opinions.
“We offered the Indian Government a right to reply to the matters raised in the series — it declined to respond,” its statement said.
India’s Foreign Ministry called the documentary a “propaganda piece designed to push a particularly discredited narrative” that lacked objectivity.
Press freedom in India has been on a steady decline in recent years. The country fell eight places, to 150 out of 180 countries, in the 2022 Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders. Media watchdog groups accuse the Modi government of silencing criticism on social media under a sweeping internet law that puts digital platforms including Twitter and Facebook under direct government oversight.
Some media outlets critical of the government have been subjected to tax searches.
Authorities searched the offices of the left-leaning website NewsClick and independent media portal Newslaundry on the same day in 2021. Tax officials also accused the Dainik Bhaskar newspaper of tax evasion in 2021 after it published reports of mass funeral pyres and floating corpses that challenged the government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2017, the government's investigation bureau said it was probing cases of loan defaults when it raided the offices of New Delhi Television, known for its liberal slant.
Air India reveals orders for 470 Boeing, Airbus jets
Air India unveiled orders Tuesday for 470 Boeing and Airbus passenger jets as it races to tap surging demand for increasingly affordable air travel from the nation's growing ranks of middle-class consumers.
India’s largest international airline and second-largest domestic carrier is buying 220 Boeing aircraft valued at $34 billion. It marks the U.S. plane maker's third-largest sale of all time, in dollar value, and its second of all time in quantity.
Air India is also buying 250 passenger jets from European plane manufacturer Airbus, with the orders championed by the leaders of the U.S., France and India.
The Boeing “purchase will support over 1 million American jobs across 44 states, and many will not require a four-year college degree," U.S. President Joe Biden said. “This announcement also reflects the strength of the U.S.-India economic partnership.”
Air India is seeking to reinvent itself by expanding its operations and modernizing its fleet. The new jets will help the airline's owner, Tata Sons, compete against upstart discount rivals including India’s dominant carrier, IndiGo.
“India is going to be the world’s third-largest market in the aviation sector,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a videoconference. Over the next 15 years, it’s estimated that India will need more than 2,000 aircraft, and “today’s historic announcement will help in meeting this growing demand.”
The Boeing order includes 190 737 Max aircraft, 20 of its 787s, and 10 of its 777Xs. The purchase includes customer options for an additional 50 737 MAXs and 20 of its 787s, which would make it 290 airplanes for a total of $45.9 billion at list price.
Toulouse, France-based Airbus will provide Air India 40 wide-body A350 Airbus aircraft and another 210 narrow-body A320neo planes, Tata Sons Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran said in the call with Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Airbus did not disclose financial terms of the deal, which could be worth tens of billions of dollars.
“Today is a historic moment for India, for Air India and for Airbus,” Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury said in the call. The size of the order “demonstrates the appetite for growth in the Indian aviation industry. It's the fastest growing in the world."
Chandrasekaran said the A350s will be used to "fly all ultra long distance across the globe." Single-aisle A320s are typically used on short-haul routes. He said the airline has “significant options” to increase its order.
“The order’s massive, but a lot of it is long overdue replacement. Air India is way behind in modernizing their fleet,” said Brendan Sobie, a Singapore-based independent aviation analyst.
Demand for air travel in India and elsewhere in Asia has boomed over the past decade, fueled by fast-growing economies that have raised incomes and made travel more affordable for many millions of people.
For Air India, “there’s a lot of catch up to do,” Sobie said. It’s competing with newer budget airlines that moved faster to tap demand on domestic services as well as foreign carriers that are formidable competitors on international routes, he added.
Tata Sons, India’s oldest and largest conglomerate, regained ownership of the debt-laden national carrier last year. The Tata Group pioneered commercial aviation in India when it launched the airline in 1932. It was taken over by the government in 1953.
Modi and Macron applauded the Airbus deal, with both saying it's a sign of the strengthening “strategic partnership" between their countries.
Macron called the deal a “new success” and an opportunity to “develop new areas of cooperation with India."
Tata is integrating Air India with Vistara, which it jointly runs with Singapore Airlines, and with Air Asia India, which it runs with Malaysian discount operator Air Asia.
China's Xi expresses support for Iran amid Western pressure
Chinese leader Xi Jinping expressed support for Iran during a visit Tuesday by its president as Tehran tries to expand relations with Beijing and Moscow to offset Western sanctions over its nuclear development.
The official Chinese account of Xi’s meeting with Ebrahim Raisi gave no indication whether they discussed Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Tehran supplied military drones to Russian President Vladimir Putin's government but says they were delivered before the war began.
Xi expressed support for Raisi’s government in language Beijing uses to criticize Washington’s domination of global affairs. China and Iran portray themselves, alongside Moscow, as counterweights to American power.
“China supports Iran in safeguarding national sovereignty” and “resisting unilateralism and bullying,” Xi said in a statement carried by Chinese state TV on its website.
Xi and Raisi attended the signing of 20 cooperation agreements including trade and tourism, the Chinese government announced. Those add to a 25-year strategy agreement signed in 2021 to cooperate in developing oil, industry and other fields.
China is one of the biggest buyers of Iranian oil and a source of investment.
Iran has struggled for years under trade and financial sanctions imposed by Washington and other Western governments over what they say is Tehran’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons, an accusation the Iranian government denies. The United States government cut off Iran’s access to the network that connects global banks in 2018.
Read more: US renews warning it’ll defend Philippines after China spat
U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price urged China to influence Iran and lower potential threats in the region, saying that “would be in both of our interests.”
“The PRC has a role to play in very clearly signaling to Iran that its destabilizing activities — that its brinksmanship — is not going to be rewarded, it’s not going to be countenanced. It is not something that the international community is prepared to sit idly by and watch,” Price said Tuesday to reporters in Washington, referring to China by its official name, the People’s Republic of China.
Xi said Beijing “opposes external forces interfering in Iran’s internal affairs and undermining Iran’s security and stability,” according to the government statement. It said Xi promised to “work together on issues involving each other’s core interests,” but gave no details.
Raisi’s government didn’t immediately release details of the meeting, but the president called the two governments “friends in difficult situations” in a commentary published Monday by the ruling Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, asked whether Beijing was concerned that getting closer to Iran might complicate U.S.-Chinese ties, said their “friend relations” contribute to “promotion of peace and stability in the Middle East.”
“Our relations do not target any third parties,” said the spokesperson, Wang Wenbin.
Taiwan threatens to shoot down any Chinese balloons
Amid speculation over alleged Chinese spy balloons, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday it would shoot down any suspected military object coming close to its shores from mainland China.
Maj. Gen. Huang Wen-chi, the assistant deputy chief of general staff for intelligence, told reporters that the self-governing island was on guard for any incursions, but had yet to find any that had penetrated its defenses.
Balloons found so far around Taiwan were used for meteorological exploration, he said. They were relatively small and light and would burst after rising to an altitude that could be threatening. Taiwan has yet to find targets requiring a lethal response, he said.
"We haven’t seen such sophisticated spy balloons sent by the Chinese Communist Party in the waters near Taiwan,” Huang said, referring to the balloon shot down by the U.S. earlier this month after traveling for days from above Alaska to South Carolina.
China, which claims Taiwan as its territory to be reunited by force if necessary, regularly sends fighter jets and other military assets into Taiwan's airspace and sea lanes.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin called the U.S. downing of the Chinese balloon a “clear overreaction." Beijing says it was an unmanned airship made for meteorological research that had been blown off course.
The U.S. military had engaged an “absurd and costly large-scale political performance art show. We also advise the U.S. side to be careful about overexerting itself and spraining its back," Wang said at a daily news briefing.
The White House defended the shootdowns of three unidentified objects in as many days even as it acknowledged that officials had no indication the objects were intended for surveillance in the same manner as the high-altitude Chinese balloon.
Amid quake’s devastation, parallel rescue bid targets pets
Six days after the earthquake that flattened parts of Turkey and Syria, two survivors emerged from the rubble. They were dogs, the focus of a parallel rescue effort underway.
“One of the dogs clung to its owner’s corpse, and it was absolutely a miracle that it was rescued six days later,” said Csenay Tekinbas, a representative of the local HAYTAP animal welfare group.
“I hope it holds on to life,” Tekinbas said of the dog that finally left its dead owner. “I hope we can give it a new life.”
Already, field hospitals have been set up in four cities to care for rescued pets.
Read More: Rescuers find more alive in Turkey on 8th day after quake
Survival is just the first step. Those hurrying to find and care for pets also struggle to give them proper care. “There is no food, bird food, chicken feed or anything in any pet shop at the moment. Because everywhere is either closed or collapsed,” Tekinbas said.
Large bags of pet food are stacked at a relief station in one Antakya square, their crisp images of green lawns and happily panting pets contrasting with the grim surroundings. Nearby, a burly dog nibbles at a bowl.
The outreach to save pets goes as far as pounding down doors. After being alerted to a dog apparently left alone on the fourth floor of a building, HAYTAP workers put on hard hats and broke into the apartment to rescue a large, fluffy German shepherd.
As the dog slurped noisily at a metal bowl of water downstairs in a crumbling alley, the workers lavished affection on it.
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Robert Bandendieck in Istanbul contributed to this report.
For Syrian women, quake adds disaster on top of war’s pain
Draped in a heavy wool shawl against the cold, Ayesha dragged her feet, her toddler granddaughter trailing behind her, as they made the 15-minute walk from her tent to the nearest bathroom in a nearby building, the only place they have to wash.
Seven days after the earthquake leveled their home in the northwest Syrian town of Atareb, the 43-year-old still has no access to water, electricity or heat for her and 12 family members, all crammed into a single tent.
“When I look at our house, I wonder how did anyone come out alive?” Ayesha said. “Maybe it would have been better if I died,” she added. “I came from under that rubble carrying the rubble of the whole world on my shoulders.”
She doesn’t know how much more she and other Syrians can take. Women in particular have shouldered the responsibility of keeping shattered families together during the past 12 years of civil war. The conflict and economic collapse left millions of people dependent on international aid. Now added to the litany of hardships is destruction from the earthquake, which killed tens of thousands and left millions homeless in southern Turkey and northern Syria.
Also Read: Newborn saved from rubble in quake-hit Syria in good health
With hospitals swamped by quake victims, Ayesha can’t get medical services to treat and monitor her liver disease. She and her husband both lost their sources of income in the quake. His taxi was crushed, and her stock of clothes that she once sold to neighbors was destroyed.
They have nothing to provide for their six children and their five grandchildren, including two she took in after one of her sons was killed in the war. They have to share mattresses to sleep in their tent.
“If hardships are a sign of the love of God, it means God really loves the Syrian people,” Ayesha said, breaking out in tears. Like most women in this conservative community, she spoke on condition her last name be withheld.
Also Read: After quake, war-hit Syrians struggle to get aid, rebuild
Their tent is in a camp for quake victims in Atareb, part of the last opposition-held territory in northwest Syria, which has seen bombardment and fighting for years. Walking between rows of destroyed homes in the town, it is hard to distinguish which collapsed from the quake and which from intense military operations at the height of fighting.
Syria’s war has loaded a particular burden and isolation on women, with so many men who were killed, detained, maimed or forced out of the country. The number of female-headed households across Syria increased by around 80% to comprise more than a fifth of households in 2020, according to the U.N.
Even before the quake, over 7 million women and girls across Syria needed critical health services and support against physical and sexual violence. Child marriage was on the rise, and hundreds of thousands of girls were out of school.
The immediate impact of the earthquake put at least 350,000 pregnancies in Syria and Turkey at risk, according to U.N. figures.
Women in the opposition-held northwest are especially vulnerable. Most of the territory’s population of 4 million fled there after being displaced from other parts of Syria. Health care was already stretched thin and dependent on foreign aid. Now non-emergency medical services have been suspended to deal with the earthquake.
“We can treat the women after trauma or after delivery, but they need to go back to a safe environment with minimum housing, nutrition and clean water. Unfortunately, this is in general lacking in northwest,” said Basel Termanini, chairman of the Syrian American Medical Society which has dozens of facilities in the northwest.
Throughout the war, Ayesha and her family repeatedly fled from their home in Atareb during times of bombardment to safer areas, where they would stay for months until they could return. One of her sons was killed in 2019, and she’s been taking care of his two young children since.
But, she said, “in 12 years of war, we never tasted terror and pain like that night” of the earthquake.
When the quake hit before dawn on Feb. 6, Ayesha and her family managed to get out of her building as part of it collapsed. They stood in the cold, pouring rain, looking at the destruction in disbelief.
The building next door was completely flattened, killing many of those inside -- including a woman who had just given birth, the baby, her seven other kids and her mother, who had arrived just hours earlier to help with the newborn.
The building’s dead now lie in a mass grave on the far end of a neighboring piece of farmland. The owner of the plot donated the land because cemeteries have filled up with quake victims.
Things were already hard before the earthquake. In the opposition-held territory, 90% of the population is dependent on humanitarian assistance.
There has been no work for the men, and many of the men were handicapped in the war, she said. Some women find jobs in community service and with aid groups. Others do household crafts like making soap or sewing clothes. There are hundreds of female civil defense volunteers, many of whom participated for the first time in the rescue and search missions.
But in the largely conservative community, dominated by a group once affiliated with al-Qaida, jobs for women are not easy to come by.
Halima, a 30-year-old mother of two children, lost her husband in the early days of the war. For years, she has moved between shelters for the displaced in the northwest in search of more generous donated food baskets. The quake caused cracks in the place where she’s currently staying and she’s afraid to stay there but has nowhere else to go.
“I pray for God’s grace. Maybe someone can take care of my children,” she said Sunday as she picked donated clothes at a Turkish Red Crescent warehouse.
International aid has only trickled in for quake victims in the northwest, increasing anger at the United Nations.
The sentiment has been building for some time. Humanitarian aid to Syria, locked in one of the world’s most complex crises for years, has been among the best funded by donors. But the gap between funding and need has grown, and U.N. appeals for emergency responses have gone more than 50% unanswered. In 2021, the health sector in northwest Syria was 60% underfunded, with only $6.4 million of $23.3 million covered.
When the earthquake hit, hospitals were not only damaged by the tremors but also overwhelmed by the injured and casualties, with supplies of essential emergency kits running out. Maternity hospitals were flooded with early deliveries and complications in pregnancies.
“Mothers are still living in the streets,” said Ikram Haboush, director of the maternity hospital in Atareb. “We don’t have enough incubators for early deliveries. The situation is far from stable.”
Over the years of conflict, Syrian women have exhausted their coping strategies. A natural disaster is the last thing they were prepared for.
“We are tired,” said Ayesha.
“For 12 years, we didn’t sleep a night from fear of bombings, from air strikes, or from displacement. Now we have eternal displacement,” she said. “We are living the tragedy of all tragedies.”
Rescuers find more alive in Turkey on 8th day after quake
Rescuers on Tuesday were working to reach people under the rubble in three provinces hit hard by the devastating quakes that hit Turkey and Syria last week.
The death toll from the magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 quakes that struck nine hours apart on Feb. 6 in southeastern Turkey and northern Syria passed 35,000, and was certain to increase as search teams find more bodies.
Turkish television continued broadcasting rescues Tuesday, as experts said the window to find survivors is closing.
In Adiyaman province, rescuers reached 18-year-old Muhammed Cafer Cetin, and medics gave him an IV with fluids before attempting a dangerous extraction from a building that crumbled further as rescuers were working. Medics surrounded him to place a neck brace and he was on a stretcher with an oxygen mask, making it out to daylight on the 199th hour. “We are so happy,” his uncle said.
Read More: Search for earthquake survivors enters final hours in Turkey
Two others were rescued from one building that’s been destroyed in central Kahramanmaras, near the epicenter, Tuesday some 198 hours after the quake. Broadcaster Haberturk said one was 17-year-old Muhammed Enes, who was seen wrapped in a thermal blanket and carried on a stretcher to an ambulance. Dozens of rescuers were working at the site and Turkish soldiers hugged and clapped after their rescue.
Rescuers then asked for quiet to continue looking for others and shouted “can anyone hear me?"
The health conditions of the rescued were unclear.
In extremely hard-hit Hatay, Sengul Abalioglu lost her old sister and four nephews. “It doesn't matter if dead or alive, we just want our corpses so that they at least have a grave and we bury them,” she told The Associated Press, devastated as she waited in front of the rubble where her family could be.
In Syria, President Bashar Assad agreed to open two new crossing points from Turkey to the country’s rebel-held northwest to deliver desperately needed aid and equipment to millions of earthquake victims, the United Nations announced Monday. The crossings at Bab Al-Salam and Al Raée will be opened for an initial period of three months. Until now, the U.N. has only been allowed to deliver aid to the Idlib area through a single crossing at Bab Al-Hawa.
The United Nations has been under intense pressure to get more aid and heavy equipment into Syria’s rebel-held northwest since the earthquake struck a week ago, with survivors lacking the means to dig for other survivors and the death toll mounting.
The first Saudi aid plane, carrying 35 tons of food, landed in government-held Aleppo airport Tuesday morning, according to Syrian state media. Saudi Arabia has raised some $50 million dollars in a public campaign to aid Turkey and Syria. Prior to Tuesday, Saudi planes landed in Turkey, with Saudi trucks also delivering some aid into impoverished rebel-held northwestern Syria.
Several other Arab countries have sent planes loaded with aid to government-held Syria, including Jordan and Egypt, the United Arab Emirates. Algeria, Iraq, Oman, Tunisia, Sudan and Libya have also delivered aid to Damascus.
Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said late Monday rescue work continued in Hatay province, along with Kahramanmaras — the epicenter — and Adiyaman. Rescue work appears to have ended in the remaining seven provinces.
The quake affected 10 provinces in Turkey that are home to some 13.5 million people, as well as a large area in northwest Syria that is home to millions.
Quake survivors also face difficult conditions amid wrecked cities, with many sleeping outdoors in freezing weather. Much of the region's water system is not working, and damage to the system raises risks of contamination. Turkey’s health minister said samples taken from dozens of points of the water system were “microbiologically unfit,” which highlights how precarious basic needs continue to be.
More than 41,500 buildings were destroyed or so damaged that they would have to be demolished, the Minister of Environment and Urbanization. There are bodies under those buildings and the number of missing remain unclear.
Many in Turkey blame faulty construction for the vast devastation, and authorities continued targeting contractors allegedly linked with buildings that collapsed. Turkey has introduced construction codes that meet earthquake-engineering standards, but experts say the codes are rarely enforced.
The death toll in Turkey stood at 31,643 as of Monday. Officials have decreased the frequency of death toll updates since the first week of the response, now releasing larger updates once or twice a day.
The toll in the northwestern rebel-held region has reached 2,166, according to the rescue group the White Helmets, while 1,414 people have died in government-held areas, according to the Syrian Health Ministry in Damascus. The overall death toll in Syria stands at 3,580.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s cabinet was scheduled to meet Tuesday.
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Bilginsoy reported from Istanbul. Kareem Chehayeb contributed from Beirut and Edith M. Lederer contributed from New York.
Tax officials search BBC's Delhi offices weeks after Modi documentary
Officials from India’s Income Tax department began conducting searches Tuesday (February 14, 2023) at the BBC’s offices in the capital, New Delhi, three of the broadcaster’s staff members told the Associated Press.
The search comes weeks after the British broadcaster released a controversial documentary that examined Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role during the 2002 anti-Muslim riots.
Teams from the tax department surveyed the BBC's Delhi and Mumbai offices, the Press Trust of India news agency reported, quoting officials who were not identified.
Also Read: BBC film on India's PM Modi, 2002 riots draws government ire
India banned the two-part documentary “India: The Modi Question” last month and authorities scrambled to halt screenings of the program and restrict clips of it on social media in a move that critics and political opponents decried as an assault on press freedom.
India’s Foreign Ministry called the documentary a “propaganda piece designed to push a particularly discredited narrative” that lacked objectivity.”
The BBC in a statement had said the documentary was “rigorously researched” and involved a wide range of voices and opinions.
Read More: Sexual harassment, misconduct went on unchecked at Al Jazeera, staff allege: BBC investigation
“We offered the Indian Government a right to reply to the matters raised in the series — it declined to respond,” the statement said.