United News of Bangladesh

 A gunman opened fire Thursday at a campaign truck carrying Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan, wounding him slightly in the leg and killing one of his supporters, his party and police said. Nine others were also wounded. The identity of the gunman, who was arrested at the scene, was not immediately known. No group has claimed responsibility for the shooting. The attack raised new concerns about growing political instability in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation with a massive population of 225 million people. Since his ouster in a no-confidence vote in Parliament in April, Khan has mobilized mass rallies across the country, where he has whipped up crowds with claims that he was a victim of a conspiracy by his successor, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, and the United States. Both the new premier and Washington have denied such allegations. Pakistan has a decades-long history of political assassinations, including that of Benazir Bhutto, the first democratically elected female leader of a Muslim country, in 2007. Read more: Pakistani female journalist crushed to death at ex-PM Imran Khan's march The attack on the Khan convoy happened in the Wazirabad district in the eastern Punjab province where the former cricket star turned Islamist politician was traveling in a large convoy of trucks and cars heading towards the capital, Islamabad. The convoy is part of his campaign aimed at forcing the government to hold early elections. Among the wounded was Faisal Javed, a lawmaker from Tehreek-e-Insaf. In a video statement, with blood staining his clothes, Javed said Khan's protest march to Islamabad would not stop. District police officer Ghazanfar Ali said one person was killed and nine others were wounded in the attack. Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan condemned the attack. Fawad Chaudhry, a senior leader from Khan’s party, told the supporters surrounding Khan's truck that the attack was an attempt on the life of the country’s former premier. Khan was later seen with a bandage on his right leg, just above the foot, according to reports and a blurry image. He was moved to another vehicle from his container truck, from where announcements were being made that he was safe. “He is being taken to a hospital in Lahore, but he is not seriously wounded. A bullet hit him in the leg,” Asad Umar, an official from Khan's Tehreek-e-Insaf party, told reporters. According to the Interior Ministry, the government has ordered a probe into the incident. Khan has been at loggerheads with the country’s powerful military and has refused to back down from his plans to march on the capital. The military has said that although Khan had a democratic right to hold a rally in Islamabad, no one would be allowed to destabilize the country. Authorities in Islamabad have already deployed additional security around the city to deter any clashes or violence. Read more: Pakistan's election commission disqualifies ex-PM Imran Khan The attack happened less than a week after Khan began his march from Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, along with thousands of supporters. It was not immediately known if Khan’s convoy would proceed on to Islamabad. Earlier, Chaudhry had said they plan to enter Islamabad on Friday. Since his ouster in April, Khan has alleged that he was the victim of a conspiracy and has called for early elections. Sharif’s government has said that there would be no early vote and that the next elections will be held according to schedule, in 2023. Khan’s latest challenge to the government comes after Pakistan’s elections commission disqualified him from holding public office for five years for allegedly selling state gifts unlawfully and concealing assets as premier. Khan, who has challenged the disqualification in a pending court case, has said he would sue Chief Election Commissioner Sikandara Raja, who was behind the decision, for calling him a “dishonest person.” It was not immediately known if Khan's convoy would proceed on to Islamabad. Earlier, Chaudhry, the senior party leader, had said they plan to enter Islamabad on Friday. The attack comes at a time when impoverished Pakistan is grappling with the aftermath of unprecedented floods that struck this Islamic nation over the summer, killing 1,735 people and displacing 33 million.

When Kim Kap Soo watched live broadcasts of the harrowing Halloween party crush that killed more than 150 people in Seoul last weekend, there was shock and sadness — but also the embarrassed realization that this wasn’t the first time he’d seen South Korea suffer a devastating disaster as a result of official incompetence and safety failures. “My heart is aching very much. We are among the world’s 10 largest economies, and I totally don’t understand how this can happen in our nation,” said Kim, 73, a retired environmental engineering researcher. “Our public insensitivity to safety is too severe. We should always be careful about everything, but we don’t do so, and I think that’s the biggest problem.” The crowd crush Saturday in Itaewon, a popular nightlife district, has caused an outpouring of public sympathy toward the dead, mostly in their 20s and 30s, and demands for accountability for the tragedy. But many also share a strong feeling of embarrassment and anger that their country, a cultural and economic powerhouse that has risen from war, poverty and dictatorships, still ignores safety and regulatory issues. Similar crowd crushes have happened in other developed countries in recent years, but the death counts there were much smaller than in Itaewon, where 156 people died and 173 were injured. There are growing questions here about why South Korea hasn’t learned its lessons since the 2014 sinking of the ferry Sewol, which killed 304 people — mostly teenagers on a school trip. That disaster also prompted national soul-searching on the country’s failure to enforce safety and regulatory rules. “When it comes to public safety, I think we aren’t an advanced nation at all, though we might have grown economically,” said Park You Nam, 60, who runs a jewelry shop in Seoul. “I feel really sorry and guilty for those young victims because we all failed to protect them.” From K-pop superstars BTS and Netflix’s megahit drama “Squid Game” to Samsung-made smartphones and Hyundai cars, South Korea’s recent cultural and economic achievements have been remarkable. But there’s a dark side to its breakneck rise from the extreme poverty of the 1950 and 60s: Critics say the government overlooks basic safety practices, social safety nets and minority voices. Not much has changed since the ferry sinking, these critics say, citing a series of smaller deadly incidents such as fires and boat accidents. On Tuesday, President Yoon Suk Yeol acknowledged that South Korea lacks studies on crowd management and ordered officials to formulate effective crowd control methods based on high-tech resources such as drones. Police also said they don’t have guidelines to deal with crowd surges at events that have no official organizers, like the Halloween festivities in Itaewon. Park Sangin, a professor at Seoul National University, said the Itaewon crush showed that South Koreans haven’t done much to improve systems and policies to prevent similar man-made disasters like the ferry sinking. He said South Koreans have focused instead on finding, criticizing and punishing anyone responsible each time an incident occurs. “For a country that has experienced many safety-related incidents, there should have been diverse studies and countermeasures to prevent their recurrences and that’s the responsibility of government officials and politicians,” Park said. “But they haven’t done so, and I think it’s more important to criticize them to get things changed.” What exactly caused Saturday’s crush is still under investigation. But it happened when more than 100,000 partiers clad in Halloween costumes and others packed Itaewon’s alleys. Police dispatched only 137 officers to the neighborhood, mostly with a mission to deal with possible crimes such as narcotics use, not crowd control. Police also acknowledged Tuesday they had received about a dozen emergency calls from citizens about the impending crowd surge but didn’t handle them effectively. The disaster has left many South Koreans with feelings of trauma. Witnesses said that people fell on each other like dominos, screamed, suffered severe breathing difficulties and lost consciousness while crammed into a sloped, narrow alley. TV footage showed people frantically giving CPR to victims lying motionless near a row of dead bodies covered by blue blankets. “When I first saw such things on TV, I thought they were happening in a foreign country, not here,” said Kim Suk Hee, 40, a real estate agent. “I was so stunned to learn that it was Itaewon, because I had actually planned to go there with my family for Halloween the next day. I still have trauma over what happened.” Jang Seung-Jin, a professor at Seoul’s Kookmin University, said the Itaewon crush proved again that South Korea still has a long way to go to become an advanced country in all aspects. He said what’s important now is how the country will handle the aftermath. Since the disaster, some top officials have been severely criticized over comments that were seen as trying to avoid government responsibility for the crush or even joking about it. A public survey taken after the disaster shows President Yoon’s approval rating is about 30%, a very low rate given he took office only six months ago. His future popularity could depend on how he handles the Itaewon tragedy, said Choi Jin, director of the Seoul-based Institute of Presidential Leadership. At a Seoul mourning center, Vietnam war veteran Park Young-kee, 82, laid white flowers and bowed to the memory of the dead, including a distant relative who was a high school student. “This kind of disaster didn’t happen when I was young. I can’t describe how I feel,” Park said. “This occurred because we are not an advanced country. If we are really an advanced country, could it have happened?”

Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif in Beijing on Wednesday. China has always viewed its relations with Pakistan from a strategic and long-term perspective and prioritized Pakistan in its neighborhood diplomacy, Xi told Sharif, who is on an official visit to China. China appreciates Pakistan's firm will for friendly cooperation with China and appreciates its support on issues related to China's core and major concerns, Xi said. Read more:In Xi's China, even internal reports fall prey to censorship China will firmly support Pakistan's efforts in safeguarding national sovereignty, territorial integrity, development interests and national dignity, he said. China sympathizes with the Pakistani people who have suffered from the devastating floods and will provide additional emergency assistance to help Pakistan in post-disaster reconstruction, Xi said. Xi briefed Sharif on the important outcomes of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC). He pointed out that China will continue to adhere to the basic state policy of opening-up and continue to provide new opportunities to Pakistan and other countries with China's new development. He called on the two sides to advance the construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor with greater efficiency and welcomed Pakistan to expand its export of high-quality agricultural products to China. Read more:China’s Communist Party capable of new, greater miracles: Xi Jinping Sharif said it is a great honor to be one of the first foreign leaders invited to visit China after the landmark 20th CPC National Congress, which demonstrates the profound friendship between Pakistan and China. Pakistan hopes to learn from China's successful state governance experience and deepen cooperation with China in various fields to advance its own development. This is the direction and only choice for Pakistan in the future, the prime minister said. Pakistan will further strengthen security measures and spare no effort to protect the safety of Chinese institutions and personnel in Pakistan, Sharif said. 

Air raid sirens sounded on a South Korean island and residents evacuated to underground shelters after North Korea fired more than 20 missiles Wednesday, at least one of them in its direction and landing near the rivals’ tense sea border. South Korea quickly responded by launching its own missiles in the same border area. The launches came hours after North Korea threatened to use nuclear weapons to get the U.S. and South Korea to “pay the most horrible price in history” in protest of ongoing South Korean-U.S. military drills that it views as an invasion rehearsal. The White House maintained that the United States has no hostile intent toward North Korea and vowed to work with allies to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. The North’s barrage of missile tests also came as world attention was focused on South Korea following a weekend Halloween tragedy that saw more than 150 people killed in a crowd surge in Seoul in what was the country’s largest disaster in years. Read more:North Korea fires ballistic missile toward sea: Seoul officials South Korea’s military said North Korea launched at least 23 missiles — 17 in the morning and six in the afternoon — off its its eastern and western coasts on Wednesday. It said the weapons were all short-range ballistic missiles or suspected surface-to-air missiles. Also Wednesday, North Korea fired about 100 artillery shells into an eastern maritime buffer zone the Koreas created in 2018 to reduce tensions, according to South Korea’s military. The 23 missiles launched is a record number of daily missile tests by North Korea, some experts say. One of the ballistic missiles was flying toward South Korea’s Ulleung island before it eventually landed 167 kilometers (104 miles) northwest of the island. South Korea’s military issued an air raid alert on the island, according to the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. South Korean media published photos of island residents moving to underground shelters. Hours later, South Korea’s military said it lifted the air raid alert on the island. South Korea’s transport ministry said it has closed some air routes above the country’s eastern waters until Thursday morning in the wake of the North Korean launches. That missile landed 26 kilometers (16 miles) away from the rivals’ sea border. It landed in international waters off the east coast of South Korea. South Korea’s military said it was the first time a North Korean missile has landed so close to the sea border since the countries’ division in 1948. “This is very unprecedented and we will never tolerate it,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. In 2010, North Korea shelled a front-line South Korean island off the peninsula’s western coast, killing four people. But the weapons used were artillery rockets, not ballistic missiles whose launches or tests are banned by multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions. Later Wednesday, South Korean fighter jets launched three air-to-surface, precision-guided missiles near the eastern sea border to show its determination to get tough on North Korean provocations. South Korea’s military said the missiles landed in international waters at the same distance of 26 kilometers (16 miles) north of the sea border as the North Korean missile fell earlier Wednesday. It said it maintains a readiness to win “an overwhelming victory” against North Korea in potential clashes. “North Korea firing missiles in a way that sets off air raid sirens appears intended to threaten South Koreans to pressure their government to change policy,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul. “North Korea’s expanding military capabilities and tests are worrisome, but offering concessions about alliance cooperation or nuclear recognition would make matters worse.” The Joint Chiefs of Staff earlier identified three of the North Korean weapons launched as “short-range ballistic missiles” fired from the North’s eastern coastal town of Wonsan, including the one that landed near the sea border. North Korean short-range weapons are designed to strike key facilities in South Korea, including U.S. military bases there. In an emergency meeting with top security officials, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol ordered officials to take swift unspecified steps to make North Korea face consequences for its provocation. He said he would consider the North Korean missile’s landing near the border “a virtual violation of (our) territorial waters.” Read more:N. Korea flies warplanes near border, firing another missile During the meeting, officials also lamented that the North Korean missile launches came as South Korea is in a mourning period over the crowd crush. They noted this “clearly showed the nature of the North Korean government,” according to South Korea’s presidential office. Earlier Wednesday, Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said at least two ballistic missiles fired by North Korea showed a possibly “irregular” trajectory. This suggests the missiles were the North’s highly maneuverable, nuclear-capable KN-23 missile, which was modeled on Russia’s Iskander missile. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida called North Korea’s continuing missile tests “absolutely impermissible.” Analyst Cheong Seong-Chang at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea said the danger of armed clashes between the Koreas off their western or eastern coasts is increasing. He said South Korea needs to make “proportional responses” to North Korean provocations, not “overwhelming responses,” to prevent tensions from spiraling out of control and possibly leading the North to use its tactical nuclear weapons. Animosities on the Korean Peninsula have been running high in recent months, with North Korea testing a string of nuclear-capable missiles and adopting a law authorizing the preemptive use of its nuclear weapons in a broad range of situations. Some experts still doubt North Korea would use nuclear weapons first in the face of U.S. and South Korean forces. North Korea has argued its recent weapons tests were meant to issue a warning to Washington and Seoul over their joint military drills that it views as an invasion rehearsal, including this week’s exercises. In a statement released early Wednesday, Pak Jong Chon, a secretary of the ruling Workers’ Party who is considered a close confidant of leader Kim Jong Un, called the Vigilant Storm air force drills “aggressive and provocative.” “If the U.S. and South Korea attempt to use armed forces against (North Korea) without any fear, the special means of the (North’s) armed forces will carry out their strategic mission without delay,” Pak said, in an apparent reference to his country’s nuclear weapons. “The U.S. and South Korea will have to face a terrible case and pay the most horrible price in history,” he said. U.S. and South Korean officials have steadfastly said their drills are defensive in nature and that they have no intentions of attacking North Korea. “We reject the notion that they serve as any sort of provocation. We have made clear that we have no hostile intent towards (North Korea) and call on them to engage in serious and sustained diplomacy,” White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said late Tuesday. North Korea “continues to not respond. At the same time, we will continue to work closely with our allies and partners to limit the North’s ability to advance its unlawful weapons programs and threaten regional stability,” Watson said. This year’s Vigilant Storm military exercises are the largest-ever for the annual fall maneuvers, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said. About 1,600 flights are planned involving 240 U.S. and South Korean fighter jets. The round-the-clock drills, which began Oct. 31, are to continue through Nov. 4 and include warfighting tactics both in the air and on the ground, it said.

“God’s will” is how one of the accused in the Gujarat Morbi bridge collapse catastrophe – in which 135 people died – described the tragedy to an Indian court. Deepak Parekh, a manager of the Oreva company in charge of maintaining the 150-year-old Morbi bridge, made the remark. He is one of the nine persons arrested when the bridge collapsed on Sunday (October 30, 2022), NDTV reported. “… Bhagwan ki ichcha (will of God) that such an unfortunate event happened,” he informed Chief Judicial Magistrate MJ Khan. Read: Tragedies in Asia: Over 400 die in one month PA Zala, Morbi Deputy Superintendent of Police, testified in court that the Morbi bridge’s cable was “rusted” and had not been replaced by the business that restored it. On October 26, the Morbi bridge was reopened to traffic without any official review or quality control. “As part of maintenance and repair, only the platform was changed. The bridge was on a cable and no oiling or greasing of the cable was done. From where the cable broke, the cable was rusted. Had the cable been repaired, the incident would not have happened,” the police official was quoted in the NDTV report. The contractors that repaired the collapsed Morbi bridge in Gujarat, according to a prosecutor, were unqualified to maintain public infrastructure. According to the prosecutor: “Despite that, these contractors were given repair work of the bridge in 2007 and then in 2022.” Read: Seoul Halloween stampede: Death toll climbs to 153

More than 400 people died in October in a series of crowd-related disasters in Asia, when a bridge packed with revelers collapsed in India, Halloween partiers were crushed in South Korea’s capital, and spectators fled a stadium in Indonesia after police fired tear gas. The dynamics in the three situations were distinct, though experts say poor planning and crowd management contributed to the disasters in Indonesia and South Korea. In India, authorities are investigating whether the recently repaired bridge was properly inspected. In Seoul, 156 people died when more than 100,000 flocked to the popular nightlife district of Itaewon on Saturday for Halloween celebrations, the first since the country’s strict COVID-19 restrictions were lifted. The narrow, sloping alleys of the district became clogged with people, leading to what experts call “crowd turbulence.” That’s when people are so packed together that they don’t have full control over their movements, and the crowd moves as a continuous body. Read: Pakistani female journalist crushed to death at ex-PM Imran Khan's march “It doesn’t require anybody to misbehave, doesn’t require anybody to aggressively or intentionally push,” said Milad Haghani, a researcher at Australia’s University of New South Wales, Sydney. It is well documented that when crowd densities reach the levels estimated at the Itaewon celebration, people will fall, triggering a domino effect, said Haghani, who has studied more than 275 such crowd-related tragedies dating back to 1902. But it’s also preventable, he said. Seoul authorities have been criticized for having 137 officers on hand Saturday to deal with such a large crowd. Officials regularly dispatch many more police to control protests in the capital.

This summer, as China fired missiles into the sea off Taiwan to protest House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island, a much different kind of geopolitical standoff was taking shape in another corner of the Pacific Ocean. Thousands of miles away, a heavily-armed U.S. Coast Guard cutter sailed up to a fleet of a few hundred Chinese squid-fishing boats not far from Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands. Its mission: inspect the vessels for any signs of illegal, unreported or unregulated fishing. Boarding ships on the high seas is a perfectly legal if little-used tool available to any sea power as part of the collective effort to protect the oceans’ threatened fish stocks. Read more: In Xi's China, even internal reports fall prey to censorship But in this case, the Chinese captains of several fishing boats did something unexpected. Three vessels sped away, one turning aggressively 90 degrees toward the Coast Guard cutter James, forcing the American vessel to take evasive action to avoid being rammed. “For the most part they wanted to avoid us,” said Coast Guard Lt. Hunter Stowes, the highest-ranking law enforcement officer on the James. “But we were able to maneuver effectively so that we were safe the entire time.” Still, the high-seas confrontation represented a potentially dangerous breach of international maritime protocol, one the U.S. sees as a troubling precedent since it happened on the Coast Guard’s first-ever mission to counter illegal fishing in the eastern Pacific. The Associated Press reconstructed details of the never-before-reported incident from the Coast Guard and six U.S. non-military officials who spoke of the operation in greater detail but requested anonymity to avoid jeopardizing a multilateral process seeking to force China to sanction the vessels. While diplomats in China accused the Americans of acting improperly, they didn't provide their own detailed account. The Coast Guard’s unprecedented voyage was prompted by growing alarm from activists and governments in Latin America over the activities of China’s distant water fishing fleet, the world’s largest. Since 2009, the number of Chinese-flagged vessels spotted fishing in the south Pacific, sometimes for months at a time, has surged eightfold, to 476 last year. Meanwhile, the size of its squid catch has grown from 70,000 tons to 422,000 — a level of fishing that some scientists fear is unsustainable even for a resilient species. As revealed in an AP-Univision investigation last year, the Chinese flotilla includes some of the seafood industry’s worst offenders, with long records of labor abuse, illegal fishing and violations of maritime law. But they’re being drawn to the open ocean around the Americas — where the U.S. has long dominated — after depleting fish stocks closer to home and fueled by an increasingly fierce race between the two superpowers to secure access to the world’s dwindling natural resources. The illegal fishing patrol, which took place over 10 days in August, was initially kept quiet. The Coast Guard, more than a month later, released a brief statement celebrating the mission along with photos from two ships it did manage to successfully board. But it made no mention of the three that ran away or gave any clue to the vessels’ nationality – a posture the Coast Guard maintained in its conversations with the AP. But the incident didn’t go unnoticed in China. Read more: Nuclear forces of Russia, China, US: Who has what at a glance Within days, Beijing fired off a formal written protest, according to the U.S. officials. Additionally, the issue was raised when U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns was summoned by China’s foreign ministry for an emergency meeting over Speaker Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, one of the officials said. China’s foreign ministry told the AP that it has zero tolerance for illegal fishing and said it was the U.S. that is flouting international norms by carrying out unauthorized inspections that don’t follow COVID protocols, potentially putting seafarer’s lives at risk. “The behavior of the United States is unsafe, opaque and unprofessional,” the foreign ministry said in a statement to the AP. “We demand that the U.S. side stop its dangerous and erroneous inspection activities.” The Coast Guard disputes that assertion, saying all members of the boarding team, in addition to being vaccinated, were wearing masks, gloves and long sleeves. The Biden administration also reported possible violations discovered on the two boats it did inspect to the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization, or SPRFMO, a group of 16 members — including China and the U.S. — charged with ensuring sustainable fishing in 53 million square kilometers of ocean. One of the most serious accusations is against the Yong Hang 3, a refrigerated cargo vessel used to transport fish back to China so that smaller vessels can stay on the water for longer periods. The vessel was among those that ran from the Coast Guard patrol, disobeying direct orders to cooperate from maritime authorities in Panama, to which the vessel was flagged. To obscure activities, some vessels, especially refrigerated cargo vessels, often fly under other flags but are named, managed and docked in China. Ultimately, if history is any guide, China’s communist government is unlikely to punish a fleet of 3,000 distant water fishing vessels it views as an extension of its growing naval prowess and promotes with generous state loans and fuel subsidies. The Coast Guard's patrol was meticulously planned, according to Lt. Stowes. The United States warned fisheries officials more than a year ago that it intended to conduct boardings in the area and filed papers showing pictures of the badges the crew would be carrying as well as the blue-and-white checkered flag the cutter would be hoisting. Five other countries, including Chile and New Zealand, have filed similar paperwork under rules allowing members fishing in the south Pacific to inspect each others’ vessels. “Just our being out there and doing the boardings really makes a statement,” Stowes said. At-sea inspections are considered a vital tool to verify that fishing vessels are following rules regarding the use of forced labor, environmentally hazardous gear and the targeting of threatened species such as sharks. China has repeatedly blocked efforts to strengthen inspection procedures in the south Pacific. The most recent stonewalling took place last year, when China argued that fishermen would be at risk if at-sea patrols were allowed to carry firearms. Rules adopted unanimously in 2011 are guided by a 1995 United Nations treaty, known as the Fish Stocks Agreement, that allows inspectors to use limited force to stay safe. In a sign of how geopolitical rivalry may be escalating since the Pacific incident, one official told AP that the State Department sent a sternly-worded diplomatic note reminding Beijing of its international obligations as well as the distant water fleet’s long track record of labor abuses and violations. The Biden administration is also weighing whether it will seek to have the vessels blacklisted for illegal fishing and banned from returning to the south Pacific at an upcoming meeting in Ecuador of the fishing management organization.

Police in western India arrested nine people on Monday as they investigated the collapse of a newly repaired 143-year-old suspension bridge in one of the country’s worst accidents in years, officials said. The collapse Sunday evening in Gujarat state plunged hundreds of people into a river, killing at least 134. As families mourned the dead, attention turned to why the pedestrian bridge, built during British colonialism in the late 1800s and touted by the state's tourism website as an “artistic and technological marvel,” collapsed and who might be responsible. The bridge had reopened just four days earlier. Inspector-General Ashok Yadav said police have formed a special investigative team, and that those arrested include managers of the bridge's operator, Oreva Group, and its staff. “We won’t let the guilty get away, we won’t spare anyone,” Yadav said. Gujarat authorities opened a case against Oreva for suspected culpable homicide, attempted culpable homicide and other violations. In March, the local Morbi town government awarded a 15-year contract to maintain and manage the bridge to Oreva, a group of companies known mainly for making clocks, mosquito zappers and electric bikes. The same month, Oreva closed the bridge, which spans a wide section of the Machchu river, for repairs. The bridge has been repaired several times in the past and many of its original parts have been replaced over the years. Rad more: PM conveys sorrow to Modi on Gujarat bridge collapse It was reopened nearly seven months later, on Oct. 26, the first day of the Gujarati New Year, which coincides with the Hindu festival season, and the attraction drew hundreds of sightseers. Sandeepsinh Zala, a Morbi official, told the Indian Express newspaper the company reopened the bridge without first obtaining a “fitness certificate." That could not be independently verified, but officials said they were investigating. Authorities said the structure collapsed under the weight of hundreds of people. A security video of the disaster showed it shaking violently and people trying to hold on to its cables and metal fencing before the aluminum walkway gave way and crashed into the river. The bridge split in the middle with its walkway hanging down, its cables snapped. Police said at least 134 people were confirmed dead and many others were admitted to hospitals in critical condition. Emergency responders and rescuers worked overnight and throughout Monday to search for survivors. State minister Harsh Sanghvi said most of the victims were teenagers, women and older people. At least 177 survivors were pulled from the river, said Jigar Khunt, an information department official in Gujarat. It was unclear how many people were on the bridge when it collapsed and how many remained missing, but survivors said it was so densely packed that people were unable to quickly escape when its cables began to snap. “There were just too many people on the bridge. We could barely move,” Sidik Bai, 27, said while recovering from injuries in a hospital in Morbi. Sidik said he jumped into the water when the bridge began to crack and saw his friend being crushed by its metal walkway. He survived by clinging to the bridge's cables. “Everyone was crying for help, but one by one they all began disappearing in the water,” Sidik said. Local news channels ran pictures of the missing shared by concerned relatives, and family members raced to overcrowded hospitals searching for their loved ones. Gujarat is the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was visiting the state at the time of the accident. He said he was “deeply saddened by the tragedy” and his office announced compensation for families of the dead and called for speedy rescue efforts. Read more: India bridge collapse death toll rises to 141 “Rarely in my life, would I have experienced such pain," Modi said during a public event in the state on Monday. Modi was the top elected official of Gujarat for 12 years before becoming India’s prime minister in 2014. A Gujarat state government election is expected in coming months and opposition parties have demanded a thorough investigation of the accident. The bridge collapse was Asia’s third major disaster involving large crowds in a month. On Saturday, a Halloween crowd surge killed more than 150 people attending festivities in Itaewon, a neighborhood in Seoul, South Korea. On Oct. 1, police in Indonesia fired tear gas at a soccer match, causing a crush that killed 132 people as spectators tried to flee. India’s infrastructure has long been marred by safety problems, and Morbi has suffered other major disasters. In 1979, an upstream dam on the Machchu river burst, sending walls of water into the city and killing hundreds of people in one of India's biggest dam failures. In 2001, thousands of people died in an earthquake in Gujarat. Morbi, 150 kilometers (90 miles) from the quake's epicenter in Bhuj, suffered widespread damage. According to a report in the Times of India newspaper, the bridge that collapsed Sunday also was severely damaged.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates defended on Monday a decision by OPEC and its allies to cut oil production, even as an American envoy warned of “economic uncertainty” ahead for the world. While cordial, the comments at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition & Conference showed the stark divide between the United States and Gulf Arab countries it supports militarily in the wider Middle East. Saudi Arabia’s energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, hinted at that in brief remarks to the event, noting that upcoming U.N. climate change summits will be held in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. “We don’t owe it to anybody but us,” the prince said to applause. Read: Response to OPEC’s oil cuts: Biden will release 15mn barrels from US strategic reserve Emirati Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazrouei echoed that defense. While saying that OPEC and its allies are “only a phone call away if the requirements are there” to raise production, he offered no suggestion such a boost would be on its way anytime soon. “I can assure you that we in the United Arab Emirates, as well as our fellow colleagues in OPEC and OPEC+ are keen on supplying the world with the requirement it needs,” al-Mazrouei said. “But at the same time, we’re not the only producers in the world.” OPEC and a loose confederation of other countries led by Russia agreed in early October to cut its production by 2 million barrels of oil a day, beginning in November. OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia, has insisted its decision came from concerns about the global economy. Analysts in the U.S. and Europe warn a recession looms in the West from inflation and subsequent interest rate hikes, as well as food and oil supplies being affected by Russia’s war on Ukraine. “The global economy is on the knife’s edge,” insisted Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the managing director of the state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. American politicians, meanwhile, have reacted angrily to a decision likely to keep gasoline prices elevated. An average gallon of regular gasoline in the U.S. now costs $3.76 — down from a record $5 a gallon in June but still high enough to bite into consumers’ wallets. Benchmark Brent crude oil sat at $95 a barrel Monday. “I think at the end of the day, we are facing an economic uncertainty globally,” said Amos Hochstein, the U.S. envoy for energy affairs. Read: How the cuts announced by OPEC+ will affect oil prices, inflation Hochstein declined to speak to The Associated Press after the event in the UAE. President Joe Biden, who traveled to Saudi Arabia in July and fist-bumped Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman before a meeting, recently warned the kingdom that “there’s going to be some consequences for what they’ve done.” Saudi Arabia lashed back, publicly claiming the Biden administration sought a one-month delay in the OPEC cuts that could helped reduce the risk of a spike in gas prices ahead of the U.S. midterm elections Nov. 8. The back-and-forth between Riyadh and Washington shows how tense relations remain between the two countries since the 2018 gruesome killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi security forces. American intelligence agencies believe the slaying came at Prince Mohammed’s order.

When the coronavirus was first detected in Wuhan in late 2019, reporter Liao Jun of China’s official Xinhua News Agency told conflicting stories to two very different audiences. Liao’s news dispatches assured readers the disease didn’t spread from person to person. But in a separate confidential report to senior officials, Liao struck a different tone, alerting Beijing that a mysterious, dangerous disease had surfaced. Her reports to officials were part of a powerful internal reporting system long used by the ruling Communist Party to learn about issues considered too sensitive for the public to know. Chinese journalists and researchers file secret bulletins to top officials, ensuring they get the information needed to govern, even when it’s censored. But this internal system is struggling to give frank assessments as Chinese leader Xi Jinping consolidates his power, making it risky for anyone to question the party line even in confidential reports, a dozen Chinese academics, businesspeople and state journalists said in interviews with The Associated Press. It’s unclear what the impact has been, given the secretive nature of high-level Chinese politics. But the risk is ill-informed decision-making with less feedback from below, on everything from China’s stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to its approach to the coronavirus. “Powerful leaders become hostages,” said Dali Yang, an expert on Chinese politics at the University of Chicago. “They actually are living in cocoons: protected, but also shielded from information that they should be open to.” The reports are classified as state secrets and include what would be considered staples of journalism in many other countries: corruption, strikes, public criticism, industrial accidents. Newspapers, think tanks and universities across China each have their own classified reporting channel, sending intelligence to local and provincial officials. But a few outlets, such as Xinhua and the state-controlled People’s Daily, supply intelligence directly to China’s rulers. Their confidential reports have toppled officials, changed policy, and launched government campaigns against poverty and waste. The Communist Party calls internal reporting a secret weapon, acting as its “eyes and ears,” while propaganda acts as its “throat and tongue.” Those who write internal reports are often thoughtful and critical, says Maria Repnikova, a Chinese media expert at Georgia State University. They can face threats or intimidation, even when backed by the state, with officials taking extreme measures to block bad news from reaching their superiors. Xi is intimately familiar with the power of this internal reporting system, said Alfred Wu, a former reporter who met Xi when he governed Fujian province. Xi cultivated ties with journalists from Xinhua and the People’s Daily, outlets with direct lines to Beijing — and the power to influence his career. “He’d always mingle and socialize with journalists,” Wu said. “Xi’s street smarts helped him so much.” After coming to power in 2012, Xi stifled dissent and launched an anti-corruption campaign that jailed rivals. The crackdown has made reporters more cautious about what they write in internal memos. A Xinhua journalist famed for internal reports that helped take down a senior executive at a state company is now unable to publish, according to a close associate, because the risks are too big. The internal reports system was also vulnerable to corruption. Officials and businesspeople manipulated it to lobby for their interests. In one incident, Shanxi province officials gave cash and gold ingots to reporters to cover up a mine accident that killed 38 people. Xi’s crackdown has reined in corruption, but also sidelined many of Xi’s competitors and paralyzed low-level officials reluctant to act without clear permission from the top. The government’s tightening grip on the internet under Xi is also warping the internal reports. Decades ago, there were few ways for officials to know what ordinary people thought, making the reports a valuable channel of insight. But the internet “handed everyone their own microphone,” the People’s Daily wrote, resulting in an explosion of information that internal reports struggled to analyze. The internet also posed a threat: Critics bonded online, organizing to challenge the state. Xi tackled both issues. Under him, China beefed up big data analysis to harness the vast tide of information. He also launched a campaign against “online rumors” and put millions of censors to work. One of the first to be detained was an investigative journalist accusing an official of corruption. So while internal reports now draw heavily on online information, the internet itself has become strictly censored, which can distort the message sent to the top. Electronic surveillance has also become pervasive under Xi, making it tougher for sensitive information to be shared, one current and one former state media journalist said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to foreign media. As a result, people withhold critical information — sometimes, with catastrophic consequences. In the early days of the virus outbreak in Wuhan, Xinhua’s Liao reported the arrest of eight “rumormongers” for spreading “false information.” In fact, they were doctors warning each other about the emerging virus in online chats. Her story discouraged others from speaking up, leaving the central leadership blind to the virus’ spread. The information department of the State Council, China’s Cabinet, declined to comment. Xinhua did not immediately respond to an AP request for comment. The virus story illustrates a paradox of the internal reports: The tighter controls are, the more valuable the reports become. But tighter controls also make it harder to find reliable information. Interviews with Chinese academics suggest when it comes to decisions made by the top, there’s now little room for discussion or course correction. Beijing’s public stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is clear: Under Xi’s “no limits” partnership with Russia, officials voice sympathy with Moscow’s grievances with the West, portraying the U.S. as a hypocritical bully and NATO as the aggressor. But in private conversation, many Chinese foreign policy experts express views that diverge from the party line — a diversity of opinions that isn't being conveyed to China’s leaders, they say. Many experts worry China has alienated Europe by standing with Russia. A landmark investment deal with the European Union looks all but dead, and Europe is increasingly aligning its China policy with the latter’s biggest rival, the United States. One scholar took a calculated risk to get his views heard. Government adviser Hu Wei published an online essay in March criticizing the war and arguing Beijing should side with Europe. Hu wrote publicly because he worried his bosses wouldn’t approve an internal report, according to Zhao Tong, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Even if the piece was censored, he reasoned, it might get the attention of senior officials. More than 100,000 people viewed Hu’s essay online. Within hours, it was blocked.