Month: June 2024

Protests in Turkey are growing over Azerbaijani oil deliveries to Israel. Azerbaijani oil exports have continued to pass through a Turkish port despite Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent announcement of a trade embargo against Israel because of its offensive in Gaza. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
…

your ad here

Islamabad, Pakistan — The Taliban’s reclusive supreme leader on Monday warned Afghans against earning money or gaining worldly honor at a time when the country is in the grip of humanitarian crises and isolated on the global stage. 

Hibatullah Akhundzada gave his warning in a sermon to mark the festival of Eid al-Adha at a mosque in southern Kandahar province, weeks before a Taliban delegation goes to Doha, Qatar for U.N.-hosted talks on Afghanistan. 

This is the first round of talks the Taliban will attend since they seized power in August 2021. They weren’t invited to the conference of foreign special envoys to Afghanistan in the first round, and they snubbed the second round because they wanted to be treated as the country’s official representatives. 

No government recognizes the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan, whose aid-dependent economy was plunged into turmoil following their takeover. 

U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said the invitation to the Doha meeting at the end of June does not imply recognition of the Taliban. 

Akhundzada reminded Afghans of their duties as Muslims and made repeated calls for unity in his 23-minute sermon. 

Messages by him and another influential Taliban figure, Sirajuddin Haqqani, to mark a religious festival in April showed tensions between hardliners and more moderate elements who want to scrap harsher policies and attract more outside support. 

In Monday’s message, Akhundzada said he wanted brotherhood among Muslims and that he was unhappy about differences between citizens and Taliban officials. Public dissent over Taliban edicts is rare, and protests are swiftly and sometimes violently quashed. 

He said he would willingly accept any decision to remove him as supreme leader, as long as there was unity and agreement on his ouster. But he was unhappy about differences and disagreement between people. 

“We were created to worship Allah and not to earn money or gain worldly honor,” Akhundzada said. “Our Islamic system is God’s system and we should stand by it. We have promised God that we will bring justice and Islamic law (to Afghanistan) but we cannot do this if we are not united. The benefit of your disunity reaches the enemy; the enemy takes advantage of it.” 

The Taliban have used their interpretation of Islamic law to bar girls from education beyond the age of 11, ban women from public spaces, exclude them from many jobs, and enforce dress codes and male guardianship requirements. 

Akhundzada told Taliban officials to listen to the advice of religious scholars and entrust them with authority. He said officials shouldn’t be arrogant, boast, or deny the truth about Islamic law. 

Pakistani journalist and author Ahmed Rashid, who has written several books about Afghanistan and the Taliban, said Akhundzada’s appeals for unity were a sign of desperation because he refused to spell out the real issues facing Afghans such as unemployment, economic development, and building a consensus for social reform. 

“I would not be convinced that this was a meaningful speech if I were the Taliban,” said Rashid. 

Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute, said Akhundzada’s focus on unity may also be preemptive and meant to nip in the bud any possibility that rifts could flare up again. 

He also questioned if the audience being targeted went beyond Afghans to focus on the global Muslim community. 

“Operationally speaking, the Taliban don’t have transnational goals. But the supreme leader looks to command respect beyond Afghanistan’s borders,” said Kugelman. 
…

your ad here

GENEVA — The world’s nine nuclear-armed states together spent $91.4 billion last year, or nearly $3,000 per second, as they “continue to modernize, and in some cases expand their arsenals,” according to a report issued Monday by ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

“This money is effectively being wasted given that the nuclear-armed states agree that a nuclear war can never be won and should never be fought,” Alicia Sanders-Zakre, co-author of the report, told journalists in Geneva last week in advance of the report’s publication.

For example, she said, $91.4 billion a year “could pay for wind power for more than 12 million homes to combat climate change or cover 27 percent of the global funding gap to fight climate change, protect biodiversity and cut pollution.”

The report shows the nuclear-armed states spent $10.7 billion more on nuclear weapons in 2023 compared with 2022, with the United States accounting for 80% of that increase.

ICAN reports the United States spent $51.5 billion, “more than all the other nuclear-armed countries put together.” It says the next biggest spender was China at $11.8 billion with Russia spending the third largest amount at $8.3 billion.

The report notes that the United Kingdom’s “spending was up significantly for the second year in a row,” with a 17% increase to $8.1 billion, just behind Russia.

The combined total of the five other nuclear powers, France, India, Israel, Pakistan, and North Korea, amounted to $11.6 billion last year.

The authors of the report say companies involved in the production of nuclear weapons received new contracts worth just less than $7.9 billion in 2023. Analysis of data gathered over the past five years shows that the nuclear-armed states collectively spent $387 billion on their nuclear arsenals.

“There has been a notable upward trend in the amount of money devoted to developing these most inhumane and destructive of weapons over the past five years, which is now accelerating,” Sanders-Zakre said. “All this money is not improving global security. In fact, it is threatening people wherever they live.”

Arms control experts share these concerns and warn of the dangers of a new arms race as the nuclear powers build up their arsenals in defiance of the spirit of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology.

A report in the May issue of Foreign Affairs magazine cites Washington’s concerns about China’s rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal. According to Pentagon estimates, “Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, Beijing is on track to amass 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, up from around 200 in 2019.”

A 2023 report by the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States insists that China’s nuclear expansion should prompt U.S. policymakers to “re-evaluate the size and composition of the U.S. nuclear force.”

The commission also expressed disquiet at Russia’s increasingly aggressive behavior, “including the unprecedented growth of its nuclear forces, diversification and expansion of its theater-based nuclear systems, the invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and subsequent full-scale invasion in February 2022.”

International anxiety about an accidental or deliberate tactical nuclear attack by Russia was on display this past weekend at the G7 summit in Italy and at the peace summit for Ukraine in Switzerland.

In their final communique, the G7 leaders condemned Russia’s “blatant breach of international law” affirming that “in this context, threats by Russia of nuclear weapons use, let alone any use of nuclear weapons by Russia in the context of its war of aggression against Ukraine, would be inadmissible.”

This sentiment was mirrored in a final declaration signed by most of the 100 countries that attended the Ukrainian peace conference. Notable holdouts included India, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

Referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, ICAN Executive Director Melissa Parke warned, “This war has increased nuclear tensions between Russia and the West to their highest level since the Cold War and there is now a real threat of nuclear conflict as a result of Russia’s numerous overt and tacit nuclear threats.”

ICAN’s report, which profiles 20 countries involved in the production, maintenance and development of nuclear weapons, notes that “Altogether there is $335 billion in outstanding contracts related to nuclear weapons work.”

While the report shows significant growth in nuclear spending over the last five years, Susi Snyder, ICAN’s program coordinator and report co-author, observes “there also has been growth in global resistance to these weapons of mass destruction.”

“The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has signatures from nearly 100 countries. One-hundred-eleven investors representing about $5 trillion in assets stated their support for the treaty,” she said.

“They demanded that more efforts be made to exclude the nuclear weapons industry from their business until these countries stop doing things prohibited by the treaty,” she said, noting the treaty is “a clear pathway forward.”

“It is a way to reduce tensions, to condemn threats, and to stop this new nuclear arms race that we have illustrated here before it surges any further out of control,” she said.
…

your ad here

WASHINGTON/PRAGUE — An Indian man suspected by the U.S. of involvement in an unsuccessful plot to kill a Sikh separatist on American soil has been extradited to the United States from the Czech Republic, the Czech justice minister said on Monday.

Nikhil Gupta has been accused by U.S. federal prosecutors of plotting with an Indian government official to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a U.S. resident who advocated for a sovereign Sikh state in northern India.

Gupta traveled to Prague from India last June and was arrested by Czech authorities. Last month, a Czech court rejected his petition to avoid being sent to the U.S., clearing the way for the Czech justice minister to extradite him.

“On the basis of my decision on (June 3), the Indian citizen Nikhil Gupta, who is suspected of conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire with intent to cause death, was extradited to the U.S. on Friday (June 14) for criminal prosecution,” Czech Justice Minister Pavel Blazek said on social media platform X.

The comments confirmed an earlier Reuters story reporting on the extradition that cited the federal Bureau of Prisons website and a source familiar with the matter.

An inmate search by name on the Bureau of Prisons website showed on Sunday that Gupta, 52, was being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn, a federal administrative detention facility.

A U.S. Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment. Gupta’s U.S.-based lawyer, attorney Jeffrey Chabrowe, had no immediate comment.

The discovery of alleged assassination plots against Sikh separatists in the U.S. and Canada has tested relations with India, seen by Western nations as a counter to China’s rising global influence. India’s government denies involvement in such plots.

Canada said in September its intelligence agencies were pursuing allegations linking India’s government to the murder of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June 2023 in Canada.

In November, U.S. authorities said an Indian government official had directed the plot in the attempted murder of Pannun, who is a U.S. and Canadian citizen. Gupta is accused of involvement in that plot.

Pannun told Reuters on Sunday that while the extradition was a welcome step, “Nikhil Gupta is just a foot soldier.”

India’s government has dissociated itself from the plot against Pannun, saying it was against government policy. It has said it would formally investigate security concerns raised by Washington.
…

your ad here