Germany and other G7 countries are developing ways to support Ukraine through loans financed with the proceeds of frozen Russian assets. The German Finance Ministry announced the effort on Tuesday. Latvia, once a sanctuary for Russian money, is a strong backer of the plan, as VOA’s Myroslava Gongadza reports from Riga. Videographer: Daniil Batushchak
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Month: August 2024
Iran shuts down German language institute
Erdogan facing growing scrutiny over Israel embargo
Turkey’s embargo on trade with Israel faces growing scrutiny amid opposition claims it’s being increasingly circumvented. The accusations come as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seeks to play a leading role in opposing Israel’s war on Hamas. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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In Bangladesh, religious minorities targeted during political unrest
Dhaka, Bangladesh — Since student-led opposition protests led Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to step down and flee Bangladesh on August 5, religious minorities say their communities have suffered violent attacks in the power vacuum.
Bangladesh is around 90% Muslim, with Christians and Buddhists making up most of the rest of the population. According to Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council head Oikya Parishad, four people who belonged to the minority community were killed between August 5 and 8, following the deposition of Sheikh Hasina’s government.
Parishad’s group estimates there have been more than 200 incidents where temples, religious crematoriums and other places of worship have also been vandalized and attacked by mobs.
The Bangladesh interim government insists reports of violence against minorities are exaggerated and often fake. The interim government also says whatever violence is happening is political, not sectarian.
Widespread violence largely subsided following the swearing-in of the interim government on August 8, minorities say the fear of persecution still looms over them during this time of political unrest.
The motive of other attacks can be more difficult to discern. According to local media reports, on August 5 the house of a famous musician Rahul Anand in the capital Dhaka was attacked and vandalized. The assailants threw the family out, ransacked their home and set it on fire along with a large number of musical instruments that Rahul had made and collected.
However Rahul, his wife and his wife’s business partner later posted on Facebook that the attack on Rahul’s house was not motivated by religious or communal reasons.
For many, including Shravasti Bandopadhyay, a student of Mass communication and Journalism in Dhaka University, it has been difficult to tell who is out to hurt or help them.
In a Facebook post shared by her teacher Kaberi Gayen at Dhaka University, Bandopadhyay wrote that she has had to abandon her home, staying with neighbors and sleeping in different places.
“I can’t make up my mind about what to think about my fellow countrymen as one the one hand, I’m dying in fear of death, because some of them had come to my house and threatened me , on the other hand there are others who took me to a safe place and still protecting me.”
Finding justice for victims
Muhammad Yunus, the chief adviser of the interim government, last week met with minority community representatives and said the government is focused on providing justice for all people, regardless of their faith, in remarks published by the Bangladesh news agency.
“If there is justice, who will not get justice, tell me? Who of any religion, any caste, any community won’t get it? Does the law say that these communities will go to this court, those communities will go to another court? Who has the power to discriminate here?” he said.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has raised concerns over the reported attacks on minorities and said via a post on X last week that he had spoken to Yunus, who pledged “protection, safety and security” of minorities in the country.
The Indian government has set up a committee to monitor the India-Bangladesh border situation, reported Indian news media, NDTV. The committee will liaise with the authorities of Bangladesh regarding the security of the Indians staying there and the security of the minorities in Bangladesh.
Human rights activist Noor Khan Lytton told VOA that while it’s clear minorities have been under attack since the Sheikh Hasina government fell, political parties and social groups have stood up for targeted communities.
“We hope this kind of attack will not happen in the future again,” he said.
The General Secretary of the Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council Rana Dasgupta told VOA that although violence against minorities appears to have waned in recent days, there is still the matter of bringing those responsible to justice.
“In all the attacks on minorities in our country, we have seen a culture of impunity. Whether the new administration can come out of that culture of impunity remains to be seen” he said.
Dasgupta also said that people who had been displaced must also be given back the land they own.
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Burgeoning Africa gaming industry attracts major tech firms
Nairobi, Kenya — Africa’s gaming industry is set to cross $1 billion in revenue this year. Rapid growth, driven by a young population, improved internet access, and more smartphones, has attracted major tech companies like Microsoft, Sony and Disney to invest in the sector.
The video game market in Africa has shown promising growth, from $862 million in revenue in 2022 to a projected $1 billion in 2024, an 8.7% increase, according to the Newzoo games analytics company.
Ebenezer Gasonoo, also known as Nomak when playing games, has been playing online since the 1990s. He said there was a time game developers did not recognize African players, and when he tried to sign up and list his home country as Ghana he was told the game didn’t support it and he would have to find another one to play.
“The first 10 years of active video gaming in Africa was bad,” he said. “I think with the boom of online systems and the boom of Africa getting into video games, you see certain games are geared toward the world but now they include Africa, and that’s very nice to see.”
An Africa game industry report says the number of gamers in sub-Saharan Africa has grown from 77 million in 2015 to 186 million in 2021. Ninety-five percent of gamers play on their mobile phones.
According to survey company Geopoll, for the majority, gaming is seen as a primary source of entertainment, relaxation and a remedy for boredom, with 73% playing for fun and 64% for stress relief.
African game developer Daniel Macharia of Kenya has been creating video games since 2015.
Macharia developed Nairobbery, an action-adventure game in which players navigate the city and encounter challenges inspired by real-life scenarios. They also explore iconic landmarks and hidden places in an exciting narrative that weaves local folklore and urban tales.
He said the game also features running battles between police and protesters, which is a common scene in many African countries, including Kenya. The two main characters are college students, he said, and in some levels of the game they face off against police.
“There was some kind of parallel serendipity that was happening there where the game was starting to mirror real life,” Macharia said. “That was just more validation that I chose to go the right way.”
The gaming sector is attracting funding from Microsoft, Disney and Sony, raising millions of dollars to develop more games and scale game consumption across the continent.
Jay Shapiro, chairman of the Pan African Gaming Group, said Africa attracts investments with its untapped storytelling potential.
“Africa has a heritage of thousands of years of stories and legends that have never been heard in a lot of the world,” he said. “So this new interest is giving voice to a lot of creators across the continent to share those stories. And I think that’s really powerful. And creating games where Africans can see themselves reflected in the game, which historically has never happened in the industry.”
Eyram Tawia, a Ghanaian game developer, said video games can help preserve African traditions.
“Video games also offer a medium to preserve culture for the long term that can be packaged and distributed globally with just one click across app stores if we keep producing local content,” Tawia said. “This is going to create a lot of revenue for the African continent.”
Recent investments, game camps and conferences in some African countries are helping to reduce the financial challenges faced by video game developers. The events support game development and education, making it easier for developers to create games and learn new skills.
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Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF party says police will now release activists
Harare, Zimbabwe — Human rights organizations reacted angrily Tuesday after Zimbabwe’s ruling party acknowledged that more than 100 activists were detained to keep them from protesting during a Southern Africa Development Community summit held over the past weekend.
Authorities said they will start to release those who were detained now that the meeting is over.
Speaking with journalists in Harare, ruling ZANU-PF spokesperson Christopher Mutsvangwa defended detaining the activists.
“Those are deviants, and they were dealt with properly. And we are very happy they failed. And they will never succeed again,” Mutsvangwa said as he giggled at several points during his comments.
Roselyn Hanzi, director of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, which is representing the activists, said that their detention is no laughing matter.
“Every person in Zimbabwe should be worried where the ruling party openly admits that it fully controls one of the key arms of government that is supposed to provide checks and balances and in fact protect the citizens from the excesses of the other two arms: the legislature and the executive,” she told VOA.
“The judiciary is very key and plays a central role in protecting citizens and ensuring that their rights are realized,” she said. “In this case, you see them admitting that there [are] those people that wanted to protest. … Protest[ing] is not criminal, and it’s not a privilege. You should not be negotiating or begging for it.”
Zimbabwe’s Judicial Service Commission did not comment Tuesday when contacted by VOA.
Mary Lawlor, a U.N. special rapporteur on human rights, called for the immediate release of the activists, alleging that some had been tortured during their detainment by Zimbabwean authorities. State prosecutors and the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission said they are investigating the allegations.
“The disrespect shown by the ZANU-PF spokesperson who laughed and joked about such a serious matter at his press conference is telling,” Lawlor said. “The president, [Emmerson] Mnangagwa, has shown how little he believes in the rule of law and how little in SADC’s commitment to human rights as chairman. He wants to pretend that everything in Zimbabwe is rosy and fine. But it is not fine. These charges were a travesty.”
Since taking over in 2017, Mnangagwa has maintained that he is a constitutionalist and respects the rule of law.
But rights lawyer and legislator Daniel Molokele said the law is being selectively applied against democracy activists. Molokele is a member of the country’s main opposition party — the Citizens Coalition for Change — whose members were arrested ahead of the SADC meeting.
“I think what the ZANU-PF spokesperson said clearly confirms what we have always said is happening in Zimbabwe,” Molokele said. “There is too much political interference in the judicial system. There is no rule of law in Zimbabwe. We do not have a proper judicial system because it’s clear that ZANU-PF is abusing our court system for its political benefit.”
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said it hopes the detained activists will be released soon, now that the SADC summit is over. The group said it will decide what steps to take next after hearing from the activists.
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Russia’s top court extends detention for Navalny’s lawyers, pending trial on extremism charges
MOSCOW — Russia’s Supreme Court on Tuesday extended the pre-trial detention of three lawyers who once represented Russia’s slain opposition leader, Alexey Navalny, and are now facing charges of extremism. It also refused to transfer their case to a different court, even as the defense alleged a conflict of interest.
Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin, and Alexei Liptser were arrested in October in a case widely seen at the time as a means to ramp up pressure on the Kremlin’s fiercest foe.
According to Navalny’s allies, authorities accused the lawyers of using their status as defense attorneys to pass letters from the imprisoned politician to his team, thus serving as intermediaries between Navalny and what they called his “extremist group.”
Navalny’s organizations in Russia — the Foundation for Fighting Corruption and a vast network of regional offices — were outlawed and labeled as extremist groups in 2021, a step that exposed anyone involved with them to prosecution.
Lawyers for the three attorneys had petitioned the Supreme Court to transfer their case away from a court in Russia’s western Vladimir region, claiming it may not be objective or impartial.
The defense argued the bulk of the prosecution’s evidence was gathered in a law enforcement raid they consider illegal, and that had been ordered by a superior court in the same region — something they said constituted a conflict of interest. It also charged that courts in Vladimir had pressured Navalny’s lawyers to disclose confidential communications with him before the politician’s February death in a remote Arctic prison.
Navalny himself had been serving prison terms totaling more than 30 years, including on extremism charges tied to his anti-corruption activism. He and his allies had rejected all charges against him as politically motivated, and accused the Kremlin of seeking to jail him for life.
Russian authorities in February also put two more of Navalny’s lawyers on a wanted list. One of them, Olga Mikhailova, who had defended the politician for a decade, said she had been previously charged in absentia with extremism after fleeing the country. The other, Alexander Fedulov, also said last year that he was no longer in Russia.
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King Charles visits UK town where child stabbings sparked riots
Southport, United Kingdom — King Charles III on Tuesday visited the town in northwest England where a devastating knife attack that killed three young girls sparked nationwide anti-immigration riots.
The 75-year-old monarch inspected a vast sea of floral tributes to the victims and will meet children who survived the attack in the seaside town of Southport.
Buckingham Palace said he wanted to thank “frontline emergency staff for their ongoing work serving local people.”
Charles was criticized by some, including historian Kate Williams, for not issuing a public statement on the riots. Although the monarch conveyed his condolences to the families of the three girls killed, he did not comment on the unrest until nearly two weeks later. Traditionally, the monarch does not comment on anything that could cause political controversy.
But in calls with Prime Minister Keir Starmer and police chiefs, the king later said he had been “greatly encouraged” by the reaction “that countered the aggression and criminality from a few with the compassion and resilience of the many.”
Footage showed the king waving to people as he walked through the town center.
He was later set to meet regional leaders, representatives from the emergency services and others. They will include local groups and faith leaders affected by the violent disorder that hit Southport the day after the July 29 mass stabbing.
Charles was also due to meet privately with some of those caught up in the knife attack, which claimed the lives of three girls, ages 6, 7 and 9, and injured 10 others, eight of them also children.
The meeting was to include some of the surviving children who were present at the community center, as well as their families.
The children were attending a dance class when an assailant entered the building and began attacking them.
Axel Rudakubana, who was 17 at the time, has been charged with murder and attempted murder over the stabbing spree. A motive for the atrocity has not been disclosed, but police have said it is not being treated as terrorism related.
More than a dozen English towns and cities saw unrest and riots in the week that followed the events in Southport.
Officials have blamed far-right elements for helping to stir up the disorder, which targeted mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers as well as police officers and other properties.
The authorities have cited misinformation spread online that Rudakubana was a Muslim asylum seeker for fueling the violence. He was actually born in Britain to parents who hail from Rwanda, an overwhelmingly Christian country.
In the immediate aftermath of the July 29 tragedy, Charles and Queen Camilla conveyed their condolences to the families of the three girls killed but did not comment on the near-daily riots for some time.
The king eventually praised British police and emergency services “for all they are doing to restore peace in those areas that have been affected by violent disorder.”
He hoped the “shared values of mutual respect and understanding will continue to strengthen and unite the nation,” a Buckingham Palace spokesperson had said.
The riots have led to more than a thousand arrests and hundreds of convictions, after Prime Minister Starmer vowed those who participated would be quickly called to account.
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In Uganda’s chaotic capital, motorcycle taxis are a source of life and death
KAMPALA, Uganda — The young men perched on motorcycles looked dazed in the morning heat. But at the sight of a potential passenger, they furiously kick-started their machines and tried to outrace each other for the business.
For tens of thousands of men in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, this is how to make a living. For others, the speeding motorcycles embody the city’s chaos as an essential but menacing means of transport.
The motorcycle taxis, known locally as boda-bodas, are ubiquitous in East African capitals like Nairobi and Kigali. But nowhere in the region have boda-boda numbers been surging more dramatically than in Kampala, a city of 3 million people, no mass transit system and rampant unemployment.
An estimated 350,000 boda-bodas operate in Kampala, driven by men who come from all parts of Uganda and say there are no other jobs for them.
“We just do this one because we have nothing to do,” said one driver, Zubairi Idi Nyakuni. “All of us here, other people even, they have their degrees, they have their master’s (degrees), but they are just here. They have nothing to do.”
The boda-boda men, who operate mostly unregulated, have resisted recent attempts to dislodge them from the narrow streets of Kampala’s central business district, frustrating city authorities and underscoring the government’s fears over the consequences of angering a horde of jobless men.
“We must appreciate where the boda-boda comes from, how this whole phenomenon grew,” said Charles M. Mpagi, spokesman for Tugende, a Kampala-based company that specializes in financing boda-boda purchases. “You have quite a large number of people that are young, who can’t find jobs to do, whether in the public sector or the private sector, and they do not have significant alternative income to get into other enterprises.”
About 76% of Uganda’s 43 million people are under 35, according to government figures. Jobs are scarce in an economy where just 1% of 22.8 million employees make $270 or more in monthly pay, according to central bank figures released earlier this year.
Uganda’s unemployment rate — as a proportion of unemployed people to the total labor force — grew from 9% in 2019 to 12% in 2021, according to the most recent survey by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics. The unemployment rate for people between 18 and 30 was even higher, at 17%. For young people in urban areas, it was 19%.
President Yoweri Museveni, an authoritarian who has held power since 1986, has long embraced boda-boda men as mobilizers of political support. Political rallies come alive with the hooting from their motorcycles, whose commotion can bring communities to a standstill.
Motorcycles as a means of transport first emerged on the Uganda-Kenya border during political instability in the 1970s, with the term “boda-boda” traced to drivers who shouted “border, border” at potential customers.
At the time, they were also a quick way to transport smugglers and their merchandise.
Now they are everywhere in Uganda, taking children to school, people to offices, the sick to clinics and even the dead to their graves.
When Uganda’s transport minister was wounded by gunmen who killed his daughter in 2021, a boda-boda man rushed him to the hospital. But the attackers also drove motorcycles and fled.
Annual police reports cite motorcycle taxis in abetting violent crime, and the number of fatal accidents related to motorcycles across Uganda grew from 621 in 2014 to 1,404 in 2021, according to the Ministry of Works and Transport.
“We’ve been struggling with these motorcycles,” said Winstone Katushabe, a government commissioner in charge of transport regulation. “It is not a good situation.”
A culture of non-compliance with traffic and road safety rules has proliferated among boda-boda men, he said, adding that establishing official motorcycle taxi stands in Kampala would help bring order.
Road safety regulations for motorcycles, first approved in 2004, are difficult to enforce because of the overwhelming number of boda-bodas. Traffic police look on as boda-boda men zip through traffic lights and overtake dangerously. They are often unable to make arrests because of the risk to public order as drivers quickly stand up for one another, causing a crowd.
The boda-boda phenomenon has grown as Uganda’s president has stayed in power. In recent years, trying to weaken support among unemployed people for his opponents, Museveni has gifted boda-bodas to supporters and pledged to reduce the three-year licensing fee from nearly $100.
The fee will drop to about $35 under new rules announced earlier this month, according to the Transport Licensing Board. That would make it even easier to become a boda-boda man.
The other entry price is about $1,500 for a new motorcycle, often the Indian-made Bajaj.
Many boda-boda men acquire equipment on credit through companies such as Tugende. Others work for businesspeople who buy motorcycles in bulk and distribute them among drivers but can repossess them if drivers fall behind on payments.
Boda-boda men who lack driving licenses and crash helmets risk having their motorcycles impounded by police. Some drivers told the AP their aggressive behavior on the roads is driven by that fear of arrest or seizure.
Innocent Awita, a boda-boda man who dropped out of school in 2008, said there was “too much pressure” to keep his motorcycle. He’s required to pay his employer the equivalent of $4 a day in addition to fueling and maintaining it. A falling out with his employer could render him jobless.
Some days are better than others, but Awita said he sometimes goes without enough earnings to make the daily payment.
“I can work for three days without getting anything. But if I get something the next day, that can save my life,” he said.
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Kenyan held over discovery of dismembered bodies escapes
Nairobi — A suspect who police said confessed to killing 42 women and was being detained over the discovery of dismembered bodies in Kenya’s capital has escaped from police custody, officials said Tuesday.
Mohamed Amin, the head of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, said Collins Jumaisi Khalusha escaped along with 12 other inmates of Eritrean nationality who had been arrested for being in the country illegally.
Acting police inspector general Gilbert Masengeli said disciplinary measures have been taken against eight officers, including the area and station commanders and officers who were on duty.
“Our preliminary investigations indicate that the escape was aided by insiders considering that officers were deployed accordingly to guard the station,” he said.
A police report said the inmates escaped early Tuesday morning after they cut through wire mesh in the cell and scaled the perimeter wall. The escape was discovered as breakfast was being taken into the cell.
Khalusha, 33, was being detained at the police station after a court allowed detectives seven more days to investigate his alleged crimes before charging him.
Khalusha was arrested in July after 10 bodies and several body parts were found wrapped in plastic sacks in the Kware area of Nairobi.
Police said Khalusha confessed to killing 42 women, including his wife.
“This was a high-value suspect who was to face serious charges. We are investigating the incident and will take action accordingly,” Amin said.
Khalusha’s lawyer, John Maina Ndegwa, told journalists his client was tortured and forced to confess and maintained he was not guilty.
Ndegwa told the AP that he last spoke to Khalusha on Friday when he was presented in court.
“I’m also confounded by the news,” he said.
The police station from which the suspects escaped was cordoned off with crime scene tape and senior police officers visited it on Tuesday afternoon.
Two other suspects who were arrested after being found with cellphones belonging to some of the deceased women are to return to court next Monday.
Police in July said the bodies were discovered after relatives of one missing woman said they had a dream in which she told them to search in a quarry.
The relatives asked a local diver to help and he discovered the bodies wrapped in sacks. Six bodies were identified after DNA tests, but several body parts remain unidentified.
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LGBTQ+ couples, activists rally in Nepal’s capital during Pride parade
KATHMANDU, Nepal — Hundreds of LGBTQ+ people and their supporters rallied in Nepal’s capital Tuesday during the annual Pride parade, the first since gay couples were able to register same-sex marriages officially in the Himalayan nation.
The event brought together the sexual minority community and its supporters in Kathmandu during the Gai Jatra festival. A government minister, diplomats and officials participated in the rally, which began at the city’s tourist hub and went around its main streets.
“Gai Jatra festival is a festival that is a long tradition that has been carried for years, and we all are here to help preserve and continue the tradition, and as a sexual minority are doing our part to save the tradition. We also celebrate the day as a Pride parade,” said Bhumika Shrestha, a gay rights activist who was at the parade.
The Gai Jatra festival is celebrated to remember family members who have passed away during the year but has long had colorful parades that brought in sexual minorities.
After years of struggle, gay couples were able to register same-sex marriages for the first time in November 2023 following a Supreme Court order. Rights activists had long sought to amend laws and end provisions that limited marriage to heterosexual couples.
Nepal has undergone a transformation since a court decision in 2007 asked the government to make changes in favor of LGBTQ+ people. People who do not identify as female or male are now able to choose “third gender” on their passports and other government documents. The 2015 constitution also states that there can be no discrimination based on sexual orientation.
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Taliban’s ‘reforms’ lead to 21,000 musical instruments destroyed in Afghanistan
Islamabad — Taliban morality police in Afghanistan said Tuesday that they had “seized and destroyed” more than 21,000 musical instruments over the past year as part of a crackdown on what they called anti-Islam practices.
Officials of the so-called Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice discussed their “annual performance” at a news conference in Kabul a day after Taliban authorities publicly staged a mass burning of hundreds of musical instruments in the nearby northern Parwan province.
The provincial moral police department also urged residents not to use musical instruments at weddings and other celebrations.
Speaking in the Afghan capital Tuesday, ministry officials claimed to have destroyed thousands of “immoral films” and blocked many more “from use on personal computers” nationwide “as part of societal reforms” being undertaken by the Taliban administration. They did not elaborate on the nature of the films.
The ministry said without discussing specifics that it had “successfully implemented 90% of reforms across audio, visual, and print media” in Afghanistan.
Free media advocacy groups and local journalists say that Taliban leaders have significantly curtailed press freedom and access to information in the country.
The Islamist Taliban revived the Ministry of Vice and Virtue to police public morality after retaking control of the war-shattered, impoverished South Asian nation three years ago when all U.S.-led Western troops withdrew from Afghanistan after their involvement in the war for almost two decades.
The Taliban ministry has introduced strict guidelines for local media professionals, binding female presenters and guests to comply with an “Islamic” dress code on air requiring that only their eyes be visible.
Women are prohibited from working on national radio and television stations, and dramas featuring female performers are banned. De facto Afghan authorities have also enforced strict “gender-based segregation” in workplaces at large.
Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, the minister of vice and virtue, was quoted by state media as saying on Monday that the Taliban “are determined to implement Islamic Sharia and no one’s pressure is acceptable in this regard.”
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said last month that the Taliban’s morality police were contributing to “a climate of fear and intimidation” among the people and identified the ministry as the leading violator of human rights in the Taliban government, which is not recognized by any country.
The U.N. report noted that the activities of the de facto ministry have had “negative impacts on the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms”… in Afghanistan, with a discriminatory and disproportionate impact on women.”
The morality police department has banned women’s beauty salons, prohibited females from traveling without a male guardian beyond 78 kilometers from their home limits, and banned them from visiting parks, gyms, and public baths.
The Taliban have also banned school education for girls beyond the sixth grade, and many women are not allowed to work in public as well as private organizations, including U.N agencies.
The U.N. Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization said in its new report last week that Taliban authorities had “deliberately deprived” 1.4 million girls of schooling since returning to power, putting at risk the future of an entire generation and making Afghanistan the only country in the world to deny girls ages 12 and older access to education.
Taliban officials dismiss criticism of their governance as interference in the country’s internal matters and defend their policies, saying they are aligned with Afghan culture and Islamic law.
During the previous Taliban rule in Kabul from 1996 to 2001, the Ministry of Vice and Virtue garnered notoriety for its arbitrary abuses. Particularly, women and girls were banned entirely from education and employment at that time.
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India, Malaysia to expand ties, defense cooperation as Kuala Lumpur tries to move closer to Beijing
NEW DELHI — India and Malaysia will seek to expand economic ties and strengthen cooperation on defense and security, the leaders of the two countries said on Tuesday.
This came during Malaysian Prime Minster Anwar Ibrahim’s visit to India, his first since he took office in 2022, where he met with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi.
Recently, Anwar has sought to move closer to China, with whom New Delhi has been locked in a long-running border dispute. A key part of Modi’s foreign policy has been to deepen trade and ties with other Asian countries, including Malaysia, to push back against growing Chinese influence in the region.
Both heads of state addressed reporters after signing a slew of new agreements, including digital technologies, tourism and traditional medicine. Anwar said the two countries have enjoyed good relations for years, adding that “we realized this must be strengthened in a multitude of areas,” including construction, agriculture and military collaborations to safeguard both nations’ borders.
Modi said the two had discussed cooperation in the defense sector, and that trade and investment between the two countries should grow while they collaborate on new industries like the production of semiconductors. He also stressed how the partnership between the two countries had grown, taking on “new momentum and energy” over the years.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Malaysian prime minister received a ceremonial welcome at India’s presidential palace Rashtrapati Bhavan before paying his respects to Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi at the Rajghat memorial site in New Delhi.
Bilateral trade between the two countries is strong at $20 billion. Malaysia is India’s 16th largest trading partner, while India is among the top ten largest trading partners for Malaysia. There are around 70 Malaysian companies operating in India and more than 150 Indian ones in Malaysia, where Indians comprise about 7% of the country’s population.
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After yacht sinks off Italy, search resumes for six missing
PALERMO, Sicily — Rescue teams in Sicily on Tuesday resumed a search for six missing people, including British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his daughter, after a luxury yacht was struck by a violent storm and sank on Monday, killing at least one on board.
The British-flagged “Bayesian,” a 56-meter-long sailboat was carrying 22 people and was anchored just off the port of Porticello when it was hit by ferocious weather.
Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International and Chris Morvillo, a lawyer at Clifford Chance who represented Lynch in a U.S. trial, were among the missing.
The wives of both men were also unaccounted for, said Salvatore Cocina, head of civil protection in Sicily.
“The fear is that the bodies got trapped inside the vessel,” he told Reuters.
Prosecutors in the nearby town of Termini Imerese have opened an investigation.
Specialist divers had reached the ship on Monday at a depth of some 50 meters, but access was limited due to objects in the way, the fire brigade said.
Fifteen people had escaped before the boat went down, including Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, who owned the boat, and a 1-year-old girl.
On Monday, rescue teams recovered the body of the yacht’s onboard chef, identified as Antiguan citizen Ricardo Thomas.
Storms and heavy rainfall have swept Italy in recent days, after weeks of scorching heat lifted the temperature of the Mediterranean sea to record levels, raising the risk of extreme weather conditions, experts said.
“The sea surface temperature around Sicily was around 30 degrees Celsius, which is almost 3 degrees more than normal. This creates an enormous source of energy that contributes to these storms,” said meteorologist Luca Mercalli.
“We can’t say that this is all due to global warming but we can say that it has an amplifying effect,” he told Reuters.
The British government’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch said four inspectors had been sent to Sicily to conduct a “preliminary assessment.”
One expert at the scene of the disaster who declined to be named said an early focus of the investigation would be whether the yacht’s crew had had time to close access hatches into the vessel before the storm struck.
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Nigerian forces search for abducted medical students
Abuja, Nigeria — Police in Nigeria are searching for 20 medical students who were kidnapped by gunmen Thursday.
The students were on their way to a medical convention when their motorcade was intercepted in central Benue State.
The Benue State police command Monday told VOA it has launched an investigation into the abduction of the medical students and deployed tactical teams on a rescue mission.
But they said the teams have not reported any success.
Twenty medical students from universities of Jos and Maiduguri and a medical doctor traveling with them were taken on their way to the conference in eastern Enugu State.
Anene Sewuese Catherine, the Benue state police public relations officer, spoke to VOA via phone.
“The team has moved but we’ve not heard from them,” Catherine said. “Investigation of kidnap is classified, we don’t [share] details or until there’s success. There’s no update for now.”
The abduction sparked widespread condemnation over insecurity in Africa’s most populous nation, where authorities have struggled for several years to control violence from armed gangs locally referred to as “bandits.”
Over the weekend, the national police ordered the deployment of helicopters, drones and specialized tactical teams to aid in the search for the medical students.
The Nigerian Medical Students Association said the abductors, using the students’ phones, issued a demand of about $31,400 to release the entire group.
The association has been urging authorities to secure the release of the students unharmed.
The association’s national president, Moses Onwubuya, said students are threatening to protest if their colleagues are not released soon.
“The only response we’ve been getting is that we should just calm down, that security agencies are in the matter,” Onwubuya said. “Calls have been going out through the phone numbers of our abducted colleagues. Students are agitating, we’re only trying to see if we can abide by the security guidelines, but I can’t guarantee what will happen any moment from now.”
According to Center for Democracy and Development — West Africa, Nigeria recorded more than 4,000 abductions in 2023, accounting for 58 percent of the total cases in West Africa and the highest in five years.
Security analysts say a severe economic crisis in Nigeria is pushing more people toward crime and kidnapping for ransom.
Nigerian authorities have pledged to address economic problems along with security challenges. Meanwhile, families of victims are hoping their loved ones return to them safely.
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