Asia
Sri Lanka's ousted president expected to return home
Ousted Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is expected to return home more than seven weeks after he fled the country amid mass protests that demanded his resignation, holding him and his family responsible for the country's economic crisis.
Rajapaksa currently does not face any current arrest warrants. A corruption case against him in his former role as secretary to the Defense Ministry was withdrawn when he was elected president in 2019 because of constitutional immunity. Some other investigations were also suspended.
Officials familiar with arrangements for his arrival said Rajapaksa was expected to return from Thailand later Friday, while local media reported it would be Saturday. It was not possible to independently verify the timing. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Read: IMF agrees to provide crisis-hit Sri Lanka $2.9 billion
Rajapaksa fled from the president’s official residence on July 9 when tens of thousands of people stormed the building and occupied it, along with several other key state buildings.
On July 13, he fled to the Maldives on a military jet and a day later flew to Singapore, from where he announced his resignation. Two weeks later he arrived in Thailand on a diplomatic visa following a Sri Lankan government request.
Rajapaksa was elected president in 2019 by an overwhelming majority on a promise to uplift the country’s economy and strengthen national security, after Islamic State-inspired bomb attacks on churches and hotels killed 270 people on Easter Sunday that year.
However, policy blunders including drastic tax cuts which reduced national income and pushed down credit ratings, a ban on agrochemicals ostensibly to promote organic farming, and the release of scarce foreign currency to artificially control exchange rates led to the worst economic crisis in the country's history.
Sri Lanka has suspended repayment of its foreign debts, which total more than $51 billion, of which $28 billion must be repaid by 2027.
Read: Sri Lanka hopes to reach initial agreement with IMF for help
The International Monetary Fund announced Thursday a preliminary agreement to extend $2.9 billion to Sri Lanka over four years, provided there are assurances from the country's creditors on loan restructuring.
Months of street protest have dismantled the one-powerful Rajapaksa political family.
Before Rajapaksa resigned, his older brother stepped down as prime minister and three more close family members quit their Cabinet positions.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who succeeded Rajapaksa, has cracked down on protests, helping the Rajapaksa family and its supporters who were in hiding to return to public politics.
Nuzly Hameem, who helped lead the protest movement, said the former president’s return shouldn’t be an issue “as long as he is held accountable.”
“He is a Sri Lankan citizen so no one can prevent him from coming back. But as someone who wants justice for the corrupt system, I would like to see action taken — there should be justice, they should file cases against him and hold him accountable for what he did to the country.”
“We didn’t expect him to flee, we wanted him to resign. As long as he doesn’t involve himself in active politics, it won’t be a problem," Hameem said.
Afghan mosque blast kills 18, including pro-Taliban cleric
An explosion tore through a crowded mosque in western Afghanistan on Friday, killing at least 18 people. including a prominent cleric close to the Taliban, Taliban officials and a local medic said. At least 21 people were hurt.
The explosion in the city of Herat left the courtyard of the Guzargah Mosque littered with bodies, the ground stained with blood, video from the scene showed. Men shouted, “God is great,” in shock and horror.
Read:One year on, Afghans at risk await evacuation, relocation
The bomb went off during Friday noon prayers, when mosques are full of worshippers.
Among the dead was Mujib-ul Rahman Ansari, a prominent cleric who was known across Afghanistan for his criticism of the country’s Western-backed governments over the past two decades. Ansari was seen as close to the Taliban, who seized control over Afghanistan a year ago as foreign forces withdrew.
His death was confirmed by the chief Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid. Just before the bombing, Ansari had been meeting in another part of the city with the Taliban government’s deputy prime minister, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was on a visit to Herat. He had rushed from the meeting to the mosque to get to the noon prayers, an aide to Baradar said in a tweet mourning the cleric.
Ambulances transported 18 bodies and 21 people wounded from the blast to hospitals in Herat, said Mohammad Daud Mohammadi, an official at the Herat ambulance center,
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Friday’s blast.
Read: Taliban: 2 civilians killed in a bomb blast in Afghanistan
Last month, a bombing at a mosque in the capital Kabul targeted and killed a pro-Taliban cleric in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group. IS has waged a bloody campaign of attacks on Taliban targets and minority groups, particularly Shiites whom the extremist Sunni IS considers heretics. It has frequently hit mosques with suicide attacks during Friday prayers.
Herat’s Guzargah Mosque, where Ansari has long been the preacher, draws followers of Sunni Islam, the dominant stream in Afghanistan that is also followed by the Taliban.
Ansari was for years a thorn in the side of Afghanistan’s pro-Western government. In his sermons at the Guzargah, he urged his many supporters to carry out protests against the governments and preached against women’s rights.
Myanmar court sentences Suu Kyi to 3 years for voting fraud
A court in Myanmar on Friday sentenced the country’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi to three years' imprisonment after finding her guilty of involvement in election fraud.
The ruling adds more jail time to the 17 years she is already serving for other offenses. It also imperils the survival of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party following the government’s explicit threats to dissolve it before a new election the military has promised will take place in 2023
Also read: Myanmar’s Suu Kyi testifies in election fraud trial
Suu Kyi’s party won the the 2020 general election in a landslide victory. The military seized power from Suu Kyi’s elected government on Feb. 1, 2021, saying it acted because of alleged widespread voter fraud. Independent election observers did not find any major irregularities.
Two senior members of Suu Kyi's former government were co-defendants in the case and also received three-year prison sentences.
Also read: Myanmar says Suu Kyi held alone in new prison quarters
India commissions its first home-made aircraft carrier
India on Friday scripted history by becoming the first country in South Asia to induct into its Navy a domestically built aircraft carrier.
The 45,000-tonne Indian Naval Ship (INS) Vikrant, capable of accommodating 30 military aircraft, was commissioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a grand ceremony in the southern port city of Kochi.
With the formal commissioning, India has joined an elite group of nations -- the US, the UK, Russia, China and France -- that can design and build such large aircraft carriers.
Also read: Hasina's India visit to open new windows of cooperation: MoFA
"INS Vikrant is the reflection of our Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant) mission," Modi said at the event.
"Today, India has entered the list of countries that can build such large warships indigenously. Vikrant has infused new confidence," he added.
INS Vikrant has been christened after her illustrious predecessor, India’s first Aircraft Carrier that played a stellar role in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.
The warship has been built at a cost of 2.5 billion US dollars over the past 13 years.
Also read: Coast Guard detains 31 Indian fishermen
Modi also unveiled the new naval ensign that has India's national flag on the upper canton. "In adopting the new naval ensign, India has removed a burden of slavery off its chest," he said.
The Indian Navy's maritime fleet now has two aircraft carriers, 10 destroyers, 12 frigates and 20 corvettes.
China rejects UN report on Uyghur rights abuses in Xinjiang
China has denounced a long-delayed U.N. report that was released over its protest and that says the government's arbitrary detention of Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups in the western region of Xinjiang may constitute crimes against humanity.
Human rights groups and the Japanese government welcomed the report, which had become caught up in a tug-of-war between China and others, who were critical of the delay and lobbying for its release.
The assessment released late Wednesday by the U.N. human rights office in Geneva concluded that China has committed serious human rights violations under its anti-terrorism and anti-extremism policies and calls for “urgent attention” from the U.N., the world community and China itself to address them.
The report largely corroborates earlier reporting by researchers, advocacy groups and the news media, while carefully steering away from estimates and other findings that cannot be definitively proven. It adds the weight of the U.N. to the conclusions, though China showed no sign of backing off its blanket denials and portraying the criticism as a politicized Western smear campaign.
In a sternly worded protest that the U.N. posted with its report, China's diplomatic mission in Geneva said it firmly opposed the release of the U.N. assessment, which it said ignores human rights achievements made in Xinjiang and the damage caused by terrorism and extremism to the population.
“Based on the disinformation and lies fabricated by anti-China forces and out of presumption of guilt, the so-called ‘assessment’ distorts China’s laws, wantonly smears and slanders China, and interferes in China’s internal affairs,” the protest read in part.
Japan was one of the first foreign governments to comment on the report, which was released early Thursday morning in Asia. Its top government spokesperson urged China to improve transparency and human rights conditions in the Xinjiang region.
“Japan is highly concerned about human rights conditions in Xinjiang, and we believe that it is important that universal values such as freedom, basic human rights and rule of law are also guaranteed in China,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International called on the U.N. and governments to set up an independent investigation into the human rights abuses.
Read: A Uyghur gets death sentence, as China bans once OK’d books
“Never has it been so important for the U.N. system to stand up to Beijing, and to stand with victims,” said John Fisher, the deputy director of global advocacy for the group.
The U.N. report made no mention of genocide, which some countries, including the United States, have accused China of committing in Xinjiang.
The report was drawn in part from interviews with former detainees and others familiar with conditions at eight detention centers.
It said that descriptions of the detentions were marked by patterns of torture and other cruel and inhuman treatment and said that allegations of rape and other sexual violence appear credible.
“The extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim groups ... in (the) context of restrictions and deprivation more generally of fundamental rights ... may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity,” the report said.
The rights office said it could not confirm estimates that a million or more people were detained in the internment camps in Xinjiang, but added it was “reasonable to conclude that a pattern of large-scale arbitrary detention occurred” at least between 2017 and 2019.
Beijing has closed many of the camps, which it called vocational training and education centers, but hundreds of thousands of people continue to languish in prison, many on vague, secret charges.
The U.N. assessment said that reports of sharp increases in arrests and lengthy prison sentences in the region strongly suggested a shift toward formal incarceration instead of the use of the camps.
The report called on China to release all individuals arbitrarily detained and to clarify the whereabouts of those who have disappeared and whose families are seeking information about them.
That the report was released was in some ways as important as its contents.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said she received pressure from both sides to publish — or not publish — and resisted it all, while noting her experience with political squeeze during her two terms as president of Chile.
Her announcement in June that the report would be released by end of her 4-year term on Aug. 31 triggered a swell in back-channel campaigns — including letters from civil society, civilians and governments on both sides of the issue.
“To be perfectly honest, the politicization of these serious human rights issues by some states did not help,” said Bachelet, who early on staked out a desire to cooperate with governments.
Critics had said a failure to publish the report would have been a glaring black mark on her tenure.
Agnès Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International, said, “The inexcusable delay in releasing this report casts a stain" on the record of the U.N. human rights office, “but this should not deflect from its significance.”
IMF agrees to provide crisis-hit Sri Lanka $2.9 billion
The International Monetary Fund said Thursday it has reached a staff-level agreement with Sri Lanka to provide $2.9 billion over four years to help salvage the country from its economic crisis.
An IMF team visiting Sri Lanka said in a statement that the preliminary agreement is subject to approval from the agency's management and executive board “contingent on the implementation by the authorities of prior actions, and on receiving financing assurances from Sri Lanka’s official creditors and making a good faith effort to reach a collaborative agreement with private creditors.”
Read: Sri Lanka hopes to reach initial agreement with IMF for help
Sri Lanka is facing its worst economic crisis in recent memory with acute shortages of essentials like fuel, medicines and food because of serious foreign currency shortages.
The island nation has suspended repayment of nearly $7 billion in foreign debt due for this year. The country's total foreign debt amounts to more than $51 billion of which $ 28 billion has to be repaid by 2028.
The IMF said Sri Lanka's economy is expected to contract by 8.7% and inflation has exceeded 60%.
Read: Sri Lanka leader proposes 25-year plan for crisis-hit nation
“Against this backdrop, the authorities’ program, supported by the Fund, would aim to stabilize the economy, protect the livelihoods of the Sri Lankan people, and prepare the ground for economic recovery and promoting sustainable and inclusive growth," it said.
Ex-Malaysian leader Mahathir, 97, hospitalized with COVID-19
Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, 97, was hospitalized Wednesday after testing positive for COVID-19, his office said.
“Mahathir has been admitted to the National Heart Institute for observation for a few days as advised by the medical team,” it said in a statement. It didn't provide further details on his condition.
Mahathir, who was Malaysia's prime minister for two different periods, once was the world's oldest leader. He has had two coronary bypass surgeries but remains robust and sharp witted. He was admitted several times to the same hospital earlier this year.
Mahathir later said he was hospitalized after experiencing shortness of breath due to a shortage of red blood cells. He later had a pacemaker implanted but acquired an infection during the surgery. He has said he thought he was dying at that point but somehow made a recovery.
Read: Mahathir seeks Parliament vote as new Malaysian PM sworn-in
Mahathir ruled Malaysia initially for 22 years until his retirement in 2003. Spurred by anger over government corruption, he led the opposition to a historic election victory in 2018 that ousted the governing party in the first peaceful transfer of power since Malaysia’s independence in 1957.
Mahathir became the world’s oldest leader at 92 for a second stint but that triumph lasted only 22 months as his government collapsed due to defections. Mahathir formed a new ethnic Malay party in 2020 and a Malay alliance this year to contest elections due next year.
Mahathir said in an interview with The Associated Press earlier this month that he plans to contest the polls “If I am strong enough, if I am healthy enough, if they want me to contest, I will contest.”
Taiwan forces fire at drones flying over island near China
Taiwan’s military fired warning shots at drones from China flying over its outposts just off the Chinese coastline, underscoring heightened tensions and the self-ruled island's resolve to respond to new provocations.
Taiwan's forces said in a statement that troops took the action on Tuesday after drones were found hovering over the Kinmen island group. Dadan, one of the islands where a drone was spotted, lies roughly 15 kilometers (9 miles) off the Chinese coast.
The statement Wednesday referred to the unmanned aerial vehicles as being of “civilian use," but gave no other details. It said the drones returned to the nearby Chinese city of Xiamen after the shots were fired. Taiwan previously fired only flares as warnings.
The incident comes amid heightened tensions after China fired missiles into the sea and sent planes and ships across the dividing line in the Taiwan Strait earlier this month. It followed angry rhetoric from Beijing over a trip to Taiwan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the highest-ranking U.S. dignitary to visit the island in 25 years.
China claims Taiwan as its own territory and its recent actions have been viewed as a rehearsal of a possible blockade or invasion. China's drills brought strong condemnation from Taiwan's chief ally, the U.S., along with fellow regional democracies such as Australia and Japan. Some of China's missiles early in August fell into nearby Japan's exclusive economic zone.
Taiwan maintains control over a range of islands in the Kinmen and Matsu groups in the Taiwan Strait, a relic of the effort by Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists to maintain a foothold on the mainland after being driven out by Mao Zedong's Communists amid civil war in 1949.
Taiwan's Defense Ministry said China's actions failed to intimidate the island's 23 million people, saying they had only hardened support for the armed forces and the status quo of de-facto independence.
Officials said anti-drone defenses were being strengthened, part of a 12.9% increase in the Defense Ministry’s annual budget next year. The government is planning to spend an additional 47.5 billion New Taiwan dollars ($1.6 billion), for a total of 415.1 billion NTD ($13.8 billion) for the year.
The U.S. is also reportedly preparing to approve a $1.1 billion defense package for Taiwan that would include anti-ship and air-to-air missiles to be used to repel potential Chinese invasion attempt.
Read: Taiwan leader tells troops to keep cool amid Chinese threats
Following the Chinese drills, the U.S. sailed two warships through the Taiwan Strait, which China has sought to designate as its sovereign waters. Foreign delegations from the U.S., Japan and European nations have continued to arrive to lend Taipei diplomatic and economic support.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey is currently visiting Taiwan to discuss production of semiconductors, the critical chips that are used in everyday electronics and have become a battleground in the technology competition between the U.S. and China.
Ducey is seeking to woo suppliers for the new $12 billion Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (TSMC) plant being built in his state.
The governor is also visiting tech powerhouse South Korea, and in a statement on his official website said his aim was to take these relationships to the next level - to strengthen them, expand them and ensure they remain mutually beneficial.”
Last week, the Indiana governor visited Taiwan on a similar mission.
Taiwanese Air Force pilots have also trained at Luke Air Force Base outside Phoenix for more than 25 years, an indication of continuing U.S. support for Taiwan's defense despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties.
Taiwan produces more than half the global supply of high-end processor chips. China's firing of missiles during its exercises disrupted shipping and air traffic, and highlighted the possibility that chip exports might be interrupted.
Reacting to Ducey's visit, China on Wednesday reaffirmed its opposition to any official contacts between the U.S. and Taiwan. That was a further reminder of the Communist Party's refusal to acknowledge the separation of powers within the U.S. government and the right of American local officials to operate independently of the administration.
“We urge the relevant parties in the U.S. to ... stop any forms of official contacts with Taiwan, and refrain from sending wrong signals to the Taiwan independence forces," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at a daily briefing.
“China will take strong measures to resolutely safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity," Zhao said.
Taiwan leader tells troops to keep cool amid Chinese threats
Taiwan's president told the self-ruled island's military units Tuesday to keep their cool in the face of daily warplane flights and warship maneuvers by rival China, saying that Taiwan will not allow Beijing to provoke a conflict.
China has kept up military pressure on Taiwan in the weeks following U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei in early August. Beijing initially retaliated with large military drills in the waters and skies near Taiwan. It fired missiles over the island, some of which landed in Japan’s economic zone, considered a serious escalation, while also sending warships and planes toward the island in large numbers.
President Tsai Ing-wen said Taiwan must remain restrained despite the daily pressure from China.
“The more provocative enemy soldiers are, the more stable we need to be. We will not allow those on the opposing banks to manufacture a conflict with an inappropriate excuse,” she said during a visit to the navy's station on Penghu, an archipelago of several dozen islands off Taiwan's western coast.
She also inspected a radar squadron, an air defense company, and a navy fleet.
At the Magong air base, she was greeted by pilots standing in front of a Taiwanese-made Indigenous Defense Force fighter jet.
“You are the pride of the Taiwanese people,” Tsai said. “When each Taiwanese person sees you in the national military uniform, everyone’s hearts are filled with respect and gratitude.”
China accuses the U.S. and Taiwanese “separatist forces” for creating instability by rejecting Beijing’s claim to sovereignty over the island.
Read: US sails warships through Taiwan Strait in 1st since Pelosi
“The Taiwan independence forces’ attempt to solicit foreign support, including that of the U.S., for independence is the source of current tensions across the Taiwan Strait,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at a daily briefing in Beijing.
Zhao also criticized the visit of Guatemalan Foreign Minister Mario Bucaro to Taiwan on Tuesday.
“The Taiwanese ... authority has been using the so-called countries with diplomatic ties for political manipulation. These are nothing but self-deceiving tricks and cannot block the historical trend that China will be fully reunified," he added.
Bucaro met with Tsai earlier Tuesday and reaffirmed his country's support of Taiwan. Guatemala is one of Taiwan's 14 remaining diplomatic allies.
“Guatemala will always support Taiwan because we have very firm belief in the principles of peace, sovereignty, and territorial integrity," he said. “The Guatemalan government strongly believes that people have the right to enjoy peace in their lives, and the right to live in peace is not negotiable.”
While China's biggest maneuvers, which had disrupted fishing, shipping and air traffic, are over, Beijing has kept up the pressure in recent weeks with daily flights by warplanes and warship navigations, often over the median line of the Taiwan Strait, a waterway that separates the island from China.
Taiwan has responded by tracking the ships and the planes, issued warnings and used its missile systems to monitor the other side's movements.
China has also sent drones flying over the Kinmen islands, which are closest to China, in the latest escalation. A video that went viral last week showed two soldiers staring up at the drone from an outpost in an outlying island in Kinmen before attempting to strike it down with a rock. This weekend, another video published online allegedly showed a Chinese drone flying around a different outlying island.
A spokesperson for Kinmen's army unit said in a statement Monday that Taiwan would take a four-step measure to deal with drones in the future, which involves warning it off, reporting the incursion, expelling the drone, and finally shooting it down if it doesn't leave.
Over 33 mln people, 72 districts of Pakistan affected by floods
Over 33 million people and 72 districts have been affected by the ongoing calamity of floods in Pakistan caused by this season's monsoon rains started in mid-June, the country's National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said.
According to a report released by the NDMA late Sunday night, the country's southern Sindh province remained the worst-hit region as 23 of its districts and over 14.5 million people have been affected by the floods.
The report added that southwest Balochistan was the second most affected province, with more than 9 million of its population and 31 districts suffered.
Read: Strong undersea quake causes panic in western Indonesia
The country suffered a 188 percent increase in rainfall throughout this season till Aug. 28, in comparison to the average rainfall over the last three decades, the report said, adding that the 30-year-average rainfall in Pakistan had been 135mm while during this monsoon it went up to 390mm.
The NDMA said that Sindh province recorded a 470 percent increase in rainfall, with 697mm this season compared to 122mm of average rainfall in the last 30 years, followed by Balochistan province which witnessed a 411 percent increase.