Asia
Saudi Arabia opens first liquor store for non-Muslim diplomats
A liquor store has opened in Saudi Arabia for the first time in over 70 years, a diplomat reported Wednesday, a further socially liberalizing step in the once-ultraconservative kingdom that is home to the holiest sites in Islam.
While restricted to non-Muslim diplomats, the store in Riyadh comes as Saudi Arabia's assertive Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman aims to make the kingdom a tourism and business destination as part of ambitious plans to slowly wean its economy away from crude oil.
Saudi Arabia says it won’t recognize Israel without a path to a Palestinian state
However, challenges remain both from the prince's international reputation after the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi as well as internally with the conservative Islamic mores that have governed its sandy expanses for decades.
The store sits next to a supermarket in Riyadh's Diplomatic Quarter, said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a socially sensitive topic in Saudi Arabia. The diplomat walked through the store Wednesday, describing it as similar to an upscale duty free shop at a major international airport.
Saudi Arabia wins the bid to host World Expo 2030 in Riyadh
The store stocks liquor, wine and only two types of beer for the time being, the diplomat said. Workers at the store asked customers for their diplomatic identifications and for them to place their mobile phones inside of pouches while inside. A mobile phone app allows purchases on an allotment system, the diplomat said.
Saudi officials did not respond to a request for comment regarding the store.
Saudi Arabia says it will maintain production cuts that have helped drive oil prices up
However, the opening of the store coincides with a story run by the English-language newspaper Arab News, owned by the state-aligned Saudi Research and Media Group, on new rules governing alcohol sales to diplomats in the kingdom.
It described the rules as meant “to curb the uncontrolled importing of these special goods and liquors within the diplomatic consignments.” The rules took effect Monday, the newspaper reported.
For years, diplomats have been able to import liquor through a specialty service into the kingdom, for consumption on diplomatic grounds.
Those without access in the past have purchased liquor from bootleggers or brewed their own inside their homes. However, the U.S. State Department warns that those arrested and convicted for consuming alcohol can face “long jail sentences, heavy fines, public floggings and deportation.”
Drinking alcohol is considered haram, or forbidden, in Islam. Saudi Arabia remains one of the few nations in the world with a ban on alcohol, alongside its neighbor Kuwait and Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.
Saudi Arabia has banned alcohol since the early 1950s. Then-King Abdulaziz, Saudi Arabia's founding monarch, stopped its sale following a 1951 incident in which one of his sons, Prince Mishari, became intoxicated and used a shotgun to kill British vice consul Cyril Ousman in Jeddah.
Following Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution and a militant attack on the Grand Mosque at Mecca, Saudi Arabia’s rulers soon further embraced Wahhabism, an ultraconservative Islamic doctrine born in the kingdom. Strict gender separation, a women's driving ban and other measures were put in place.
Under Prince Mohammed and his father, King Salman, the kingdom has opened movie theaters, allowed women to drive and hosted major music festivals. But political speech and dissent remains strictly criminalized, potentially at the penalty of death.
As Saudi Arabia prepares for a $500 billion futuristic city project called Neom, reports have circulated that alcohol could be served at a beach resort there.
Sensitivities, however, remain. After an official suggested that “alcohol was not off the table” at Neom in 2022, within days he soon no longer was working at the project.
Death toll in China landslide rises to 31 while more remain missing
Authorities raised the confirmed death toll to 31 on Tuesday in a landslide in a remote, mountainous part of China's southwestern province of Yunnan, Chinese state media reported.
The disaster struck just before 6 a.m. on Monday in the village of Liangshui in the northeastern part of Yunnan.
Authorities said earlier Tuesday that a total of 44 people were either missing or had been found dead.
Search and rescue operations resumed after being suspended earlier in the day due to another landslide alert.
More than 1,000 rescuers were working amid freezing temperatures, with the help of excavators, drones and rescue dogs, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management. Two survivors were found Monday and were recovering at a local hospital.
Two survivors rescued after landslide buried homes in freezing weather in southwest China, 11 died
State news agency Xinhua, citing a preliminary investigation by local experts, said the landslide was triggered by the collapse of a steep clifftop area, with the collapsed mass measuring around 100 meters (330 feet) wide, 60 meters (200 feet) in height, and an average of 6 meters (20 feet) in thickness. It did not elaborate on what caused the initial collapse.
Aerial photos posted by Xinhua showed the side of a heavily terraced mountain had spilled over several village homes. More than 900 villagers were relocated.
Zhenxiong county lies about 2,250 kilometers (1,400 miles) southwest of Beijing, with altitudes ranging as high as 2,400 meters (7,900 feet).
7 people dead as landslide buries house in southern Philippines
Rescuers struggled with snow, icy roads and freezing temperatures that were forecast to persist for at least the next three days.
Heavy snow has been falling in many parts of China, causing transportation chaos and endangering lives.
Last week, rescuers evacuated tourists from a remote skiing area in northwestern China where dozens of avalanches triggered by heavy snow had trapped more than 1,000 people for a week. The avalanches blocked roads, stranding both tourists and residents in a village in Altay prefecture in the Xinjiang region, close to China's border with Mongolia, Russia and Kazakhstan.
Landslides, often caused by rain or unsafe construction work, are not uncommon in China. At least 70 people were killed in landslides last year, including more than 50 at an open-pit mine in the Inner Mongolia region.
In all, natural disasters in China left 691 people dead and missing last year, causing direct economic losses of about 345 billion yuan ($48 billion, according to the National Commission for Disaster Reduction and the Ministry of Emergency Management. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Natural Resources implemented emergency response measures for geological disasters and sent a work team of experts to the site.
Also on Tuesday, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck a sparsely populated part of China's western Xinjiang region, causing extensive damage but injuring just six people in freezing cold weather, authorities said. The tremors were felt hundreds of kilometers away. The quake was the latest in a series of seismic events and natural disasters to hit the country's western regions.
Girl dies, homes damaged as heavy rain triggers landslides in Sylhet
Only last month, China's deadliest earthquake in years struck the northwest in a remote region between Gansu and Qinghai provinces. At least 149 people were killed in the magnitude 6.2 temblor that struck on Dec. 18, reducing homes to rubble and triggering heavy mudslides that inundated two villages in Qinghai province. Nearly 1,000 people were injured and more than 14,000 homes were destroyed.
7.1 magnitude earthquake rattles part of western China, injuring 6 people and collapsing 47 homes
A magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck a sparsely populated part of China’s western Xinjiang region early Tuesday, injuring six people and damaging or collapsing more than 120 homes in freezing cold weather, authorities said. The quake was the latest in a series of seismic events and natural disasters to hit the vast country's western regions.
The quake rocked Uchturpan county in Aksu prefecture shortly after 2 a.m., the China Earthquake Networks Center said. Around 200 rescuers were dispatched to the epicenter. The county is called Wushi in the Mandarin language spoken by most Chinese.
Of the six people hurt, two had serious injuries and four were minor. In addition, 47 houses collapsed, 78 houses were damaged and some agricultural structures collapsed, the government of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region posted on its official Weibo social media account.
The quake downed power lines but electricity was quickly restored, Aksu authorities reported. Mountainous Uchturpan county had around 233,000 people in 2022, according to Xinjiang authorities.
Urumqi Railroad Bureau resumed services after 7 a.m. following safety checks that confirmed no problems on the train lines. The suspension had affected 23 trains, the bureau serving the Xinjiang capital said on its official Weibo account.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake measured 7.0 magnitude and occurred in the seismically active Tian Shan mountain range. It said the area's largest quake in the past century was 7.1 magnitude and occurred in 1978 about 200 kilometers (124 miles) to the north of one early Tuesday.
Multiple aftershocks were recorded, the strongest of them at 5.3 magnitude.
The rural area is populated mostly by Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnicity that is predominantly Muslim and has been the target of a state campaign of forced assimilation and mass detention. The region is heavily militarized and state broadcaster CCTV showed paramilitary troops moving in before dawn to clear rubble and set up tents for those displaced.
Uchturpan county is recording temperatures well below freezing, with lows down to negative 18 degrees C (just below zero F) forecast by the China Meteorological Administration this week.
In Yunnan province in China's southwest, rescue workers were still searching for victims buried by a landslide Monday in the village of Liangshui. Eleven bodies have been recovered, and two survivors were rescued from among the 47 people buried in 18 homes in freezing cold and falling snow.
The tremors from Tuesday's earthquake were felt hundreds of kilometers (miles) away. Ma Shengyi, a 30-year-old pet shop owner living in Tacheng, 600 kilometers (373 miles) from the epicenter, said her dogs started barking before she felt her apartment building shudder. The quake was so strong her neighbors ran downstairs. Ma rushed to her bathroom and started to cry.
“There’s no point in running away if it’s a big earthquake," Ma said. “I was scared to death."
Chandeliers swung, buildings were evacuated and a media office building near the epicenter shook for a full minute, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. A video posted by a Chinese internet user on Weibo showed residents standing outside on the streets bundled in winter jackets, and a photo posted by CCTV showed a cracked wall with chunks fallen off.
Tremors were felt across the Xinjiang region and in the neighboring countries Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. In the Kazakh capital of Almaty, people left their homes, the Russian news agency Tass reported. In both Xinjiang and Kazakhstan, classes were suspended to allow children to recover from the shock.
Videos posted on the Telegram messaging platform showed people in Almaty running down the stairs of apartment blocks and standing outside in the street after they felt strong tremors. Some people appeared to have left their homes quickly and were pictured standing outside in freezing temperatures in shorts.
Earthquakes are common in western China, including in Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, as well as the Xinjiang region and Tibet.
A 6.2 magnitude earthquake that struck Gansu in December killed 151 people and was China's deadliest quake in nine years. An earthquake that hit Sichuan in 2008 killed nearly 90,000 people. The collapse of schools and other buildings led to a yearslong effort to rebuild using more quake-resistant materials.
What's the significance of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya?
About 80 chartered flights have landed at the new international airport of India's holy city of Ayodhya for Monday’s partial opening of the controversial grand temple for one of Hinduism’s most revered deities, Lord Ram.
Ayodhya’s airport can barely accommodate the influx of private jets. “The planes will depart after dropping guests,” airport manager Saurabh Singh said.
The temple was built over an ancient razed mosque, and most political opposition leaders are boycotting the temple's opening, saying it doesn't befit a secular India.
However, the list of attendees boasts some of India's most influential people: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, industrialists Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani and Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan.
Ahead of the upcoming general election, Modi’s Hindu nationalist party is using the elaborate consecration ceremony to lobby the country's Hindu majority.
Read more: Ancient Temples of Bangladesh: Remembering Their Past Glory
THE LEGEND OF RAM, THE PRINCE OF AYODHYA
The temple will be the sacred abode of one of the Hindu pantheon's most popular gods Ram, who Hindus believe was born at the exact site in Ayodhya.
Millions of Hindus worship Lord Ram with an intense belief that chanting his name in times of adversity will bring peace and prosperity, and most of those who practice Hinduism keep idols of Ram in their homes. Major Hindu festivals like Dussehra and Diwali are associated with mythological tales of Ram extolling the virtues of truth, sacrifice and ethical governance.
The mythological Hindu epic “Ramayan," which tells the story of Ram’s journey from prince to king, has often been adapted in popular culture. One of the most-viewed fabled shows is the TV series “Ramayan” created in the 1980s which continues to have a faithful audience.
Ram’s divinity is not only the dominant religious force in India but also part of the ancient cultural heritage in countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Myanmar and Malaysia.
Read more: A Hindu temple built atop a razed mosque in India is helping Modi boost his political standing
A TEMPLE RISES
Spread over nearly 3 hectares, the temple — which is still being built— has an estimated cost of $217 million. It's made with pink sandstone, adorned with intricate carvings, and has 46 doors — 42 of which will have a layer of gold.
Anil Mishra, a member of the trust overseeing the construction, said the temple blends traditional design with cutting-edge technology and is “crafted without the use of iron, steel, or cement."
A 1.3-meter (4.25-foot) dark stone sculpture depicting Ram was installed in the temple’s inner sanctum for Monday’s consecration. The religious ritual of “Pran Pratishtha," which signifies giving life to the idol, will be conducted according to Hindu Vedic scriptures. The deity can then receive and bless devotees.
After the ceremony, the temple will open to the public and an estimated 100,000 devotees are likely to visit daily, authorities say.
AYODHYA, PAST AND PRESENT
The city known for its narrow lanes crowded with Hindu pilgrims and shops selling miniature Ram idols, has been given a facelift with modern infrastructure and services. Ayodhya’s modest airstrip has grown into an expansive international airport with a 2.2-kilometer (about 1.4-mile) runway in the first phase. The clean railway station has a daily passenger capacity of about 50,000 people.
“The historical and spiritual significance of Ayodhya makes it a compelling destination,” and a huge surge in demand is anticipated, said Ravi Singh, a representative of the Indian Hotels Company Limited.
THE CONTROVERSY
Ayodhya has been at the center of India’s turbulent politics and the Hindu majoritarian quest to redeem the country’s religious past for decades. Its diverse, multicultural past was overrun by strident Hindu nationalism after mobs demolished the 16th-century Babri mosque in 1992.
Hindus won a prolonged legal battle in 2019, allowing them to build the temple. Hindus make up about 80% of India’s population but the country is also home to some 200 million Muslims who have frequently come under attack by Hindu nationalists.
Modi has been the face of an unprecedented, and unapologetic, fusion of religion and politics in India and led the temple’s groundbreaking ceremony in 2020.
Critics say the idea of a diverse, constitutionally secular state leading a Hindu religious ritual is deplorable. Most opposition leaders have declined the invitation, saying the event is being used for political campaigning by Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which promised to build a Ram temple as part of its election strategy.
Modi has asked people to publicly celebrate the consecration by lighting lamps at homes and temples. The message is clear: Mobilization of Hindu voters will be a key issue in the upcoming national election as Modi looks to extend his rule for a record third-consecutive term.
Read more: India's Modi is set to open a controversial temple in Ayodhya in a grand event months before polls
India's Modi is set to open a controversial temple in Ayodhya in a grand event months before polls
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday (January 22, 2024) was set to open a contentious Hindu temple built on the ruins of an ancient mosque in the holy city of Ayodhya. The grand event, which will be attended by thousands, is expected to benefit the Indian leader in the polls just months before a general election.
The inauguration of the temple, which is still under construction, is dedicated to Hinduism’s most revered deity Lord Ram. It fulfills a demand made by millions of Hindus for over 100 years and delivers on a crucial campaign pledge from Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
Ayodhya, once dotted with tightly packed houses and rundown stalls, has undergone an elaborate makeover in the lead up to the inauguration. Narrow roads have been turned into a four-lane pilgrimage route leading to the temple, tourists are arriving at a new airport and sprawling railway station, and major hotel chains are building new properties.
On Monday morning, the mood in the city was jubilant. Devotees from across the country have arrived to celebrate the opening, with groups of them dancing to religious songs that blare from speakers on roads bedecked with flowers. Huge cut-outs of Lord Ram and billboards of Modi are ubiquitous across Ayodhya, where the borders have been sealed to prevent more people from coming in. Some 20,000 security personnel and more than 10,000 CCTV cameras have been deployed.
Harish Joshi arrived in Ayodhya from Uttarakhand state four days before the ceremony, hopeful that he may be able to get a glimpse of the ceremony. “I am here to see history unfolding before our eyes. For centuries, the story of Lord Ram has resonated in the hearts of millions," he said.
Read more: Ancient Temples of Bangladesh: Remembering Their Past Glory
The prime minister, alongside several Hindu priests, will attend the consecration ceremony later on Monday, for which a 1.3-meter (4.25-foot) stone sculpture of Lord Ram was installed in the temple’s inner sanctum. Overall, nearly 7,500 people, including the country’s most elite industrialists, politicians and movie stars, are also expected to attend.
Analysts and critics see Monday’s ceremony as the start of the election campaign for Modi, an avowed nationalist and one of India’s most consequential leaders who has sought to transform the country from a secular democracy into a distinctly Hindu state in his nearly 10 years in power.
The temple, located at one of India’s most vexed religious sites, is expected to embolden Modi’s chances of clinching a record third successive term by drawing on the religious sentiments of Hindus, who make up 80% of India’s population of 1.4 billion.
Built at an estimated cost of $217 million and spread over nearly 3 hectares (7.4 acres), the temple lies atop the debris of a 16th-century mosque. It was razed to the ground in 1992 by Hindu mobs who believed the Babri Mosque was built on temple ruins that marked the birthplace of Lord Ram.
The site has long been an intense religious flashpoint for the two communities, with the demolition of the mosque triggering bloody riots across India that killed 2,000 people, mostly Muslims.
Read more: A Hindu temple built atop a razed mosque in India is helping Modi boost his political standing
The dispute ended in 2019 when, in a controversial decision, India’s Supreme Court called the mosque’s destruction “an egregious violation” of the law, but granted the site to Hindus while giving Muslims a different plot of land.
The fraught history is still an open wound for many Muslims, who see the construction of the temple as a testament to Modi’s Hindu-first politics.
Officials say the temple, a three-story structure etched out of pink sandstone, will open to the public after the ceremony and they expect 100,000 devotees to visit daily. Builders are still working to finish 46 elaborate doors and intricate wall carvings.
The inauguration has morphed into a massive national event.
Modi’s government has planned live screenings across the country and even movie theaters in some cities will broadcast the event while offering free popcorn. BJP workers have gone door to door handing out religious flags, while Modi has encouraged people to celebrate by lighting lamps at homes and in local shrines. His government announced a half-day closure on Monday for all its offices, and numerous states have declared it a public holiday. Even the stock and money markets are closed for the day.
But not all are rejoicing. Four key Hindu religious authorities have refused to attend, saying consecrating an unfinished temple goes against Hindu scriptures. Some top leaders from India’s main opposition Congress party are also boycotting the event, with many opposition lawmakers accusing Modi of exploiting the temple for political points.
Read more: What's the significance of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya?
Two survivors rescued after landslide buried homes in freezing weather in southwest China, 11 died
At least 11 people died in a landslide Monday that buried 47 people in freezing weather in a remote mountainous area in southwestern China, and two survivors were rescued.
The disaster struck just before 6 a.m. in the village of Liangshui in the northeastern part of Yunnan province. By 10 p.m., 11 bodies had been retrieved and about 500 people were evacuated from the area.
Read: Almost 100,000 Afghan children are in dire need of support, 3 months after earthquakes, UNICEF says
Rescue crews continued to try and find victims who were buried in about 18 homes, the Zhenxiong county publicity department said. Reports said the 11 bodies were from the group that was initially buried by the landslide.
State news agency Xinhua, citing a preliminary investigation by local experts, said the landslide was triggered by the collapse of a steep cliff-top area, with the collapsed mass measuring around 100 meters wide, 60 meters in height, and about an average of 6 meters in thickness. It did not elaborate what caused the initial collapse.
Rescuers struggled with snow, icy roads and freezing temperatures that were forecast to persist for at least the next three days.
Luo Dongmei, 35, was sleeping when the landslide struck, but she survived and was relocated to a school building by local authorities.
“I was asleep, but my brother knocked on the door and woke me up. They said there was a landslide and the bed was shaking, so they rushed upstairs and woke us up,” Luo said.
Luo, her husband and their three children, along with many other residents, have been provided with food at the school but are still waiting for blankets and other protection from the cold weather, she said.
Luo said she's been unable to contact her sister and aunt, who lived closer to the site of the landslide. “The only thing I can do is to wait,” she said.
Zhengxiong county lies about 2,250 kilometers (1,400 miles) southwest of Beijing, with altitudes ranging as high as 2,400 meters (7,900 feet).
Heavy snow has been falling in many parts of China, causing transportation chaos and endangering lives.
Read: Thousands forced from homes by quake face stress and exhaustion as Japan mourns at least 161 deaths
Last week, rescuers evacuated tourists from a remote skiing area in northwestern China where dozens of avalanches triggered by heavy snow had trapped more than 1,000 people for a week. The avalanches blocked roads, stranding both tourists and residents in a village in Altay prefecture in the Xinjiang region, close to China’s border with Mongolia, Russia and Kazakhstan.
Landslides, often caused by rain or unsafe construction work, are not uncommon in China. At least 70 people were killed in landslides last year, including more than 50 at an open pit mine in China's Inner Mongolia region.
In all, natural disasters in China left 691 people dead and missing and last year, causing direct economic losses of about 345 billion yuan ($48 billion, according to the National Commission for Disaster Reduction and the Ministry of Emergency Management. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Natural Resources enacted emergency response measures for geological disasters and sent a work team of experts to the site.
Minister of Emergency Management Wang Xiangxi has traveled to the landslide site to guide rescue operations, according to a statement from the ministry.
The landslide in Yunnan also came just over a month after China’s most powerful earthquake in years struck the northwest in a remote region between Gansu and Qinghai province. At least 149 people were killed in the magnitude 6.2 temblor that struck on Dec. 18, reducing homes to rubble and triggering heavy mudslides that inundated two villages in Qinghai province.
Nearly 1,000 people were injured and more than 14,000 homes were destroyed in what was China’s deadliest earthquake in nine years.
Iranian soldier kills 5 comrades in southeastern city where IS attack killed dozens, state TV says
An Iranian soldier opened fire on fellow soldiers Sunday, killing five of them in the southeastern city of Kerman, where 94 people were killed in a bombing attack earlier this month, Iranian state TV reported.
State TV said the shooting happened when the soldier arrived at a barracks dormitory and opened fire on the resting soldiers. It said the motive wasn't immediately clear and the suspect, who wasn't identified, was at large. No other details were released.
The report said the attack took place in Kerman some 830 kilometers (515 miles), southeast of the capital Tehran.
Read: Strike kills Hezbollah fighter, civilian in Lebanon, amid seeming Israeli shift to targeted killings
Kerman was the scene of two deadly explosions earlier this month that killed 94 people and wounded hundreds of others during an anniversary ceremony for the death of an Iranian general killed in a 2020 U.S. drone strike in Iraq. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility.
Similar shootings at military bases have been occasionally reported in Iran. In 2022, a soldier killed another soldier and three policemen at a roadside police station in the country's south.
Military service of up to 24 months is mandatory for men aged 19 and above in Iran.
Read more: Palestinian death toll in Gaza surpasses 25,000 while Israel announces the death of another hostage
A Hindu temple built atop a razed mosque in India is helping Modi boost his political standing
Three decades after Hindu mobs tore down a historical mosque, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the consecration of a grand Hindu temple at the same site on Monday in a political move to boost his party ahead of a crucial national vote.
Experts say the temple, dedicated to Hinduism’s most revered deity Lord Ram, will cement Modi’s legacy — enduring but also contentious — as one of India’s most consequential leaders, who has sought to transform the country from a secular democracy into an avowedly Hindu nation.
“Right from the beginning, Modi was driven by marking his permanency in history. He has ensured this with the Ram Temple,” said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, an expert in Hindu nationalism and author of a book on Modi.
Many see the temple's opening as the beginning of the election campaign for Modi, an avowed nationalist who has been widely accused of espousing Hindu supremacy in an officially secular India. Modi’s Hindu nationalist party is expected to once again exploit religion for political gain in the upcoming national elections in April or May and secure power for a third consecutive term.
Made into a national event by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, the temple’s opening in Ayodhya — a small city in northern India that has been a historical flashpoint — is expected to resonate deeply with Hindu voters.
Many of Modi's supporters see him as responsible for restoring Hindu pride in India, where Muslims make up a little more than 14% of the population.
“What is being done in Ayodhya, the kind of scale at which it is being built at the moment is actually going to make it look like the Hindu Vatican, and that is what is going to be publicized,” Mukhopadhyay said. “Modi is not going to lose a single opportunity to try to sell the accomplishment of having built a temple.”
Built at an estimated cost of $217 million, Ram Temple is central to Hindus who believe the Lord Ram was born at the exact spot where Mughal Muslims built Babri Mosque in the 16th century on top of temple ruins. The mosque was demolished by Hindu mobs in December 1992, sparking nationwide riots that killed more than 2,000 people, mostly Muslims. It set in motion events that redefined the politics of social identity in India and catapulted Modi’s BJP from two parliamentary seats in the 1980s to its current political dominance.
In the early 1990s, then a little-known local leader in his native Gujarat state, Modi also helped organize public agitation that aimed to shore up support for the construction of what is now Ram Temple at the former Babri Mosque site.
Muslim groups waged a decadeslong court battle for the restoration of Babri Mosque. The dispute ended in 2019 when, in a controversial decision, India’s Supreme Court called the mosque’s destruction “an egregious violation of the rule of law,” but granted the site to Hindus. The court granted Muslims a different plot of land in an isolated area.
That fraught history is still an open wound for many Muslims, and some say the temple is the biggest political testament yet to Hindu supremacy.
“There is a fear that this government and all the affiliates, they want to wipe out all traces of Muslim or Islamic civilization from the country," said Ziya Us Salam, author of the book “Being Muslim in Hindu India.”
Indian Muslims have increasingly come under attack in recent years by Hindu nationalist groups, and at least three historical mosques in northern India are embroiled in court disputes due to claims made by Hindu nationalists who say they were built over temple ruins. Hindu nationalists have also filed numerous cases in Indian courts seeking ownership of hundreds of historic mosques.
"On the one side, they want to change names of all cities which have a Muslim-sounding name. On the other side, they want to get rid of virtually every mosque, and the courts are happy to accept petitions on whatever pretext,” Salam said.
Rebuilding the temple at the disputed site has been part of BJP's election strategy for decades, but it was Modi — rising to power in 2014 on a wave of Hindu revivalism — who finally oversaw that promise after attending its groundbreaking ceremony in 2020.
In the lead-up to its opening, Modi asked people to celebrate across the country by lighting lamps at homes and in local shrines, saying the temple will be a symbol of “cultural, spiritual, and social unity.” His government has also announced a half-day closure of all its offices Monday to allow employees participate in the celebrations. Modi has released postage stamps on Ram Temple, and live screenings of the ceremony are planned across the country.
In many cities and towns, saffron-colored flags, a symbol of Hindu nationalism, have become ubiquitous. A number of other politicians, high profile movie stars, and industrialists are also expected to attend.
But the event will also be marked by some conspicuous absences.
Some opposition leaders are boycotting the ceremony, while denouncing it as a political gimmick and accusing the government of exploiting religion for political gain. Four key Hindu religious authorities have refused to go the opening, with two of them saying consecrating an unfinished temple goes against Hindu scriptures, and that Modi is not a religious leader and therefore not qualified to lead the ceremony.
Salam said Modi has erased a line between the state and the religion by making his faith a public exhibition that has energized his hardcore supporters.
“When was the last time he acted as a prime minister? There have been so many instances where he has just behaved either as a BJP leader or as a Hindutva mascot, seldom as the prime minister of India,” Salam said.
13 reported killed in dorm fire at boarding school for elementary students in China's Henan province
A fire broke out in dorms at a boarding school for elementary students in central Henan province, and 13 people died in the blaze, China's state broadcaster CCTV reported Saturday.
It was not immediately clear how many of the dead were students. One person rescued from the scene was being treated in the hospital, CCTV said.
The fire started Friday night and was put out just before midnight at the Yingcai school in rural Fangcheng district in central Henan, CCTV reported.
The boarding school caters primarily to students in the elementary grades, though it has an attached kindergten, according to the school's Wechat page. Many of the boarding students come from rural areas, the Beijing Youth Daily reported.
The facility is in Dushu township and is one of the school's two branches.
The school's owner was detained, CCTV reported.
Japan becomes the fifth country to land a spacecraft on the moon
Japan became the fifth country in history to reach the moon when one of its spacecrafts without astronauts successfully made a soft landing on the lunar surface early Saturday.
However, space officials said they need more time to analyze whether the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, achieved its mission priority of making a pinpoint landing. They also said the craft's solar panel had failed to generate power, which could shorten its activity on the moon.
Space officials believe the SLIM's small rovers were launched as planned and that data was being transmitted back to Earth, said Hitoshi Kuninaka, head of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, a unit of Japan's space agency.
But he said that SLIM's solar battery wasn't generating power and that it had only a few more hours of battery life. He said that the priority now was for the craft to gather as much data about its landing and the moon as possible on the remaining battery.
Japan follows the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India in reaching the moon.
Kuninaka said he believes that Japan's space program at least achieved “minimum” success.
SLIM landed on the moon at about 12:20 a.m. Tokyo time on Saturday (1520 GMT Friday).
There was a tense wait for news after the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's mission control initially said that SLIM was on the lunar surface, but that it was still “checking its status.” No further details were given until a news conference nearly two hours later.
For the mission to be considered fully successful, space officials need to confirm whether SLIM made a pinpoint landing. Kuninaka said that while more time is needed, he personally thinks it was most likely achieved, based on his observation of data showing the spacecraft's movement until the landing and its ability to transmit signals after landing.
Read: India launches spacecraft to study the sun after successful landing near the moon's south pole
SLIM, which was aiming to hit a very small target, is a lightweight spacecraft about the size of a passenger vehicle. It was using “pinpoint landing” technology that promises far greater control than any previous moon landing.
While most previous probes have used landing zones about 10 kilometers (six miles) wide, SLIM was aiming at a target of just 100 meters (330 feet).
A landing of such precision would be a world's first, and would be crucial technology for a sustainable, long-term and accurate space probe system, said Hiroshi Yamakawa, president of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA.
Japan needs the technology to secure its place and contribute in international space projects, Yamakawa said.
The project was the fruit of two decades of work on precision technology by JAXA.
SLIM, nicknamed "the Moon Sniper," started its descent at midnight Saturday, and within 15 minutes it was down to about 10 kilometers (six miles) above the lunar surface, according to the space agency, which is known as JAXA.
At an altitude of five kilometers (three miles), the lander was in a vertical descent mode, then at 50 meters (165 feet) above the surface, SLIM was supposed to make a parallel movement to find a safe landing spot, JAXA said.
Read: India becomes the fourth country to successfully land a spacecraft on the moon
The spacecraft was testing technology to allow moon missions to land “where we want to, rather than where it is easy to land,” JAXA has said. The spacecraft also was supposed to seek clues about the origin of the moon, including analyzing minerals with a special camera.
The SLIM, equipped with a pad each on its five legs to cushion impact, was aiming to land near the Shioli crater, near a region covered in volcanic rock.
The closely watched mission came only 10 days after a moon mission by a U.S. private company failed when the spacecraft developed a fuel leak hours after the launch.
SLIM was launched on a Mitsubishi Heavy H2A rocket in September. It initially orbited Earth and entered lunar orbit on Dec. 25.
Japan hopes to regain confidence for its space technology after a number of failures. A spacecraft designed by a Japanese company crashed during a lunar landing attempt in April, and a new flagship rocket failed its debut launch in March.
JAXA has a track record with difficult landings. Its Hayabusa2 spacecraft, launched in 2014, touched down twice on the 900-meter-long (3,000-foot-long) asteroid Ryugu, collecting samples that were returned to Earth.
A successful pinpoint landing by SLIM, especially on the moon, would raise Japan's profile in the global space technology race.
Takeshi Tsuchiya, aeronautics professor at the Graduate School of Engineering at the University of Tokyo, said it was important to confirm the accuracy of landing on a targeted area.
“It is necessary to show the world that Japan has the appropriate technology in order to be able to properly assert Japan's position in lunar development,” he said. The moon is important from the perspective of explorations of resources, and it can also be used as a base to go to other planets, like Mars, he said.
Read more: India's spacecraft is preparing to land on the moon in the country's second attempt in 4 years
SLIM was carrying two small autonomous probes — lunar excursion vehicles LEV-1 and LEV-2, which officials say were believed to have been released just before landing.
LEV-1, equipped with an antenna and a camera, is tasked with recording SLIM's landing. LEV-2, is a ball-shaped rover equipped with two cameras, developed by JAXA together with Sony, toymaker Tomy and Doshisha University.