Asia
Chinese coast guard hits Philippine boat with water cannons in disputed sea, causing injuries
Chinese coast guard ships hit a Philippine supply boat with water cannons Saturday in the latest confrontation near a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, causing injuries to its navy crew members and heavy damage to the wooden vessel, Philippine officials said.
The United States and Japan immediately expressed their support to the Philippines, as well as alarm over Chinese forces’ aggression off the Second Thomas Shoal, which has been the scene of repeated confrontations between Chinese and Philippine vessels over the past year.
The far-flung shoal has been occupied by a small contingent of Philippine navy and marines on a marooned warship since 1999, but has been surrounded by Chinese coast guard and suspected militia vessels in an increasingly tense territorial standoff. It’s the second time the Philippine boat Unaizah May 4 has been damaged by the Chinese coast guard’s water cannon assault in March alone.
The repeated high-seas confrontations have sparked fears they could degenerate into a larger conflict that could bring China and the United States into a collision.
Washington lays no claims to the busy seaway, a key global trade route, but has deployed Navy ships and fighter jets in what it calls “freedom of navigation” operations, which China has criticized.
The U.S. has also warned repeatedly that it’s obligated to defend the Philippines — its oldest treaty ally in Asia — if Filipino forces, ships or aircraft come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.
Read: Philippine military condemns Chinese coast guard's use of water cannon on its boat in disputed sea
U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement Saturday that the United States "stands with its ally the Philippines and condemns the dangerous actions by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) against lawful Philippine maritime operations in the South China Sea on March 23.”
He said the Chinese ships' “repeated employment of water cannons and reckless blocking maneuvers resulted in injuries to Filipino service members and significant damage to their resupply vessel, rendering it immobile.”
Escorted by two Philippine coast guard ships, the Unaizah May 4 was en route to deliver supplies and a fresh batch of Filipino sailors to the territorial outpost in the shoal at dawn Saturday when they were blocked and surrounded by Chinese coast guard ships and suspected militia vessels.
"Their reckless and dangerous actions culminated with the water cannoning of Unaizah May 4, causing severe damage to the vessel and injuries to Filipinos onboard,” a Philippine government task force dealing with the territorial conflicts said without elaborating.
The two Philippine coast guard patrol ships maneuvered through the Chinese blockade to treat the injured Filipino crew members and tow the disabled supply boat away. Another motorboat managed to transport the new batch of Filipino sailors and supplies to the Philippine outpost in the shallows of the shoal despite the Chinese coast guard’s attempt to block them by placing a floating barrier in the waters, Philippine officials said.
The hostilities dragged on for about 8 hours, they said.
“The Philippines will not be deterred — by veiled threats or hostility — from exercising our legal rights over our maritime zones,” the government task force said in a statement. “We demand that China demonstrate in deeds and not in words that it is a responsible and trustworthy member of the international community.”
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Chinese coast guard spokesperson Gan Yu said the Philippine vessels intruded into what he said was China’s territorial waters despite repeated warnings. “The China coast guard implemented lawful regulation, interception and expulsion in a reasonable and professional manner,” Gan said.
Washington's ambassador to Manila, MaryKay Carlson, said that “the U.S. stands with the Philippines against the PRC’s repeated dangerous maneuvers and water cannons to disrupt” the Philippine coast guard’s “lawful activities” in Manila’s exclusive economic zone.
Japan's ambassador-designate to Manila, Endo Kazuya, reiterated his country’s “grave concern on the repeated dangerous actions by the Chinese coast guard in the South China Sea, which resulted in Filipino injuries."
Aside from China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei also have overlapping claims in the resource-rich and busy waterway, which Beijing continues to claim virtually in its entirety despite a 2016 international arbitration ruling that invalidated its expansive claims on historical grounds.
Video released by the Philippine military shows two Chinese coast guard ships hitting the smaller wooden-hulled boat Unaiza May 4 with high-pressure water cannon sprays at close range, causing the boat to shift in the high seas.
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Chinese coast guard previously blasted the Unaizah May 4 with high-pressure water cannons in a confrontation near the Second Thomas Shoal on March 5, shattering its windshield and slightly injuring a Filipino admiral and four of his men with glass shards and splinters of debris.
The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila summoned China’s deputy ambassador after the March 5 confrontation to convey a protest against the Chinese coast guard’s actions, which it said were unacceptable.
As India’s election nears, Bollywood can be seen embracing the BJP's political ideology
The movie trailer begins with an outline of the iconic glasses worn by Mohandas Gandhi, the leader who helped India win independence from the British colonialists in 1947. In the backdrop of a devotional song that Gandhi loved, the outline slowly morphs into what appears like his face.
Then, a raucous beat drops, followed by a rap song. A face is finally revealed: not Gandhi, but an actor who plays the independence leader’s ideological nemesis, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar — the man considered the fountainhead of Hindu nationalism in India.
It is the same ideology Prime Minister Narendra Modi has harnessed to cement his power as his ruling party makes strides in its quest to turn the secular country into a Hindu nation.
The glorified biopic on the early 20th-century Hindu nationalist ideologue — called “Swatantra Veer Savarkar,” or “Independent Warrior Savarkar” — hits Indian theatres Friday, just weeks ahead of a national vote that is set to determine the political direction of the country for the next five years. The movie coincides with a cluster of upcoming Bollywood releases based on polarizing issues, which either promote Modi and his government’s political agenda, or lambast his critics.
Analysts say the use of popular cinema as a campaign tool to promote Hindu nationalism feeds into a divisive narrative that risks exacerbating the already widespread political and religious rifts in the country.
Raja Sen, a film critic and Bollywood screenwriter, said movies used to represent a mix of nationalistic cinema and films promoting national integration.
"That appears to be fast changing,” Sen said. “The scary part is that these films are being accepted now. It is truly frightening.”
India's Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal arrested in liquor bribery case
For more than a century, Bollywood has unified India, a country riven with religious, caste and political divide. It's been a rare industry where religion has been least influential in deciding the success of filmmakers and actors. Bollywood films have also championed political diversity and religious harmony.
That culture, however, appears to be under threat.
Under Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, many filmmakers have made movies on bygone Hindu kings extolling their bravery. Boisterous and action-packed movies valorizing the Indian Army have become box office successes. Political dramas and biopics that eulogize Hindu nationalists are the norm.
In most of these films, the stock villains are medieval Muslim rulers, leftist or opposition leaders, free thinkers or rights activists — and neighboring Pakistan, India’s arch rival.
The biopic on Sarvarkar, who advocated for India’s future as a Hindu nation, is emblematic of this broader trend.
Two more upcoming films claim to reveal a conspiracy about a 2002 train fire in western Gujarat state that ignited one of the worst anti-Muslim riots in India. More than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in riots. It was a hugely controversial episode in Modi’s political career, as he was the chief minister of Gujarat at the time.
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Another film claims to expose the "anti-national agenda” of a university in the capital, New Delhi. The film is loosely based on Jawaharlal Nehru University, one of the country’s premier liberal institutions that has become a target of Hindu nationalists and leaders from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.
Many past films with similar themes became box office successes. Modi’s party often publicly endorsed them despite criticism of his government for stifling dissent.
In February, Modi himself praised “Article 370,” a film that celebrated his government’s controversial decision to strip Indian-controlled Kashmir of its special status and statehood in 2019. Some film reviewers called the movie “factually incorrect” and a “thinly veiled propaganda film” favoring the government.
“The Kerala Story," the ninth-highest grossing Hindi film of 2023, was widely panned for inaccuracies in depicting Christian and Hindu girls from India’s southern Kerala state who were lured to join the Islamic State. The film was banned in two states ruled by opposition parties, who said it was Islamophobic and would destroy religious harmony.
At the same time, at least three states ruled by Modi’s party made tickets to see the film tax-free and held mass screenings. Modi himself endorsed viewing the film during a state election rally.
Sudipto Sen, the film’s director, said the movie exposed the "nexus between religious fundamentalism and terrorism” through a human story, and did not vilify Muslims.
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“You can’t ignore the emotional appeal of these films. In fact, every state government should endorse them,” Sen said.
Another of Sen’s films, based on Maoist insurgency in central Indian jungles, was released March 15. Its primary villains, apart from the insurgents, were rights activists and left-leaning intellectuals. One critic called it “two hours of diatribe against communism.”
While such films have been applauded by India's right, other Bollywood movies have fallen into the crosshairs of Hindu nationalists.
Right-wing groups have frequently threatened to block the release of films they deem offensive to Hinduism. Hindu activists often make calls on social media to boycott such films.
Some filmmakers caught up in India’s increasingly restrictive political environment say they're resorting to self-censorship.
“People like me feel disempowered,” said Onir, a National Award-winning filmmaker who goes by just one name.
Onir has made widely acclaimed films highlighting LGBTQ+ rights. In 2022, Onir wanted to make a movie inspired by a former Indian army major who falls in love with a local man in disputed Kashmir, where armed rebels seeking independence or a merger with Pakistan have fought Indian rule for decades. The film’s script was rejected by India’s defense ministry because it was “distorting the image of Indian army,” the filmmaker said.
“Look at the films that are getting released now. Any film that goes against the government’s narrative is called anti-national. There is no fair ground. In fact, there is an atmosphere of fear,” Onir said.
Polarizing films — which Onir noted constitute most of the recent releases, while movies focusing on discrimination against minorities face hurdles — tend to make big money, signaling the appetite for such content.
Some say the rise in divisive films reflects opportunism among filmmakers.
“The idea that this is the way to success has permeated into Bollywood,” said Raja Sen, the critic and screenwriter.
He said such films make good business sense because of the noise they generate, even though they serve as the cinematic equivalent of "WhatsApp forwards" — a reference to misinformation and propaganda spread on the social messaging platform.
“Indian films need an artistic rebellion. I hope we can start seeing that,” Sen said.
India's Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal arrested in liquor bribery case
Anti-corruption crusader Arvind Kejriwal was arrested Thursday by the federal investigative agency for suspected financial crimes, which accused his party and ministers of accepting 1 billion rupees ($12 million) in bribes from liquor contractors nearly two years ago, his party said, adding a fresh challenge for India's opposition ahead of general elections.
Atishi Singh, a leader of Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party, or Common People’s Party, denied the accusations. She charged they were fabricated by the federal Enforcement Directorate, which is controlled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.
Opposition figures and critics slammed the move as undemocratic, and accused Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party of misusing the agency to weaken the opposition just weeks before voting begins April 19.
“This is no longer a fight between the BJP and the AAP. This is a fight between the country’s people and the BJP. This is no longer a fight of the AAP, but a fight of all those who want clean politics in the country,” Sandeep Pathak, an Aam Aadmi Party lawmaker, said at a news conference held at midnight.
Kejriwal’s party called for a nationwide protest Friday against the arrest, and said it would ask India's Supreme Court to quash the arrest since the investigation is still in progress. Kejriwal will continue to be Delhi's chief minister while the party fights the accusations, Singh said.
Footage from local TV showed police whisking away Kejriwal's supporters in buses as federal agents arrested him after questioning him for hours at his residence in New Delhi.
One of the charges under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act is that 14 wholesale liquor distributors earned an “excess profit” of 3.38 billion rupees ($41 million) when the now-scrapped liquor policy was in operation two years ago. Government attorney S.V. Raju alleged the liquor distributors in turn paid 1 billion rupees ($12.1 million) in bribes to Kejriwal’s party and other ministers.
The arrest came hours after Delhi's High Court refused to grant any protection to Kejriwal, 55, over the summons issued to him by the Enforcement Directorate, which is the main federal agency for investigating economic offenses.
The agency had called Kejriwal for questioning nine times in recent months, but he skipped the summons each time, saying he was busy with his political work, a government lawyer said.
AAP is part of a broad alliance of opposition parties called INDIA, the main challenger to Modi's BJP in the national elections to be held in April-June. Led by the Indian National Congress party that once dominated the country’s politics, the unity front includes over two dozen powerful regional parties.
“A scared dictator wants to create a dead democracy,” Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said about the arrest in a post on X, adding that “the arrest of elected chief ministers has become a common thing."
Kejriwal’s arrest is another setback for the bloc, and came after the Congress party accused the government earlier Thursday of crippling the party by feeezing its bank accounts in a tax dispute ahead of the national elections.
The opposition has long claimed it has been unfairly targeted and in a manner that undermines India’s democratic principles.
The Enforcement Directorate has launched probes of many key opposition leaders, all of whom are political opponents of the BJP. Modi’s party denies using law enforcement agencies to target the opposition and says the agencies act independently.
Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has been defeated in Delhi state elections by Kejriwal’s party and also was defeated in northern Punjab state in 2022.
Kejriwal launched the Aam Aadmi Party in 2012, and it won the Delhi state legislature election a year later, when he became the chief minister. Kejriwal, a former civil servant, campaigned on a promise to rid the Indian political system and governance of corruption and inefficiency.
The party’s symbol — a broom — and its promise to sweep the administration of graft struck a chord with Delhi residents, fed up with runaway inflation and slow economic growth. But he resigned as the chief minister 49 days later because his minority government couldn’t enact an anti-corruption law due to a lack of support from other political parties.
He took over as chief minister for a second five-year term in 2015 after his party’s stunning victory in the state elections when it grabbed 67 of 70 seats.
In the 2020 elections, Kejriwal's party re-emerged victorious and retained power in Delhi. Kejriwal was sworn in as chief minister of Delhi for the third time in a row. Outside Delhi, his party registered another major victory in the 2022 Punjab state elections.
Weeping, weak and soaked, dozens of Rohingya refugees rescued after night on hull of capsized boat
An Indonesian search and rescue ship on Thursday located a capsized wooden boat that had been carrying dozens of Rohingya Muslim refugees, and began pulling survivors who had been standing on its hull to safety.
An AP photographer aboard the rescue ship said 10 people had been taken aboard local fishing boats and another 59 were being saved by the Indonesian craft.
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Men, women and children, weak and soaked from the night’s rain, wept as the rescue operation got underway and people were taken aboard a rubber dinghy to the rescue boat.
It was unclear how many refugees were aboard the small craft when it capsized off of Indonesia’s northernmost coast on Wednesday, with six survivors initially rescued by local fishermen estimating between 60 and 100 people.
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It was unclear whether all managed to cling to the capsized craft overnight or whether some had drowned.
Indonesia’s search and rescue team only left Banda Aceh city in the evening Wednesday, many hours after the capsizing, and initially had difficulty locating the boat in the choppy waters off the coast.
Five Rohingyas enter Bangladesh from Myanmar, including a woman with bullet injuries
It finally found the boat and the survivors about midday on Thursday.
Amiruddin, a tribal fishing community leader in Aceh Barat district, said those rescued indicated that the boat was sailing east when it started leaking and then strong currents pushed it toward the west of Aceh. The six said others were still trying to survive on the capsized craft.
About 740,000 Rohingya were resettled in Bangladesh to escape the brutal counterinsurgency campaign by security forces in their homeland of Myanmar.
Thousands have been trying to flee overcrowded camps in Bangladesh to neighboring countries with Indonesia seeing a spike in refugee numbers since November which prompted it to call on the international community for help. Rohingya arriving in Aceh face some hostility from some fellow Muslims.
Indonesia, like Thailand and Malaysia, is not a signatory to the United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention outlining their legal protections, and so is not obligated to accept them. However, they have so far provided temporary shelter to refugees in distress.
Last year, nearly 4,500 Rohingya — two-thirds of them women and children — fled their homeland of Myanmar and the refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh by boat, the United Nations refugee agency reported. Of those, 569 died or went missing while crossing the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea, the highest death toll since 2014.
Returning safely to Myanmar is virtually impossible because the military that attacked them overthrew Myanmar’s democratically elected government in 2021. No country has offered them any large-scale resettlement opportunities.
Afghanistan's school year starts without over 1 million girls barred from education by Taliban
The school year in Afghanistan started Wednesday but without girls whom the Taliban barred from attending classes beyond the sixth grade, making it the only country with restrictions on female education.
The U.N. children’s agency says more than 1 million girls are affected by the ban. It also estimates 5 million were out of school before the Taliban takeover due to a lack of facilities and other reasons.
UN is seeking to verify that Afghanistan's Taliban are letting girls study at religious schools
The Taliban's education ministry marked the start of the new academic year with a ceremony that female journalists were not allowed to attend. The invitations sent out to reporters said: “Due to the lack of a suitable place for the sisters, we apologize to female reporters.”
During a ceremony, the Taliban’s education minister, Habibullah Agha, said that the ministry is trying “to increase the quality of education of religious and modern sciences as much as possible.” The Taliban have been prioritizing Islamic knowledge over basic literacy and numeracy with their shift toward madrassas, or religious schools.
As mental health worsens among Afghanistan’s women, the UN is asked to declare ‘gender apartheid’
The minister also called on students to avoid wearing clothes that contradict Islamic and Afghan principles.
Abdul Salam Hanafi, the Taliban’s deputy prime minister, said they were trying to expand education in “all remote areas in the country.”
Taliban leader claims women are provided with a 'comfortable and prosperous life' in Afghanistan
The Taliban previously said girls continuing their education went against their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, and that certain conditions were needed for their return to school. However, they made no progress in creating said conditions.
When they ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s, they also banned girls’ education.
Despite initially promising a more moderate rule, the group has also barred women from higher education, public spaces like parks, and most jobs as part of harsh measures imposed after they took over following the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from the country in 2021.
The ban on girls’ education remains the Taliban’s biggest obstacle to gaining recognition as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan.
Although Afghan boys have access to education, Human Rights Watch has criticized the Taliban, saying their “abusive” educational policies are harming boys as well as girls. The group, in a report published in December, said there has been less attention to the deep harm inflicted on boys’ education as qualified teachers — including women — left, and inclusion of regressive curriculum changes as well as an increase in corporal punishment have led to falling attendance.
End/UNB/AP/MB
14 killed, 37 injured in passenger bus crash in north China
Fourteen people were killed and 37 others injured in a passenger bus crash in north China's Shanxi Province on Tuesday, according to local authorities.
The passenger bus crashed into a tunnel wall on the Hohhot-Beihai Expressway in Shanxi.
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Rescue forces have rushed to the scene and an investigation into the cause of the accident is underway.
Traffic accident in southern Afghanistan leaves 21 dead and 38 injured
A traffic accident in southern Afghanistan left at least 21 people dead and 38 others injured, according to a provincial traffic department.
The accident occurred on Sunday morning in Gerashk district of Helmand province on the main highway between southern Kandahar and western Herat provinces, a statement from the department in Helmand said.
A motorbike crashed into a passenger bus, which then hit a fuel tanker on the opposite side of the road, said Qadratullah, a traffic official in Helmand. An investigation into the accident was underway, he added.
Eleven of the 38 injured people were transferred to hospitals with serious injuries, said Hzatullah Haqqani, a spokesman for the Helmand police chief.
Traffic accidents are common in Afghanistan, mainly due to poor road conditions and driver carelessness.
Indian navy takes control of Maltese-flagged vessel hijacked by Somali pirates and evacuates crew
The Indian navy said late Saturday that it had taken control of a bulk carrier hijacked by Somali pirates and evacuated the 17 crew members on the vessel.
In a statement on X, the navy said all 35 pirates on board the Maltese-flagged MV Ruen had surrendered and the vessel was checked for illegal arms, ammunition and contraband.
The development came after men on the bulk carrier fired at an Indian warship in international waters Friday.
The vessel was first boarded by pirates Dec. 14 near the Yemeni island of Socotra, around 240 kilometers (150 miles) off Somalia.
Activity from Somali pirates has dropped in recent years, but there has been growing concern it could resume amid the political uncertainty and wider chaos in the region that has included attacks on ships by Yemen's Houthi rebels.
India recently began to flex its its naval power in international waters, including anti-piracy patrols and a widely publicized deployment close to the Red Sea to help protect ships from attacks during Israel’s war with Hamas.
The navy has helped at least four merchant vessels that were attacked in high seas by Houthi forces. Indian forces include three guided missile destroyers and reconnaissance aircraft.
India announces 6-week general elections starting April 19 with Modi's BJP topping surveys
India on Saturday announced its 6-week-long general elections will start on April 19, with most surveys predicting a victory for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
Voting in the world's largest democracy will stretch over seven phases, with different states voting at different times and results will be announced on June 4. Over 970 million voters — more than 10% of the world’s population — will elect 543 members for the lower house of Parliament for a term of five years.
Modi, who is seeking a third consecutive term, faces little challenge as the main opposition alliance of over two dozen regional parties led by the Indian National Congress party appears to be cracking, riven by rivalries, political defections and ideological clashes.
Analysts say the elections are likely to cement Modi as one of India’s most enduring most consequential leaders who has sought to transform the country from a secular democracy into an avowedly Hindu nation.
Each election phase will last one day and several constituencies — spread across multiple states, densely populated cities and far-flung villages — will vote that day. The staggered polling allows the government to deploy tens of thousands of troops to prevent violence and transport electoral officials and voting machines.
India has a first-past-the-post multiparty electoral system in which the candidate who receives the most votes wins.
Ahead of the polls, Modi has been travelling across the country inaugurating new projects, making speeches and engaging with voters. Support for the leader surged after he opened a Hindu temple in northern Ayodhya city in January, which many saw as the unofficial start of his election campaign because it fulfilled his party’s long-held Hindu nationalist pledge.
The 73-year-old Modi first swept to power in 2014 on promises of economic development, presenting himself as an outsider cracking down on the political elite. Since then, he has grown increasingly popular and mixed religion with politics in a formula that has resonated deeply with the country’s majority Hindu population even if it undermines India's secular roots.
The elections come as India’s clout on the global stage has risen under Modi, thanks to its large economy and partly because it is seen as a counterweight to a rising China.
Critics say that nearly a decade of Modi’s rule has been marked by rising unemployment even as its economy swells, attacks by Hindu nationalists against the country’s minorities, particularly Muslims, and a shrinking space for dissent and free media. The opposition says a win by Modi’s party could threaten India’s status as a secular, democratic nation.
A victory for Modi’s BJP would follow a 2019 electoral triumph, when it secured an absolute majority with 303 parliamentary seats against 52 held by the Congress party.
Mamata Banerjee suffers "major injury": Trinamool Congress
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee suffered major injuries to her forehead on Thursday, her party Trinamool Congress (TMC) informed through a post on X.
The All India Trinamool Congress shared photos of Ms Banerjee on a hospital bed with a deep cut in the middle of her forehead and blood on her face, reports NDTV.
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Sources said the Chief Minister suffered a fall at her home and was taken to the SSKM Hospital in Kolkata. Currently, the wound is being stitched.
"Our chairperson Mamata Banerjee sustained a major injury. Please keep her in your prayers," the party said in a post on X.