UK set to deport Nepalese guards who risked lives protecting Kabul embassy

UK set to deport Nepalese guards who risked lives protecting Kabul embassy
A Chinook heavy-lift helicopter flies over the city of Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 15, 2021. (AP Photo)
Short Url
Updated 03 April 2023

UK set to deport Nepalese guards who risked lives protecting Kabul embassy

UK set to deport Nepalese guards who risked lives protecting Kabul embassy
  • Former guard who was airlifted to Britain ‘betrayed’ by government, says lawyer
  • ‘I am in a state of shock and am very sad about what the UK has done to me’

LONDON: The UK is preparing to deport Nepalese security guards who were airlifted from Afghanistan amid the Taliban takeover after helping to protect Western embassies in Kabul, The Guardian reported on Monday.

Eleven Nepalese and two Indian guards, several of whom risked their lives protecting British personnel and embassy staff in Kabul, were detained as a result of government decisions on their immigration statuses and warned of their imminent deportations.

After being transported to the UK following the Western withdrawal almost two years ago, at least two of the former guards were granted indefinite leave to remain, while others were left waiting for decisions on their immigration status.

The pending deportations are believed to be the first concerning people who were successfully evacuated from Afghanistan.

The UK government has previously faced criticism over its apparent failure to evacuate those who have been forced into hiding in Afghanistan and neighboring countries due to the Taliban’s rise to power.

One of the 13 guards, 37-year-old Bam Bahadur Gurung, worked in Afghanistan for more than 10 years, partly serving as a security guard at the British and Canadian embassies in Kabul.

In 2016, several of his colleagues were killed in a suicide bombing that targeted consular guards.

Gurung was evacuated to the UK in the wake of the Taliban takeover and was provided with a hotel stay in London alongside other people who were evacuated.

He was employed by the hotel as a worker and was told that his application to resettle in the UK was “progressing” early last year.

However, he was informed by authorities several months later that his evacuation had only been a “gesture of goodwill,” and that he was ineligible to stay in the country over a long-term period.

On March 27, Gurung and the 12 other former guards were arrested and detained by the UK Home Office. He is now being held at an immigration removal facility near Gatwick Airport.

Gurung said: “I was getting ready for work when I was arrested. I am in a state of shock and am very sad about what the UK has done to me.

“I helped to protect British Embassy staff in Kabul for many years. None of us have criminal records. My dreams is to remain in the UK and serve with the British Army.”

Jamie Bell, who is legally representing Gurung and another Nepalese national in the same circumstances, said: “After being allowed to build a life in the UK, they have been betrayed and detained. Those responsible should be ashamed of how they have been treated.”

A UK government spokesperson said: “We remain committed to providing protection for vulnerable and at-risk people fleeing Afghanistan and so far have brought around 24,500 people impacted by the situation back to the UK.”


Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine is blown, unleashing flood of water

Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine is blown, unleashing flood of water
Updated 10 sec ago

Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine is blown, unleashing flood of water

Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine is blown, unleashing flood of water
MOSCOW: A vast Soviet-era dam in the Russian controlled part of southern Ukraine was blown on Tuesday, unleashing a flood of water across the war zone, according to both Ukrainian and Russian forces.
Both sides blamed the other for destroying the dam.
Unverified videos on social media showed a series of intense explosions around the Kakhovka dam. Other videos showed water surging through the remains of the dam with bystanders expressing their shock, sometimes in strong language.
The dam, 30 meters (yards) tall and 3.2 km (2 miles) long, was built in 1956 on the Dnipro river as part of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant.
It holds an 18 km3 reservoir which also supplies water to the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014, and to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which is also under Russian control.
Ukraine’s military said that Russian forces blew up the dam.
“The Kakhovka (dam) was blown up by the Russian occupying forces,” the South command of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said on Tuesday on its Facebook page.
“The scale of the destruction, the speed and volumes of water, and the likely areas of inundation are being clarified.”
Russian news agencies said the dam, controlled by Russian forces, had been destroyed in shelling while a Russian-installed official said it was a terrorist attack — Russian shorthand for an attack by Ukraine.
Reuters was unable to immediately verify the battlefield accounts from either side.

Federal monitor: Too many people in New York City are stopped, searched and frisked illegally

Federal monitor: Too many people in New York City are stopped, searched and frisked illegally
Updated 3 min 37 sec ago

Federal monitor: Too many people in New York City are stopped, searched and frisked illegally

Federal monitor: Too many people in New York City are stopped, searched and frisked illegally
  • NYPD ‘s Neighborhood Safety Teams were engaging in ‘unconstitutional policing’ by stopping and frisking too many people without justification
NEW YORK: New York City’s reliance on the tactic known as “stop and frisk” as part of a new initiative to combat gun violence is harming communities of color and running afoul of the law, a court-appointed federal monitor reported Monday.
Monitor Mylan Denerstein said the NYPD ‘s Neighborhood Safety Teams — special units deployed in the past 14 months to seize guns in high-crime areas — were engaging in “unconstitutional policing” by stopping and frisking too many people without justification.
In one police precinct, Denerstein said, only 41 percent of stops, 32 percent of frisks and 26 percent of searches were lawful.
The Neighborhood Safety Teams, a replacement for the anti-crime units that the NYPD disbanded in 2021, operate in 34 areas that account for 80 percent of the city’s violent crime — largely communities of color. Of the people the teams have stopped, Denerstein said, 97 percent are Black or Hispanic.
A spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams said city officials “have serious concerns” with Denerstein’s methodology and that they only learned of her findings after news outlets reported on them.
The spokesperson, Fabien Levy, said shootings have fallen since the Neighborhood Safety Teams were created.
Officers assigned to the units “have enhanced training and oversight to ensure we are not only keeping New Yorkers safe, but protecting their civil liberties as well,” Levy said, adding that “any unconstitutional stop is unacceptable, and we will strive to do better for New Yorkers every day.”
Denerstein said she began her review after Adams announced in March 2022 that the NYPD was deploying Neighborhood Safety Teams in some precincts to combat gun violence. Team members, wearing modified uniforms and driving unmarked cars, conduct stops, frisks and searches in their assigned neighborhoods.
“Unfortunately, the results are disappointing,” Denerstein wrote.
Despite their training and experience, officers assigned to Neighborhood Safety Teams “overall appear to be stopping, frisking, and searching individuals at an unsatisfactory level of compliance. Too many people are stopped, frisked, and searched unlawfully.”
In 2013, a federal judge ruled that the NYPD had violated the civil rights of Black and Hispanic New Yorkers with stop and frisk, which was part of an effort to get guns and drugs off the street by frequently stopping and searching people on the street.
US District Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled the stops were a form of indirect racial profiling. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, once a champion of the tactic, has since apologized for its use.
Since the ruling, the department claimed a sharp drop in stops, reporting an average of around 11,730 per year from 2016 to 2022, compared with a high of nearly 686,000 stops in 2011.
Black and Hispanic people continue to be the targets of the vast majority of stops, accounting for 89 percent of all stops in 2022, according to NYPD data compiled by the New York Civil Liberties Union.

Ex-VP Pence jumps into 2024 White House race

Ex-VP Pence jumps into 2024 White House race
Updated 37 min 1 sec ago

Ex-VP Pence jumps into 2024 White House race

Ex-VP Pence jumps into 2024 White House race
  • Pence is framing himself as a traditional Republican, concerned with fiscal responsibility and family values

WASHINGTON: Republican former vice president Mike Pence launched his bid for the 2024 presidential nomination on Monday, offering a traditionalist alternative to the battle royale being waged by populists Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.
The evangelical Christian filed his paperwork with the Federal Election Commission ahead of an official declaration Wednesday in the early voting state of Iowa — joining an already crowded field.
Pence, 63, honed his reputation as an unstintingly loyal deputy who stuck with Trump throughout a scandal-plagued four years and brought the religious right into the tent.
But he became a pariah in Trumpworld after rejecting the Republican leader’s demands that he overturn the 2020 election in his role as president of the Senate.
Berated constantly by Trump after Joe Biden’s victory — and even heckled at a conservative conference with chants of “traitor!” — Pence continued to praise the tycoon in public.
That eventually changed after Trump’s torrent of false claims of election fraud led to a mob chanting for Pence to be hanged at the US Capitol.

Pence has spent much of the last two years touring early-nominating states such as Iowa and New Hampshire to reinforce his political vision as a “Christian, conservative, Republican — in that order.”
His entry doesn’t much change the dynamics of the race, which is divided into three lanes — runaway leader Donald Trump, Trump’s closest rival and sitting Florida governor DeSantis, and everyone else.
Pence is framing himself as a traditional Republican, concerned with fiscal responsibility and family values, who can deliver Trump’s economic policies without the drama.
But he has also pointed to some clear blue water between the pair, as he allies himself strongly with Ukraine and refuses to rule out cuts to welfare payments.
While his politics are popular among Republicans, critics question whether Pence has a constituency in a party that is more focused now on populism and cultural politics than traditional conservatism.
And voters sympathetic to his decision to stand up for the Constitution have other candidate choices, such as the proselytizing Christian Tim Scott who do not bring with them the baggage of the Trump years.
“We all give (Pence) credit for certifying the election,” Republican strategist Sarah Longwell told Politico.
“But he also stood next to Donald Trump and normalized and validated him for four years while Trump ran roughshod over the presidency.”

DeSantis has consistently been polling almost 20 points above Pence and is hoping to outflank Trump from the right.
But the Florida governor’s poor showing in head-to-head polls has opened the floodgates, with Chris Christie due to announce on Tuesday, joining former governors Nikki Haley, Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum in the race.
Like Haley and DeSantis, Pence has appeared determined to avoid conflict with Trump in hopes of wooing his former supporters should the cascade of criminal investigations targeting the former president take him out of the race.
The lower-ranked candidates have also pointed out that there is a long way to go in the race, and that Trump was trailing in the low single digits at this point in the 2016 cycle.
Democrats watching from the sidelines pointed to Pence’s socially conservative agenda as an abortion hard-liner who has opposed same-sex marriage as evidence that he would drag the contest to the right.
“In Mike Pence’s own words, he was a member of the extreme Tea Party ‘before it was cool,’ and he hasn’t slowed down since,” said Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison.
Zee Cohen-Sanchez, a left-leaning election strategist who has worked with progressives like Bernie Sanders, said Pence’s break with Trump over the insurrection was a double-edged sword.
“Despite allegations and charges against Trump, his base remains strong and given Pence essentially turned against Trump, these voters will not support him,” she told AFP.
“The majority of other Republicans support DeSantis, who has a track record conservatives are excited about and they see him as a powerful alternative to Trump.”

 


US defense secretary discusses upgrading ties with India to counter China

US defense secretary discusses upgrading ties with India to counter China
Updated 05 June 2023

US defense secretary discusses upgrading ties with India to counter China

US defense secretary discusses upgrading ties with India to counter China

NEW DELHI: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday discussed upgrading partnership with India, a major arms buyer, and set a roadmap for cooperation for the next five years as both countries grapple with China’s economic rise and increased belligerence, officials said.

Austin’s visit comes as India strengthens its domestic defense industry by acquiring new technologies and reducing reliance on imports, particularly from Russia, its largest supplier of military hardware despite the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Austin and his Indian counterpart, Rajnath Singh, explored ways of building resilient supply chains, a statement from India’s Defense Ministry said. They decided “to identify opportunities for the co-development of new technologies and co-production of existing and new systems and facilitate increased collaboration between defense startup ecosystems of the two countries.”

They also discussed regional security issues and committed to strengthening operational collaboration across all military services, with an eye to supporting India’s leading role as a security provider in the Indo-Pacific, the statement said.

The new roadmap for US-India defense industrial cooperation will fast track technology cooperation and co-production in areas such as air combat and land mobility systems, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, munitions and the undersea domain, said a US Department of Defense press release.

“This initiative aims to change the paradigm for cooperation between US and Indian defense sectors, including a set of specific proposals that could provide India access to cutting-edge technologies and support India’s defense modernization plans,” it said.

The discussions also included cooperation in space, cyberspace, and artificial intelligence. Austin also met with India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval.

“I’m returning to India to meet with key leaders for discussions about strengthening our Major Defense Partnership. Together, we’re advancing a shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Austin tweeted after his arrival in New Delhi on Sunday.

Austin, who is on his second visit to India, was expected to lay the groundwork for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington on June 22, which has fueled speculation about a possible announcement of defense contracts.

India is looking to buy 18 armed high-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles from General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. for an estimated $1.5 billion to $2 billion, said Rahul Bedi, a defense analyst. The UAVs would likely be deployed along its restive borders with China and Pakistan and in the strategic Indian Ocean region, Bedi said.

Indian media reports said a joint production and manufacture of combat aircraft engines, infantry combat vehicles, howitzers and their precision ordnance were discussed last month in Washington at a meeting of the US-India Defense Policy Group.


Senegalese man warned of gun violence the day he was shot dead in riots

Senegalese man warned of gun violence the day he was shot dead in riots
Updated 05 June 2023

Senegalese man warned of gun violence the day he was shot dead in riots

Senegalese man warned of gun violence the day he was shot dead in riots
  • Sixteen people have died in the deadliest unrest in Senegal in decades

DAKAR: El-Hajji Cisse was busy on Friday, the day he was killed, tweeting hundreds of times as riots erupted beyond the walls of his compound in a busy suburb of Senegal’s capital Dakar.

In one post, the 26-year-old student warned his 1,700 followers about security forces firing live rounds at protesters. In another, he shared first aid tips for people wounded on the streets.

Offline he helped too, showing elderly neighbors how to ease their discomfort from inhaling mouthfuls of tear gas, said his younger brother Djimbala Ba.

“He spent his time in the service of others,” said Ba, 24, who burst into tears during an interview at the home where he and his brother used to share a bed in a small side room. “He was a good patriot.”

At around 9 p.m. on Friday, after a bowl of couscous and milk, Cisse braved the short walk to a mosque to pray as security forces and rioters clashed nearby, said Ba, and another friend, Cheikh Ndiaye.

Minutes later, he was shot.

Sixteen people have died in the deadliest unrest in Senegal in decades, triggered by a prison sentence handed down to opposition leader Ousmane Sonko that could rule him out of presidential elections in February. Sonko denies wrongdoing.

His supporters say the charges were politically motivated and have taken to the streets in their thousands, hurling rocks at security forces, setting cars and buildings alight and ransacking supermarkets and gas stations.

Police have responded with tear gas and what rights groups have described as excessive force.

Five hundred people have been arrested, the government says.

Security forces deny firing on protesters or using excessive force.

Cisse had planned to study in Canada, Ba said.

He often sported the jersey of his favorite football team, Real Madrid. 

As the riots intensified on Friday, he spent hours on his phone in the Grand Yoff neighborhood firing off tweets railing against a partial internet shutdown.

His profile became a mirror of the chaos and anger that brewed outside.

In one of his last posts, just before 6 p.m., he pleaded to Twitter owner Elon Musk to help reconnect people in Senegal to the web.

About three hours later, Cisse was returning from the mosque when he was shot in the shoulder a few meters from home, Ba, Ndiaye and two other friends said.

A video on TikTok shows what they say is Cisse lying motionless on the ground as a man tries to apply pressure to his upper arm.

A crowd then carries him toward a hospital.