India blocks Bangladeshis fleeing chaotic regime change

India blocks Bangladeshis fleeing chaotic regime change
Border Security Force (BSF) personnel inspect a truck carrying supplies to Bangladesh at the India-Bangladesh border in Fulbari on the outskirts of Siliguri on August 7, 2024. (AFP/File)
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Updated 12 August 2024
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India blocks Bangladeshis fleeing chaotic regime change

India blocks Bangladeshis fleeing chaotic regime change
  • After Hasina’s abrupt resignation and escape to India, there are numerous reports of attacks on Hindu households, temples and businesses
  • Indian border authorities say 11 Bangladesh nationals have been arrested since Sunday trying to ‘sneak’ across the border into West Bengal

KOLKATA: India has arrested nearly a dozen Bangladeshis attempting to cross the border to escape violence and political tumult following deadly protests that led to the ouster of prime minister Sheikh Hasina, border officials said Monday.
Hundreds more are waiting along the frontier pleading for permission to cross, India’s Border Security Force (BSF) said.
Hindus are the largest minority faith in mostly Muslim Bangladesh, and are considered a steadfast support base for Hasina’s party, the Awami League.
After Hasina’s abrupt resignation and escape to India ended her 15 years of autocratic rule on August 5, there were numerous reports of attacks against Hindu households, temples and businesses.
India’s BSF said 11 Bangladesh nationals had been arrested since Sunday trying to “sneak” across the frontier into West Bengal state.
“Several hundred Bangladeshi nationals are still waiting in no-man’s land to cross over the border,” BSF deputy inspector general Amit Kumar Tyagi told AFP.
Bangladesh is almost entirely encircled by India, with the border stretching for more than 4,000 kilometers (2,485 miles), large parts of which are unfenced.
Four Bangladeshis were also “repelled” from India’s Assam state, chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on social media platform X.
New Delhi has kept a wary eye on the fall of Hasina, who pursued a delicate balancing act of enjoying support from India while maintaining strong relations with China.
Hindus account for around 8 percent of Bangladesh’s 170 million people.
Over the past week, religious rights groups said they documented more than 200 incidents of attacks on minority communities in Bangladesh, a figure that also includes Christians and Buddhists.
The security situation has since dramatically improved, and on Monday Bangladeshi police resumed patrols of the capital Dhaka, ending a strike that left a law and order vacuum.
India’s home minister Amit Shah said Friday a committee had been created to monitor the situation “to ensure the safety and security of Indian nationals, Hindus, and other minority communities living there.”
Interim government leader Muhammad Yunus’s “council of advisers,” the de facto cabinet now administering the country, said it had noted with “grave concern” some attacks on Hindus and other minorities.
In its first official statement on Sunday night, the cabinet said it would work to “find ways to resolve such heinous attacks.”


Trump pledges 10,000 extra border agents in fight with Harris over immigration

Trump pledges 10,000 extra border agents in fight with Harris over immigration
Updated 10 sec ago
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Trump pledges 10,000 extra border agents in fight with Harris over immigration

Trump pledges 10,000 extra border agents in fight with Harris over immigration
  • Illegal immigration is a top voter concern, and Trump is seen by a majority of voters as the person best able to address it, opinion polls show

WASHINGTON: Donald Trump pledged on Sunday to hire an extra 10,000 border patrol agents if he is reelected as president, as he intensifies his attacks on Kamala Harris on the issue of immigration.
The Republican presidential candidate said he would meet the goal by asking the US Congress to fund a 10 percent pay rise for border patrol agents and a $10,000 retention and signing bonus, at a rally in the border state of Arizona, an election battleground.
Flanked on stage by leaders of the Border Patrol union, who have endorsed Trump, the former president said: “This will ensure that we can hire and keep the Border Patrol agents that we need.”
Trump is locked in a close race with Democratic Vice President Harris ahead of the Nov. 5 election. Illegal immigration is a top voter concern, and Trump is seen by a majority of voters as the person best able to address it, opinion polls show.
Trump helped kill a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year that would have funded the hiring of 1,500 extra customs and border patrol agents, and an additional 1,600 asylum officers.
There are currently roughly 20,000 US border patrol officers.
Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, and President Joe Biden have both blasted Trump for his role in pressuring congressional Republicans to kill the bipartisan border security bill, accusing him of sabotaging it for political gain.
Some 7 million migrants have been arrested crossing the US-Mexico border illegally during Biden’s administration, according to government data, a record high number that has fueled criticism of Harris and Biden from Trump and fellow Republicans.
Harris has outlined her plans to fix “our broken immigration system” while accusing Trump of “fanning the flames of fear and division” over the impact of immigrants on American life.
Harris has also called for tighter asylum restrictions and vowed to make a “top priority” of stopping the deadly opioid fentanyl from entering the United States.
On Friday Trump called for the death penalty for “any migrant” who kills a US citizen.
Trump has noticeably hardened his anti-immigration rhetoric in the final weeks of the campaign. Last month he called immigrants in the US illegally who commit violent crimes “monsters,” “stone-cold killers” and “vile animals.” Studies generally find there is no evidence immigrants commit crimes at a higher rate than native-born Americans and critics say Trump’s rhetoric reinforces racist tropes.


US to send anti-missile system and troops to Israel, Pentagon says

US to send anti-missile system and troops to Israel, Pentagon says
Updated 14 October 2024
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US to send anti-missile system and troops to Israel, Pentagon says

US to send anti-missile system and troops to Israel, Pentagon says
  • The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, is a critical part of the US military’s layered air defense systems and adds to Israel’s already formidable anti-missile defenses

WASHINGTON: The United States said on Sunday it will send US troops to Israel along with an advanced US anti-missile system, in a highly unusual deployment meant to bolster the country’s air defenses following missile attacks by Iran. US President Joe Biden said the move was meant “to defend Israel,” which is weighing an expected retaliation against Iran after Tehran fired more than 180 missiles at Israel on Oct 1.
The United States has been privately urging Israel to calibrate its response to avoid triggering a broader war in the Middle East, officials say, with Biden publicly voicing his opposition to an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear sites and his concerns about a strike on Iran’s energy infrastructure.
Pentagon spokesperson Major General Patrick Ryder described the deployment as part of “the broader adjustments the US military has made in recent months” to support Israel and defend US personnel from attacks by Iran and Iranian-backed groups.
But a US military deployment to Israel is rare outside of drills, given Israel’s own military capabilities. US troops in recent months have aided Israel’s defense from warships and fighter jets in the Middle East when it came under Iranian attack.
But they were based outside of Israel.
The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, is a critical part of the US military’s layered air defense systems and adds to Israel’s already formidable anti-missile defenses.
A THAAD battery usually requires about 100 troops to operate. It counts six truck mounted launchers, with eight interceptors on each launcher, and a powerful radar.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi warned earlier on Sunday that the United States was putting the lives of its troops “at risk by deploying them to operate US missile systems in Israel.”
“While we have made tremendous efforts in recent days to contain an all-out war in our region, I say it clearly that we have no red lines in defending our people and interests,” Araqchi posted on X. Still, experts say Iran has sought to avoid a direct war with the United States, making deployment of US forces to Israel another factor in its calculus going forward.
Iran launched missiles and drones at Israel in April. Then on Oct. 1, Iran fired more than 180 ballistic missiles at Israel amid another escalation in fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Many were intercepted in flight but some penetrated missile defenses. US officials did not say how quickly the system would be deployed to Israel.
The Pentagon said a THAAD was deployed to southern Israel for drills in 2019, the last and only time it was known to be there.
Lockheed Martin, the biggest US arms maker, builds and integrates the THAAD system, which is designed to shoot down short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. Raytheon, under RTX, builds its advanced radar.


UN chief says any attacks on Lebanon peacekeepers could be a war crime

UN chief says any attacks on Lebanon peacekeepers could be a war crime
Updated 14 October 2024
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UN chief says any attacks on Lebanon peacekeepers could be a war crime

UN chief says any attacks on Lebanon peacekeepers could be a war crime
  • “UNIFIL peacekeepers remain in all positions and the UN flag continues to fly,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement

NEW YORK: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Sunday that any attacks against peacekeepers “may constitute a war crime,” his spokesperson said after Israeli tanks burst through the gates of a peacekeeping base in southern Lebanon.
It was the latest accusation of Israeli violations and attacks against the UN peacekeeping mission, known as UNIFIL, in recent days.
“UNIFIL peacekeepers remain in all positions and the UN flag continues to fly,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
“The Secretary-General reiterates that UNIFIL personnel and its premises must never be targeted. Attacks against peacekeepers are in breach of international law, including international humanitarian law. They may constitute a war crime,” he said.


World Bank says 26 poorest countries in worst financial shape since 2006

World Bank says 26 poorest countries in worst financial shape since 2006
Updated 13 October 2024
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World Bank says 26 poorest countries in worst financial shape since 2006

World Bank says 26 poorest countries in worst financial shape since 2006
  • IDA normally is replenished every three years with contributions from World Bank shareholding countries

WASHINGTON: The world’s 26 poorest countries, home to 40 percent of the most poverty-stricken people, are more in debt than at any time since 2006 and increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters and other shocks, a new World Bank report showed on Sunday.
The report finds that these economies are poorer today on average than they were on the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic, even as the rest of the world has largely recovered from COVID and resumed its growth trajectory.
Released a week before World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual meetings get underway in Washington, the report confirms a major setback to efforts to eradicate extreme poverty and underscores the World Bank’s efforts this year to raise $100 billion to replenish its financing fund for the world’s poorest countries, the International Development Association (IDA).
The 26 poorest economies studied, which have annual per-capita incomes of less than $1,145, are increasingly reliant on IDA grants and near-zero interest rate loans as market financing has largely dried up, the World Bank said. Their average debt-to-GDP ratio of 72 percent is at an 18-year high and half of the group are either in debt distress or at high risk of it.
Two thirds of the 26 poorest countries are either in armed conflicts or have difficulty maintaining order because of institutional and social fragility, which inhibit foreign investment, and nearly all export commodities, exposing them to frequent boom-and-bust cycles, the report said.
“At a time when much of the world simply backed away from the poorest countries, IDA has been their lifeline,” World Bank chief economist Indermit Gill said in a statement. “Over the past five years, it has poured most of its financial resources into the 26 low-income economies, keeping them afloat through the historic setbacks they suffered.”
IDA normally is replenished every three years with contributions from World Bank shareholding countries. It raised a record $93 billion in 2021 and World Bank President Ajay Banga is aiming to exceed that with over $100 billion in pledges by Dec. 6.
Natural disasters also have taken a greater toll on these countries over the past decade. Between 2011 and 2023, natural disasters were associated with average annual losses of 2 percent of GDP, five times the average among lower-middle-income countries, pointing up the need for much higher investment, the World Bank said.
The report also recommended that these economies, which have large informal sectors operating outside their tax systems, do more to help themselves. This includes improving tax collections by simplifying taxpayer registration and tax administration and improving the efficiency of public spending.


Sweden wants EU to brand Iran’s Revolutionary Guards ‘terror’ group: PM

Sweden wants EU to brand Iran’s Revolutionary Guards ‘terror’ group: PM
Updated 13 October 2024
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Sweden wants EU to brand Iran’s Revolutionary Guards ‘terror’ group: PM

Sweden wants EU to brand Iran’s Revolutionary Guards ‘terror’ group: PM
  • Sweden’s Sapo intelligence agency has accused Iran of recruiting members of Swedish criminal gangs to commit “acts of violence” against Israeli and other interests in Sweden, a claim Iran has denied

STOCKHOLM: Sweden wants the European Union to officially deem Iran’s Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization after several attacks on Israeli targets in Sweden, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Sunday.
Sweden’s Sapo intelligence agency has accused Iran of recruiting members of Swedish criminal gangs to commit “acts of violence” against Israeli and other interests in Sweden, a claim Iran has denied.
Three attacks have been carried out against the Israeli embassy in Stockholm in the past year, and two attacks have targeted an Israeli military technology firm in the past six months.
“We want Sweden to seriously address, with other EU countries, the incredibly problematic connection between the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and their destructive role in the (Middle East) region, but also their escalating actions around various European countries, including Sweden,” Kristersson told the Expressen newspaper.
“The only reasonable consequence ... is that we get a joint terror classification, so that we can act more broadly than (we can with) the sanctions that already exist,” he said.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is a special branch of the Iranian armed forces whose officers hold key positions in Iran’s establishment
In May, Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter cited documents from Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad as saying that the head of the Swedish criminal network Foxtrot, Rawa Majid, and his archrival Ismail Abdo, head of the Rumba gang, had both been recruited by Iran.
Swedish public broadcaster SVT reported in early October that two recent attacks on the Israeli embassies in Stockholm and Copenhagen had been ordered by Foxtrot at the behest of Iran.