Russia launches new barrage of drones, missiles at Ukraine, kills one in Kyiv
KYIV (Reuters) -Russia launched a new barrage of drones and missiles at Ukraine in an overnight attack on Monday, killing at least one person and causing multiple fires in the capital Kyiv, city officials said.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said rescuers and medics were working on sites across four districts of the capital. A subway station in central Kyiv, commercial property, shops, houses and a kindergarten were damaged, city officials said.
In another tense and sleepless night for Kyiv residents, many rushed to take shelter in underground stations. Explosions were heard across the city as air defence units engaged in repelling the attack.
Oleh Synehubov, the governor of the Kharkiv region, reported multiple explosions in Kharkiv, the country's second-largest city, but gave no immediate details on the damage.
(Reporting by Olena Harmash; Editing by Stephen Coates)
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New Straits Times
7 minutes ago
- New Straits Times
Evictions, expulsions of Muslims to Bangladesh precede Indian state polls
BENEATH a sea of blue tarpaulin in a corner of northeastern India near Bangladesh, hundreds of Muslim men, women and babies take shelter after being evicted from their homes, in the latest crackdown in Assam ahead of state elections. They are among thousands of families whose houses have been bulldozed in the past few weeks by authorities - the most intense such action in decades - who accuse them of illegally staying on government land. The demolitions in Assam, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist party will seek reelection early next year, have coincided with a national clampdown on Bengali-speaking Muslims branded "illegal infiltrators" from Bangladesh, since the August 2024 ouster of a pro-India premier in Dhaka. "The government repeatedly harasses us," said Aran Ali, 53, speaking outside a patch of bare earth in Assam's Goalpara district that has become the makeshift home for his family of three. "We are accused of being encroachers and foreigners," said Ali, who was born in Assam, as the scorching July sun beat down on the settlement. Assam accounts for 262 km of India's 4097 km-long border with Bangladesh and has long grappled with anti-immigrant sentiments rooted in fears that Bengali migrants — both Hindus and Muslims — from the neighbouring country would overwhelm the local culture and economy. The latest clamp-down, under Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, has been exclusively aimed at Muslims and led to protests that killed a teenager days ago. Assam's firebrand Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is among a slew of ambitious BJP leaders accused of fomenting religious discord to stir populist sentiments ahead of polls across the country, says "Muslim infiltrators from Bangladesh" threaten India's identity. "We are fearlessly resisting the ongoing, unchecked Muslim infiltration from across the border, which has already caused an alarming demographic shift," he recently said on X. "In several districts, Hindus are now on the verge of becoming a minority in their own land." He told reporters last week that migrant Muslims make up 30 per cent of Assam's 31 million population as of the 2011 census. "In a few years from now, Assam's minority population will be close to 50 per cent," he said. Sarma did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. The BJP has long believed Hindu-majority India to be the natural homeland for all Hindus and implemented policies to counter the country's large Muslim population. In 2019 it amended India's citizenship law to effectively naturalise undocumented non-Muslim migrants from neighbouring countries. Since he became chief minister in May 2021, Sarma's government has evicted 50,000 people — mostly Bengali Muslims — from 160 square kilometres of land, with more planned. In just the past month alone, about 3,400 Bengali Muslim homes have been bulldozed in five eviction drives across Assam, according to state data. The previous government evicted some 4,700 families in the five years to early 2021. "Bengali-speaking Muslims, regardless of their legal status, have become vulnerable targets for right-wing groups in India," said Praveen Donthi, senior analyst at International Crisis Group. Indian opposition leaders have accused Sarma of using the evictions and expulsions to polarise voters ahead of elections. "These measures are politically beneficial and profitable for the BJP," said Akhil Gogoi, an opposition lawmaker. The main opposition Congress party, whose crushing defeat in the 2016 Assam election gave the BJP its first government in the state, said it would rebuild the demolished houses and jail those who destroyed them if voted back to power. The surge in evictions follows a deadly attack in April on Hindu tourists in Kashmir blamed on "terrorists" from Muslim-majority Pakistan, a charge Islamabad denies. BJP-ruled states have since rounded up thousands of Bengali Muslims, calling them suspected "illegal immigrants" and a potential security risk. Analysts say worsening ties between New Delhi and Dhaka following the ouster of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina have intensified sentiments against Bengali-speaking Muslims, giving the BJP a political weapon to use for votes. Bengali is the main language of Muslim-majority Bangladesh and is also widely spoken in parts of India. States including Assam have also "pushed back" hundreds of Bengali Muslims into Bangladesh. Some were brought back because appeals challenging their non-Indian status were being heard in court, Reuters has reported. Assam officials say around 30,000 people have been declared foreigners by tribunals in the state. Such people are typically long-term residents with families and land, and activists say many of them are often wrongly classified as foreigners and are too poor to challenge tribunal judgements. New Delhi said in 2016 that around 20 million illegal Bangladeshi migrants were living in India. "The Indian government is putting thousands of vulnerable people at risk in apparent pursuit of unauthorised immigrants, but their actions reflect broader discriminatory policies against Muslims," said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. India's foreign ministry said in May that the country had a list of 2,369 individuals to be deported to Bangladesh. It urged Bangladesh to expedite the verification process. Bangladesh's foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Since Hasina's removal and a rise in attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh, Sarma has frequently shared details of foiled infiltration attempts, with pictures of those caught splashed on social media. "The ethnonationalism that had long animated Assam's politics seamlessly merged with the religious nationalism of the BJP," said Donthi.
The Star
an hour ago
- The Star
Viral 'honour' killing in southwest Pakistan triggers national outrage
KARACHI (Reuters) -A viral video of the "honour killing" of a woman and her lover in a remote part of Pakistan has ignited national outrage, prompting scrutiny of long-standing tribal codes and calls for justice in a country where such killings often pass in silence. While hundreds of so-called honour killings are reported in Pakistan each year, often with little public or legal response, the video of a woman and man accused of adultery being taken to the desert by a group of men to be killed has struck a nerve. The video shows the woman, Bano Bibi, being handed a Koran by a man identified by police as her brother. "Come walk seven steps with me, after that you can shoot me," she says, and she walks forward a few feet and stops with her back to the men. The brother, Jalal Satakzai, then shoots her three times and she collapses. Seconds later he shoots and kills the man, Ehsan Ullah Samalani, whom Bano was accused of having an affair with. Once the video of the killings in Pakistan's Balochistan province went viral, it brought swift government action and condemnation from politicians, rights groups and clerics. Civil rights lawyer Jibran Nasir said, though, the government's response was more about performance than justice. "The crime occurred months ago, not in secrecy but near a provincial capital,yet no one acted until 240 million witnessed the killing on camera," he said. "This isn't a response to a crime. It's a response to a viral moment." Police have arrested 16 people in Balochistan's Nasirabad district, including a tribal chief and the woman's mother. The mother, Gul Jan Bibi, said the killings were carried out by family and local elders based on "centuries-old Baloch traditions", and not on the orders of the tribal chief. "We did not commit any sin," she said in a video statement that also went viral. "Bano and Ehsan were killed according to our customs." She said her daughter, who had three sons and two daughters, had run away with Ehsan and returned after 25 days. Police said Bano's younger brother, who shot the couple, remains at large. Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti said it was a "test" case and vowed to dismantle the illegal tribal courts operating outside the law. Police had earlier said a jirga, an informal tribal council that issues extrajudicial rulings, had ordered the killings. #JusticeForCouple The video sparked online condemnation, with hashtags like #JusticeForCouple and #HonourKilling trending. The Pakistan Ulema Council, a body of religious scholars, called the killings "un-Islamic" and urged terrorism charges against those involved. Dozens of civil society members and rights activists staged a protest on Saturday in the provincial capital Quetta, demanding justice and an end to parallel justice systems. "Virality is a double-edged sword," said Arsalan Khan, a cultural anthropologist and professor who studies gender and masculinity. "It can pressure the state into action, but public spectacle can also serve as a strategy to restore ghairat, or perceived family honour, in the eyes of the community." Pakistan outlawed honour killings in 2016 after the murder of social media star Qandeel Baloch, closing a loophole that allowed perpetrators to go free if they were pardoned by family members. Rights groups say enforcement remains weak, especially in rural areas where tribal councils still hold sway. "In a country where conviction rates often fall to single digits, visibility - and the uproar it brings - has its advantages," said constitutional lawyer Asad Rahim Khan. "It jolts a complacent state that continues to tolerate jirgas in areas beyond its writ." The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan reported at least 405 honour killings in 2024. Most victims are women, often killed by relatives claiming to defend family honour. Khan said rather than enforcing the law, the government has spent the past year weakening the judiciary and even considering reviving jirgas in former tribal areas. "It's executive inaction, most shamefully toward women in Balochistan," Khan said. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in recent months has asked senior ministers to evaluate proposals to revive jirgas in Pakistan's former tribal districts, including potential engagement with tribal elders and Afghan authorities. The Prime Minister's Office and Pakistan's information minister did not immediately respond to a request for comment. VIRAL AND THEN FORGOTTEN? The Balochistan killings were raised in Pakistan's Senate, where the human rights committee condemned the murders and called for action against those who convened the jirga. Lawmakers also warned that impunity for parallel justice systems risked encouraging similar violence. Activists and analysts, however, say the outrage is unlikely to be sustained. "There's noise now, but like every time, it will fade," said Jalila Haider, a human rights lawyer in Quetta. "In many areas, there is no writ of law, no enforcement. Only silence." Haider said the killings underscore the state's failure to protect citizens in under-governed regions like Balochistan, where tribal power structures fill the vacuum left by absent courts and police. "It's not enough to just condemn jirgas," Haider said. "The real question is: why does the state allow them to exist in the first place?" (Reporting by Ariba Shahid in Karachi and Saleem Ahmed in Quetta; Editing by Tom Hogue)
The Star
an hour ago
- The Star
Trump pauses export controls to bolster China trade deal, FT says
Container vessels in Suzhou, China. — AFP The U.S. has paused curbs on tech exports to China to avoid disrupting trade talks with Beijing and support President Donald Trump's efforts to secure a meeting with President Xi Jinping this year, the Financial Times said on Monday. The industry and security bureau of the Commerce Department, which oversees export controls, has been told in recent months to avoid tough moves on China, the newspaper said, citing current and former officials. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. The White House and the department did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment outside business hours. Top U.S. and Chinese economic officials are set to resume talks in Stockholm on Monday to tackle longstanding economic disputes at the centre of a trade war between the world's top two economies. Tech giant Nvidia said this month it would resume sales of its H20 graphics processing units (GPU) to China, reversing an export curb the Trump administration imposed in April to keep advanced AI chips out of Chinese hands over national security concerns. The planned resumption was part of U.S. negotiations on rare earths and magnets, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said. The paper said 20 security experts and former officials, including former deputy US national security adviser Matt Pottinger, will write on Monday to Lutnick to voice concern, however. "This move represents a strategic misstep that endangers the United States' economic and military edge in artificial intelligence," they write in the letter, it added. - Reuters
