Category: FOREIGN

Foreign Blogs is a network of global affairs blogs and a supplement to the Foreign Policy Association’s Great Decisions program.

  • Police brutality on British-Pakistanis provoke protests in Manchester

    Police brutality on British-Pakistanis provoke protests in Manchester

    Several videos of an armed UK cop holding a taser over a man lying face down on the floor are going viral on social media. The cop can be seen striking the man twice while other officers shout at onlookers in Manchester Airport.

    Onlookers can be heard shouting in the video as the cops proceed to kick and stamp on the man’s heads. The chaotic scene continued as another person is heard yelling “move back”, while a female officer is seen turning her taser towards other individuals present.

    Other voices in the video plead, “Stop kicking people”, and a slew of expletives as multiple officers surround the men on the ground.

    Reports suggest the men being beaten by police officers are British Pakistanis.

    Videos of two young men who were arrested and then released by the police have also emerged online. Their lawyer has confirmed that Fahir and Ammad were assaulted by the police at the airport in front of their mother who could be seen protecting one of them in the video that went viral. The lawyer claimed that they were arrested by the police and upon their release they themselves went to the hospital for first-aid whereas it was the duty of the police to provide them with medical help. The lawyer stressed that a “complaint has been filed against the police officers that have assaulted both Fahir and Amaad and their elderly mother who was just there as a bystander”.

    The same Twitter thread claimed that someone at the airport had hit the trolley of the boys’ mother, and this escalated a fight, adding that the boys were released by the police because of the lack of evidence.

    Dawn’s Atika Rehman reports that the incident happened on Wednesday afternoon (July 24).

    Greater Manchester Police responded to the viral video by saying that an armed officer had been attacked while attempting to arrest someone, following a fight in Terminal 2 of the airport on Tuesday.

    Police issued a statement following the release of the video on social media that four men were arrested at the scene on suspicion of assaulting emergency service workers.

    The police said that a female officer suffered from a broken nose, and other officers required hospitalisation.

    BBC News quoted Assistant Chief Constable Wasim Chaudhry as saying: “We know that a film of an incident at Manchester Airport that is circulating widely shows an event that is truly shocking, and that people are rightly extremely concerned about. The use of such force in an arrest is an unusual occurrence and one that we understand creates alarm.”

    The IOPC said it would assess GMP’s referral “and decide what further action is required”.

    A protest was held following the footage release where one of the protesters had told the crowd they were “no longer going to settle” for “police brutality”, the Manchester Evening News reported.

    People from the British-Pakistani community expressed their disappointment at the police for mistreating the boys. A criminal lawyer in UK, Attik Malik posted a video of him expressing the disgust he felt after the videos and pronounced, “enough is enough.”

    Another user pointed out that, “this cannot be challenged. This is absolutely brutal and disgusting.”

  • Plane crashes in Nepal with 18 dead, pilot sole survivor

    Plane crashes in Nepal with 18 dead, pilot sole survivor

    A passenger plane crashed on take-off in Kathmandu on Wednesday, with the pilot rescued from the flaming wreckage but all 18 others aboard killed, police in the Nepali capital told AFP.

    Nepal has a woeful track record on aviation safety and the Himalayan republic has seen a spate of deadly light plane and helicopter crashes over the decades.

    The Saurya Airlines flight was carrying two crew and 17 of the company’s staff members, Nepali police spokesman Dan Bahadur Karki told AFP.

    “The pilot has been rescued and is being treated,” he added. “Eighteen bodies have been recovered, including one foreigner. We are in the process of taking them for post-mortem.”

    The Civil Aviation Authority said the dead foreigner was a Yemeni citizen.

    A press release from the airport said the aircraft “veered off to the right and crashed on the east side of the runway” shortly after take-off.

    The survivor was in serious condition in hospital, it added.

    Ram Kumar K.C., who runs a tyre store near the accident site, told AFP the plane caught fire after hitting the ground.

    “We were about to run to the site but then there was an explosion so we ran away again,” the 48-year-old said.

    The flight was being conducted for either technical or maintenance purposes, Gyanendra Bhul of Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority told AFP without giving further details.

    Images of the aftermath shared by Nepal’s military showed the plane’s fuselage split apart and burnt to a husk.

    Around a dozen soldiers in camouflage were standing on top of the wreckage with the surrounding earth coated in fire retardant.

    The aircraft crashed at around 11:15 am (0530 GMT), the military said in a statement, adding that the army’s quick response team had been lending assistance with rescue efforts.

    The plane was scheduled to fly on Nepal’s busiest air route between Kathmandu and Pokhara, an important tourism hub in the Himalayan republic.

    Saurya Airlines exclusively flies Bombardier CRJ 200 jets, according to its website.

    Plagued by poor safety

    Nepal’s air industry has boomed in recent years, carrying goods and people between hard-to-reach areas as well as foreign trekkers and climbers.

    But it has been plagued by poor safety due to insufficient training and maintenance — issues compounded by the mountainous republic’s treacherous geography.

    The European Union has banned all Nepali carriers from its airspace over safety concerns.

    The Himalayan country has some of the world’s trickiest runways to land on, flanked by snow-capped peaks with approaches that pose a challenge even for accomplished pilots.

    The weather can also change quickly in the mountains, creating treacherous flying conditions.

    Nepal’s last major commercial flight accident was in January 2023, when a Yeti Airlines service crashed while landing at Pokhara, killing all 72 aboard.

    That accident was Nepal’s deadliest since 1992, when all 167 people aboard a Pakistan International Airlines plane died when it crashed on approach to Kathmandu airport.

    Earlier that year a Thai Airways aircraft had crashed near the same airport, killing 113 people.

  • Colombia president enacts law banning bullfighting

    Colombia president enacts law banning bullfighting

    In front of a crowd gathered at the bullring in the capital Bogota, renamed the Santamaria Cultural Square, Petro on Monday celebrated ending the “right to kill” animals for entertainment.

    “Culture, and even less the justice (system), cannot say that it is culture to kill sentient beings, living creatures, for pleasure,” said Petro, in reference to a 2018 Constitutional Court ruling permitting bullfights in places with such a tradition.

    “If we have fun by killing an animal, we will have fun by killing human beings,” Petro said, addressing the crowd which included animal rights activists.

    Spectators chanted “No more ‘ole’!”, a slogan used during the legislative process by supporters of the law, which was passed by congress in late May.

    Luana Delgado, an influencer and anti-bullfighting activist, underlined the importance of the ban being enacted at Bogota’s bullring.

    “A place where you saw blood, where you saw death, now you will see culture,” she said.

    The nationwide legislation paves the way for bullrings to be transformed into cultural spaces or sports venues.

    Jesus Merchan, an animal rights campaigner, said to applause: “Today, we put an end to a long history of suffering.”

    The new law will be enforced from 2027, allowing time to convert arenas and provide alternative jobs to those who rely directly or indirectly on bullfighting.

    Colombia joins other Latin American countries that have outlawed bullfighting, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala and Uruguay.

    Bullfights are still held in Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela, as well as in European nations France, Spain and Portugal.

  • At least 174 killed, more than 2,500 arrested amid Bangladesh protests

    At least 174 killed, more than 2,500 arrested amid Bangladesh protests

    The number of arrests in days of violence in Bangladesh passed the 2,500 mark in an AFP tally on Tuesday, after protests over employment quotas sparked widespread unrest.

    At least 174 people have died, including several police officers, according to a separate AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals.

    What began as demonstrations against politicised admission quotas for sought-after government jobs snowballed last week into some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s tenure.

    A curfew was imposed and soldiers deployed across the South Asian country, and a nationwide internet blackout drastically restricted the flow of information, upending daily life for many.

    On Sunday, the Supreme Court pared back the number of reserved jobs for specific groups, including the descendants of “freedom fighters” from Bangladesh’s 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.

    The student group leading the demonstrations suspended its protests Monday for 48 hours, with its leader saying they had not wanted reform “at the expense of so much blood”.

    The restrictions remained in place Tuesday after the army chief said the situation had been brought “under control”.

    There was a heavy military presence in Dhaka, with bunkers set up at some intersections and key roads blocked with barbed wire.

    But more people were on the streets, as were hundreds of rickshaws.

    “I did not drive rickshaws the first few days of curfew, But today I didn’t have any choice,” rickshaw driver Hanif told AFP.

    “If I don’t do it, my family will go hungry.”

    The head of Students Against Discrimination, the main group organising the protests, told AFP in his hospital room Monday that he feared for his life after being abducted and beaten, and the group said Tuesday at least four of its leaders were missing, asking authorities to “return” them by the evening.

    ‘Killed at random’

    The authorities’ response to the protests has been widely criticised, with Bangladeshi Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus urging “world leaders and the United Nations to do everything within their powers to end the violence” in a statement.

    The respected 83-year-old economist is credited with lifting millions out of poverty with his pioneering microfinance bank but earned the enmity of Hasina, who has accused him of “sucking blood” from the poor.

    “Young people are being killed at random every day,” Yunus told AFP. “Hospitals do not reveal the number of wounded and dead.”

    Diplomats in Dhaka also questioned the government’s actions, with US Ambassador Peter Haas telling the foreign minister he had shown a one-sided video at a briefing to diplomats.

    Government officials have repeatedly blamed the protesters and opposition for the unrest.

    More than 1,200 people detained over the course of the violence — nearly half the 2,580 total — were held in Dhaka and its rural and industrial areas, according to police officials who spoke to AFP.

    Almost 600 were arrested in Chittagong and its rural areas, with hundreds more detentions tallied in multiple districts across the country.

    ‘Sheikh Hasina never flees’

    With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the June reintroduction of the quota scheme — halted since 2018 — deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

    With protests mounting across the country, the Supreme Court on Sunday curtailed the number of reserved jobs from 56 percent of all positions to seven percent, mostly for the children and grandchildren of “freedom fighters” from the 1971 war.

    While 93 percent of jobs will be awarded on merit, the decision fell short of protesters’ demands to scrap the “freedom fighter” category altogether.

    Late Monday, Hasina’s spokesman told AFP the prime minister had approved a government order putting the Supreme Court’s judgement into effect.

    Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina’s ruling Awami League.

    Hasina, 76, has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

    Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including by the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

    bur-sa/slb/

    © Agence France-Presse

  • Hamas announces ‘national unity’ deal with Palestinian rivals

    Hamas announces ‘national unity’ deal with Palestinian rivals

    Hamas announced Tuesday it had signed an agreement in Beijing with other Palestinian organizations, including rivals Fatah, to work together for “national unity”, with China describing it as a deal to rule Gaza together once the war ends.

    Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who hosted senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzuk, Fatah envoy Mahmud al-Aloul and emissaries from 12 other Palestinian groups, said they had agreed to set up an “interim national reconciliation government” to govern post-war Gaza. “Today we sign an agreement for national unity and we say that the path to completing this journey is national unity. We are committed to national unity and we call for it,”

    Abu Marzuk said after meeting Wang and the other envoys. The announcement comes more than nine months into the genocide.

    Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 39,000 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Gaza.

    The relentless fighting has plunged Gaza into a severe humanitarian crisis. China has sought to play a mediator role in the conflict, which has been rendered even more complex due to the intense rivalry between Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and Fatah, which partially governs the occupied West Bank.

    Israel has vowed to keep fighting until it destroys Hamas, and world powers, including key Israeli backer the United States, have scrambled to imagine scenarios for the governance of Gaza once the war ends. As Tuesday’s meeting wrapped up in Beijing, Wang said the groups had committed to “reconciliation”.

    “The most prominent highlight is the agreement to form an interim national reconciliation government around the governance of post-war Gaza,” Wang said following the signing of the “Beijing Declaration” by the factions in the Chinese capital.

    “Reconciliation is an internal matter for the Palestinian factions, but at the same time, it cannot be achieved without the support of the international community,” Wang said. China, he added, was keen to “play a constructive role in safeguarding peace and stability in the Middle East”. Beijing, Wang said, called for a “comprehensive, lasting and sustainable ceasefire”, as well as efforts to promote Palestinian self-governance and full recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN.

    Hamas and Fatah have been bitter rivals since Hamas fighters ejected Fatah from the Gaza Strip after deadly clashes that followed Hamas’s resounding victory in a 2006 election.

    Fatah controls the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Several reconciliation bids have failed, but calls have grown since October 7, with violence also soaring in the West Bank, where Fatah is based.

    China hosted Fatah and Hamas in April, but a meeting scheduled for June was postponed. China has historically been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and supportive of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

  • More than 500 arrested in Bangladesh capital over violence: police

    More than 500 arrested in Bangladesh capital over violence: police

    More than 500 people, including some opposition leaders, have been arrested over days of clashes in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka sparked by protests against job quotas, police said Monday.

    “At least 532 people have been arrested over the violence,” Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Faruk Hossain told AFP.

    “They include some BNP leaders,” he added, referring to the opposition Bangladesh National Party.

    The detainees included the BNP’s third-most senior leader Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury and its spokesman Ruhul Kabir Rizvi Ahmed, he said.

    A former national football captain turned senior BNP figure, Aminul Huq, was also held, he added.

    Mia Golam Parwar, the general secretary of the country’s largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, was also arrested, Hossain said.

    He said at least three policemen had been killed during the unrest in the capital and about 1,000 injured, at least 60 of them critically.

    BNP spokesman A.K.M Wahiduzzaman told AFP that nationwide, “several hundred BNP leaders and activists were arrested in the past few days”.

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    © Agence France-Presse

  • Joe Biden quits the US presidential race, endorses Kamala Harris

    Joe Biden quits the US presidential race, endorses Kamala Harris

    Joe Biden on Sunday dropped out of the US presidential election and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s new nominee, in a move that upends the 2024 race for the White House.

    The 81-year-old Biden stepped aside after weeks of pressure from Demo­crats following a disastrous debate performance, throwing the election battle against Republican Donald Trump into unprecedented turmoil.

    “While it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” Biden said in a letter on X while recovering from Covid at his beach house in Delaware.

    Biden said he would “speak to the nation later this week in more detail about my decision”. He later added that he was backing Harris, who is the first female, Black and South Asian vice president in US history, and will now be aiming to become its first female commander-in-chief.

    “Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,” Biden said on X. “Democrats – it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.” Biden is the first president in US history to pull out so late in an election race, and the first to bow out because of concerns over his mental acuity and health.

    Biden spent more than three weeks resisting calls to step down following the shock of the June 27 debate, at one point insisting that only the “Lord Almighty” could convince him to back out.

    In a bid to show he was up to the job, he gave a number of interviews and what was billed as a “big boy” press conference in which he took numerous questions, but made further gaffes including calling Harris “Vice President Trump”. A tide of voices within his own party calling on him to go, starting with donor and actor George Clooney and ending with former president Barack Obama, sealed his fate.

    Chaotic period for US

    The end finally came shortly after Biden had been diagnosed with Covid, forcing him off the campaign trail and into isolation in Rehoboth Beach.

    Biden’s decision to pull out also caps a tense and chaotic period in the US election, with Trump having survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally on July 13.

    Biden joins a small club of US presidents who have decided to throw in the towel after just one term, with the last being Lyndon Johnson in 1968 — a year also marked by political turmoil and violence.

    Johnson’s replacement as nominee, then-vice president Hubert Humphrey, went on to lose heavily to Richard Nixon. But Democrats are counting on Harris to fare better, and hoping that she can prevent convicted felon Trump from making a sensational comeback to the Oval Office.

    In recent weeks, the Biden campaign has reportedly been quietly carrying out a head-to-head survey of voters measuring how she matched up against Trump.

    While Harris struggled to make an impact in her first years in the White House, she has emerged in the last year as a strong performer on the campaign trail on key messages such as abortion rights. She has also made much of her life story as the first woman in US history to hold the vice presidency, as well as the first person of Black and South Asian origin.

    Barring opposition from her party, Harris is now set to be nominated at the Democratic National Conven­tion in Chicago on August 19 in what promises to be a dramatic moment — and a heartrending one for Biden.

    Biden took office in January 2021 pledging to heal the “soul of America” after four turbulent years under Trump and the shock of the January 6, 2021 Capitol assault by his supporters.

    Overcoming a reputation for verbal flubs, Obama’s former vice president pushed through a massive Covid recovery plan and a green industry scheme.

    US allies welcomed his pledge that “America is back” following Trump’s trampling on international alliances, and his strong support for Ukraine as it battled Russia’s 2022 invasion. But he faced criticism over the catastrophic US withdrawal from Afgha­nistan and inflation that meant overstretched Americans ignored otherwise positive economic numbers.

    Behind it all were the ongoing concerns about his age with a series of senior moments, including tripping up the stairs to Air Force One and falling off his bike, contributing to the doddery image played up by Republicans.

    Biden’s Letter

  • Canada gets first ever female army chief

    Canada gets first ever female army chief

    General Jennie Carignan on Thursday took charge as Canada’s Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), becoming the first woman to lead the country’s armed forces.

    She is a military engineer by training, has led troops in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iraq and Syria during her 35 years in the Canadian Army.

    Speaking at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, General Carnignan said, “I feel ready, poised and supported to take on this manifold challenge.”

    Carignan takes over from General Wayne Eyre, who served as the top military commander since 2021.

    “We’re facing many internal challenges such as recruitment and retention,” Carignan said. “We know the challenges we face and what we need to do to address them.”

    Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called Carignan “a role model for all Canadians and for the world”.

    Canada’s defence spending is expected to be 1.39 percent of GDP in the 2024-25 fiscal year, according to government projections, reported by Reuters.

  • Bangladesh imposes curfew, calls in military after deadly unrest

    Bangladesh imposes curfew, calls in military after deadly unrest

    Bangladesh on Friday announced the imposition of a curfew and the deployment of military forces after police failed to quell days of deadly unrest that has spread throughout the country.

    This week’s clashes between student demonstrators and police have killed at least 105 people, according to an AFP count of victims reported by hospitals, and pose a momentous challenge to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s autocratic government after 15 years in office.

    “The government has decided to impose a curfew and deploy the military in aid of the civilian authorities,” Hasina’s press secretary Nayeemul Islam Khan told AFP.

    He added that the curfew would take immediate effect.

    Police in the capital Dhaka earlier took the drastic step of banning all public gatherings for the day — a first since protests began — in an effort to forestall more violence.

    “We’ve banned all rallies, processions and public gatherings in Dhaka today,” police chief Habibur Rahman told AFP, adding the move was necessary to ensure “public safety”.

    That however did not stop another round of confrontations between police and protesters around the sprawling megacity of 20 million people, despite an internet shutdown aimed at frustrating the organisation of rallies.

    “Our protest will continue,” Sarwar Tushar, who joined a march in the capital and sustained minor injuries when it was violently dispersed by police, told AFP.

    “We want the immediate resignation of Sheikh Hasina. The government is responsible for the killings.”

    Student protesters stormed a jail in the central Bangladeshi district of Narsingdi and freed its inmates before setting the facility on fire, a police officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.

    “I don’t know the number of inmates, but it would be in the hundreds,” he added.

    ‘Shocking and unacceptable’

    At least 52 people were killed in the capital on Friday, according to a list drawn up by the Dhaka Medical College Hospital and seen by AFP.

    Police fire was the cause of more than half of the deaths reported so far this week, based on descriptions given to AFP by hospital staff.

    UN human rights chief Volker Turk said the attacks on student protesters were “shocking and unacceptable”.

    “There must be impartial, prompt and exhaustive investigations into these attacks, and those responsible held to account,” he said in a statement.

    The capital’s police force earlier said protesters had on Thursday torched, vandalised and carried out “destructive activities” on numerous police and government offices.

    Among them was the Dhaka headquarters of state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which remains offline after hundreds of incensed students stormed the premises and set fire to a building.

    Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Faruk Hossain told AFP that officers had arrested Ruhul Kabir Rizvi Ahmed, one of the top leaders of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

    ‘Symbol of a rigged system’

    Near-daily marches this month have called for an end to a quota system that reserves more than half of civil service posts for specific groups, including children of veterans from the country’s 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.

    Critics say the scheme benefits children of pro-government groups that back Hasina, 76, who has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

    Hasina’s government is accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including by the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

    Her administration this week ordered schools and universities to close indefinitely as police stepped up efforts to bring the deteriorating law and order situation under control.

    “This is an eruption of the simmering discontent of a youth population built over years,” Ali Riaz, a politics professor at Illinois State University, told AFP.

    “The job quotas became the symbol of a system which is rigged and stacked against them by the regime.”

    ‘Nation-scale’ internet shutdown

    Students say they are determined to press on with protests despite Hasina giving a national address earlier this week on the now-offline state broadcaster seeking to calm the unrest.

    Nearly half of Bangladesh’s 64 districts reported clashes on Thursday, broadcaster Independent Television reported.

    London-based watchdog NetBlocks said Friday that a “nation-scale” internet shutdown remained in effect a day after it was imposed.

    “Metrics show connectivity flatlining at 10% of ordinary levels, raising concerns over public safety as little news flows in or out of the country,” it wrote on social media platform X.

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    © Agence France-Presse

  • Elon Musk congratulates Modi for most followers; social media says he’s wrong

    Elon Musk congratulates Modi for most followers; social media says he’s wrong

    Elon Musk, the controversial CEO of Tesla and social networking site X (formerly known as Twitter), recently congratulated Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on becoming the most followed world leader.

    Modi has 100.2 million followers on X, which are far less than Musk himself, who has 190.2 million.

    While Modi’s followers along with Indian Media celebrated the tweet as an honour, many netizens reminded Musk of Barack Obama, former American President, who is far ahead of Modi with his 131.7 million followers on X.

    National President of Indian Youth Congress, Srinivas tagged Elon Musk and wrote, “Is Barack Obama from another planet?”