South Asia
On Thursday, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that the Pakistani cabinet had halted the country’s top economic body’s decision to resume imports of cotton and sugar from India. He said that the cabinet would reconsider this decision once India revokes its decision to abrogate the special status granted to Jammu and Kashmir. [Reuters]
Official sources suggest that Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov will be seeking to ramp up cooperation with India on Afghanistan during his visit to New Delhi next week. During the meeting, which will also be attended by Russian Special Envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov, he will brief his Indian counterpart S. Jaishankar about the progress made during the March 18 meeting of the extended troika in Russia. [Times of India]
Central Asia and the Caucasus
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York-based organisation that promotes press freedom, has urged the Kazakh government to “immediately release” journalist Aigul Otepova, who was arrested on charges of participating in banned political movements. If convicted, she could face up to two years in prison. The CPJ also said that journalists in Kazakhstan “should not be persecuted for their independent reporting” and that authorities should allow Otepova to “work safely.” [RFE/RL]
Jailed Tajik opposition figure Hikmatullo Saifullozoda has been moved to prison due to poor health, according to a report by RFE/RL. In an interview given to the news outlet, Saifullozoda’s wife, Farogat Sanginova, claimed that her husband’s health was deteriorating due to heart problems. However, her claims have been rejected by Tajik prison authorities. Saifullozoda, a member of the banned Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), was arrested in 2015 and sentenced to 16 years in jail after a court found him guilty of participating in an insurrection against President Emomali Rahmon. Human rights activists have said that Rahmon, who has been in power since 1992, has a history of sidelining opponents and suppressing dissent. [RFE/RL]
East and Southeast Asia
The Philippines military said on Thursday that it had discovered several illegal manmade structures on Union Banks on the South China Sea’s Spratly Islands on March 30. The structures were discovered in the same area where hundreds of Chinese ships were docked last month. “These constructions and other activities, economic or otherwise, are prejudicial to peace, good order, and security of our territorial waters,” Philippines Military chief Lieutenant General Cirilito Sobejana said. [Channel News Asia]
South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) has set aside a total of $2.8 billion for the attack helicopter programme that will run from 2022-2028. It is unclear at the moment what the new purchase will be, but the new helicopters are set to replace legacy Bell AH-1S Cobras. [Flight Global]
Europe
The EU on Thursday accused Moscow of violating international law by launching a “conscription campaign” in Russian-occupied Crimea. Condemning its aggression in the region, the bloc stressed that Russia was obligated to protect human rights on the peninsula and reiterated that it “does not and will not recognise the illegal annexation” of Crimea. The strongly-worded statement came on the same day that Ukraine accused Russia of building up troops near their shared border. [European Union External Action, VOA]
The World Health Organisation’s European office criticised the European vaccine campaign for being “unacceptably slow”, specifically amidst the surging cases in the region. The statement urged European authorities to “speed up the process” and “reduce barriers to administering vaccines.” [Euronews]
Latin America and the Caribbean
Brazil registered a record 3,950 deaths from the coronavirus on Wednesday, meaning that the country has now registered an average of 2,971 deaths per day over the last seven days. March was the country’s deadliest month in the pandemic so far, with 66,868 deaths, well above the 2nd deadliest month, which occurred back in July 2020, when there were 32,912 deaths. [Folha de S.Paulo]
Cuban Deputy Prime Minister Ricardo Cabrisas Ruiz and Russian Vice President Yury Borisov met in Havana on Wednesday for the 18th Session of the Cuban-Russian Intergovernmental Commission for Economic-Commercial and Scientific-Technical Collaboration. It is thought that delegations from the two countries are discussing the restoration and modernisation of Cuba’s railway infrastructure and the upgradation of Cuba’s defence industry, which will be complemented by a $46 million loan from Moscow. [Latin American Herald Tribune]
Middle East and North Africa (MENA)
A development project called New Kocho, which aims to provide housing and relief to Yazidi survivors of genocide, will be launched in the Iraqi village of Kocho by Nadia’s Initiative, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Kocho was one of the sites of the Islamic State’s worst atrocities against the Yazidis, which the United Nations has recognised as genocide. Nadia Murad, 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner and Yazidi survivor, founded Nadia’s Initiative in 2018, which is dedicated to supporting communities in crisis and helping survivors of sexual violence. [Rudaw]
United Nations officials are reviewing plans to construct a new canal on the Egypt-Israel border after the blockage of the Suez Canal by the Ever Given container ship,, which is estimated to have cost millions of dollars and resulted in a disruption of global supply chains. The proposed canal, which is being labelled as ‘Suez 2’, would “run in a near straight line into the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea.” [The Guardian]
Iran has started using advanced IR-2m centrifuges to enrich uranium at its underground Natanz facility, as per a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The move, which will allow Iran to refine uranium at much faster rates, is a further breach of the terms set under the 2015 nuclear deal, from which the previous United States administration of Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew in 2018. [Reuters]
North America
A gunman opened fire in a business complex in Southern California on Wednesday, killing four people, including a nine-year-old boy. Police identified the suspect as Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez, 44, who was wounded and hospitalised and remains in critical condition. The incident marked the third deadly mass shooting in the US in less than a month. [The New York Times]
US President Joe Biden convened his first Cabinet meeting on Thursday, a day after announcing his ambitious $2 trillion ‘American Jobs Plan’. Biden said that he was designating five secretaries—Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg; Marcia L. Fudge, the housing secretary; Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo; Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm; and Martin J. Walsh, the labour secretary—to take on special responsibilities in explaining the proposal to the American public, “and help work out the details as we refine it and move forward.” [The White House]
India has reportedly halted the shipments of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine from the Serum Institute to Canada for an indefinite period, in an effort to meet domestic demand. Canadian authorities said that though they are expecting a delay in receiving the doses, they have received assurances from the Pune-based facility that they are committed to fulfilling their contractual obligations. [Livemint]
Oceania
Australian economist Sean Turnell, who was an adviser to Myanmar’s deposed State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, has been charged alongside Suu Kyi under the country’s ‘Official Secrets Act’, which could result in a prison sentence of up to 14 years. The Act prohibits the collection, publication, or distribution of “any secret official code or password, or any sketch, plan, model, article or note or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be, directly or indirectly, useful to an enemy.” Australian diplomats have been attempting to secure Turnell’s release, but have thus far been unsuccessful in their pleas to the Burmese government. [Sydney Morning Herald]
Earlier this week, 14 countries—including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia—released a joint statement condemning a report by the World Health Organization that said that COVID-19 likely originated from bats, thereby dismissing the theory that it had leaked from a lab. New Zealand has now explained why it did not co-sign the statement, with the spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta saying, “Our technical experts are currently analysing the report. As this is a scientific report, we want to make sure we understand the science before making any comment. We will wait until our experts have finished analysing the report.” [Newshub]
Sub-Saharan Africa
The leader of terrorist outfit Al-Shabaab, Ahmed Omar Abu Ubaidah, has called on the youth of Djibouti to “carry out individual lone wolf martyrdom operations to expel the French and Americans” ahead of the country’s election on April 9. He said that Djibouti’s government had rented out the country to become a military base “from where every war against the Muslims in East Africa is planned.” [Voice of America]
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari condemned this week’s attempted coup in Niger, where armed assailants briefly gained control of the presidential palace. Buhari said, “Nigeria cannot be indifferent to these dangers to Africa. Coups are out of fashion and the involvement of the military in violent change of government is doing more harm than good to Africa.” [Pulse]
World News Monitor: 2 April, 2021
A quick look at events from around the globe.
April 2, 2021
Deposed Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi SOURCE: REUTERS