JAMMU AND KASHMIR: In August, the government revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) guaranteed under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution and bifurcated the state into two union territories. This was preceded and followed by a region-wide clampdown on civil liberties, increased militarisation, a communications blackout and detention of key political leaders such as Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti. In a move to silence critics, hundreds of other political leaders and activists were also detained under various administrative detention laws. No official information on the number of people detained, their access to lawyers or family members, where they were held and under what charges was made available. Government-imposed restrictions prevented journalists and activists from independently documenting and sharing information about the situation, including allegations of human rights

abuses. Access to emergency services, healthcare, education and other services were highly restricted. The United Nations human rights experts including the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of freedom of expression, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, the Special Rapporteur on the right to peaceful assembly and association and the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions described the crackdown as ‘a form of collective punishment’. While many communication services have been restored such as telephone, mobile phones, SMS etc., the internet continues to be shut down. Kashmir valley accounts for half of all internet shutdowns in India that reports the highest number of shutdowns in the world. Prior to August, Kashmiri women and men throughout the country faced targeted attacks, harassment and arbitrary arrests after 42 members of the security forces were killed in Pulwama, J&K, in a suicide bomb attack in February. Kashmiri university students and traders in northern states, primarily Uttarakhand, Haryana and Bihar were beaten, threatened, and intimidated by some Hindu nationalist groups causing many students to flee their universities. In June, the authorities denied Amnesty International India permission to hold an event to launch a briefing on the misuse of the draconian J&K Public Safety Act (PSA) in Srinagar, the region’s capital verbally citing the ‘prevailing law and order situation’ as the reason.

JERUSALEM, 30 January 2020, TON: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejecting President Trump’s US’ crafted Middle East peace plan said, “We rejected this deal from the start and our stance is… we say a thousand times, no, no, no!” The Palestinian leadership has rejected the plan saying. “There no division of Jerusalem will be tolerated and Palestinian state without Jerusalem was impossible.”

Meanwhile, Palestinian organized mass protests in the West Bank and Gaza Strip chanting slogans and carrying banners against US-Israeli conspiracy against the Muslim’s lands. As a reaction of Palestinian response to Middle East peace plan and outright rejection, Israeli soldiers carried out, on Thursday airstrikes targeting five targets in central and southern Gaza Strip. Reportedly, one of the missile also hit structures near Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, causing destruction. Media reports claimed that a Hamas leader was killed; however, same could not be confirmed by other sources.

After the airstrikes, Israeli military carried out additional missile attacks while Israeli warplanes continued attacking several other locations causing damage to the buildings with no casualty. Some of the missile fell on open places.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spokesperson claimed that Tel Aviv carried out attack as response to a rocket attack carried out from Gaza towards Israel. He added, Israeli strikes targeted Izz-ud-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas setup in Khan Younis and farmhouse in Deir al-Balah city in Gaza Strip. However, causalities were not spelled out.

29 January 2020, TON: Afghanistan will play Pakistan on Friday in a quarter-final match in the ICC Under 19 World Cup.

Afghan coach Rajees Ahmadzai said that his team is ready for Friday’s match with Pakistan “just like any other match” adding adding that "Any match against Pakistan is interesting to everyone as Pakistan is always a strong side.”

Ahmadzai expressed confidence in his players, and said they have an advantage of high morale having beaten Pakistan several times at the Under 19 level previously.

Afghanistan beat South Africa and UAE in group matches in the World Cup, and the match against Canada was abandoned due to rain, which meant Afghanistan topped Group-D with 5 points.

“We will try not to be emotional and will play with a clear mind because when players are emotional, they tend to lose their control and strength and are not able to focus on the match properly,” he said.

SRINAGAR, 29 January 2020, TON: Indian Deputy Superintendent of Police, Davinder Singh was arrested along with two most wanted terrorist being dubbed as Hizbul Mujahideen militants from a car on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway in the first week of January 2020.

The investigation officer of Jammu and Kashmir Police who interrogated Davinder Singh disclosed on the condition of anonymity that Police officials are working for intelligence agencies in carrying out genocide of Kashmiris on the pretext of their links with outlawed organizations including Hizbul Mujahideen. He further disclosed that Indian Military Intelligence have issued communication equipment to undercover former Kashmiri Mujahideen, who surrendered sometime back but not shown as “Surrendered Mujahideen”.

Accordingly, the case was transferred to Indian National Investigation Agency (NIA). The initial findings were personally shared by Director-General NIA, Yogesh Chander Modi to Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Girish Chandra Murmu at the Raj Bhavan on 28^th January 2020  (Part – I of the Inside Story). 

SRINAGAR, 29 January 2020, TON: Indian Deputy Superintendent of Police, Davinder Singh was arrested along with two most wanted terrorist being dubbed as Hizbul Mujahideen militants from a car on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway in the first week of January 2020.

The investigation officer of Jammu and Kashmir Police who interrogated Davinder Singh disclosed on the condition of anonymity that Police officials are working for intelligence agencies in carrying out genocide of Kashmiris on the pretext of their links with outlawed organizations including Hizbul Mujahideen. He further disclosed that Indian Military Intelligence have issued communication equipment to undercover former Kashmiri Mujahideen, who surrendered sometime back but not shown as “Surrendered Mujahideen”.

Accordingly, the case was transferred to Indian National Investigation Agency (NIA). The initial findings about Indian security forces and Intelligence agencies fake and sel-engineered operations were personally shared by Director-General NIA, Yogesh Chander Modi to Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Girish Chandra Murmu at the Raj Bhavan on 28^th January 2020  (Part – I of the Inside Story). 

WUHAN, 29 January 2020, TON: There are 5,992 confirmed cases of a deadly new virus in People’s Rebublic of China from which 142 people have died as of January 29.

Chinese National Health Commission in a statement had confirmed 132 cases on 28 January and claimed that another 9,239 suspected cases of the respiratory illness are being monitored. 
Dozens of cases have been confirmed outside mainland China as well, including in Europe, Africa, North America, and Asia.

Symptoms of the new kind of “Corona-virus” include fever, cough, and shortness of breath. Health authorities have sealed off access to 17 cities in China's Hubei Province including Wuhan, where the pathogen is believed to have originated and was first reported in December last year.

Foreigners have begun to leave the virus-stricken province where thousands of people have are trapped. The World Health Organization has recognized the outbreak as a national emergency but stopped short of declaring it an international one. However, TON could not verify if actually so many deaths are taking place. 

29 January 2020, TON: A former deputy energy and coal minister in the administration of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was placed in pretrial detention for 45 days on suspicion of causing $40 million in damages to the state. Former deputy minister was allegedly involved in a scheme to sell liquefied gas at the expense of two state-owned oil and gas companies to private firms causing huge losses worth $40 million.

Bail was alternately set at $240,000, the High Anti-Corruption Court ruled on January 28 in Kyiv.

Should the former government official post bail, he is ordered to obey summons by law-enforcement agencies and the courts, not to change his residence, refrain from speaking with other suspects in the case, surrender his travel passport, and wear a monitoring bracelet.

The suspect has neither been identified by the Court not the officials have disclosed the name. However, Ukrainian media have identified him as Ihor Kiryushyn, who served as deputy energy and coal minister in 2009-2011. He was arrested in Georgia in March 2017. Kiryushyn was extradited from Georgia to Ukraine on 27 January 2018. Yanukovych, who is in self-imposed exile in Russia has denied the allegations and maintains he is the legitimate president of Ukraine.

RIYADH, 29 January 2020: Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman met with America’s top military commander in the Middle East on Tuesday.

Prince Khalid and General Kenneth McKenzie, commander of US Central Command, discussed cooperation between the two countries “particularly in the defense field, and the importance of strengthening security and military cooperation,” Saudi Press Agency reported.

They also discussed the latest developments in the region and the “joint efforts made towards them to serves international peace and security.”

28 January 2020: By Shaban Abdur Rahman Alfa. This year is expected to be another busy election year for West Africa, much like in 2019 when three presidential polls were held across the region. Incumbents won re-election in Nigeria and Senegal whiles in Guinea-Bissau, the incumbent was kicked out.

The 2020 calendar sees three close neighbours holding elections i.e. Togo, Ghana and Ivory Coast. Guinea is the other country even though there is a referendum specifically on whether or not outgoing Alpha Conde can run for another term after a decade in charge.

Togo’s Faure Gnassingbe will be contesting for the first of two constitutionally mandated five-year terms. Previously, the law allowed a candidate to run for as long as he wanted. That changed with the amendments that followed protests in 2017 and 2018.

But given that they did not have retrospective effect, Faure’s 15 years in office (2005 – 2020) did not count. It leaves him with a possible ten years to finally quit the presidency. If he wins the February 2020 polls, he is eligible to contest again in 2025 for a final term.

There are ten candidates cleared by the election body to contest. The president is the frontrunner but will be given his strongest opposition by Jean-Pierre Fabre, who was the leader of the protests that forced reforms especially on term limits for the presidency.

Alassane Ouattara after winning re-election in 2015 in what was expected to be his final term, said more than once that he was not interested in remaining in office beyond 2020. A lot has since changed and the president seems like he wants more of the presidency. Polls are slated for October.

Before disputed local polls of 2019, the coalition under whose aegis he rose to power parted ways. The ruling party managed to win the polls. Early this year, Ouattara dropped the strongest hint of staying on under certain conditions.

A key one being if his peers are going to contest, in this case former presidents Laurent Gbagbo and Henri Konan Bedie (his former coalition partner). Meanwhile, another ally in ex Speaker of Parliament, Guillaume Soro, has been shut out of the country over his presidential ambitions.

Soro is the subject of a judicial probe but has been denied re-entry into the country after a trip to Europe. Ouattara has promised to oversee free and credible polls, what remains to be seen is if it will usher in a new leader or a new mandate for himself.

Guinea remains in a state of political heat as opposition vows to continually oppose plans by the president, Alpha Conde, to amend the constitution to allow him run for a third straight term in office.

Conde like Ouattara has yet to make a clear statement on whether or not he will contest only again like Ouattara disclosing that plans are afoot to amend the laws. Protests in the country since 2019 has claimed lives, people have been arrested and jailed for their roles in the clashes with security forces.

With Conde’s party having a majority in parliament, it is projected that lawmakers will pass the amendment following which a referendum is likely to be held on the issue. Guinea, thus, has a long electoral year ahead.

West Africa is looking at four votes same for the East, Horn Africa region where Ethiopia and Somalia as well as Tanzania and Burundi go to the polls. Except for Burundi where Pierre Nkurunziza is exiting, incumbents are busy with plans to seek re-election.

John Pombe Magufuli will be seeking a final five-year term in Tanzania, In Tanzania. Abiy Ahmed will be in the driving seat as the Prosperity Party seeks political prosperity and Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo will be hoping to secure a historic second term in Somalia.

Here at Africanews, our Africa elections page will be updated with major developments from the different electoral arenas with before, during and after coverage guaranteed.

Pakistan pledged its support to Sri Lanka yesterday to combat drug trafficking and human smuggling.

Visiting Pakistani Navy Commander Admiral Zafar Mahmood Abbasi conveyed Pakistan’s willingness to assist the Government’s efforts to battle drug trafficking and human smuggling when he met Defence Secretary Maj. Gen. (Retd.) Kamal Gunaratne at the Defence Ministry yesterday.

While pledging Pakistan’s support for countering terrorism, Admiral Abbasi said that both countries should enhance existing cooperation to improve information sharing and defence ties.

“Pakistan will help to repair the Sri Lanka Navy’s hovercraft and also to develop a library at the proposed National Defence College,” Admiral Abbasi said. Expressing gratitude over Pakistan’s continuous assistance to Sri Lanka, Maj. Gen. Gunaratne said that he was looking forward to working closely with Pakistan in the future to strengthen military relations between the two nations.

Admiral Mahmood arrived in Sri Lanka on Saturday (25), on an official visit made on the invitation of SLN Commander Vice Admiral Piyal De Silva.

Maj. Gen. Gunaratne and Admiral Abbasi exchanged mementos to mark the occasion.