KABUL, 11 February 2020, TON: Suicide bomber attacked Marshal Fahim Military Academy on 11 February 2020 killing six persons including four military personnel and wounding eleven others including seven military personnel. Taliban have denied their involvement and blamed anti-Taliban forces to degrade Taliban.

Such attacks are usually engineered to disrupt peace process or prevent foreign forces from leaving Afghanistan. Two days back gunmen attack US forces and killed two American personnel and wounding six others in Nangarhar province. These terrorist incidents are taking place when Washington is holding peace talks with Taliban and US peace envoy Zalmay Khalizad is hopeful of breakthrough.

NEW DELHI, 11 February 2020, TON: BJP faced defeat in February 2020 polls to elect a new legislative assembly in the federal capital New Delhi for the next five years. As per the details Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) headed by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal won clear majority by winning 62 seats while BJP got just 8 seats.

The win bt APP has promoted the party of Arvind Kejriwal to a prominent position amongst Indian opposition parties. APP workers and voters claimed that their party was able to comfortably win due to their achievement including setting up of government schools, health clinics and providing free water and electricity to the poor in the state.

The Muslims and the Scheduled Caste as well as other minorities voted for APP as protest of BJP’s internal policies as well as effort to divide Indian society. Analysts believe that Prime Minister Narendra Modi still has time to give up controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), policy regarding Jammu and Kashmir as well as other troubled states.

DHAKA, 11 February 2020, TON: Former Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia of Bangladesh National Party (BNP) is prison since 8 February 2018. She was jailed for 17 years in two corruption cases; Zia Orphanage Trust and Zia Charitable Trust. Other case against her included; Besides the two graft cases, Khaleda is accused in 31 more cases on charges related to violent protests, defamation and sedition.

She was convicted ahead of the December 2018 elections when the courts acted on longstanding cases against her.

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir is hopful that 73 years old Ms Khaleda Zia would be free very soon.

Chairman BNP Tarique Rahman who is son of Ms Khaleda Zia is hopeful that international human rights organizations including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International will take stock of it and would request Bangladeshi government to get the old political lady free. In is interesting to note that in many cases, the charges appear baseless. In what have been described as “Ghost Cases,” some of the accused were either dead, abroad, or hospitalized at the time of their alleged offense. 

NIGERIA, 10 February 2020, TON: All of a sudden the international media, especially the renowned news and social media channels has started picking up fictitious video clips of brutality and torture and attributing them to Nigeria’s security forces. With attractive headings such as “disturbing scenes including images of torture” and “uncovered shocking video evidence that torture” these videos are being labeled if being committed by Nigerian police and armed forces.

Torture during interrogation and punishment to detainees, including children is being made public to pressurize Nigerian leadership to bow before international pressure. Interestingly, irrespective of it genuineness, the video clips of 2014 were kept confidential to make them public at appropriate time after six year, stressing on accountability. 

Ever since early this month, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, claimed that 90 per cent of Boko Haram targets are Muslims and not Christian. Things have moved against Nigerian government. Pro-west opposition party wanted the President to keep the truth secret as statement of President Buhari may divide Nigerians in their stance against terrorism and violence in Nigeria. 

The main opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) reacted strongly by saying Buhari Presidency and the All Progressives Congress (APC) attach no value to the lives of Nigerians, dubbed his comments as “totally horrendous, un-presidential, scandalous, discriminatory, divisive and a huge spat on the grave of the victims”  and advised President to apologize. 

There is no doubt that the statement of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari is indicative that Boko Haram is a proxy against the Muslims and not the Christians as generally being perceived. 

Interestingly, if we recall, at EU parliament recently tabled a motion for a Resolution on cases of breaches of human rights including ongoing violence against Christians perpetrated by Boko Haram and ISWAP in Nigeria.  The motion called Nigeria to bring an end to violence against Christians and defend their right to worship.   

Washington has also ban on entry of nationals from Nigeria in USA and this proclamation will take effect on 22 February 2010. The statement from the officials of US Department of Homeland Security said, “US administration is not satisfied about pluralist reforms and sharing of data regarding terrorism including details of their visit, bank accounts and passport entries.”  

ISLAMABAD, 10 February 2020. TON: Pakistan in collaboration with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will host an International Conference to mark “40 years of Afghan Refugees Presence in Pakistan: A New Partnership for Solidarity”, on 17-18 February 2020, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

The two-day conference to be inaugurated by Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan will be held in Islamabad. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ Filippo Grandialong with representatives from 20 countries will attend the event. In Pakistan, Afghans can be categorized as Proof-of-Registration (PoR) Card holders and therefore refugees, visa holders or ‘undocumented’, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). 

Among those who are ‘undocumented’, there are Afghan-Citizenship-Card holders (ACC), those who registered for ACC but haven’t yet been issued with their cards, and those who hold no documentation from the Government of Pakistan at all.

IOM figures show that currently, Pakistan hosts 1.3 million registered Afghan refugees including Proof-of-Registration (PoR) Card holders and 1.1 million undocumented Afghans including totally undocumented or registered for Afghan-Citizenship-Card holders (ACC) due to expire on 23 March 2020.

Among those considered ‘undocumented’, 549,000 Afghans hold an ACC, a further 333,000 have registered for an ACC and are in possession of tokens, and another 300-400,000 Afghans hold no legal documentation from the Government of Pakistan at all as of 04 July 2019, according to IOM.

The Economist published a detailed article by Dexter Filkins who visited India a few months ago. The article highlighted, “Even before independence, the Hindu nationalist (Hindutva) movement posed an alternative vision. This held that India was for people of Indic faiths - meaning principally Hindus, but also Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs. After centuries of rule by invading Muslims and then Christians, it was time for ‘authentic’ Indians to reclaim their heritage.” He concluded that in other words, India was for those of Hindu and related faiths, certainly not for Muslims. Shahid Javed Burki writes in his article titled “Pakistan, the lone survivor,” published in The Express Tribune dated 3 February 2020, Enormous demographic upheaval that accompanied independence brought 8 million Muslim refugees from India into Pakistan. This mass movement of people disrupted Pakistan politically, socially and economically. In 1951, when the country took it first population census, 25 per cent of the population was foreign-born.

If we combine the given thoughts of Dexter Filkins and Shahid Javed Burki, we could come to the conclusion that both the writers are suggesting if Pakistan was for the whole Muslims of India while rest of India was for Hindu and related faiths, "certainly not for Muslims" as claimed by Economist. Even if we agree that Dexter Filkins is inspired by Western populations settled in USA, Australia, South Africa and elsewhere, where ingenious populations were either completely eliminated or forced to migrate elsewhere, the case of India is quite different. Here in India despite Muslims being minority and Hindu majority, Muslims were rulers in this part of the world while Hindus were subject of Muslims since several centuries, except very small some pockets. Interestingly, demographic statistics even does not support mass conversion of faiths and elimination of population to dominate Hindus as we see in the earlier case.

Shahid Javed Burki quoted figures that 25 per cent of the Pakistani population was foreign-born in Pakistan's first census in 1951. In other words after four years of birth of Pakistan, 25 percent of the Pakistani population had come from India and were not indigenous. In fact, Sahhid Javed Burki is wrong as he failed to visualize that Quaid-e-Azam had demanded Pakistan as independent sovereign State comprising of six provinces; four in West Pakistan and two in East Pakistan, with neither division of provinces nor migration of population. Same is the reason that in Sind and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) still there is sizable Hindu population. However, the partition of Punjab and Bengal did take place with adjustment of Punjabi and Bengali populations with the district. Hence, there is no sense in the claim of Mr Shahid that 25 percent of Pakistan population was foreign born.

CAMP PENDLETON, 9 February 2020, TON: 24 US Marines were discharged after an investigation over their alleged involvement in drug crimes and a human trafficking operation along the border. However, the Court prosecution dropped the chargers despite confirmation of their involvement and arrests. The marine’s involvements were repeatedly confirmed in Afghanistan but since they used official operational aircrafts were used for the transportation, they were pardoned. This time too, they were caught many times at US-Mexico border but the maximum punishment awarded to them was either transfer or discharge.

As per the details the Border Patrol arrested several US Marines (more than 24 personnel) including officers from 1st Marine Division, Camp Pendleton. Border Patrol and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigating the case confirmed that these Marines were not only involved in bringing migrants across the border but were also involved in sex trade and narcotics trafficking. Ironically, courts-martial proceedings did not recommended the penalties awarded to the ordinary US citizens rather freed them with simple discharge from service. 

SRINAGAR, 9 February 2020, TON: Shops and businesses centers remained closed while public transport remained off road in occupied Jammu & Kashmir on Sunday as Kashmiri throughout the State observed a strike to mark the execution anniversary of a Kashmiri fruit vendor, Mohammed Afzal Guru, who was convicted for an attack on the Indian parliament in Delhi. His family received a letter informing them of his imminent hanging two days after he was dead, but the letter, dated Feb 6, 2013, was mailed on Feb 8, a day before Guru's execution.

Guru was convicted in a 2001 attack on India's Parliament in which 14 people lost their lives. Top Kashmiri-Pakistani leader Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik recorded their separate messages on the occasion.

Thousands of security forces were deployed in deserted streets in Srinagar and elsewhere, where they were ordered to shoot on spot whosoever violates.

Kashmiris have also given a call for a strike on 11 February to mark the day in 1984 when Kashmiri leader Mohammed Maqbool Butt was hanged in New Delhi jail after being convicted of killing an Indian Intelligence officer.

GENEVA, 9 February 2020, TON: Switzerland votes in a referendum on 9 February on a new law against homophobia that is opposed by the populist right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP).

The new law would widen existing legislation against discrimination or incitement to hatred on different grounds including sexual orientation.

Campaigner Jean-Pierre Sigrist, founder of an association of gay teachers, is happy with the progress and hopes people will be stopped from beating on the grounds of sex orientation.

The change was passed by the Swiss Parliament in 2018 but critics, who believe it will end up censoring free speech, have forced a referendum on the issue.

Eric Bertinat, an SVP local lawmaker in Geneva, was of the view that he believed the law was part of an LGBT plan to slowly move towards same-sex marriage and medically assisted reproduction for gay couples.

Marc Frueh, head of the Federal Democratic Union of Switzerland (EDU), a party which value Christian ethics, has termed the law as a "censorship law".

All of Switzerland's major parties except the SVP, the biggest political force in Parliament, support the law.

HARARE, 8 February 2020, TON: Zimbabwe should use its God-given resources, including the skills of its people, to develop the country and stop mourning the negative impact of sanctions imposed by the West, President Mnangagwa said on Friday.

Speaking after joining Banket residents in a clean-up of Kuwadzana Shopping Centre in the town, he said students will be exposed to modern science so that they develop inventions that develop the economy. Already over 90 patents have been granted to local students since the introduction of innovation hubs at State universities two years ago and he said the inventions would result in an increase in locally produced products. He said, Zimbabweans had the capacity to overcome the effects of the illegal sanctions if they united towards a common goal and vision. 

President Mnangagwa said, “We thank them for that. We have brilliant boys and girls in this country. Going forward, we can see that our country is going to be transformed by inventions by our children and skills from our children. We are a developing country but we should not cry that we have sanctions imposed on us. We should look at what God has given us and develop our country. Those who want to come and assist us, they should do so on our own terms”. 

The President said, “We don’t want them to come and lecture us or rule us. They should rule their countries and we rule ours. This is our country. To you the school children, we will do our best as Government to make sure you are exposed to modern science and technologies because the future of this country lies in science and technology, in yourselves creating employment, jobs and products and services for the nation. The future is upon you. It’s your duty to develop our country for it to be at par with other countries.”