DHAKA, 02 August 2021, (TON): India and Bangladesh began regular operation of freight trains through the Haldibari-Chilahati rail route 56 years after it had been suspended following the India-Pakistan war in 1965.

The service, which was inaugurated by the two countries' prime ministers during a virtual bilateral summit on December 17 last year, officially began yesterday with the Indian Railways dispatching stones from Dam Dim Station of Northeast Frontier Railway to Bangladesh.

This is the fifth rail route between the two countries after Petrapole-Benapole, Gede–Darshana, Singhabad-Rohanpur and Radhikapur–Birol.

The commodities that can be exported from India to Bangladesh through the rail route include stones and boulders, food grain, fresh fruits, chemical fertilisers, onion, chillies, garlic, ginger, fly ash, clay, lime, wood and timber etc. From Bangladesh, all exportable commodities can be sent.

Businesses see it as a very positive development as it will help reduce transport cost and time in the export-import business between the two neighbours.

In fiscal 2020-21, Bangladesh Railway transported 36.9 lakh tonnes of goods from India, which is more than double that from a year earlier. Subsequently, the railway's income from the cross-border trade hit a record Tk 167.7 crore, up 120 percent year-on-year.

The rail route can open a new horizon of regional trading: Bangladesh can export goods to Nepal through it, said Siddiqul Alam, executive member of Nilphamari Chamber of Commerce.

KATHMANDU, 02 August 2021, (TON): President Bidya Devi Bhandari has approved the government's recommendation to appoint Lt Gen Prabhu Ram Sharma as acting Chief of Nepali Army.

With this decision, Sharma's appointment as the next chief of the army has been officially sealed. General Sharma will assume office as the acting Chief from August 9 as outgoing Chief of Army Staff General Purna Chandra  Thapa will stay on leave before retirement on August 8.

Thapa will retire on September 8 following which Sharma will be promoted to the post and overtake responsibilities officially.

Earlier, a cabinet meeting held on July 27 had made the decision to recommend Sharma's name as Acting Chief of the national army as the incumbent army chief to the office of the president.

NAYPYITAW, 02 August 2021, (TON): Myanmar's military ruler Min Aung Hlaing has taken on the role of prime minister in a newly formed caretaker government, state media reported yesterday, six months after the army seized power from a civilian government.

In a speech, Min Aung Hlaing repeated a pledge to hold elections by 2023 and said his administration was ready to work with a future regional envoy on Myanmar.

The announcement and speech came exactly six months after the army seized power February 1 from a civilian government following elections that were won by Aung San Suu Kyi's ruling party but that the military said had been fraudulent.

Min Aung Hlaing has chaired the State Administration Council (SAC) that was formed just after the coup and that has run Myanmar since then, and the caretaker government will replace it.

"In order to perform the country's duties fast, easily and effectively, the state administration council has been re-formed as caretaker government of Myanmar.”

In his speech, Min Aung Hlaing repeated a pledge to restore democracy, saying "We will accomplish the provisions of the state of emergency by August 2023.”

He added "I guarantee the establishment of a union based on democracy and federalism."

Shortly after the coup, junta leaders promised new elections within two years. The reference yesterday to August 2023 was interpreted by some local media as extending that time frame by six months.

DHAKA, 01 August 2021, (TON): A total of 1,51,146 under-trial prisoners got released from jails across the country after securing bail from virtual courts in two phases of 112 working days.

The first phase of virtual court proceedings started on May 11 last year and continued till August 4 last year while the second phase started on April 12 this year.

Supreme Court spokesperson Mohammad Saifur Rahman said “the released prisoners include more than 2,000 minors accused in criminal cases who were granted bail by virtual courts concerned during this period.”

Meanwhile, Saifur today issued a statement saying that bail petitions of the accused in total 3,00,228 criminal cases were disposed of by the subordinate courts across the country since May 11 last year.      

The regular activities of courts including the Appellate and High Court Divisions of the Supreme Court remain suspended due to lockdown.                  

ADDIS ABABA, 01 August 2021, (TON): The UN children’s agency said that more than 100,000 children in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray could suffer life-threatening malnutrition in the next 12 months, a 10-fold increase to normal numbers.

UNICEF spokesperson Marixie Mercado said “our worst fears about the health and well-being of children are being confirmed.”

Spokespeople for the prime minister and a government task force on Tigray, where fighting between rebellious regional and federal forces have continued since November, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on UNICEF’s statement.

Babies like 20-month-old Aammanuel Merhawi are suffering the most. He is a third below normal weight for his age. His feverish eyes glisten and his ribs are visible as he heaves, vomiting supplementary food fed through a nasal tube. All are signs of severe malnutrition.

Aid agencies say they are about to run out of the formula used to treat 4,000 severely malnourished children every month.

LONDON, 01 August 2021, (TON): A former head of the UK armed forces has called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to outline the country’s strategy for Afghanistan as the war-torn nation slides into further conflict amid the Taliban’s advance.

Gen. Lord Richards, former chief of defense staff, said “he is fed up with the government’s lack of planning for the next stage of supporting Afghanistan, where he served as the commander of coalition forces between 2006 and 2007. He lamented the West’s defeat in the country.

With Western forces lined up to be fully removed by Sept. 11, Richards warned of the potential creation of an ungoverned space that could be exploited by terror groups for the planning of atrocities such as the 9/11 attacks.

He told the BBC that he takes a share of the blame for the West’s calamitous performance in Afghanistan, but that while NATO military force, chiefly from the US and Britain, largely achieved what was expected, politicians had failed to give Afghanistan sufficient economic and political support following the 2001 removal of the Taliban from power.

Richards said “we have invested, as a country, as the West and the US particularly — 20 years of time and much money and many lives in Afghanistan.”

He added “I’m getting a little bit fed up that I’ve not heard from our government, indeed from the prime minister, as to why we have reached this nadir. It’s really not good enough, and I would like to hear from the government, I think it’s a prime ministerial obligation now, as to why we’ve got into this position and what we are now going to do about it.”

NEW DELHI, 01 August 2021, (TON): India and China held the 12th round of the Corps Commander-level talks on Saturday to find a possible resolution for the nearly 15-month-long military standoff in eastern Ladakh. The meeting was held on the Chinese side of Chushul-Moldo Border Personnel Meeting point.

Sources said the meeting, which began around 10.30 am, continued until 7.30 pm, and defence establishment sources were hopeful of reaching an understanding for disengagement from Hot Spring and Gogra Post, Patrolling Point (PP) 15 and PP17A, respectively, friction points.

There are platoon-sized units of troops on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) at both these friction points since last year. But the troops are not in an eyeball-to-eyeball situation anywhere in eastern Ladakh.

The talks, however, are unlikely to resolve issues in Depsang Plains and Demchok. In Depsang Plains, Chinese PLA troops are blocking Indian soldiers from accessing their traditional patrolling limits, PP10, PP11, PP11A, PP12 and PP13, in the region. India had accessed the patrolling limits in February 2020, before the standoff began last May.

ROME, 01 August 2021, (TON): Nearly 600 migrants reached the Italian island of Lampedusa from Tunisia in only two days.

Countless departures of people fleeing the crisis-wracked North African country and attempting to reach Europe on dinghies and small boats are reported every hour by NGOs and Italian Coast Guard vessels patrolling the Channel of Sicily.

Only on Saturday, by midday, 99 migrants landed in Lampedusa on six different small boats. Before their arrival, 1,137 people were already present at the center in Contrada Imbriacola, well above the facility’s maximum capacity of 250.

Adm. Roberto Isidori, commander of the Coast Guard in Sicily, told media “it seems that there is not much control on the Tunisian shores lately. We have not seen so many dinghies coming toward Lampedusa, and now even trying to reach the south of Sardinia, which is a much further and more dangerous trip, as we have since July 26, when the political crisis broke out in Tunisia.”

Isidori added “our vessels are all out to make sure that no accident happens, but this situation is getting worse and worse.”

Italian security services had estimated at the beginning of the crisis that the ongoing political turmoil and instability in Tunisia may result in a drastic increase in migrants, with numbers potentially reaching up to 15,000 in a very short time.

But Isidori said that “if numbers continue to stay as they have been in the last week, that could be an optimistic forecast.” 

NEW DELHI, 01 August 2021, (TON): A day after they summoned each other’s officials over the July 26 border incident in which six Assam Police personnel were killed in firing and clashes, Assam and Mizoram refused to honour the summons. The deadlock is adding to tensions between the two states.

Referring to the Mizoram Police FIR which names him and six officials, it has been filed in Vairengte, the town in Kolasib district which borders Assam’s Cachar district where Assam Police too has lodged an FIR against Mizoram officials, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told reporters Saturday, “It is childish of them (Mizoram), but the fact is that the place where the clashes happened belongs to Assam. So if a case has to be registered, the jurisdiction falls under Assam Police. But now since cases have been registered (by both states), I feel both governments should hand it over to the CBI or NIA.”

In a Twitter post, Sarma said “he would be very happy to join the probe but asked why it was not being handed over to a neutral agency.

He said “why is the case not being handed over to a neutral agency, especially when the place of occurrence is well within the constitutional territory of Assam?”

Assam DGP Bhaskarjyoti Mahanta said “we don’t recognise the summons or the case registered by Mizoram Police. They simply cannot say they have jurisdiction over a land that does not belong to them. This (case) does not mean anything to us.”

Mizoram Home Minister Lalchamliana, referring to the Assam FIR, said Mizoram was not going to respect summons from Assam Police.

On the impasse, a senior Assam official told media “the Sunday Express that nothing has changed at the border though the July 28 meeting in New Delhi, Chief Secretaries and DGPs of the two states met the Union Home Secretary, decided that Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) will be deployed in the disturbed area, and the two state governments will work out an arrangement in coordination with the Ministry of Home Affairs to facilitate the functioning of neutral forces within a “reasonable time frame”.

WASHINGTON, 01 August 2021, (TON): The White House said “US national security adviser Jake Sullivan urged Tunisia's president to outline a swift return to the democratic path following his seizure of governing powers last Sunday.”

Tunisian President Kais Saied invoked a national emergency over the coronavirus pandemic and poor governance to dismiss the prime minister, freeze parliament and seize executive control in a move welcomed by street rallies but which his opponents branded a coup.

The White House National Security Council said in a statement “in a phone call, Sullivan underscored to Saied the need for "rapidly forming a new government, led by a capable prime minister to stabilize Tunisia’s economyas well as ensuring the timely return of the elected parliament.”