KABUL, 11 February 2022, (TON): A media report said “Afghan and Turkish foreign ministers have exchanged views on the current situation in Afghanistan.”

Amir Khan Muttaqi and Mevlut Cavusoglu spoke over the telephone, the Anadolu Agency reported, citing information from the foreign ministry in Ankara.

The acting foreign minister also thanked Turkey for sending a special charity train carrying 750 tonnes of emergency aid to Afghanistan. Cavusoglu called for the establishment of a government with broad participation of all factions for stability in Afghanistan.

The Turkish minister was quoted as saying “we are particularly concerned about the news regarding the disappearance of some women activists in Afghanistan.”

DHAKA, 11 February 2022, (TON): Six South Asian nations, including India and Bangladesh, are set to benefit from a new US$21.5 million (EUR 18 million) funding from the European Union, which will help to accelerate climate-smart, inclusive infrastructure investments in their regions.

IFC, the largest global development institution, focused on the private sector in emerging markets, will implement the project under the programme, Accelerating Climate-Smart and Inclusive Infrastructure in South Asia.

ACSIIS is a five-year programme (2021-2026) to help spur investments in energy, water, waste management, transport, logistics, and green buildings to benefit people and businesses in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

A press release said “ACSIIS would leverage USD$ 850 million of private sector investments in the region.”

IFC estimates that South Asian countries can unlock more than US$3 trillion of climate-smart investment opportunities by fully meeting the national targets under the Paris Agreement by 2030.

NEW DELHI, 11 February 2022, (TON): Australia is set to host India, Japan and the United States for the fourth Quad Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Melbourne on Friday and the top diplomats are seeking to bolster cooperation in areas including economy, security, coronavirus pandemic and free and open Indo-Pacific.

The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue is a partnership of Australia, India, Japan and the US, each of whom shares a commitment to openness and transparency and challenges posed by China and the situation in Ukraine

This is the first time Quad Foreign Ministers are meeting since the two Quad Summits last year.

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne will be joining Indian Minister of External Affairs Dr S Jaishankar, Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs Hayashi Yoshimasa, and United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken to discuss the positive and ambitious agenda of the Quad.

They will be discussing ongoing Quad cooperation in their bilateral phone calls and meetings.

Since there is a robust bilateral cooperation between the four countries, they are building on their institutional linkages to further Quad cooperation in areas such as healthcare, infrastructure, space, education etc.

NEW DELHI, 11 February 2022, (TON): An interim order passed by a court in India’s southern Karnataka state advised the students against wearing religious garments until it announces final verdict on petition filed against colleges barring Muslim students from wearing hijab.

According to Indian media “the Karnataka High Court on Thursday said that the matter would be heard again on Monday to decide if schools and colleges can order students not to wear the hijab in classrooms.”

"These matters give rise to certain constitutional questions of seminal importance in view of certain aspects of personal law," the judge hearing the case was quoted as saying while referring it to a panel of judges to be led by the chief justice of the Karnataka High Court.

However, the counsel for the petitioners objected to the interim order, saying it amounts to “suspension of our rights”.

DHAKA, 11 February 2022, (TON): Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said “there is no sector of the economy that has negative growth.”

He made the claim while briefing reporters on the outcomes of the two consecutive meetings of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs and the Cabinet Committee on Public Purchase.

He presided over the two meetings held virtually.

He said defending his claim “you can easily find a calculation of the economy. There is no inflation while our exchange rates remain stable. When globally remittance was facing tough times, our (inward) remittance achieved 15% growth.”

He also said that the country’s revenue generation obtained 30% growth while the import and IT sector witnessed growth too.

Kamal mentioned that though remittance is not considered while calculating the GDP growth, it comes to the per capita income’s calculation.

He added “these are the areas of the economy. If there is any negative growth, it will be reflected into the economy.”

DHAKA, 11 February 2022, (TON): The Unite States Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) awarded a nearly $1.5 million (Tk 12.90 crore) technical assistance grant to Power Cell to help improve the reliability, affordability and resiliency of Bangladesh’s electricity grid through smart grid infrastructure. 

A press release said “PC, a policy and planning agency under the Bangladeshi Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources, will use the fund for improvement of the grid system.” 

Ambassador VinaiThummalapally (Ret.), USTDA’s Acting Director said “for USTDA, the grant we are signing is an important example of the climate-smart infrastructure projects we are looking to support.”

Vinai Thummalapally said “it has the potential to shape Bangladesh’s power grid, to make it more efficient and dynamic, and to create a stronger foundation for the integration of renewable energy solutions.”

USTDA’s assistance will provide a detailed roadmap that will provide an investment and implementation schedule for using smart grid technologies to improve the grid in Bangladesh over the next ten years.

 Massachusetts-based Boston Consulting Group will carry out the assistance.

Helen LaFave, Chargé d’Affaires of the US Embassy in Dhaka said “two-way communication brought about by a smart grid will allow us to generate and use power more intelligently and efficiently.  Implementing a smart grid is therefore an infrastructure development as potent as any bridge or flyover.”

JERUSALEM, 10 February 2022, (TON): Israel extended a deadline that might have halted its airlines’ flights to the UAE over an aviation security dispute, but warned of a potential crisis with the Gulf state unless the issue is resolved.

Direct El Al, Israir and Arkia connections from Tel Aviv to Dubai were among the fruits of a landmark 2020 deal establishing ties between Israel and the UAE. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis have visited the UAE commercial hub since.

But Israel’s Shin Bet security service has voiced concerns — which it did not publicly detail — about arrangements at Dubai International Airport and said the three national carriers would stop operating there if these went unresolved.

The current arrangements had been due to expire on Tuesday. But a senior Israeli official said Transport Minister Merav Michaeli extended the deadline “by about a month” so the negotiations could continue.

Dubai authorities have so far not commented on the issue. In tandem with the deadline extension, Israel increased pressure on the UAE to address its security concerns.

THE HAGUE, 10 February 2022, (TON): The International Court of Justice on Wednesday ordered Uganda to pay $325 million in compensation to Congo for violence in a long-running conflict between the African neighbors that began in the late 1990s.

The compensation order came more than 15 years after the UN court ruled in a complex, 119-page judgment that fighting by Ugandan troops in Congo breached international law.

The court’s president, US judge Joan E. Donoghue, said. “the court notes that the reparation awarded to the DRC for damage to persons and to property reflects the harm suffered by individuals and communities as a result of Uganda’s breach of its international obligations.”

The sum awarded was well below the request for more than $11 billion in damages Congo had submitted to the court.

The court broke down the compensation into different categories of damages.

It assessed $225 million for loss of life and other damage to persons that included rape, conscription of child soldiers and the displacement of up to 500,000 people.

BRUSSELS, 10 February 2022, (TON): European leaders pledged unity in their goal of averting war on the continent, as France’s President Emmanuel Macron said he saw a path forward on easing tensions with Russia over Ukraine after an urgent round of shuttle diplomacy.

Arriving in Berlin after two days of talks in Kyiv and Moscow, Macron urged continued “firm dialogue” with Russia as the only way to defuse fears Russia could invade its ex-Soviet neighbour.

The French leader, who on Monday had a five-hour meeting with Vladimir Putin, said the Russian president had told him that Russia “would not be the source of an escalation”, despite amassing more than 100,000 troops and military hardware on Ukraine’s border.

Macron said “he now saw the possibility for talks involving Moscow and Kyiv over the festering conflict in eastern Ukraine to move forward, and concrete, practical solutions to lower tensions between Russia and the West.”

TORONTO, 10 February 2022, (TON): Canadian authorities are scrambling to find ways to end the 12-day-long occupation of the national capital’s downtown, hoping a combination of criminal charges, traffic tickets and the prospect of losing access to fuel will end the blockades.

The number of protesters in Ottawa against public health measures to fight pandemic is dropping, police say, in the face of tougher policing and a 10-day injunction to silence honking something residents say kept them up at night with incessant noise.

Deputy police chief Steve Bell said “but many of the remaining demonstrators in Ottawa were highly determined and volatile.”

The protests have spread to other cities, and late Monday demonstrators blocked the Ambassador Bridge linking Canada and the United States, one of the busiest border crossings on the continent, for nearly a full day.

Protesters say they are peaceful but some waved Confederate Flags and Swastikas in the occupation’s early days. Some Ottawa residents have said they were attacked and harassed.

Criminal investigations are under way into, among other things, an attempted arson at a downtown apartment building.