DHAKA, 14 May 2022, (TON): An Indian high commission press release said “the Indian delegation was led by Chairman Advisory Council of GCNEP and head of NCPW and the Bangladesh delegation was led by Additional Secretary of Science and Technology ministry Md. Ali Hossain.”

It added “during the meeting, the two sides expressed satisfaction at the ongoing collaboration on the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant project and discussed avenues to further enhance bilateral cooperation in the field of Science and Technology.”

The Bangladesh side expressed appreciation for the services being rendered by the Indian experts currently deployed at the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant.

Both sides also stated their desire for collaboration in societal applications of radiation technologies in areas such as cancer care, nuclear medicine and food preservation.

Dwaipayan Regmi, (TON Nepal)

With the open border that Nepal holds, the friendship along with cooperation that Nepal has with India is deeply rooted at the national level, community level to individual level. Nepal shares 1850 km with five major Indian states of Sikkim, West Bengal, and Bihar along with Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. It has been regarded that Nepal and India share a unique set of ties of friendship along with cooperation which is characterized by open borders holding deep-rooted people to people-based contact among them. The biggest dispute that these two nations hold right now is regarding territorial disputes which is a land of around 400 km square at India- Nepal-China tri-junction within Western Nepal. Nepal has been claiming that the river leading west of Kalapani would lead to the Kali river which would somewhere balance and bring stuff to Nepal.

Nepal has been an independent nation that has not celebrated any day of independence to date. However, being a landlocked nation - Nepal is heavily dependent on India for the various supply of essential goods. So, what can be easily tracked here is that these nations hereby hold some sort of layer which would somewhere create a different set of impacts for holding the negotiations there itself. Although Nepal has imposed restrictions on different goods right now, what can be tracked or stated here is that - Nepal has to be dependent on India - accepting the weakest aspect of the landlocked nation.

There had been positive rays of hope between India and Nepal at the time when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Nepal showing the hope of connectivity - both physically and technically. The issue of connectivity, which was supposed to be massive ended up with a 35 km cross borderline between Jaynagar of India and Kurtha of Nepal. Although the construction of this railway track was initiated in the year 2010 itself, with a total estimated cost of $ 72.3 million, which increased later the project was an extended version of the old railway track between Jaynagar and Janakpur.

It has been believed that in the days ahead, India will connect other regions of the Dhanusa, Mahotari, and Siraha districts of Nepal for further connectivity. There have been plans for extending the railway up to Kathmandu itself, but because of failure at different places - be it at the connection point of Jogbani, India with Biratnagar extending 18.6 kilometers the plans have remained as a plan on their own.

Had Nepal been part of British rule, the British would certainly opt for Nepalese spaces to build castles and railway lines - because of the cool and charming weather that Nepal has. But, since Nepal did not go under any routine, the supremacy hereby provoked taking India to the bigger role which accounted for a loss of amazing gifts from the Nepalese perspective, especially the railway lines. Apart, Nepal did not get to enjoy another advanced form of infrastructure that the British would have built too. And, this all led Nepal to lose the basic form of infrastructure that it would possess.

Nepal is currently using roadway and airway transportation on a massive scale. Although, today there are other modes like ropeway – which is being used at few places, waterways – also at counting number of places, Nepal has re-initiated this railway mode. The connection of the Indian railway line up to Nepal is limited only to the border region – be that Jogbani, near Biratnagar of Nepal; Raxaul, near Birgunj of Nepal, or other neighboring spaces. Else, Nepalese never got this opportunity to travel by train in their nation.

There can be hopes, that the generation will get to travel by train in future days because there have been a lot of plans and agendas that are being discussed for the same. Currently, Nepal is seeking rooms to improvise electric vehicle campaigns because of their immense production of electricity.

A railway line is required in Nepal. Because of the hilly nature of the geographical structure, this can be complex – but seeing China and taking lessons from them, it can be stated that it is not impossible through any means in Nepal. And, if Nepal does not want to initiate complexities, it can always seek to start this project from the Southern belt – making the entire transportation network easy, accessible, and with connectivity around. No doubt, it is a positive step and is in the interest of both countries but what is feared most is Indian hegemonic designs.

By TON Research Desk

The UN Special Envoy for Myanmar was blocked by the country’s junta from attending a meeting on humanitarian assistance for the Southeast Asian nation, which has been heavily distressed by last year’s military coup.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Friday held the meeting in Cambodia to discuss policies to bring help to Myanmar. The regime was represented by its Minister for International Cooperation the junta’s point man on provision of aid to Myanmar.

The UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Myanmar was absent from the meeting in Phnom Penh. The Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M), a group of former UN experts on Myanmar, and the group ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights said that her attendance was blocked by the junta.

According to SAC-M the UN envoy was first invited and then refused to attend the meeting for delivering aid to Myanmar. The United Nations appointed special envoy on Myanmar late last year to help solve the Myanmar crisis and facilitate the provision of humanitarian assistance.

The reason UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy was banned from the meeting was clear and appears likely the move was prompted by her recent meetings with the parliamentary body of Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) and its relief and resettlement minister to discuss issues including humanitarian assistance for Myanmar which enraged the Myanmar junta.

The regime has dubbed the National Unity Government (NUG) as a fanatic and terrorist organization. Even international diplomats who mention the NUG are focus to junta condemnation. When Malaysian Foreign Minister proposed that ASEAN engage informally with the NUG to discuss how humanitarian aid can be distributed to the people of Myanmar, the regime rejected the remark as “reckless and irresponsible”, and warned Malaysian officials against contacting or helping what it calls a “terrorist group”.

The UN special envoy to Myanmar has turned out to be the first international envoy to publicly engage with the National Unity Government (NUG). Her meetings came after ASEAN was condemned for its failure to make progress on its peace plan for Myanmar. Despite the criticism, the bloc’s officials haven’t met with the shadow government, while being pushed to do so.

As the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Myanmar is a crucial player, the NUG’s Foreign Ministry on Monday said her exclusion from the meeting was yet another abuse of the United Nations peace efforts and delivering aid to Myanmar war-affected people.

In the meantime, the National Unity Government (NUG) also extended its support to the UN envoy and expressed its profound gratitude for her commitment with the National Unity Government and local stakeholders on provision of ASEAN humanitarian assistance to Myanmar.

The outcomes of the consultative meeting in Phnom Penh included plans for the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre) to deliver aid to areas identified by the Myanmar military junta in coordination with the junta.

The SAC-M condemned this as flouting the major humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, fairness and independence, saying it would advance the military purposes of the Myanmar junta in Myanmar.

The group said there are 14 million people in need of philanthropic assistance in Myanmar, while an estimated 800,000 people are exiled inside the country. Most are seeking refuge from the junta’s attacks in land alongside Myanmar’s borders outside the reach of the Myanmar junta’s control.

However, the junta has rejected the permit of cross-border aid into these areas. Such a stance by Myanmar junta has severely impeded delivering aid efforts of UN and ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre).It has yet to see how these humanitarian aid reach to war-hit Myanmar people. 

VILNIUS, 13 May 2022, (TON): About 450 US airborne troops will take part in the Swift Respons 22 exercise at the Adazi training ground in Latvia on Friday, May 13.

This was reported by the BNS agency , citing the armed forces of the Baltic country.

Soldiers from the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Div-ision and 173rd Airborne Brigade will be deployed to the exercise area from Italy.

The exercises themselves will be held at the Ad-aziy-sky training ground near Riga in order to work out the transfer of large airborne forces and tactical in-teraction with NATO allies.

SOFIA, 13 May 2022, (TON): Bulgaria intends to borrow F-16 aircraft to ensure the protection of its airspace until the new F-16s of the Block 70 version are received, Prime Minister Kiril Petkov announced this at the beginning of a government meeting.

Petkov said “we are making great progress in finding replacement aircraft for the F-16s, which will be a temporary replacement for new aircraft, the delivery of which to Bulgaria is delayed. We have received support that our skies must be protected.”

In 2019, Sofia signed a contract with the United States for the supply of eight upgraded F-16s of the Block 70 version, making an advance payment of $ 1.26 billion for this.

This allowed Bulgaria to immediately raise defense spending in 2019 above the 2% of GDP, which the US insisted on. and NATO.

This decision caused active approval in Brussels and Washington. The US pledged to start delivering the aircraft in 2023, but earlier this year the US notified Bulgaria that the start of the contract would be delayed until 2025 due to supply chain disruptions as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

WASHINGTON, 13 May 2022, (TON): Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken will travel to Germany and France May 14-16 to attend the informal meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers in Berlin, Germany, and join the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council meeting.

The Secretary will travel to Berlin to attend an informal meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers where Allies and partners will discuss their unified response to Russia’s continuing brutal war against Ukraine and the upcoming Leaders’ Summit in Madrid.

Allies will also adopt a new NATO Strategic Concept to guide the Alliance’s work over the next decade.

Secretary will travel to Paris, joined by United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Secretary of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, to attend the second ministerial meeting of the U.S.-E.U.

BRUSSELS, 13 May 2022, (TON): NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg welcomed Finland’s intention to apply for membership in the North Atlantic Alliance and expressed confidence that this step would help strengthen the security of the entire bloc.

Earlier, Finnish President and Prime Minister Sauli Niinistö and Sanna Marin said in a joint statement that Finland should apply for NATO membership without delay.

In their opinion, membership in the alliance will strengthen the security of Finland.

Secretary General said “I welcome the joint statement, Finnish membership in NATO will enhance the security of both the alliance and Finland. This step will also demonstrate that NATO’s doors are open and that Finland has determined its own future.”

DUSHANBE, 13 May 2022, (TON): The trilateral meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Russian Federation, Azerb-aijan and Armenia started on Thursday in Dushanbe.

At the beginning of the meeting, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov thanked his colleagues from Azerbaijan and Armenia Jeyhun Bayramov and Ararat Mirzoyan for responding to the proposal of the Russian side to take advantage of the participation of the CIS Ministerial Council for holding a meeting for three.

The head of the Russian diplomatic department said “we are interested in turning the South Caucasus into a zone of peace, sustainable development and prosperity.”

He added “it is important for Moscow to increase trust between the parties while creating conditions for the full normalization of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations.”

Lavrov said “I hope that today’s meeting will make it possible to move forward along the path that was outlined by our leaders.”

In turn, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Bayramov stressed in his opening speech that this meeting “is a good opportunity to discuss the progress that can be achieved.”

BRUSSELS, 13 May 2022, (TON): As part of the EU’s solidarity response w-ith Ukraine, the Commission presented a set of actions to help Ukraine export its agricultural produce.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its blockade of Ukrainian ports, Ukrainian grain and other agricultural goods can no longer reach their destinations.

The situation is threatening global food security and there is an urgent need to establish alternative logistics routes using all relevant transport modes.

With today’s Communi-cation, the Commission sets out an action plan to establish ‘Solidarity Lanes’ to ensure Ukraine can export grain, but also import the goods it needs, from humanitarian aid to animal feed and fertilisers.

Commissioner for Transport Adina Valean said “20 million tonnes of grains have to leave Ukraine in less than three months using the EU infrastructure. This is a gigantesque challenge, so it is essential to coordinate and optimise the logistic chains, put in place new routes, and avoid, as much as possible, the bottlenecks.”

In spite of immediate efforts by the EU and its Member States to ease border crossings between Ukraine and the EU, thousands of wagons and lorries are waiting for clearance on the Ukrainian side.

RIYADH, 13 May 2022, (TON): State news agency reported “Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed received Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, the commander of the US Central Command in the Middle East.”

The statement said “during the meeting, which was held at Qasr Al-Shati palace, the two sides discussed prospects of further consolidating the friendship ties and aspects of defense cooperation.”

They also exchanged views on a number of regional and international issues of mutual interest.