NEW DELHI, 15 March, 2021 (TON): “They don’t know how to build but sell,” Congress leader slams the BJP government over privatization of airports.

On Monday afternoon, R. Gandhi tweeted, "#IndiaAgainstPrivatisation which hurts the public and benefits only a handful of cronies."

His response came in the wake of the government's aim to sell its residual stake in four airports as part of the Rs 2.5 lakh crore asset monetization pipelines.

As per the reports, the sale of the Airport Authority of India's remaining stake in the Delhi Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad airports, as well as the identification of 13 more airports for privatization, has been planned for the next fiscal.

Under the BJP government in 2020, the Adani Group bagged contracts for six airports - Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, and Guwahati in the first round of privatization.

However, for operating and developing the Jaipur, Guwahati, and Thiruvananthapuram airports, the Adani Enterprises in January had signed the concession agreement with the Airports Authority of India (AAI).

DHAKA, 15 March, 2021, (TON): A court in Bangladesh on Sunday ordered a probe into claims by a formerly jailed cartoonist that he was tortured before police detained him under the country's harsh internet laws, his lawyer said.

Ahmed Kabir Kishore, 45, was arrested in May 2020 under the controversial laws and charged with carrying out anti-state activities and spreading rumors.

The prominent sketch artist was delivered on bail fourteen days prior after a public objection over the demise in prison in February of an essayist, Mushtaq Ahmed, who was captured under similar laws.

Kishore has affirmed he and Ahmed were held at the very prison and that the essayist was likewise tormented by obscure men guarantees that authorities have straight denied.

Kishore filed a petition with a Dhaka court on Wednesday, saying he was beaten with sticks and slapped hard by more than a dozen unknown men who abducted him on May 2 and held him for nearly three days.

Kishore said the unknown men later handed him over to an elite police unit, the Rapid Action Battalion.

Barua said the court had ordered three doctors from the Dhaka Medical College Hospital to examine Kishore, and added that he had undergone an operation on his right ear on Saturday for injuries allegedly sustained when he was beaten.

Quick Action Battalion representative Lieutenant Colonel Ashique Billah said that neither Ahmed nor Kishore were tormented while they were in their care or in prison.

Ahmed's passing in jail started long periods of fights against Prime Minister Sheik Hasina's administration. The nonconformists additionally required the annulment of the advanced laws, which critics say are utilized to suppress disagreement.

THE HAGUE, 15 March, 2021 (TON): The Kenyan government announced on Sunday, Kenya will not join in the hearings that will start on Monday at the ICJ (International Cout of Justice) on its border dispute with Somalia.

On Thursday, Kenya sent a letter to the ICJ saying it would inform the court that it will not participate in the hearings on the case, scheduled to start on 15 March.

Various reasons for not participating in the hearing were enlisted in the letter by Kenya’s Attorney General Kihara Kariuki, saying, "Firstly, the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic hampered Kenya's ability to adequately prepare for the hearing."

"Kenya humbly requests the Court to allow it's (representative) to address the Court orally for 30 minutes before the start of the hearings," the text continued.

The country also criticizes the fact that some of the hearings are being held virtually, saying that this does not allow it to defend itself in the best possible way.

The country adds, “It is willing to submit its position to the Court in writing, even if the hearings will be held without the participation of Kenya".

For several years over the delineation of their Indian Ocean border, Somalia and Kenya have been in tension.

Their maritime border has an area of 100, 000 km2, rich in fish and hydrocarbons.   

However, the border dispute between the two sides has always arisen tensions, as in December Somalia announced breaking diplomatic relations with Kenya, in response Kenya in February recalled its ambassador and accused Somalia of auctioning oil and gas fields in the area.

BEIJING, 15 March, 2021, (TON): Residents urged to avoid outdoor activities as strong winds bring in dust from the northwest.

The China Meteorological Administration announced a yellow alert on Monday morning, saying that the sandstorms had spread from Inner Mongolia into the provinces of Gansu, Shanxi and Hebei, which surrounds Beijing.

Visibility was reduced to between 300 (984 feet) and 800 meters (2,624 feet), state media reported.

Beijing faces regular sandstorms in March and April as a result of its proximity to the enormous Gobi desert as well as deforestation throughout northern China.

Beijing and surrounding regions have been suffering from relatively high levels of pollution in recent weeks, with the city also shrouded in smog during the opening of parliament starting on March 5.

DHAKA, 15 March, 2021 (TON): The government of Bangladesh approved the extension in freezing the jail sentence of the Bangladesh National Party chief Khaleda Zia for 6 months in two corruption cases.

The recommendation submitted by the law ministry was approved by the PM Hasina on Monday, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said.

However, the government imposed two conditions, first Khaleda will not be able to travel foreign, second, and she must receive the treatment at home.

The minister assured the extension was recommended conditionally.

“Khaleda is allowed to take treatment from specialist doctors at home. She can also visit hospitals if it is needed.”

Earlier, the 76-year-old former prime minister had been in jail for 25 months for being involved in Zia Orphanage Trust and Zia Charitable Trust.

Khaleda's younger brother Shamim Eskander submitted an application to the authorities on 2 March, seeking a freeze on the jail sentences of Khaleda and permission to let her go abroad for treatment.

Although, the leader released before the outbreak of the pandemic, the government suspended the sentences of Khaleda twice for six months each on the condition of receiving treatment from home but abroad.  

KABUL, 15 March, 2021 (TON): On Sunday, the Afghan authorities confirmed that on average around 120 Afghans are killed by explosives every-month, including the landmines in the war-struck country.

Directorate of Mine Action Coordination of Afghanistan (DMAC) said in a statement, "An average of 120 people, including children are killed or maimed by unexploded ordnance and landmines, every month, however, the figure was 40 a month in 2001."

According to DMAC, as a result of the landmines and unexploded ordnance explosions in 2020, around 900 Afghans killed and 1700 others injured, making up 30 percent of the casualties.  

Adding, "More than 170,000 mines and unexploded ordnance have also been collected and defused over the same period.”

Including all the insurgents in the country had been using improvised explosive devices to make roadside bombs and landmines to target the security forces and the civilians.

However, in efforts to clear the areas, more than 1600 square km of land across the country contaminates with mines and unexploded weapons while 37 square km of land has been cleared last year.

YANGON, 15 March, 2021, (TON): The civilian leader of Myanmar's Government in hiding vowed to continue supporting a "revolution" to oust the military that seized power in last month's coup, as security forces again met protesters with lethal forces, killing at least seven.

Details of all seven deaths were posted on multiple social media accounts, some accompanied by photos of the victims

Mahn Win Khaing Than, who was named the acting vice president by Myanmar's ousted lawmakers and is a member of deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party, addressed the public on Saturday for the first time since the February 1 military takeover.

"This is the darkest moment of the nation and the moment that the dawn is close," he said in a video posted on the shadow government's website and social media.

He added, "In order to form a federal democracy, which all ethnic brothers who have been suffering various kinds of oppressions from the dictatorship for decades really desired, this revolution is the chance for us to put our efforts together,"

He further said, "We will never give up to an unjust military but we will carve our future together with our united power. Our mission must be accomplished."              

Toward the finish of the message, he streaked a three-finger salute that has become an image of protection from the military principle.

Other informal yet deliberately aggregated counts put the quantity of passing since the coup at around 90.

YANGON, 15 March, 2021 (TON): In the backdrop of the Chinese factories ablaze, in order to have a distinction from China, Taiwan’s embassy in Myanmar has advised its companies in Myanmar to fly Taiwan’s flag and hang signs stating Taiwan’s identity to avoid being confused with China.  

After the Chinese staff injured and trapped in arson attacks by unidentified assailants on the garment factories in the Yangon suburb of Hlaingthaya, the Chinese embassy has called on Myanmar to protect the Chinese property and people.  

The move came as Myanmar views China to render support to the military junta in overthrowing the elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The foreign ministry of Taiwan assured on Monday that only one Taiwanese company was caught up in the violence, with 10 of its citizens trapped inside the premises though they were safe.

The office suggested, “Taiwanese businesspeople hang signs in Burmese reading Taiwanese company at their factories and to hang our country's national flag, and explain to local workers and neighbors they are a Taiwanese factory, to avoid outsiders getting confused and misjudging."

However, it is not far old that the Taiwanese firms in Southeast Asia had been confused for Chinese ones in protests before, including in 2014 when thousands of Vietnamese set fire to foreign factories in an angry reaction to Chinese oil drilling in a part of the South China Sea claimed by Vietnam.

BEIJING, 15 March, 2021 (TON): On Monday, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) said, more than 34,000 suspects caught while handling 19,000 food-related criminal cases in a crackdown that started in May 2020.

The ministry confirmed that the cases accounted involved worth 16.3 billion yuan.

It added that more than 9,500 crime dens had been destructed and over 3,100 criminal groups were busted during the period.

Kunlun 2020, an operation launched in May by the MPS to target food and drug safety laws violations, and intellectual property rights among others.

Additionally, for menacing drug safety, the police also dealt with more than 4,600 cases and detained over 10,000 suspects during the operation.

KAMPALA, Uganda, 15 March, 2021, (TON): The philanthropic gathering Doctors without Borders said Monday that wellbeing offices in Ethiopia's best area of Tigray have been “looted, vandalized and destroyed in a deliberate and widespread attack.”

The gathering said almost 70% of 106 wellbeing offices studied from mid of December to early March had been plundered and over 30% had been harmed. It said just 13% were working typically.

The findings extend worry for the prosperity of Tigray's 6 million individuals. Battling continues as government powers and their partners including fighters apparently from adjoining Eritrea chase down the area's criminal chiefs.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed faces pressure to end the war. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week that some of the atrocities in Tigray amount to “ethnic cleansing.”

As indicated by Doctors without Borders, wellbeing offices in many regions “appear to have been deliberately vandalized to render them nonfunctional.” One-fifth of the health facilities were occupied by soldiers and few health facilities now have ambulances after most were seized by armed groups.