MANILA: Philippine security forces arrested on Wednesday the main financier and logistics supporter of the pro-Daesh militants who have for weeks been battling government troops for control of a southern town, the army said.
The militants from a faction known as the Maute group, seized the town of Marawi on May 23 and are resisting daily assaults by government forces using aircraft and artillery, and with help from allies the US and Australia.
The fighting in the largely Muslim town in the south of the predominantly Christian Philippines has alarmed neighbors, fearful that Daesh is bent on gaining a foothold in the region as it loses ground in the Middle East.
Security forces raided a village not far from Marawi and detained three suspects found with ammunition and material for making bombs, an army spokesman, Brig. Gen. Gilbert Gapay, said.
One of those detained was an important supporter of the Maute group who Gapay identified as Monaliza Romato, alias Monay.
The woman is a niece of the matriarch of the Maute clan, whose men-folk lead the Marawi attack. Two of seven Maute brothers, Omar and Abdullah, were educated in the Middle East, and were the main planners of the assault on Marawi, the military has said.
“Monay has replaced her aunt as the main financier and logistic supporter of the militant group,” Gapay said in a statement.
“The arrest will adversely affect the logistics support network of the group,” he said.
The raid, seizure of weapons and the arrests would also prevent the militants from mounting diversionary attacks, he said.
More than 400 people have been killed in the fighting in Marawi. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced and about 20 percent of the center of the town has been destroyed.
On Wednesday, military aircraft dropped bombs on the town while ground forces tried to advance from house to house.
President Rodrigo Duterte imposed martial law on Mindanao island, where Marawi is located, for 60 days when the fighting erupted and Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said there was pressure on the military to defeat the militants before it expires on July 23.
That is also a day before Duterte is due to deliver his annual state of the nation address in Congress.
Lorenzana said the military last week sent an aircraft to the US to stock up on various bombs and rockets, supplies of which were running out.
US forces are providing Philippine troops with technical assistance for the battle while Australia has sent two surveillance planes.
In another part of Mindanao, soldiers on Tuesday found the beheaded bodies of two Vietnamese sailors abducted a year ago by militants from the Abu Sayyaf group.
Three Vietnamese sailors are still being held by Abu Sayyaf, who, in all, hold 14 foreigners and eight Philippine citizens.
Vietnam denounced the killing of its citizens.
“Vietnam strongly condemns all savage and inhumane kidnapping and murderous acts and believes that these acts must be punished properly,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang told Reuters.
The Abu Sayyaf militants are allied with the Maute group.
The fighting in Marawi erupted on May 23 when security forces tried to arrest Isnilon Hapilon, an Abu Sayyaf leader who the government believes is Daesh’s “emir,” or leader, in the Philippines, and who was in the town with Maute fighters at the time.
Lorenzana said this week Hapilon is believed to be hiding in a Marawi mosque.
Philippine troops arrest Marawi militants’ ‘main financier’
Philippine troops arrest Marawi militants’ ‘main financier’
Bride, groom, spy: India’s wedding detectives
- As more Indian marry for love, families engage sleuths with high-tech spy tools to investigate prospective partners
- Some families want background checks while partners after marriage use spies to confirm a suspected affair
NEW DELHI: From an anonymous office in a New Delhi mall, matrimonial detective Bhavna Paliwal runs the rule over prospective husbands and wives — a booming industry in India, where younger generations are increasingly choosing love matches over arranged marriage.
The tradition of partners being carefully selected by the two families remains hugely popular, but in a country where social customs are changing rapidly, more and more couples are making their own matches.
So for some families, the first step when young lovers want to get married is not to call a priest or party planner but a sleuth like Paliwal with high-tech spy tools to investigate the prospective partner.
Sheela, an office worker in New Delhi, said that when her daughter announced she wanted to marry her boyfriend, she immediately hired Paliwal.
“I had a bad marriage,” said Sheela, whose name has been changed as her daughter remains unaware her fiance was spied on.
“When my daughter said she’s in love, I wanted to support her — but not without proper checks.”
Paliwal, 48, who founded her Tejas Detective Agency more than two decades ago, says business is better than ever.
Her team handles around eight cases monthly.
In one recent case — a client checking her prospective husband — Paliwal discovered a decimal point salary discrepancy.
“The man said he earns around $70,700 annually,” Paliwal said. “We found out he was actually making $7,070.”
It is discreet work. Paliwal’s office is tucked away in a city mall, with an innocuous sign board saying it houses an astrologer — a service families often use to predict an auspicious wedding date.
“Sometimes my clients also don’t want people to know they are meeting a detective,” she laughed.
Hiring a detective can cost from $100 to $2,000, depending on the extent of surveillance needed.
That is a small investment for families who splash out many times more on the wedding itself.
It is not just worried parents trying to vet their prospective sons or daughters-in-law.
Some want background checks on their future spouse — or, after marriage, to confirm a suspected affair.
“It is a service to society,” said Sanjay Singh, a 51-year-old sleuth, who says his agency has handled “hundreds” of pre-matrimonial investigations this year alone.
Private eye Akriti Khatri said around a quarter of cases at her Venus Detective Agency were pre-marriage checks.
“There are people who want to know if the groom is actually gay,” she said, citing one example.
Arranged marriages binding two entire families together require a chain of checks before the couple even talk.
That includes financial probes and, crucially, their status in India’s millennia-old caste hierarchy.
Marriages breaking rigid caste or religious divisions can have deadly repercussions, sometimes resulting in so-called “honor” killings.
In the past, such premarital checks were often done by family members, priests or professional matchmakers.
But breakneck urbanization in sprawling megacities has shaken social networks, challenging conventional ways of verifying marriage proposals.
Arranged marriages now also happen online through matchmaking websites, or even dating apps.
“Marriage proposals come on Tinder too,” added Singh.
The job is not without its challenges.
Layers of security in guarded modern apartment blocks mean it is often far harder for an agent to gain access to a property than older standalone homes.
Singh said detectives had to rely on their charm to tell a “cock and bull story” to enter, saying his teams tread the grey zone between “legal and illegal.”
But he stressed his agents operate on the right side of the law, ordering his teams to do “nothing unethical” while noting investigations often mean “somebody’s life is getting ruined.”
Technology is on the side of the sleuths.
Khatri has used tech developers to create an app for her agents to upload records directly online — leaving nothing on agents’ phones, in case they are caught.
“This is safer for our team,” she said, adding it also helped them “get sharp results in less time and cost.”
Surveillance tools starting at only a few dollars are readily available.
Those include audio and video recording devices hidden in everyday items such as mosquito repellent socket devices, to more sophisticated magnetic GPS car trackers or tiny wearable cameras.
The technology boom, Paliwal said, has put relationships under pressure.
“The more hi-tech we become, the more problems we have in our lives,” she said.
But she insisted that neither the technology nor the detectives should take the blame for exposing a cheat.
“Such relationships would not have lasted anyway,” she said. “No relationship can work on the basis of lies.”
Ousted Bangladesh PM Hasina’s son denies graft in $12.65 billion nuclear deal
- Bangladesh’s Anti Corruption Commission has launched corruption inquiry into Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant project, backed by Russia’s state-owned Rosatom
- Rosatom, world’s largest supplier of enriched uranium, refuted the allegations, adding that it was committed to combat corruption in all its projects
NEW DELHI: Ousted Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s son and adviser on Tuesday described allegations of corruption involving the family in the 2015 awarding of a $12.65 billion nuclear power contract as “completely bogus” and a “smear campaign.”
Bangladesh’s Anti Corruption Commission said on Monday it had launched an enquiry into allegations of corruption, embezzlement and money laundering in the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant project, backed by Russia’s state-owned Rosatom.
A deal for two power plants, each with a capacity of 1,200 megawatts, was signed in 2015.
The commission has alleged that there were financial irregularities worth about $5 billion involving Hasina, her son Sajeeb Wazed and her niece and British treasury minister Tulip Siddiq, through offshore accounts.
Rosatom, the world’s largest supplier of enriched uranium, refuted the allegations, adding that it was committed to combat corruption in all its projects and that it maintains a transparent procurement system.
“Rosatom State Corporation is ready to defend its interests and reputation in court,” it said in an emailed statement to Reuters.
“We consider false statements in the media as an attempt to discredit the Rooppur NPP project, which is being implemented to solve the country’s energy supply problems and is aimed at improving the well-being of the people of Bangladesh.”
Siddiq did not respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Siddiq had denied any involvement in the claims and that he had confidence in her. Siddiq would continue in her role, the spokesperson added.
Wazed, speaking on behalf of the family, said they were the targets of a political witch hunt in Bangladesh.
“These are completely bogus allegations and a smear campaign. My family nor I have ever been involved or taken any money from any government projects,” he told Reuters from Washington, where he lives.
“It is not possible to siphon off billions from a $10 billion project. We also don’t have any offshore accounts. I have been living in the US for 30 years, my aunt and cousins in the UK for a similar amount of time. We obviously have accounts here, but none of us have ever seen that kind of money.”
Reuters could not contact Hasina, who has not been seen in public since fleeing to New Delhi in early August following a deadly uprising against her in Bangladesh. Since then, an interim government has been running the country.
The government in Dhaka said on Monday it had asked India to send Hasina back. New Delhi has confirmed the request but declined further comment.
Wazeb said the family had not made a decision on Hasina’s return to Bangladesh and that New Delhi had not asked her to seek asylum elsewhere.
Kashmir’s ‘bee queen’ sets out to empower women, inspire youth
- Sania Zehra manages about 600 bee colonies, sells products across India
- She created an empowerment group to help aspiring women entrepreneurs
NEW DELHI: For the past four years, beekeeping has become central to Sania Zehra’s life. Every morning, she wakes at about 6 a.m. to tend to her colonies, before spending the rest of the day building the enterprise that turned her into the “bee queen” of Kashmir.
Her beekeeping journey began as a 16-year-old, watching her father hard at work at the family farm in Balhama in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
“I first saw my grandfather working with the bees, and then I saw my father doing the same business. When I saw my father working hard, I decided to also contribute and support him,” Zehra told Arab News.
She overcame her initial fear of bee stings and got to work immediately, applying for a government scheme that allowed her to expand the business.
It was not always smooth sailing — she struggled to make a profit in the first couple of years and had to juggle maintaining the hectic routine of beekeeping and selling her products.
But as her hard work of managing hundreds of colonies garnered her the “bee queen” title, today her products are being sold across the country.
“I am selling my product across India (and) I am getting orders from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Dubai, South Africa, Qatar and all,” Zehra said.
Beekeeping is a multi-pronged passion for the 20-year-old, who sees it as a way to protect the environment and preserve her family legacy.
She joins an increasing number of women in Kashmir who are running their own businesses, many of whom access government programs aimed at training and supporting women entrepreneurs.
Despite the social barriers that persist to this day, Zehra found support from her family, especially her mother.
“My mother supports me wholeheartedly. She says ‘I have sons but you have gone ahead of the boys and there is nothing that can stop a woman if she wants to,’” she said.
“For me, it’s a passion as well as a desire to carry the family legacy … I have been fascinated by bees’ social structure and the importance of bees in our ecosystem. I want to contribute to their conversation and produce natural honey and connect with nature. They are an inspiration for me.”
As time went by, she found that beekeeping was not only therapeutic for her mental health but also a way to support the entrepreneurial landscape in Kashmir.
To fuel that mission, Zehra created an empowerment group whose members comprise talented women who lack access to resources.
“My main focus is that I should act as a catalyst for many and help others to grow too,” she said.
With 40 members so far, Zehra is aiming to take it to 100 and help them gain access to the government initiatives that once helped her.
“I want to give employment to all,” Zehra said. “I have a future plan to address the unemployment issue in Kashmir and make Kashmir a wonderful place. I want to inspire young people.”
Pope calls for ‘arms to be silenced’ across world
- “I think of the Christian communities in Israel and Palestine, particularly in Gaza, where the humanitarian situation is extremely grave,” Pope Francis said
VATICAN: Pope Francis called Wednesday for “arms to be silenced” around the world in his Christmas address, appealing for peace in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan as he denounced the “extremely grave” humanitarian situation in Gaza.
He used his traditional “Urbi et Orbi” (“to the city and the world“) message to the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics to call for talks for a just peace in Ukraine as the country was pummelled by 170 Russian missiles and drones on Christmas morning.
“May the sound of arms be silenced in war-torn Ukraine,” the 88-year-old pontiff said, his voice strained and breathless. “May there be the boldness needed to open the door to negotiation and to gestures of dialogue and encounter, in order to achieve a just and lasting peace.”
In front of thousands of the faithful gathered in front of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, also appealed for a ceasefire in Gaza and for the freeing of Israeli hostages held there by Hamas.
“I think of the Christian communities in Israel and Palestine, particularly in Gaza, where the humanitarian situation is extremely grave. May there be a ceasefire, may the hostages be released and aid be given to the people worn out by hunger and by war,” he added.
Francis extended his call for a silencing of arms to the whole Middle East and to Sudan, which has been ravaged by a ravaged by 20 months of brutal civil war where millions are under the threat of famine.
“May the Son of the Most High sustain the efforts of the international community to facilitate access to humanitarian aid for the civilian population of Sudan and to initiate new negotiations for a ceasefire,” he said.
Passenger plane flying from Azerbaijan to Russia crashes in Kazakhstan with many feared dead
- The plane was carrying 67 passengers and five crew, Kazakh authorities say 12 people had survived
- Azerbaijan Airlines said aircraft forced to make emergency landing approximately 3 km from Aktau
ASTANA: An Embraer passenger plane flying from Azerbaijan to Russia crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan on Wednesday with 67 passengers and five crew on board, Kazakh authorities announced, saying 12 people had survived.
Unverified video of the crash showed the plane, which was operated by Azerbaijan Airlines, bursting into flames as it hit the ground and thick black smoke then rising.
The Central Asian country’s emergencies ministry said in a statement that fire services had put out the blaze and that survivors were being treated at a nearby hospital.
Azerbaijan Airlines said the Embraer 190 aircraft, with flight number J2-8243, had been flying from Baku to Grozny, the capital of Russia’s Chechnya, but had been forced to make an emergency landing approximately 3 km (1.8 miles) from the Kazakh city of Aktau.
Russian news agencies said the plane had been rerouted due to fog in Grozny.
Authorities in Kazakhstan said they had begun looking into different possible versions of what had happened, including a technical problem, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.
