RAWALPINDI: Pakistan on Friday blocked off roads into Islamabad, the capital, as an Islamist party that backs strict blasphemy laws staged a sit-in on a key highway, demanding the resignation of a minister it blames for changes to an electoral oath.
Dozens of Pakistanis are on death row, convicted of having insulted Islam’s prophet, a charge that carries a mandatory death sentence, although no executions have been carried out.
More than 500 supporters of the Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan party, or Movement of the Prophet’s Followers, chanted slogans as speakers addressed them from atop a cargo truck, pledging their lives to protect Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.
The protesters demanded the resignation of Law Minister Zahid Hamid, whom they hold responsible for the law change, and denounced him as a blasphemer.
“Immediately appear before us and beg for forgiveness,” said one speaker.
Two high court lawyers who joined the sit-in said they would work to advance Labaik’s agenda in the courts.
“He (Hamid) has insulted the blasphemy laws, the punishment for which is death,” said one of the lawyers.
Pakistan’s interior ministry did not immediately answer telephone calls from Reuters to seek comment.
The ruling Pakistani Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) unexpectedly set off a firestorm last month after voting through the alteration of the oath, among seemingly small changes to the nation’s electoral law.
The changes prompted accusations of blasphemy from religious parties and the government retreated, apologizing in parliament for what it called a “clerical” mistake.
But the apology did not satisfy Tehreek-e-Labaik, triggering the sit-in, as the culmination of a march of nearly 400 km (249 miles) from the eastern city of Lahore.
The party rose to prominence in September, after placing third in a by-election in Lahore, edging out a major opposition party to pick up 6 percent of the vote.
Last month, it gained nearly 8 percent in a by-election in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
While Tehrik-e-Labaik is unlikely to break out of single digits in coming votes, its rapid rise could present a challenge for the PML-N.
On a bridge overlooking the highway demonstration site, drivers of trucks halted by blockades erected by city authorities complained about cargo delivery delays.
One commuter unable to take public transport to work told Reuters his business had suffered.
“I run a tailoring shop and can’t go to work today,” said Mohammad Altaf. “I have lost a day’s earnings.”
Pakistan blocks off roads into capital as blasphemy law supporters stage sit-in
Pakistan blocks off roads into capital as blasphemy law supporters stage sit-in
Goodbye Lenin? Russians flock to see Bolshevik leader’s tomb before it closes for repairs
- Famous mausoleum set to close for two years
- Large lines of Russians form to see Lenin’s body
MOSCOW: Russians are flocking to catch what some fear could be a final glimpse of the embalmed body of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin before his tomb on Moscow’s Red Square, long a place of pilgrimage for communists, closes for repairs until 2027.
The mausoleum, which houses a waxy-looking Lenin replete in a three-piece suit inside what is purportedly a bullet-proof, blast-proof glass case, is due to be structurally overhauled after an inspection uncovered problems.
Once a popular attraction for Western tourists and still a favorite for Russians visiting the capital from the regions, the red and black granite structure is expected to close in the coming weeks, with repair work set to last until June 2027.
Officials say that the body of Lenin, who died in 1924 after helping to establish the world’s first socialist state, is not going anywhere and that the central hall where he lies in state will not be touched.
But news of the temporary closure has seen long lines form to get into the mausoleum, with some visitors fearing it could be their last chance to see Lenin.
“From a historical point of view, I want to witness his being in a mausoleum because I think Lenin will be buried at some point, maybe in the future or near future,” said Tatyana Tolstik, a historian from Ulyanovsk, the city on the Volga where Lenin was born.
A young woman called Snezhana, who did not give her surname, said she wanted to “dive into the past” because she was also unsure how long it would be possible to visit the mausoleum.
The Communist Party, which ruled the country from the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, is fiercely opposed to the removal of Lenin’s body, and Gennady Zyuganov, the party’s veteran leader, has said President Vladimir Putin has assured him it will not happen on his watch.
The Kremlin has repeatedly denied plans to permanently close the mausoleum.
Singapore-flagged ship carrying toxic oil explodes off Indian coast
- 18 members of the vessel’s crew rescued, while 4 remain missing
- Alert for Kerala coast as containers drift between Kozhikode and Kochi
NEW DELHI: India’s Coast Guard and Navy were struggling on Tuesday to extinguish a fire on a Singapore-flagged cargo ship that exploded in the Arabian Sea, triggering an alarm over its load of 100 tonnes of bunker oil.
The MV Wan Hai 503, en route to Mumbai from Sri Lanka, reported an internal container explosion on Monday, which triggered a major fire on board as the vessel approached the coast of the southern state of Kerala.
The Indian Coast Guard said the situation was “critical” as its ships engaged in an overnight operation to douse the flames and rescue 22 members of the vessel’s crew.
Four crew remain missing. Two of them are from Thailand, one from Indonesia and one from Myanmar, according to Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority, which sent a team to assist the Indian rescuers.
Containers falling from the ship were reported drifting between Kerala’s Kozhikode and Kochi, triggering an alert by the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services over a potential spill of what it identified as 100 tonnes of bunker oil.
Bunker oil is a thick, heavy and viscous fuel used to power large ships, especially cargo vessels and tankers. It is one of the dirtiest and most polluting fuels.
It contains sulfur, heavy metals and carcinogens. If spilled, it is difficult to clean up and may persist for months or years in the marine environment, suffocating coral reefs and killing fish and seabirds.
“Caution is advised about a few containers beaching between Kozhikode and Kochi,” the INCOIS said in a notification, adding that there was an “estimated 70-80 percent probability” that the containers that went overboard from the MV Wan Hai 503 might drift south-southeastwards from the accident location for the next three days.
The incident took place just two weeks after a Liberian-flagged vessel carrying hazardous cargo sank off Kerala’s coast.
The vessel went down with cargo containing calcium carbide and more than 84 metric tonnes of diesel, and 367 metric tonnes of furnace oil.
Diesel and furnace oil are both classified as marine pollutants that are toxic to marine life and can contaminate coastal ecosystems.
UK civil servants told to quit if they disagree with Gaza policy
- Over 300 Foreign Office staff signed letter to foreign secretary expressing concerns
- Britain facilitating potential ‘violations of international law’ by exporting weapons to Israel
LONDON: UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office staff have been told to quit their jobs if they disagree with government policy on Gaza.
More than 300 civil servants signed a letter sent to Foreign Secretary David Lammy last month, outlining concerns over UK arms sales and “complicity” in “stark … disregard for international law” by the Israeli military in the Palestinian enclave.
In a response to the letter, sent by the department’s two most senior civil servants Nick Dyer and Sir Oliver Robbins, signatories were told: “(If) your disagreement with any aspect of government policy or action is profound your ultimate recourse is to resign from the Civil Service. This is an honourable course.”
One official who signed the initial complaint told the BBC: “(There is) frustration and a deep sense of disappointment that the space for challenge is being further shut down.”
The letter is the fourth such case of civil servants contacting senior officials to air concerns about the UK’s position on the war in Gaza.
Signatories to it, which was sent on May 16, include overseas embassy staff and employees based in London.
Topics raised included potential breaches of international law, the death toll in Gaza, and Israeli settler activities in the occupied West Bank.
“In July 2024, staff expressed concern about Israel’s violations of international humanitarian law and potential UK government complicity. In the intervening period, the reality of Israel’s disregard for international law has become more stark,” the letter said.
It added that Israel’s actions, including its blockade on food aid entering Gaza, have led “many experts and humanitarian organisations to accuse Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war,” and that the UK is facilitating potential “violations of international law” by continuing to export weapons to the country.
The letter also noted that “the Israeli government has made explicit plans for the forcible transfer of Gaza’s population.”
In the response, Dyer and Sir Oliver said it “might be helpful” to “remind” signatories that the FCDO has systems in place to address staff concerns with policy, including the “ultimate recourse” of resignation.
The “bargain at the heart of the British Civil Service is that we sign up to deliver the policies of the Government of the day wholeheartedly, within the limits imposed by the law and the Civil Service Code,” they wrote.
A former FCDO official told the BBC that the rhetorical reply “simply provides the government with supposed ‘plausible deniability’ for enabling breaches of international law.”
The official added on condition of anonymity that the FCDO has not learned the lessons of the 2016 Chilcot Report after the Iraq War, which raised suggestions of “ingrained belief” within the civil service requiring systems to challenge “groupthink” in future.
The FCDO said in a statement: “There are systems in place which allow (staff) to raise concerns if they have them.”
A spokesperson added: “Since day one, this government has rigorously applied international law in relation to the war in Gaza.
“One of our first acts in government was to suspend export licenses that could be used by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza.
“We have suspended direct exports of F-35 parts for use by Israel, and we categorically do not export any bombs or ammunition which could be used in Gaza.”
The UK government has previously said it believes Israel to be “at risk” of breaking international and humanitarian law in Gaza.
Last September, 30 export licenses for arms were suspended over fears of “clear risk” that they may be used illegally, but over 300 remain in place.
The war in Gaza has killed well over 50,000 Palestinians and left millions displaced and without access to basic resources.
Last year, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Ukrainian woman searches for husband lost in action two years ago
- Families of missing soldiers draw hope from prisoner swaps
- Uncertainty on both sides of the war since Russia invaded
Holding up a photograph of Dmytro Pylnyk, lost in action in early 2023, she has many questions. What happened to his unit when it was ambushed by Russian forces? Was he captured by Russia? Could he eventually be released?
The mass prisoner swap last month was an opportunity for people like her to ask troops just out of Russian captivity about missing loved ones who they believe, or simply hope, are prisoners of war. The alternative is unthinkable.
“I hold out great hope that someone has heard something, seen something,” Pylnyk, 29, told Reuters at a recent exchange in May, flanked by other relatives of those missing in action.
“My son and I are waiting for (his) dad to come home. Hope dies last. God willing, it’ll all be okay and dad will come back.”
Precize numbers for soldiers missing in action are not made public.
For Ukrainians, and for Russians on the other side of the conflict, it can be hard to find out even basic information. Pylnyk says she has written to government agencies and Russian authorities and learned almost nothing.
Ukrainian officials say more than 70,000 Ukrainians have been registered missing since 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion. The majority are from the military but the figure also includes civilians.
Another 12,000 have been removed from the list after being identified among the dead or returned in exchanges.
Petro Yatsenko, a spokesman for the Coordination Council that arranges prisoner swaps from the Ukrainian side, said Russia had never notified Kyiv which soldiers it is holding prisoner. Ukraine collects that data by other means as best it can, he said.
Pylnyk and others like her share information in online chat groups and use it to try to piece together what happened.
“Misfortune brought us together,” she said. “After two years of this, we’re like a family.”
LAST PHONE CALL
Dmytro Pylnyk, an electrician by trade, was drafted into the army in late 2022. He phoned home often so that his wife did not worry but last called on their son Artem’s third birthday on Feb. 27, 2023.
He was deployed from Kharkiv region toward Bakhmut, a small city that later fell to Russian forces after fierce fighting.
His unit’s convoy was caught in a Russian ambush, Mariia Pylnyk said she had learned.
“The guys ran any which way,” she said, citing conversations with commanders who told her 41 soldiers were missing in action.
Two were captured and have since been released. One, who was freed in an exchange at Easter and had lost both his arms, was unable to share any valuable information, she said.
The second refused to talk.
The pace of prisoner swaps has increased in the last month.
Ukraine and Russia each released 1,000 prisoners in a three-day exchange last month, the only tangible outcome of direct talks in Istanbul.
A prisoner swap of under-25s on Monday was the first in a series of exchanges also expected to include each side repatriating the remains of thousands.
Mariia Pylnyk has given her son’s DNA to the authorities so that if Dmytro is confirmed killed in action they will be notified.
“We all understand that this is war and anything is possible. But to this day, I don’t believe it and I don’t feel that he is dead. I feel like he’s alive and God willing he’ll return,” she said.
NO SIGNAL TO CALL
She lives with Artem, now five, in Pakul, a village in the northern Chernihiv region that was briefly occupied by Russians. She has not told Artem his father is missing in action.
“He knows that dad is a soldier, dad is a good man, dad is at work and just doesn’t have any signal to call,” she said.
She takes comfort from seeing families reunited and never allows herself to cry in front of her son.
She used to work in a shop, but Artem has often been ill. The angst of the last two years have taken their toll on her health too. She receives state support.
Pylnyk has vowed to find her husband but has often not had time to attend prisoner swaps while looking after their son.
“Only a weakling can give up, you know, throw up their hands and say that’s it, he’s not there,” she said, adding that she was very emotional when she attended last month’s big exchange.
“When I was there, the fighting spirit awoke in me that I needed. I have to do this. Who else will do it but me?”
Los Angeles’ image is scuffed since ICE raids and protests, with World Cup and Olympics on horizon
- Los Angeles is still reeling from January’s deadly wildfires — and with the World Cup soccer championships and the 2028 Olympics on the horizon
- Mayor Karen Bass has been urging residents to come together to revitalize LA’s image. Instead, a less flattering side of Los Angeles has been broadcast to the world in recent days
LOS ANGELES: This isn’t the image Los Angeles wanted projected around the globe.
Clouds of tear gas wafting over a throng of protesters on a blocked freeway. Federal immigration agents in tactical garb raiding businesses in search of immigrants without legal status. A messy war of words between President Donald Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom. Photos captured several Waymo robotaxis set on fire and graffiti scrawled on a federal detention center building, while videos recorded the sounds of rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades hitting crowds.
In a city still reeling from January’s deadly wildfires — and with the World Cup soccer championships and the 2028 Olympics on the horizon — Mayor Karen Bass has been urging residents to come together to revitalize LA’s image by sprucing up streets, planting trees and painting murals so LA shows its best face to nations near and far.
“It’s about pride,” she’s said. “This is the city of dreams.”
Instead, a less flattering side of Los Angeles has been broadcast to the world in recent days. Protests have mostly taken place in a small swath of downtown in the sprawling city of 4 million people. As Trump has activated nearly 5,000 troops to respond in the city, Bass has staunchly pushed back against his assertions that her city is overrun and in crisis.
Bass, in response to Trump, said she was troubled by depictions that the city has been “invaded and occupied by illegal aliens and criminals, and that now violent, insurrectionist mobs are swarming our federal agents. I don’t know if anybody has seen that happen, but I’ve not seen that happen.”
The series of protests began Friday outside a federal detention center, where demonstrators demanded the release of more than 40 people arrested by federal immigration authorities.
Immigration advocates say the people who were detained do not have criminal histories and are being denied their due process rights.
An international city
Much like New York, Los Angeles is an international city that many immigrants call home. The city’s official seal carries images referencing the region’s time under Spanish and Mexican rule. Over 150 languages are spoken by students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. About half of the city’s residents are Latino and about one-third were born outside the US
Bass faulted the Trump administration for creating “a chaotic escalation” by mobilizing troops to quell protests.
“This is the last thing that our city needs,” Bass said.
Los Angeles resident Adam Lerman, who has attended the protests, warned that protests would continue if the Trump administration pushes more raids in the city.
“We are talking about a new riot every day,” Lerman said. ”Everybody knows they are playing with fire.”
It’s not the publicity LA needs as it looks to welcome the world for international sporting events on a grand scale.
“At this stage in the process, most host cities and countries would be putting the final touches on their mega-event red carpet, demonstrating to the world that they are ready to embrace visitors with open arms,” said Jules Boykoff, a Pacific University professor who has written widely on the political and economic impacts of the Olympic Games. The scenes of conflict are “not exactly the best way to entice the world to plan their next tourist trip to the US to watch a sports mega-event.”
A mayor under pressure
The federal raids and protests have created another dicey political moment for Bass, who has been struggling with a budget crisis while trying to recover from political fallout from the wildfires that ignited when she was out of the country.
She’s been careful not to discourage protests but at the same time has pleaded for residents to remain peaceful. The mayor will likely face backlash for involving the Los Angeles Police.
And she needs to fight the perception that the city is unsafe and disorderly, an image fostered by Trump, who in social media posts has depicted Bass as incompetent and said the city has been “invaded” by people who entered the US illegally. Los Angeles is sprawling — roughly 470 square miles (750 square kilometers) — and the protests were mostly concentrated downtown.
“The most important thing right now is that our city be peaceful,” Bass said. “I don’t want people to fall into the chaos that I believe is being created by the (Trump) administration.”
On Monday, workers were clearing debris and broken glass from sidewalks and power-washing graffiti from buildings — among the structures vandalized was the one-time home of the Los Angeles Times across the street from City Hall. Downtown has yet to bounce back since long-running pandemic lockdowns, which reordered work life and left many office towers with high vacancy rates.
Trump and California officials continued to spar online and off, faulting each other for the fallout. At the White House, Trump criticized California leaders by saying “they were afraid of doing anything” and signaled he would support Newsom’s arrest over his handling of the immigration protests.
If Los Angeles’ image was once defined by its balmy Mediterranean climate and the glamor of Hollywood, it’s now known “primarily for disaster,” said Claremont McKenna College political scientist Jack Pitney.
“A lot of perception depends on images,” Pitney added. Right now, the dominant image “is a burning Waymo.”
