BEIJING: Singapore’s foreign minister says it’s “all systems go” for a summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to be held in the Southeast Asian city-state next week.
Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said Saturday in Beijing after returning from North Korea that “things will start happening within the next 24 hours.” He didn’t provide details in his remarks to Singaporean reporters .
Balakrishnan told reporters that Washington and Pyongyang are pleased with the arrangements and said he sees from both sides “a desire, a willingness to escape the constraints that have applied for the last seven decades.”
Trump and Kim plan to meet in Singapore on Tuesday. It will be the first summit of its kind between a leader of North Korea and a sitting US president.
Singapore diplomat: ‘All systems go’ for Trump-Kim summit
Singapore diplomat: ‘All systems go’ for Trump-Kim summit
Ramadan festival promotes heritage of Sri Lanka’s Muslim communities
- Sri Lanka’s diverse Muslim groups include Moors, Memons, Malays and Dawoodi Bohras
- The Salam Ramadan festival opened on Friday and will run until March 31 in the Sri Lankan capital
COLOMBO: A Ramadan festival in Colombo is promoting the heritage of Sri Lanka’s diverse Muslim communities by showcasing their rich cultures in the heart of the capital.
Muslims make up less than 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s 22 million people, who are predominantly Sinhalese Buddhists.
The Salam Ramadan festival, which opened on Friday and will run until the end of the month, is putting the spotlight on the Moor, Memon, Malay and Dawoodi Bohra ethnic groups.
Throughout the event, they are set to participate in cultural performances and interactive sessions to highlight their customs, while also sharing their traditional food to the residents of Colombo.
The event is organized by the government of Western Province, home to the Sri Lankan capital and the country’s most densely populated region.
“This is to show harmony, peacefulness with all communities, and we want to spend our spirit of a great month of holy Ramadan to everyone that’s around,” Western Province Gov. Hanif Yusuf told Arab News.
Festive lights and decorations will be on display in Colombo’s main shopping areas throughout the festival, as restaurants and food stalls across the capital serve up special dishes popular among the Sri Lankan Muslim community, such as watalappam, a coconut custard pudding, and adukku roti, a layered crepe pie.
One of Salam Ramadan’s main goals is to shift the mainstream perspective that Sri Lankan Muslims comprise only one ethnic group, says Aman Ashraff, deputy chairman of the Salam Ramadan program.
“The Sri Lankan Muslim community is a very diverse Muslim community. It comprises four ethnic groups: the Sri Lankan Moors, the Sri Lankan Malays, the Sri Lankan Memons, and the Sri Lankan Dawoodi Bohras; all of whom have had a lasting impact in the social fabric of Sri Lanka for centuries,” he told Arab News.
Each ethnic group has “a rich, distinctive cultural fabric” of its own, Ashraff added.
“Our hope for all our guests … to this event … is that they are able to discover the warmth, the fellowship, and the spirit of Ramadan that is enjoyed normally by Muslims, that is cherished by Muslims,” he said.
The festival is also an opportunity for Muslims to showcase the Ramadan “spirit of brotherhood and fellowship,” including the practice of inviting non-Muslims to their homes to break fast for iftar.
“In hosting an event of this nature, we are able to do it at a larger scale, we are able to invite Sri Lankans from all walks of life, the public … to experience all of this firsthand, and to to be able to understand why Muslims cherish this sense of brotherhood amongst themselves,” Ashraff said.
“To the Muslim community, their fellow Sri Lankans, be they Sinhalese, Tamil, or Burghers, are as near and dear as brothers and sisters of their own.”
Indonesian students lead nationwide protests against controversial military law
- Controversial changes allow active military officers to take up more government posts
- New revisions hark back to dark days of Suharto’s ‘New Order’ military dictatorship
JAKARTA: Indonesian students staged nationwide protests on Monday against a contentious revision to the military law that activists say threatens the nation’s young democracy.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at regional government offices in various Indonesian cities, including Batam, Kupang, Lampung and Sukabumi, as well as the country’s second-largest city, Surabaya. A smaller group also turned up in front of the parliament building in Jakarta.
With most of them clad in black, protesters held banners that read “Return the military to the barracks” and “Watch out! New ‘New Order’ is right before our eyes.”
Activists have taken to the streets since Wednesday to protest against controversial amendments to the 2004 Law on Indonesian Armed Forces, which aimed to broaden the military’s role beyond defense.
Indonesia’s House of Representatives unanimously passed the revisions on Thursday, allowing active military officers to take up more government posts, including the Attorney General’s Office, the Supreme Court and the Coordinating Ministry for Political and Security Affairs.
The changes also raise retirement ages by several years for most ranks. Highest-ranking four-star generals can now serve until 63, for example, up from 60.
Puan Maharani, the speaker of the lower house who led the vote in a plenary session, said the revised law would remain “grounded in democratic values and principles, civilian supremacy (and) human rights.”
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, a former three-star army general, said it will make the military more effective.
In a speech after the bill was passed into law, he said the amendments were necessary because “geopolitical changes and global military technology require the military to transform … to face conventional and non-conventional conflicts.”
The revisions were proposed by allies of President Prabowo Subianto, who took office last October and served as a general under the dictator Suharto.
Activists have warned that the move is a threat to Indonesia’s democracy, which the nation gained in 1998, after 32 years of Suharto’s “New Order” military dictatorship.
“The bill was not made with proper public consultation. It was rushed,” Andreas Harsono, senior Indonesia researcher at Human Rights Watch, told Arab News. “This law elevates the threats to Indonesia’s democracy. It’s not only regressing but going back to square one.”
He highlighted how youth protests erupted immediately across Indonesia, with students “demanding the amendments to be canceled,” as the revisions still have to be signed into law by Prabowo.
“I am pretty surprised to see their anger. It showed that these young people are not happy with the bigger roles of the military in non-security affairs,” he said.
Okky Madasari, Indonesian novelist and sociologist, said the law could be used as a “legal tool to further expand military’s involvement in businesses” and jobs that have nothing to do with defense or military, which are “reminiscent of Suharto’s New Order Regime.”
She told Arab News: “The immediate results will (mean) the further deterioration of Indonesia’s democracy, with less and less freedom of speech.”
But the nationwide protests, along with active social media campaigns across platforms, show that such dangers are not lost on some Indonesians.
“Indonesian youths, who have been exposed to cosmopolitanism and globally accepted values and are very aware of their rights and obligation, will continue to forge a resisting force against this growing authoritarianism and militarism under Prabowo Subianto,” Madasari said.
Holocaust survivor questioned by UK police after laying flowers at Gaza protest
- Stephen Kapos, 87, called on British government to condemn Israel, cease arms exports
- Politicians, campaigners, Holocaust survivors, lawyers condemn police over ‘repressive and heavy-handed’ arrests
LONDON: A Holocaust survivor was questioned by police after laying flowers in London’s Trafalgar Square to commemorate Palestinians killed in Gaza.
Stephen Kapos, 87, took part in a demonstration in the UK capital on Jan. 18. He was among nine people later questioned by the Metropolitan Police, after 77 others were arrested in what critics say was an example of “repressive and heavy-handed policing.”
Kapos survived the Holocaust after Nazi Germany occupied his home country of Hungary. He lived in hiding in Budapest as a child, losing his mother in the process. His father was imprisoned in the notorious Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
After questioning by police, Kapos told The Independent that he was “proud” to demonstrate in support of the Palestinian people, adding that members of his family accompanied him on protests.
Speaking outside Charing Cross Police Station in central London, he said he wanted to dispel ideas that “there is solid support from all Jews” for Israel’s actions.
“The sort of killing that’s going on, it’s unbearable to watch and one wonders where it’s leading to because there is no defence to speak of. They are defenceless people out in the open,” Kapos, surrounded by supporters including other Holocaust survivors and their relatives, told The Independent.
“Their homes have been bombed to smithereens and they are in tents and now they are going to be bombed.
“It’s unbearable and I don’t understand how the world can stand it. And, I’m ashamed of our government and everybody else who facilitates it and enables it.”
Kapos called for the UK government to condemn Israel and immediately suspend military contracts with the country.
“They should at the very minimum condemn Israel’s actions, which they don’t do, and immediately stop all supplies of armaments and any other logistical and information support that they do give,” he said.
“All that should be stopped immediately because there’s no doubt about this being an atrocity and international crime, what’s going on, what’s perpetrated by Israel. So, how can you hesitate in the face of that?”
Kapos added that protesting would “make it clear that all this will have electoral consequences” for the UK government, stressing that marches in support of the Palestinians “are not hate marches” and “are not no-go areas for Jews, which is again claimed.”
Dr. Agnes Kory, another Holocaust survivor who stood with Kapos, said: “In the name of a Holocaust survivor, which is me, and a Holocaust researcher, which is also me, I say no, not in our names, and I have to be at the forefront of peace for Palestine movements.”
Mark Etkind, co-organizer of Holocaust Survivors and Descendants Against the Gaza Genocide, described the behavior of the Metropolitan Police as “terrifying, not just for the Palestine movement, but for anyone who wants to protest and believes in British democracy.”
The Metropolitan Police did not disclose why Kapos had been questioned, and said protesters were detained at the march on Jan. 18 for a breach of the Public Order Act.
A group of more than 50 politicians, trade unionists and lawyers wrote to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper in the aftermath of the 77 arrests to complain about the behavior of the police.
Another group of around 40 Holocaust survivors wrote an open letter condemning the treatment of Kapos.
“Any repression of the right to protest is bad enough — but to persecute a Jewish 87-year-old whose Holocaust experiences compel him to speak out against the Gaza genocide, is quite appalling,” the group said.
South Sudan suffering worst cholera outbreak in 20 years: UNICEF
- South Sudan reporting almost 700 deaths in a six month period
NAIROBI: South Sudan is enduring its worst cholera outbreak in two decades, the United Nations said Monday, with the country reporting almost 700 deaths in a six month period.
The deeply impoverished nation — despite its major oil deposits — has been plagued by insecurity since declaring independence in 2011.
Parts of the country have lately seen fresh waves of violence, with clashes between forces allied to President Salva Kiir and his long-time rival, First Vice President Riek Machar, displacing tens of thousands.
UNICEF said that 40,000 cholera cases were reported from the end of September to March 18, “including 694 deaths country-wide, its worst outbreak in 20 years.”
It said half the cases were children under 15.
South Sudan and Angola were facing the most severe of several outbreaks across eastern and southern Africa, the agency said.
Angola reported over 7,500 cases, including 294 deaths from 7 January 2025 to 18 March 2025, UNICEF said, warning there were “high risks for further escalation.”
Earlier this month the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in South Sudan said 50,000 people had been displaced since February as violence flared in northeastern Upper Nile State.
It said a cholera treatment unit in the Upper Nile State’s Nasir county had closed, with 23 humanitarian workers forced to leave.
The region has been the main focus of clashes that are threatening a fragile power-sharing agreement between Kiir and Machar.
South Sudan has seen a steady increase in cholera — an acute form of diarrhea that is treatable with antibiotics and hydration, but which can be deadly if untreated — over the past three years.
In 2022 the country marked its first resurgence in five years, following an outbreak between June 2016 and December 2017 that killed 436 people.
In December, medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned South Sudan was seeing “alarming and rapid increase” in the disease.
It said 92 people had died following an outbreak in Unity state, and that it had treated over 1,210 people in just four weeks in Bentiu city.
Sudden US aid withdrawal risking millions of lives: UNAIDS chief
- She warned that without more funding there will be an additional 6.3 million AIDS-related deaths in the next four years
GENEVA: The sudden halt to US foreign aid funding has been “devastating,” the UNAIDS chief said Monday, warning that without more funding, millions more will die and the global AIDS pandemic will resurge.
The United States has historically been the world’s largest donor of humanitarian assistance, but President Donald Trump has slashed international aid since returning to the White House two months ago.
“It is reasonable for the United States to want to reduce its funding over time, but the sudden withdrawal of life-saving support is having a devastating impact,” UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima told reporters in Geneva.
“We urge for a reconsideration and an urgent restoration of services, life-saving services.”
She warned that without more funding, “there will be an additional... 6.3 million AIDS-related deaths” in the next four years.
At the last count, in 2023, some 600,000 AIDS-related deaths were registered globally, she pointed out.
“So you’re talking of a 10-fold increase.”
At the same time, Byanyima said her agency expected to see “an additional 8.7 million new infections.”
“You’re talking of losing the gains that we have made over the last 25 years. It is very serious.”
Looking further ahead than the next four years, if aid funding is not restored, “in the longer term, we see the AIDS pandemic resurging, and resurging globally,” Byanyima said.
“Not just in the countries where now it has become concentrated, in low-income countries of Africa, but also growing among what we call key populations in Eastern Europe, in Latin America,” she said.
“We will see a... real surge in this disease. We’ll see it come back, and we’ll see people die the way we saw them in the ‘90s and in the 2000s.”
