KOLKATA: Indian doctors on strike in Kolkata to protest the brutal rape and murder of a colleague will resume some duties from Saturday, the group leading the protests told AFP on Friday.
The discovery of the 31-year-old doctor’s bloodied body at a state-run hospital in the eastern city last month rekindled nationwide anger at the chronic issue of violence against women.
While the protests and strikes have since calmed in the rest of India, regular demonstrations had continued in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal state.
“We will return to work in a graded manner from Saturday,” Aniket Mahato of the West Bengal Junior Doctors Front told AFP following late-night talks with authorities.
Junior doctors would return to emergency rooms in state-run hospitals, but would not resume their duties in outpatient departments, inpatient services or on planned surgeries, he said.
He said the decision came following floods that have inundated parts of West Bengal in recent days.
“It’s time to move and help the affected people,” he said.
Doctors had given the state government a seven-day deadline to implement measures enhancing security and safety in hospitals, Mahato said, adding they would stop work again if the demands were not met.
Tens of thousands of ordinary Indians joined in the protests following the August attack, which focused anger on the lack of measures for female doctors to work without fear.
One man has been detained over the murder, but West Bengal’s state government has faced public criticism for its handling of the investigation.
Authorities eventually sacked the city’s police chief and top health ministry officials.
India’s Supreme Court last month ordered a national task force to examine how to bolster security for health care workers, saying the brutality of the killing had “shocked the conscience of the nation.”
The gruesome nature of the attack has invoked comparisons with the 2012 gang rape and murder of a young woman on a Delhi bus, which also sparked weeks of nationwide protests.
Striking Indian doctors to resume work after murder protest
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Striking Indian doctors to resume work after murder protest
- The discovery of a 31-year-old doctor’s body at a state-run hospital in Kolkata last month rekindled nationwide anger at the chronic issue of violence against women
- While the protests and strikes have since calmed in the rest of India, regular demonstrations continued in the eastern city, which is the capital of West Bengal state
‘Russian NATO’ loses ground in Moscow’s former backyard
- The fate of Collective Security Treaty Organization, an alliance of ex-Soviet states, highlights challenges facing the Kremlin as it seeks to maintain geopolitical sway across Eurasia
- In July, Central Asian states held their first joint military exercises without Moscow, while Kazakhstan hosted special forces from Pakistan, Qatar and Turkiye for drills in September
BALYKCHY, Kyrgyzstan: Even as Russia stages a series of military drills with its allies in Central Asia, Moscow’s hold over a region it considers its own backyard appears to be growing increasingly tenuous.
Bogged down by its all-out war on Ukraine, now dragging through a third year, Russia is visibly losing its historic role as the key power broker in both Central Asia and the Caucasus.
The fate of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a military alliance of ex-Soviet states, highlights the challenges facing the Kremlin as it seeks to maintain and advance its geopolitical sway across Eurasia.
Often referred to as a “Russian NATO,” the alliance was formed in 1992 to fill the security vacuum left by the collapse of the Soviet Union.
But three decades on, the bloc is struggling with “serious issues of competitiveness and viability,” Armenian analyst Hakob Badalyan told AFP.
Yerevan is boycotting the organization, though it has remained a formal member.
It accuses the CSTO — and therefore Moscow — of abandoning it amid conflict with arch-foe Azerbaijan.
It is not the first membership challenge faced by the CSTO, which comprises Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, alongside Russia and Armenia.
Baku left in 1999, alongside Caucasus neighbor Georgia. Uzbekistan followed suit in 2012.
Both Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan ignored calls to rejoin the alliance last year.
Russia’s difficulties across Central Asia and the Caucasus stand in contrast to its successes in forging and deepening alliances with the likes of China, India, Iran, North Korea and several African countries amid its invasion of Ukraine.
Badalyan sees those developments as connected.
“At war with Ukraine, Russia has far fewer resources to fully play its role as the CSTO’s military-technical leader,” he said.
The CSTO still has a role to play in the region, others suggested — though the idea of it acting as a powerful Russian alternative to NATO is questionable.
For instance, the alliance intervened in Kazakhstan in 2022, where predominantly Russian “peacekeeping forces” helped quell deadly anti-government riots and stabilize President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s regime.
At the time, Russia and the CSTO positioned themselves as guarantors of stability for allied authoritarian regimes — a scenario that now seems impossible to replicate.
The CSTO’s role in the region has also shifted following the Taliban’s military takeover in Afghanistan in 2021.
According to Vladimir Zharikhin, deputy director of the Russian Institute of CIS Countries, the group has helped by “ensuring the stability of Central Asian countries bordering Afghanistan” over the last three years.
“If there haven’t been any serious conflicts involving Afghanistan and Central Asian nations, it’s largely due to Russian military bases in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan,” he said.
Moscow and its closest ally Minsk hope military drills in Kyrgyzstan last week, and Kazakhstan next week, will show the alliance still has geopolitical relevance.
“By holding these exercises, we show the international community and all our enemies that we are ready to face any threat,” Belarusian official Gennady Lepeshko said in the Kyrgyz town of Balykchy, where last week’s drills took place.
But the alliance appears split even on the definition of who those “enemies” are.
While Russia sees the West as an existential threat, Central Asian states and Armenia are strengthening ties with the United States and Europe.
Aside from Belarus, none have backed Moscow’s war on Ukraine.
And even Minsk — financially, politically, economically and militarily reliant on Moscow — does not recognize Russia’s territorial claims over eastern Ukraine.
Western countries are not blind to the possible geopolitical opening in the region.
This week, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Central Asia, where his hosts urged him to invest in energy and transport infrastructure to connect the region to Europe, bypassing Russia.
In July, Central Asian states held their first joint military exercises without Moscow, while Armenia hosted joined military drills with the United States.
The region is also being courted beyond the West, including militarily.
Kazakhstan hosted special forces from Pakistan, Qatar, and Turkiye for drills in September, held under the banner of “limitless friendship.”
China is expanding its security influence in Central Asia, both through bilateral agreements and its own regional bloc, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Drawing on cultural ties with fellow Turkic-speaking nations, Ankara has also boosted arms supplies.
Sensing the challenge, there is little chance of Russian President Vladimir Putin simply accepting his country’s diminished influence in a region it ruled over for decades.
“The time has come to begin a broad discussion on a new system of collective security in Eurasia,” he said back in June.
EU chief says in Kyiv to offer support ahead of winter
- Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has dragged on for more than 30 months, with Ukraine now controlling parts of Russia’s Kursk region
Kyiv: EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said Friday that she had arrived in Kyiv to offer support ahead of winter, as Russia keeps up its bombing campaign of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
“My 8th visit to Kyiv comes as the heating season starts soon, and Russia keeps targeting energy infrastructure,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter, along with a picture of her at a rail station.
“We will help Ukraine in its brave efforts. I come here to discuss Europe’s support. From winter preparedness to defense, to accession and progress on the G7 loans.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has dragged on for more than 30 months, with Ukraine now controlling parts of Russia’s Kursk region while Moscow presses an advance into eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine has lobbied its allies to allow it to use donated weapons to strike “legitimate” military targets deep in Russian territory.
The United States and Britain have been discussing allowing it to do just that — but EU states remain divided over the issue.
On Thursday, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling on EU countries to allow Kyiv to use Western weapons to strike military targets inside Russia.
Washington currently authorizes Ukraine to only hit Russian targets in occupied parts of Ukraine and some in Russian border regions directly related to Moscow’s combat operations.
Taiwan questions two in probe into Hezbollah pagers
- The New York Times reported this week that Israel had inserted explosive material into a shipment of pagers from Taiwan’s Gold Apollo, citing American and other anonymous officials
TAIPEI: Two people from Taiwanese companies were questioned multiple times as part of a probe into pagers that exploded while being used by Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon, Taipei investigators said Friday.
Questions and speculation have swirled over where the devices came from and how they were supplied to Hezbollah, after hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies detonated across Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 37 people and wounded nearly 3,000.
The New York Times reported this week that Israel had inserted explosive material into a shipment of pagers from Taiwan’s Gold Apollo, citing American and other anonymous officials.
But Gold Apollo’s head Hsu Ching-kuang denied producing the devices, pointing the finger instead at Hungary-based partner BAC Consulting KFT, who it allowed to use its trademark.
On Thursday, as part of a probe by Taiwanese investigators, Hsu and a woman from a different company were questioned by prosecutors.
Local media reported that the woman questioned was Wu Yu-jen, a representative connected to BAC Consulting KFT, who had set up a company based in Taipei called “Apollo Systems.”
“Our country takes the case very seriously,” said the prosecutors office from Taipei’s Shilin district in a statement Friday.
“We instructed the Investigation Bureau’s national security station to further interview two people from Taiwanese companies as witnesses yesterday.”
The two witnesses were allowed to leave after multiple rounds of questioning.
“We will clarify the facts as soon as possible such as whether Taiwanese companies are involved or not,” the office said.
It also said investigators searched four locations, including in New Taipei City’s Xizhi district, where Gold Apollo is located, and Taipei’s Neihu district.
Neihu district is the listed address of Apollo Systems, according to a company register website, which also showed that the firm was established in April this year.
Wu did not speak to reporters when she was brought in for questioning, according to local TV footage.
Hsu, who was shuttled back and forth between his office and the prosecutors office on Thursday, also declined to comment on the investigation.
Earlier this week, his company said the pager model mentioned in media reports “is produced and sold by BAC.”
But a Hungarian government spokesman said BAC Consulting KFT was “a trading intermediary, with no manufacturing or operational site in Hungary.”
World leaders to gather at UN as crises grow and conflicts rage
- Gaza war, soaring Mideast tensions, Sudan’s civil war and the grinding Russian-Ukraine war are among the rancorous issues on the agenda of UNGA 2024
- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says this week that the world would be able to “avoid moving to World War Three”
NEW YORK CITY: World leaders will descend on the United Nation’s New York HQ from Sunday for the organization’s annual signature gathering against an explosive backdrop of raging wars, growing populism and diplomatic deadlock.
The war in Gaza, soaring Middle East tensions, famine conditions in Sudan’s civil war and the grinding conflict in Ukraine are among the rancorous issues on the agenda of the presidents and prime ministers attending the General Assembly’s high-level week — the UN’s showpiece event.
But UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres insisted this week that the world would be able to “avoid moving to World War Three.”
“What we are witnessing is a multiplication of conflicts and the sense of impunity,” Guterres said at a briefing.
The gathering “could not come in a more critical and more challenging moment,” said Washington’s UN envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
“The list of crises and conflicts that demand attention and action only seem to grow and grow... it’s easy to fall into cynicism.
“But we can’t afford to do that.”
It is unclear what if anything the grand gathering, the World Cup of diplomacy, can achieve for the millions mired in conflict and poverty globally.
With Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian, due to attend, “Gaza will obviously be the most prominent of these conflicts in terms of what leaders are saying,” said Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group.
He suggested the set piece diplomatic speeches and posturing would “not actually make a great deal of difference to events on the ground.”
The war in Gaza began after Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, which ultimately resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
More than 41,272 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since the war began, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. The UN has acknowledged these figures as reliable.
Fears are high that the conflict could boil over into Lebanon, where a series of deadly explosions apparently targeted Hezbollah’s communications this week. Israel has yet to comment.
The action in New York begins Sunday with a “Summit of the Future,” Guterres’ flagship attempt to get ahead of challenges that will face the world in coming years.
World leaders, expected to include India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will attend to adopt a pact on how to confront the most pressing issues going forward.
Despite intense negotiations and Guterres calling on leaders to show “courage,” the draft text has been panned by observers as badly lacking in ambition.
“One of the risks, and it’s more than a risk, (is) that the Summit of the Future may look like the summit of the past, and in the best-case scenario, the summit of the present,” said another diplomat.”
Guterres insists the summit has value, saying that “international challenges are moving faster than our ability to solve them.”
“We see out of control, geopolitical divisions and runaway conflicts, not least in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and beyond, runaway climate change, runaway inequalities... and our institutions simply can’t keep up,” he said.
The ICRC’s UN representative Laetitia Courtois said it was vital that conflict was tackled “right now,” not as “an objective for the next generation.”
The summit will be followed by the high-level week at which the UN’s 193 members will address each other, kicking off with Brazil.
That will be followed by the United States, with President Joe Biden due to speak — likely on ceasefire talks in Gaza, among other issues.
The leaders of China and Russia will be absent as in past years, but Britain’s Keir Starmer, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, and Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will be present.
Zelensky was the star attraction in 2023, but one diplomat said he would struggle to stay in the spotlight this year as he presents his “plan for victory.”
Ahead of the gala events, a security ring of steel was being erected around the UN’s riverfront HQ and local people and businesses braced for traffic paralysis caused by the endless VIP motorcades and street closures.
How two Colombians wound up in a Russian prison after fighting in Ukraine
- Jose and Alexander were going home to Colombia after fighting with the Ukrainian army against invading Russian forces
- They were in Venezuela on the last leg of their journey home when they vanished, leading to speculation Venezuela authorities handed them over to Russia
POPAYAN, Colombia: “Mom, I’m on my way. Save me some sancocho!“
The last time Otilia Ante, 78, heard from her son Alexander, he was telling her to put aside some of the hearty meat and corn stew on which he was raised in southwestern Colombia.
Alexander, 47, was in neighboring Venezuela at the time, on a circuitous route home from Ukraine where he had fought invading Russian forces with the army there.
But he and his Colombian brother-in-arms Jose Medina, 36, never made it onto the last leg of their long journey back from the battlefield.
The pair vanished on July 18 in Venezuela, a staunch ally of Russia, just before their connecting flight to the Colombian capital Bogota.
The next time their families saw the men was in a video released by Russia’s FSB security service on August 30, showing them being led down a corridor in prison garb with their hands cuffed behind their backs before being interrogated.
Moscow accuses the pair of acting as mercenaries, a crime punishable in Russia by up to 15 years in prison.
Jose’s wife Cielo Paz said seeing the images left her “heartbroken.”
Describing the anxious wait for news about his fate, she said she and the couple’s seven-year-old daughter “feel as if we’re also imprisoned.”
Jose and Alexander hail from Colombia’s southwestern Cauca department, the epicenter of a decades-old conflict involving the Colombian army, right-wing paramilitaries, left-wing guerrillas and drug gangs.
The pair met on the frontlines in eastern Ukraine, 11,000 kilometers (some 6,800 miles) from home, in a battalion counting many foreigners, which suffered heavy losses.
After fighting through the grueling Ukrainian winter into spring, they asked to be discharged.
The men’s families deny they were guns-for-hire, insisting they were recruited by the Ukrainian government and not a private contractor.
Colombia has one of Latin America’s largest armies and a growing pool of ex-soldiers acting as mercenaries.
About 50 Colombians have been killed in Ukraine since the start of the war in February 2022, according to Colombian government figures.
Jose and Alexander were paid $3,000 a month to fight alongside Ukrainian forces — almost ten times the basic salary of a Colombian soldier.
After 14 years in the army, Alexander, who is married with a daughter, went to work as a cash-in-transit driver. He was laid off after failing an eye test.
After for months of unemployment, he decided to enlist again, this time in Ukraine.
“His plan was to go there and (earn enough money to) get his mother out of this neighborhood,” Alexander’s brother Arbey told AFP, describing the district of Popayan as “very dangerous.”
He said recruiters had assured the Colombians they would not be deployed on the frontlines.
“I think they were deceived,” he said.
“My love, here we are in Caracas,,” Jose wrote in his last WhatsApp message to Cielo from Caracas international airport.
“He was on his way home,” she told AFP at their Popayan home, which Jose was planning to finish building with his earnings.
Arbey said Alexander and Jose chose to fly through Venezuela because “the tickets were cheaper” and the pair were unaware of developments in the increasingly isolated Latin American state.
Venezuela was then in the midst of a high-stakes presidential campaign.
Incumbent strongman Nicolas Maduro claimed victory despite polling station results published by the opposition appearing to show a clear victory for their man.
Russia is one of just a handful of countries to have recognized Maduro’s victory, leading to speculation the Venezuelan strongman handed over the Colombians as thanks.
Bogota last week issued its first statement on the matter, saying merely it had requested information from Moscow about their “legal status, location and health status.”
It added a third Colombian, Miguel Angel Cardenas was also being held, without giving details.
The men have been assigned a lawyer but their families say they have been unable to communicate with their state-appointed defender.
Holding up a picture of Jose in uniform, his daughter Alison told AFP he meant “nearly everything” to her.
“Give him back to me,” she appealed.
