The government of India-administered Jammu and Kashmir has sacked two academics and two officials, accusing them of involvement in "secessionist" activities.

A government statement said on Saturday activities of the sacked persons "had come to the adverse notice of law enforcement and intelligence agencies, as they have been found involved in activities prejudicial to the security interests of the state".

Their dismissal raises the number of Kashmiri Muslim employees who have been sacked to 16 since August 5, 2019, when the Hindu nationalist Indian government scrapped the autonomous status of the Muslim-majority region.

Majid Hussain Qadri, an assistant professor of management studies at Kashmir University in Srinagar, was sacked because, according to the government, "Qadri has a long association with terror organizations including Lashkar-eTaiba.”

Qadri had been jailed in June 2004 under the Public Safety Act, a controversial preventive detention law.

Muheet Ahmad Bhat, a scientist in the computer sciences department at the Entrepreneurship Development Institute, was fired for, what the statement said, "propagating secessionist-terrorist agenda in the University of Kashmir by radicalizing the students for advancing the program and agenda of Pakistan and its proxies.”

Security concerns cited

Two others sacked were Asabah ul Arjumand Khan and Syed Abdul Mueed.

Khan, an administrative officer, is the wife of Farooq Ahmad, who is currently jailed in a New Delhi prison. 

The government alleged that she had provided false information while applying for a passport and was in touch with "foreign persons indexed by Indian intelligence agencies for being on the payrolls of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence.”

Mueed is the son of Syed Salahuddin, the supreme commander of the United Jihad Council, a Pakistan-based grouping of militant organisations. The statement said Mueed, an IT manager at an entrepreneurship institute, "was found having (a) role in three terror attacks" on the institute.

"His presence in the institution had increased sympathy with secessionist forces," the statement reads.

Kashmir is currently ruled directly by New Delhi through a Lieutenant Governor. 

Pro-India Kashmiri politicians, such as former chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Farooq Abdullah, have said that since the scrapping of autonomy, repressive measures have increased, while the Indian government maintains that level of violence has gone down.

Source: AA

A strong explosion at a fireworks storage area has torn through a popular retail market in the Armenian capital Yerevan, killing at least one person, injuring 36 others and setting off a large fire.

Sunday's blast, the cause of which was not immediately known, ripped through the retail market in Surmalu.

A spokesman for the emergency services ministry, Aik Kostanyan, said the casualty toll stood at one person killed and 36 injured, but it was not clear if anyone remained under the rubble.

The health ministry said 26 people had been taken to the hospital; 11 of them are minors.

Photos and videos posted on social media showed a thick column of black smoke over the market and successive detonations could be heard.

Successive detonations

Earlier, the health ministry said there were 10 firefighting trucks on the spot and another 10 were on their way.

More than three hours after the early afternoon blast, firemen laboured to put out the blaze that sent a towering column of smoke over the centre of Yerevan.

Rescue workers and volunteers in civilian clothes searched for victims who might be trapped under slabs of concrete and twisted metal.

Fireworks continued to explode as the firemen and rescuers worked amid thick smoke.

The market, about two kilometres (over a mile) south of the city centre, is popular for its low prices and variety of goods.

Source: agencies

Bangladesh has urged the United Nations to effectively engage with Myanmar in the sustainable repatriation of the displaced Rohingya people to their home country of Myanmar’s Rakhine State.

Bangladeshi Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen made the appeal while meeting with the visiting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet in the capital Dhaka on Sunday evening, said a Foreign Ministry statement.

“Protracted stay of the displaced Rohingya in Bangladesh bears the risk of the spread of radicalism, transnational crimes, etc., and thus may hamper regional stability,” the statement quoted Momen as saying.

Claiming that the Bangladesh government has been taking good care of the persecuted Rohingya since the very beginning and even during the pandemic by providing vaccines, Momen urged the UN system, including UNDP, “to undertake projects in Rakhine to create a conducive environment for the return of the Rohingya.”

Safe and voluntary return

Bachelet assured the host country of the “UN’s continued efforts to realise the safe and voluntary return of the Rohingya to Myanmar.”

But for a better and conducive life in Bangladesh until the peaceful repatriation, she underscored the need for their (Rohingya) "education through fully operationalising the learning centres in the camps," the statement added.

Bachelet had a busy day on her first day, also meeting Law Minister Anisul Huq, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan, and Education Minister Dr. Dipu Moni.

The issues discussed during her meetings with the high officials include Bangladesh’s controversial Digital Security Act (DSA) which the critics have marked as “a draconian law” enacted before the 2018 general election to politically harass the opposition voices.

Huq, however, told the UN rights chief that the act was enacted to combat cybercrimes.

Assessing rights situation

The UN human rights chief arrived in Bangladesh in the morning on a 4-day official visit to assess the state of human rights in the South Asian nation and monitor the plight of the persecuted Rohingya community.

This is the first-ever official tour of any UN rights chief to Bangladesh, a country of more than 165 million people.

During her tour, Bachelet will meet Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, her Cabinet and members of the civil society.

She will also interact with the National Human Rights Commission in Bangladesh and youth representatives.

Also on the agenda are meetings with Rohingya refugees in the border district of Cox’s Bazar.

Bangladesh is currently hosting more than 1.2 million Rohingya, most of whom fled a brutal military crackdown in the home country of Myanmar’s Rakhine state in August 2017.

Source: AA

A proposal made earlier by the Speaker of the dissolved National Assembly Marzouq Al-Ghanem to amend the electoral law to set a quota for women in each constituency in parliamentary elections is very close to government approval after it was studied by the Cabinet’s legal committee, which approved it and placed it on the government’s agenda. Sources said the proposal calls to allocate one or two seats to women in each electoral district, so the new Assembly will have 10 or at least five female members.
The sources said the proposal will be on the agenda of the new government to be formed following the National Assembly elections, expected to be held in late September. They said the current government will not consider the proposal because it is only temporary and will resign as soon as the election results are announced.
The sources said the proposal is null and void as it was submitted in a dissolved parliament and will not be on the agenda of the concerned committee in the new parliament, but the plan is for the government to present it as a proposed law to be discussed first in the legislative committee, followed by the interior and defense committee, then go through due process.
The sources said the government wants the proposal to confirm the status of women in the society and have women in parliament, especially since elections have not brought women except on rare occasions. This does not meet the ambitions of and is not commensurate with the situation of Kuwaiti women, who have held senior positions, including as ministers.

Huawei's revenue dipped by just under six percent in the first half of 2022, company figures have showed, as the Covid-19 pandemic and US-China trade rivalry hit sales.

The Chinese telecom giant brought in 301.6 billion yuan ($44.8 billion), according to the data on Friday, a slip of 5.9 percent on the previous year.

"While our device business was heavily impacted, our ICT infrastructure business maintained steady growth," Ken Hu, Huawei's rotating chairperson, said in a statement.

Weak global demand due to the pandemic, as well as a 2019 US blacklisting that snarled its supply chains, have hurt the company's device business, which sells smartphones and laptops, a Huawei spokeswoman told AFP news agency.

In the second quarter, Huawei lost its position among the top five global smartphone sellers, according to industry data provider Canalys.

A supplier of networking equipment, phones, and other state-of-the-art gear, Huawei has struggled in the wake of a crackdown by the administration of former US president Donald Trump, which cited cybersecurity and espionage concerns.

The Biden administration has added to the pressure on the firm with the recently passed US Chip Act, which could threaten its access to global semiconductor supply chains.

Facing challenges

Profit growth for the first half slowed to five percent, down from 9.8 percent over the same period last year, Friday's figures showed.

The company's smartphone sales have also slowed after the United States barred it from using Google's Android services, continuing to decline in the first half.

The firm has launched its own Harmony operating system, which is now being used on 300 million Huawei devices mostly in China, but it is yet to be rolled out internationally.

The company's global 5G infrastructure expansion plans have also faced a backlash in major economies including the UK, Australia and India over security concerns.

In the wake of US sanctions, the tech giant has tried to shore up other parts of its business.

It has refocused on the Chinese market and diversified to enterprise and cloud computing, designing smart car components and energy efficiency systems.

"We will harness trends in digitalisation and decarbonisation to keep creating value for our customers and partners, and secure quality development," Hu said.

Huawei is not publicly listed and its accounts are not subject to the same audits as companies traded on the stock market.

Source: AFP

Turkish security forces have neutralised three PKK terrorists, two of whom were wanted, the country's interior minister has said.

The terrorists were neutralised in the rural areas of Agri's Diyadin district in an air raid as part of the Operation Eren Abluka-10 on Thursday, according to a statement by the ministry.

Two of them were in the green category of the Interior Ministry's wanted list.

The list is divided into five colour-coded categories, with red as the most wanted, followed by blue, green, orange and gray.

Interior Ministry Suleyman Soylu also shared a footage of the operation on Twitter.

Operations against terrorists

Turkish forces use the term "neutralise" to indicate the terrorist in question either surrendered or was killed or captured.

In its more than 35-year terror campaign against Türkiye, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organisation by Türkiye, the US and EU – has been responsible for the deaths of over 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants.

Source: AA