A group of prominent Indians concluded from a recent visit to Indian-administered Kashmir that an apparent sheen of normalcy hides a deep sense of hurt and despair, according to a report released on Friday. 

It was the third visit by the Concerned Citizens Group to Kashmir since Aug. 5, 2019, when the Hindu government scrapped autonomy of the region and its eighth trip since 2016 when a mass anti-India uprising was triggered by the killing of iconic militant commander Burhan Wani.

The group said although they found few signs of normalcy compared to previous visits, like tourists and fewer road checks by Indian forces, residents were “quick to point out this should not be taken as acceptance of Aug.5, 2019 decisions by the Narendra Modi government.”

“It seemed that the anger, despair and alienation of Kashmiris we had witnessed first hand during our six previous visits persisted,” it said.

But India’s “virtual obliteration of the political mainstream,” scrapping autonomy, bifurcation of the erstwhile state into two centrally ruled territories and new citizenship laws “seemed to have increased the all pervasive sense of fear, humiliation and hopelessness among the Kashmiri population,” according to the report.

“People were still in shock and seemed psychologically disturbed showing heightened anxiety and paranoia about the future,” it said.

Reports published after previous visits by the group have been critical of government actions and recommended dialogue to resolve the issues.

The latest report said there is “no space for any dissent or criticism of government policies and police action on any platform.”

“Journalism has been virtually criminalized. No protests by civil society are allowed, nor are rallies by political parties permitted. The police do not hesitate to summon journalists and ordinary citizens and even lock them up under Public Safety Act (a much used preventive detention law criticized by world rights bodies). We had never heard so many people expressing hatred of Delhi and the Indian state as openly as during this visit to Kashmir,” the report said.

The group said people told them they no longer looked to Pakistan as a country that “would do something for them in their moment of crisis,” neither could they depend on “liberal India and mainstream Indian national political parties to agitate on their behalf.”

“They feel they are alone in their struggle and they have to take charge of their own fate,” said the report.

Concluding that the local political leadership is “either silent or being forced into silence for fear of the Indian state” and that “Kashmiris bemoan the fact that they have been left alone by the rest of India,” the group asked the Indian government to restore statehood to Jammu and Kashmir and start a dialogue for a “fresh distribution of powers between the centre and the state.”

“However, it is not easy to see this process starting under the present regime in Delhi,” it said.

They also asked the government to not blow up homes of “hapless villagers, which are occupied forcibly by militants for shelter,” not criminalize journalism or “impose artificial political processes which seem democratic outwardly but are bereft of any democratic muscle.”

The group includes Yashwant Sinha, India’s former external affairs minister; Kapil Kak, former Indian air vice marshal; Wajahat Habib Ullah, former minorities commission chairman; journalist Bharat Bhushan, and Sushobha Barve, executive director Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation.

- Disputed territory

Kashmir, a Muslim-majority Himalayan region, is held by India and Pakistan in parts and claimed by both in full. A small sliver of Kashmir is also held by China.

Since they were partitioned in 1947, New Delhi and Islamabad have fought three wars – in 1948, 1965, and 1971 – two of them over Kashmir.

Also, in the Siachen glacier in northern Kashmir, Indian and Pakistani troops have fought intermittently since 1984. A cease-fire took effect in 2003.

Some Kashmiri groups in Jammu and Kashmir have been fighting against Indian rule for independence, or unification with neighboring Pakistan.

According to several human rights organizations, thousands have reportedly been killed in the conflict since 1989./aa

Zionist police on Thursday injured seven people around the Al-Aqsa Mosque area, including a Jew in East Jerusalem's Old City. 

Six Palestinians were injured by police, four were treated at the scene, while two were taken to a hospital, according to the Palestine Red Crescent.

Meanwhile, a Jew who was crossing, was also injured in the head during police intervention, according to witnesses.

Police used water cannon vehicles to disperse protesters with pressurized water and a Palestinian woman and her daughter were injured by rubber bullets.

For years, worshipping at Al-Aqsa has been limited to residents of the occupied East Jerusalem and Arab cities and towns in Zionist entity.

Al-Aqsa Mosque is the world's third-holiest site for Muslims. Jews call the area the Temple Mount, claiming it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times.

Zionist entity occupied East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located, during the 1967 Arab-Zionist war. It annexed the entire city in 1980 in a move never recognized by the international community./aa

The Turkish government on Friday pledged to provide food supplies to soldiers in training centers who have endured food shortages in South Sudan.  

Ankara’s Ambassador to South Sudan Erdem Mutaf made the pledge while meeting Presidential Advisor on Security Affairs Tut Kew Gatluak in Juba.

“We have discussed a lot of issues with the Presidential Advisor on Security Affairs. We have discussed some of the important things in the peace agreement. The most important part of the peace agreement is the formation of the unified forces. We are going to donate 11 metric tons of foodstuff to be used in the cantonment sites by next week,” Mutaf told reporters.

He said Ankara is going to support the process of unification of the army that split in December 2013 during the conflict because it is one of the most important parts of the South Sudan peace agreement.

Mutaf requested Gatluak give him a list of essential needs at cantonment sites like uniforms, medicine and others items.

“I expressed Turkey’s support for peace in South Sudan. We need to get the list of the things that are required for the training of the forces such that we give our support,” said Mutaf.

Since 2019, soldiers were reported to be deserting cantonment sites because of poor living conditions, including lack of food, medicine, safe drinking water and shelter.

According to a 2018 revitalized peace deal, the nation is supposed to train and graduate a unified force of 83,000 personnel to take charge of security during the transitional period until 2023 when elections are held.

The unification of the army has been delayed amid missed deadlines.

The process has also been hampered by the economic hardship in the country which has left the government with a limited resource envelope caused by more than six years of conflict which broke out in December 2013./aa

US President Joe Biden will increase the number of refugees allowed to come to the US by May 15, the White House said on Friday following criticism. 

Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that Biden's goal of allowing in 62,500 refugees within the fiscal year that culminates at the end of September "seems unlikely" because the US's immigration system was "decimated" by former President Donald Trump.

"While finalizing that determination, the President was urged to take immediate action to reverse the Trump policy that banned refugees from many key regions, to enable flights from those regions to begin within days; today’s order did that," Psaki said.

"With that done, we expect the President to set a final, increased refugee cap for the remainder of this fiscal year by May 15," she added.

Earlier on Friday multiple reports cited an anonymous senior official who said a Trump-era cap of 15,000 refugees would remain in place under Biden's emergency presidential determination, maintaining a record-low figure he vowed to raise in February.

The announcement drew sharp criticism from Biden's fellow Democrats, including congresswoman Ilhan Omar, herself a refugee, who called the decision "disgraceful."

"It goes directly against our values and risks the lives of little boys and girls huddled in refugee camps around the world," she said in a statement. “I know, because I was one.”

Trump worked year after year to draw down the figure after he came to office in 2017, and bringing with him a crackdown on all forms of migration to the US. The ex-president sharply curtailed refugee admissions from 110,000 when he assumed office to a maximum of 15,000 in his final year, an all-time low.

While Biden's Friday order does not raise the limit as he pledged, it will speed up refugee admissions, the official reportedly said. It will also open refugee admission to regions purposefully excluded by Trump./aa

There is an alarming increase in COVID-19 cases and deaths worldwide, and cases each week have nearly doubled over the past two months, the World Health Organization chief said on Friday.

WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus was addressing a top-level virtual meeting held under the theme: A vaccine for all. The meeting was also attended by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the World Trade Organization chief, and UN General Assembly’s President Volkan Bozkir.

Tedros said Friday’s meeting was timely as the world has the tools to end this pandemic, but it is also facing a worldwide resurgence.

“There is an alarming increase in cases and deaths around the globe. The number of new cases per week has nearly doubled over the past two months,” he said.

“This is approaching the highest rate of infection that we have seen so far during the pandemic,” he added,

As of Friday, WHO had confirmed almost 139 million cases of COVID-19 and just short of 3 million deaths worldwide.

The WHO chief cited several reasons, including rapidly spreading variants, the inconsistent use and premature easing of public health measures, the understandable fatigue of populations with social restrictions, and the dramatic inequity in vaccine coverage.

Challenge of our times

“Vaccine equity is the challenge of our time. And we are failing,” warned Tedros.

He said that more than 832 million vaccine doses had been administered globally, but over 82% have gone to high- or upper-middle-income countries, while low-income countries have received just 0.2%.

“On average, in high-income countries, more than one in four people have received a vaccine. In low-income countries, it is almost one in 500,” he said.

“The inequitable distribution of vaccines is not just a moral outrage, it is also economically and epidemiologically self-defeating.”

Avoid mistakes of past

The WHO chief said the world could not repeat past mistakes, such as when HIV emerged 40 years ago, lifesaving antiretrovirals were developed, but more than a decade passed before the world’s poor got access to HIV treatment.

When the H1N1 pandemic erupted 12 years ago, vaccines were developed and approved, but the pandemic was over by the time the world’s poor got access.

“It is for this reason that WHO and our partners created the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator and the COVAX vaccines pillar to prevent the same thing from happening again. We shouldn’t make the same mistake,” said Tedros.

He said COVAX works, and it had distributed vaccines to 110 countries and economies.

“But nowhere near enough. By now, we had expected to distribute more than 100 million doses, but so far, we have only been able to distribute 40 million,” said the WHO head.

Some countries expecting to receive vaccines through COVAX have not received anything, and none have received enough.

Some countries are not receiving their second-round allocations on time, jeopardizing their plans for delivering vital second doses.

“The problem is not getting vaccines out of COVAX; the problem is getting them in,” Tedros said.

More funding is needed, but money will not help if there are no vaccines to buy.

“We know that some countries and companies plan to do their own bilateral vaccine donations, bypassing COVAX for their own political or commercial reasons,” said the WHO chief.

    “A scarcity of supply is driving these bilateral agreements, which only increases vaccine inequity,” he added.​​​​​​​/ aa