Gangs, extortion in Bangladesh camps driving Rohingya sea exodus

Gangs, extortion in Bangladesh camps driving Rohingya sea exodus
Newly-arrived Rohingya refugees rest on a beach in Sabang island, Aceh province on Nov. 22, 2023 as they escape violence and brutality in Bangladesh camps. (AFP)
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Updated 29 November 2023
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Gangs, extortion in Bangladesh camps driving Rohingya sea exodus

Gangs, extortion in Bangladesh camps driving Rohingya sea exodus
  • Rohingya escape escalating brutality in the camps in and around Cox’s Bazar
  • Bangladesh defense ministry identifies at least 11 armed groups operating in the camps

LHOKSEUMAWE, Indonesia: Holding his son’s hand in a temporary shelter in Indonesia, Rohingya Mohamed Ridoi says he made the dangerous 12-day sea journey from massive refugee camps in Bangladesh to escape the pervasive threats of kidnapping, extortion and murder.
The 27-year-old said he was starting a “peaceful life” in a temporary shelter in Indonesia’s western Aceh Province, where more than 1,000 Rohingya people have arrived this month, the largest such influx since 2015.
He and others said they fled escalating brutality in the camps in and around Cox’s Bazar, which hold more than one million people and where gangs regularly abduct and torture residents for ransom.
“One of the groups kidnapped me and demanded 500,000 Bangladeshi taka ($4,551) to buy their guns,” Ridoi, who left with his wife, two children and his brother, said.
“They told me that if I couldn’t give them the money, they would kill me.”
He said he eventually paid 300,000 taka for his release last month and, within weeks, he was on a boat to Indonesia, arriving on November 21.
“We are not safe in Bangladesh. That is why I decided to go to Indonesia to save me and my family’s life,” he said.
Having first fled state-backed persecution in Myanmar — including a 2017 crackdown that is subject to a UN genocide probe — the refugees now find themselves pushed to undertake weeks-long journeys of more than 1,800 kilometers on packed, rickety boats.
Indonesia is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention and says it is not compelled to take in refugees from Myanmar, but neighboring countries have shut their doors, meaning they have almost no other options.
More than half a dozen boats have arrived in Aceh since November 14, and monitors say more are on their way, despite some locals turning arriving boats back to sea and stepping up patrols on the coast.
Human Rights Watch reported this year that criminal gangs and alleged affiliates of Islamist armed groups were causing fear at night in the Bangladesh refugee camps, which now number more than two dozen.
The Bangladesh defense ministry has identified at least 11 armed groups operating in the camps, but rights groups say Dhaka is not doing enough to protect refugees from the violence.
These gangs, vying for control and involved in activities like drug smuggling and human trafficking, have specifically targeted Rohingya community leaders and activists.
Aisha, 19, arrived in Aceh on the same boat as Ridoi with two children and her husband.
“They asked for money every night, threatening to abduct my husband. I couldn’t sleep at night because of them,” she said via an interpreter.
Bangladesh police say about 60 Rohingya people have been killed in violence in the camps this year.
Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of HRW, said it appeared the Bangladeshi government “doesn’t care” about the refugees’ fate.
“The bottom line is the Bangladesh government just wants all the Rohingya to go back to Myanmar as soon as possible — even if (it) means subjecting the refugees to conditions of absolute misery in the camps so that they leave.”
Aisha, the young mother, said fear of the criminals pushed her family to pay 200,000 taka ($1,819) to illegal middlemen for her family’s boat journey to Indonesia, despite the risks.
Aisha said she preferred to “die at sea than in the camp.”
“I looked for a safe place for my children, hoping they could study and get an education,” she said.
Chris Lewa, director of Rohingya rights organization the Arakan Project, said food shortages were also worsening camp conditions and entire families were now leaving, instead of just groups of young men as seen previously.
“Now, the profile is different, now we have many families. Before there was not many,” she said.
“Nowadays we see small children, there are many families making their way. They just want to be away from Bangladesh.”
Aisha and her children now share a windowless room in a shelter in the Aceh city of Lhokseumawe with more than a hundred other women and minors, sleeping on mats on the floor without a fan in the tropical heat.
Aisha said that it was still much better than living in fear in the Bangladesh camp.
Ridoi also hoped that his decision to bring his family to Indonesia would bring a better life for his sons.
“I am not qualified to be a doctor or engineer, but I am doing my best to make them one,” he said.
“My children are everything to me.”


US charges billionaire Gautam Adani with defrauding investors, hiding plan to bribe Indian officials

US charges billionaire Gautam Adani with defrauding investors, hiding plan to bribe Indian officials
Updated 21 November 2024
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US charges billionaire Gautam Adani with defrauding investors, hiding plan to bribe Indian officials

US charges billionaire Gautam Adani with defrauding investors, hiding plan to bribe Indian officials
  • Gautam Adani, 62, was charged with securities fraud in an indictment unsealed Wednesday 
  • Several other people connected to Adani, his businesses and the project were also charged

NEW YORK: An Indian businessman who is one of the world’s richest people has been indicted in the US on charges he duped investors in a massive solar energy project in his home country by concealing that it was facilitated by alleged bribery.
Gautam Adani, 62, was charged in an indictment unsealed Wednesday with securities fraud and conspiring to commit securities and wire fraud.
He is accused of defrauding investors who poured several billion dollars into the project by failing to tell them about more than $250 million in bribes paid to Indian officials to secure lucrative solar energy supply contracts.
Several other people connected to Adani, his businesses and the project were also charged.
Gautam Adani is a power player in the world’s most populous nation. He built his fortune in the coal business coal in the 1990s. His Adani Group grew to involve many aspects of Indian life, from making defense equipment to building roads to selling cooking oil.
In recent years, Adani has made big moves into renewable energy.
Last year, a US-based financial research firm accused Adani his company of “brazen stock manipulation” and “accounting fraud.” The Adani Group called the claims “a malicious combination of selective misinformation and stale, baseless and discredited allegations.”
The firm in question is known as a short-seller, a Wall Street term for traders that essentially bet on the prices of certain stocks to fall, and it had made such investments in relation to the Adani Group.


Xi and Lula call for peace in Ukraine, ceasefire in Gaza

Xi and Lula call for peace in Ukraine, ceasefire in Gaza
Updated 21 November 2024
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Xi and Lula call for peace in Ukraine, ceasefire in Gaza

Xi and Lula call for peace in Ukraine, ceasefire in Gaza
  • China-Brazil roadmap for mediating peace has been endorsed by Russia — an ally of China — but rejected by Ukraine and its Western backers
  • Xi’s state visit to Brasilia showcased closer relations between the biggest economies in Asia and Latin America

BRASILIA: Chinese leader Xi Jinping urged “more voices” to end the Ukraine war and a ceasefire in Gaza, as he conducted a state visit to Brazil’s capital, Chinese state media said.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva echoed those points as he met with Xi in a red-carpet welcome in Brasilia, and stressed a joint roadmap for peace in Ukraine that they are proposing.
“In a world plagued by armed conflicts and political strife, China and Brazil put peace, diplomacy and dialogue first,” Lula said.
Xi said he wanted to see “more voices committed to peace to pave the way for a political solution to the Ukraine crisis,” the Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.
He also called for “a ceasefire and an end to the war at an early date” in Gaza, the agency said.
On Ukraine, the China-Brazil roadmap for mediating peace has been endorsed by Russia — which is China’s ally — but rejected by Kyiv and its Western backers.
The Chinese president’s appeal for a halt to fighting in Gaza — where Israel is pressing an offensive against Hamas — echoed one he and the other G20 leaders made during a summit held Monday and Tuesday in Rio.
That summit’s joint statement called for a “comprehensive” ceasefire in both Gaza and Lebanon, where Israel is also waging an offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.
On Wednesday, the UN Security Council held a vote on a resolution calling for “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza, but it was vetoed by Israel’s ally the United States.

Shrinking US influence
Xi’s state visit to Brasilia showcased closer relations between the biggest economies in Asia and Latin America, which analysts said also reflected shrinking US influence.
The two leaders signed 35 cooperation accords on areas including agriculture, trade, technology and environmental protection.
Xi said China-Brazil relations “are at their best in history” and the two countries are now “reliable friends,” according to Xinhua.
Lula said he believed the growing Brazil-China ties “will exceed all expectations and pave the way for a new phase of bilateral relations.”
He added that he looked forward to welcoming Xi to Brazil again next July for a BRICS summit.
The Chinese leader figured prominently at the G20 summit, and at an APEC one held last week in Peru — in contrast with outgoing US President Joe Biden, who cut a spectral figure.
Fellow leaders looked past Biden, politically, to the coming US presidency of Donald Trump, which starts January 20.
“Xi Jinping is clearly looking to fill the vacuum that will come following the election of Trump, who does not value multilateralism,” Oliver Stuenkel, an international relations expert at Brazil’s Getulio Vargas Foundation think tank, told AFP.

Brazil's balancing act

China is Brazil’s biggest trading partner, with two-way commerce exceeding $160 billion last year.
The South American agricultural power sends mainly soybeans and other primary commodities to China, while the Asian giant sells Brazil semiconductors, telephones, vehicles and medicines.
Since returning to power in early 2023, Lula has sought to balance efforts to improve ties with both China and the United States.
A visit to Beijing this year by Vice President Geraldo Alckmin was seen as paving the way for Brazil to potentially join China’s Belt and Road Initiative to stimulate trade — a central pillar of Xi’s bid to expand China’s clout overseas.
But there was no announcement in that direction during Xi’s visit. Instead both leaders spoke of finding “synergies” between that Chinese program and Brazil’s own infrastructure development program.
South American nations that have signed up to Beijing’s initiative include Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.
One of the accords signed Wednesday was on Brazil opening its market to a Chinese satellite company, SpaceSail, that competes with Starlink, founded and run by South African-born US billionaire Elon Musk, which already covers remote Brazilian regions.
Musk has a turbulent history with Brazil, whose courts forced his social media platform X to comply with national laws against disinformation.
 


Zelensky says Crimea can only be restored to Ukraine through diplomacy

Zelensky says Crimea can only be restored to Ukraine through diplomacy
Updated 21 November 2024
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Zelensky says Crimea can only be restored to Ukraine through diplomacy

Zelensky says Crimea can only be restored to Ukraine through diplomacy
  • Zelensky tells Fox News his country could not afford to lose the number of lives that would be required to retake Crimea through military means
  • He has proposed a peace formula and a “victory plan” underpinned by the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine

KYIV: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged the Crimea peninsula, seized by Russia in 2014, would have to be restored to Ukrainian sovereignty through diplomacy.
Zelensky, interviewed by Fox News on a train in Ukraine and broadcast on Wednesday, said his country could not afford to lose the number of lives that would be required to retake Crimea through military means.
He again rejected any notion of ceding any territory already occupied by Moscow’s forces, saying Ukraine “cannot legally acknowledge any occupied territory of Ukraine as Russian.”
“I was already mentioning that we are ready to bring Crimea back diplomatically,” Zelensky told Fox News through an interpreter.
“We cannot spend dozens of thousands of our people so that they perish for the sake of Crimea coming back ... and still it’s not a fact that we can bring it back with the arms in our hands. We understand that Crimea can be brought back diplomatically.”

Russia seized and annexed Crimea in 2014 after a popular uprising prompted a Russia-friendly president to flee the country and Russian proxies seized swathes of territory in Ukraine’s east.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, its troops have captured about one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory and proclaimed the annexation of four provinces, though Moscow does not fully control any of them.
Zelensky has proposed a peace formula and a “victory plan” underpinned by the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine. But his recent calls have stressed security guarantees for his country and an invitation to join NATO, a notion rejected out of hand by Moscow.


India’s Modi offers aid to Caribbean nations while meeting leaders in Guyana

India’s Modi offers aid to Caribbean nations while meeting leaders in Guyana
Updated 21 November 2024
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India’s Modi offers aid to Caribbean nations while meeting leaders in Guyana

India’s Modi offers aid to Caribbean nations while meeting leaders in Guyana
  • Modi’s visit marks the first time an Indian prime minister has come to Guyana since Indira Ghandi in 1968

GEORGETOWN, Guyana: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Wednesday he would share technology for combatting seaweed infestation with Caribbean nations, as he visited Guyana in the first such visit by an Indian leader in more than 50 years.
Guyana, a South American nation with many citizens of Indian origin, serves as headquarters for the 15-member Caribbean trade bloc known as Caricom, and Modi met with regional leaders Wednesday as part of the India-Caricom summit. They last met in 2019.
Modi arrived with promises to help the region in areas including health, energy and agriculture. He also announced more than 1,000 scholarships over the next five years for trade bloc nations, mobile hospitals for rural areas and drug-testing laboratories as well as river and sea ferries for marine transport.
But Caribbean leaders reserved their loudest applause when Modi announced that India had made tremendous progress in converting large quantities of sargassum into fertilizer and other economic uses as he urged the region to take advantage of his offer.
“We are willing to share this with all the countries,” he said, calling the seaweed invasion on beaches in the tourism-dependent region “a very big problem.”
Modi also was thinking of home. Noting Guyana’s growing importance as an oil-producing nation after vast quantities of oil and gas were discovered off its coast in 2015, he said: “Guyana will play an important role in India’s energy security.”
He added that his government also is willing to fully equip at least one government building in each of the trade bloc nations with a solar power system.
Speaking after meeting with Guyanese President Irfaan Ali, the country’s first Muslim leader, Modi promised to help Guyana and the region improve agriculture production, saying food security is important to island nations.
Trade between India and Guyana has strengthened in recent years, with India providing Guyana lines of credit for military passenger planes and funding to buy a fast river ferry that services far-flung jungle areas close to neighboring Venezuela.
Modi also noted that indentured laborers from India were brought to Guyana during the British colonial era and now make a significant contribution to the country. Nearly 40 percent of the population is East Indian.
Modi’s visit marks the first time an Indian prime minister has come to Guyana since Indira Ghandi in 1968.


US gathers allies to talk AI safety as Trump’s vow to undo Biden’s AI policy overshadows their work

US gathers allies to talk AI safety as Trump’s vow to undo Biden’s AI policy overshadows their work
Updated 21 November 2024
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US gathers allies to talk AI safety as Trump’s vow to undo Biden’s AI policy overshadows their work

US gathers allies to talk AI safety as Trump’s vow to undo Biden’s AI policy overshadows their work
  • Trump believes Biden’s executive order on AI safety "hinders AI Innovation, and imposes Radical Leftwing ideas on the development of this technology”
  • US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo says AI safety is good for innovation, and tech industry groups are mostly pleased with the approach

SAN FRANCISCO, California: President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to repeal President Joe Biden’s signature artificial intelligence policy when he returns to the White House for a second term.
What that actually means for the future of AI technology remains to be seen. Among those who could use some clarity are the government scientists and AI experts from multiple countries gathering in San Francisco this week to deliberate on AI safety measures.
Hosted by the Biden administration, officials from a number of US allies — among them Australia, Canada, Japan, Kenya, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the 27-nation European Union — began meeting Wednesday in the California city that’s a commercial hub for AI development.
Their agenda addresses topics such as how to better detect and combat a flood of AI-generated deepfakes fueling fraud, harmful impersonation and sexual abuse.
It’s the first such meeting since world leaders agreed at an AI summit in South Korea in May to build a network of publicly backed safety institutes to advance research and testing of the technology.
“We have a choice,” said US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to the crowd of officials, academics and private-sector attendees on Wednesday. “We are the ones developing this technology. You are the ones developing this technology. We can decide what it looks like.”
Like other speakers, Raimondo addressed the opportunities and risks of AI — including “the possibility of human extinction” and asked why would we allow that?

US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo speaks at the convening of the International Network of AI Safety Institutes at the Golden Gate Club at the Presidio in San Francisco on Nov. 20, 2024. (AP)

“Why would we choose to allow AI to replace us? Why would we choose to allow the deployment of AI that will cause widespread unemployment and societal disruption that goes along with it? Why would we compromise our global security?” she said. “We shouldn’t. In fact, I would argue we have an obligation to keep our eyes at every step wide open to those risks and prevent them from happening. And let’s not let our ambition blind us and allow us to sleepwalk into our own undoing.”
Hong Yuen Poon, deputy secretary of Singapore’s Ministry of Digital Development and Information, said that a “helping-one-another mindset is important” between countries when it comes to AI safety, including with “developing countries which may not have the full resources” to study it.
Biden signed a sweeping AI executive order last year and this year formed the new AI Safety Institute at the National Institute for Standards and Technology, which is part of the Commerce Department.
Trump promised in his presidential campaign platform to “repeal Joe Biden’s dangerous Executive Order that hinders AI Innovation, and imposes Radical Leftwing ideas on the development of this technology.”
But he hasn’t made clear what about the order he dislikes or what he’d do about the AI Safety Institute. Trump’s transition team didn’t respond to emails this week seeking comment.
Addressing concerns about slowing down innovation, Raimondo said she wanted to make it clear that the US AI Safety Institute is not a regulator and also “not in the business of stifling innovation.”
“But here’s the thing. Safety is good for innovation. Safety breeds trust. Trust speeds adoption. Adoption leads to more innovation,” she said.
Tech industry groups — backed by companies including Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft — are mostly pleased with the AI safety approach of Biden’s Commerce Department, which has focused on setting voluntary standards. They have pushed for Congress to preserve the new agency and codify its work into law.
Some experts expect the kind of technical work happening at an old military officers’ club at San Francisco’s Presidio National Park this week to proceed regardless of who’s in charge.
“There’s no reason to believe that we’ll be doing a 180 when it comes to the work of the AI Safety Institute,” said Heather West, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis. Behind the rhetoric, she said there’s already been overlap.
Trump didn’t spend much time talking about AI during his four years as president, though in 2019 he became the first to sign an executive order about AI. It directed federal agencies to prioritize research and development in the field.
Before that, tech experts were pushing the Trump-era White House for a stronger AI strategy to match what other countries were pursuing. Trump in the waning weeks of his administration signed an executive order promoting the use of “trustworthy” AI in the federal government. Those policies carried over into the Biden administration.
All of that was before the 2022 debut of ChatGPT, which brought public fascination and worry about the possibilities of generative AI and helped spark a boom in AI-affiliated businesses. What’s also different this time is that tech mogul and Trump adviser Elon Musk has been picked to lead a government cost-cutting commission. Musk holds strong opinions about AI’s risks and grudges against some AI industry leaders, particularly ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which he has sued.
Raimondo and other officials sought to press home the idea that AI safety is not a partisan issue.
“And by the way, this room is bigger than politics. Politics is on everybody’s mind. I don’t want to talk about politics. I don’t care what political party you’re in, this is not in Republican interest or Democratic interest,” she said. “It’s frankly in no one’s interest anywhere in the world, in any political party, for AI to be dangerous, or for AI to in get the hands of malicious non-state actors that want to cause destruction and sow chaos.”