Climate Migration: Nomads move to towns in warming Ladakh

Nomadic women milk their hardy Himalayan goats that produce cashmere in the remote Kharnak village in the cold desert region of Ladakh, India, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022. (AP)
Short Url
Updated 02 November 2022
Follow

Climate Migration: Nomads move to towns in warming Ladakh

  • Shifting weather patterns have already altered people’s lives through floods, landslides and droughts in Ladakh
  • In the remote Himalayan region, glaciers are melting fast while villagers largely depend on glacial runoff for water

KHARNAK: For decades, Konchok Dorjey grazed the world’s finest cashmere-producing goats in the arid, treeless Kharnak village in India’s Ladakh region, a high mountainous cold desert that borders China and Pakistan. But a decade ago, the 45-year-old nomad gave up his pastoral life in search of a better future for his family. He sold off his animals and migrated to an urban settlement in the outskirts of a regional town called Leh. 

Dorjey now lives with his wife, two daughters and a son in Kharnakling, where scores of other nomadic families from his native village have also settled in the last two decades. 

“It was a tough decision,” Dorjey said recently, sitting on the veranda at his home. “But I did not have much choice.” 

As this region in Asia is particularly vulnerable to climate change, shifting weather patterns have already altered people’s lives through floods, landslides and droughts in Ladakh, an inhospitable yet pristine landscape of high mountain passes and vast river valleys that in the past was an important part of the famed Silk Road trade route. 




Animal skulls are displayed atop a mud house, meant to ward off evil spirits, in the remote Kharnak village in the cold desert region of Ladakh, India, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022. (AP)

Frequent loss of livestock due to diseases, lack of health care, border conflict and shrinking grazing land — worsened by extreme climatic changes — has forced hundreds to migrate from sparsely populated villages to mainly urban clusters in the region known for its sublime mountain landscape and the expensive wool. 

In the remote Himalayan region, glaciers are melting fast while still villagers largely depend on glacial runoff for water. 

Dorjey, the nomad-turned-cabbie, has seen it all. 

When growing up, Doriey said elders would often talk about moving somewhere else because there was so much snow that daily life was difficult. 




A group nomads rest as others work outside their homes on a bright sunny day in remote Kharnak village in the cold desert region of Ladakh, India, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022. (AP)

“As I grew up, snow fell so little that we would contemplate leaving the place,” Doriey said. 

He still stuck out there, herding some 100 cashmere goats, yak and sheep. But an illness of his younger daughter, Jigmet Dolma, now 18, changed the family’s course. 

Dolma initially suffered from pneumonia. Then she had seizures and would often faint, sending the family some 100 miles (170 kilometers) north to Leh, where they would spend days for her treatment. As the family was yet to come to terms with her ailment, incurring losses to their livestock due to diseases and cold was draining them of their resources, Dorjey said. 

“It was a cataclysmic year and extreme cold badly hit livestock. It just devoured large number of baby goats,” he said. At about 15,000 feet altitude, the temperatures in the region can fall to minus 35 Celsius (-31 Fahrenheit) during long winter months. 




Konchok Dorjey sits inside a mud house of a neighbor in his remote, native Kharnak village in the cold desert region of Ladakh, India, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022. (AP)

In 2011, Dorjey locked his stone house and left Kharnak for good. He painstakingly built his new life in Kharnakling and now drives a taxi for a living. The health of his daughter Dolma has improved while the two other children are studying. 

“Ultimately, it boils down to safeguarding your family,” he said as he took a deep breath. 

“Urban life has brought its own issues and almost everything runs on money,” he said as he explained his earlier predicaments of new life. “Life was much easier there (in Kharnak) with all its hardships.” 

Dorjey’s wife, Sonam Kunkhen, expressed contentment about their flight from old village. 

“It’s better here for me and my family,” the 47-year-old woman said. “It took us a while to adjust, but I’m glad we moved here.” 

On a recent sunny day, Dorjey drove to his native village Kharnak where he met his maternal uncle, Tsering Choldan. The 64-year-old nomad announced to him that he too was leaving soon. Other shepherds were also packing up their bags. 

Dorjey pointed out that the village in recent years had received considerable attention as authorities built some prefab huts for nomads and spruced up animal feed facilities. But he said he was skeptical by experience that such facilities would stop migration. 




Konchok Dorjey sits inside a mud house of a neighbor in his remote, native Kharnak village in the cold desert region of Ladakh, India, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022. (AP)

“There are some facilities that were not there when I was living here. But there are also some other regressive changes that have occurred,” Dorjey said. 

The worst, he said, is unpredictability of the weather and shortage of water in recent years. 

Many of Kharnak’s pasturelands have become barren owing to unusual weather in recent years. And the multiple glaciers that covered the surrounding high peaks have shrunk drastically in last two decades causing water shortages, the shepherds said. 

“Few small ones that rested on mountain peaks in my years of nomadic life have now almost entirely disappeared,” Dorjey said pointing to a barren mountain range in Kharnak. 

Dubbed as a part of water tower of Asia, Ladakh is home to thousands of glaciers, including Siachen glacier that is the longest outside the Polar region. Some of the region’s glaciers also feed the Indus Basin Irrigation System, one of the world’s largest that services India and China and considered a lifeline for agricultural land in Pakistan. 




The home of Konchok Dorjey, sits locked in the remote Kharnak village in the cold desert region of Ladakh, India, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022. (AP)

But they are receding at an alarming rate, threatening the water supply of millions of people. 

In recent years, the changes on the ground are visually stark. 

There are some fruit and vegetables, like apple and broccoli, now grown in the region due to favorable weather conditions. About a decade and a half back such farming was unheard of. 

Bird watchers now spot winged creatures like paradise flycatcher and Eurasian scops owl that don’t belong to the region. At the same time some native wildlife like Tibetan antelope or Ladakh urial are disappearing from the region’s landscape. 

The ongoing military standoff between India and China has witnessed deployment of tens of thousands of additional soldiers to the already militarized region and has led to massive infrastructure development in recent years. It has in turn increased localized pollution manifold, mainly in the form of carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels like coal and kerosene, and wood for heating shelters to keep soldiers warm in freezing temperatures. 

Dorjey said some places in the region “still receive a regular snowfall, but it melts fast,” an indication of what experts point out to Ladakh’s warming weather. 

A quiet flight of nearly 100 nomadic families from the village has dwindled its population to just 17 families who herd some 8,000 animals. While food security, health care and education are at the heart of their migration, the worsening climatic conditions exacerbated their flight. 




Sonam Kunkhen serves tea as her husband Konchok Dorjey and daughter Jigmet Dolma eat dinner inside their home in Kharnakling near Leh town in the cold desert region of Ladakh, India, Monday, Sept. 19, 2022. (AP)

Among the former Kharnak dwellers, most aging and old people are nostalgic about their old village. But they’re mostly ones who have lived their productive years of life and now sit inside their homes or assemble in prayer halls or roadside shops to reminisce about what they’ve lost and gained. 

Dorjey’s eldest daughter, 21-year-old Rigzen Angmo, has visited Kharnak only twice. “I would like to visit there once in a while. Just that. There is not much for me there,” said Angmo who is an undergraduate business commerce student. 

The other lot, mostly young, are largely apathetic. Most of them want to do anything but shepherd animals high in the mountains. Many of them are working in government offices, run their own businesses or do menial jobs with the Indian military. 




A young climate activist holds a placard to advertise a local photo exhibition on climate change in the main business center of Leh town in the cold desert region of Ladakh, India, Monday, Sept.19, 2022. In the remote Himalayan region, glaciers are melting fast while still villagers largely depend on glacial runoff for water. (AP)

Sitting on bank of a brook in Kharnak, Dorjey said he can’t take the nomad out of himself. 

“It was the hardest decision in my life to leave my village. My soul is still here,” he said. But he also acknowledged he was thinking less and less of returning as “urban life has possessed and softened me.” 

“On practical terms also, Kharnakling has better food and health facilities. Weather is not as harsh,” he said. 


Family first: Biden joins list of US presidents pardoning relatives

Updated 12 sec ago
Follow

Family first: Biden joins list of US presidents pardoning relatives

  • Bill Clinton granted a pardon to his half-brother Roger, who had served time in prison on 1985 drug charges
  • Donald Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, a fellow real estate magnate whose son Jared is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka
WASHINGTON: US presidents traditionally dole out pardons as they leave office but Joe Biden’s “full and unconditional” pardon of his son Hunter is a rare instance involving a family member.
Bill Clinton granted a pardon to his half-brother Roger, who had served time in prison on 1985 drug charges, on January 20, 2001, his last day in office.
And Donald Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, a fellow real estate magnate whose son Jared is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, at the end of his first term in the White House.
Trump, now president-elect, nominated Kushner, 70, who pleaded guilty in 2004 to tax evasion, witness tampering and making illegal campaign contributions, on Saturday to be the next US ambassador to France.
Kushner, who served 14 months in prison, admitted hiring a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, who was cooperating in the campaign finance inquiry, and sending a videotape of the encounter to his own sister.
Hunter Biden, who has struggled with alcohol and drug addiction, is the first child of a sitting president to receive a pardon.
His father, who leaves office on January 20, had repeatedly said he would not pardon his son — but in announcing the move on Sunday he claimed that Hunter had been “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.”
“I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice,” Biden said.
“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong,” the president said.
Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to tax evasion in September and was facing up to 17 years in prison. He risked 25 years in prison for the felony gun charge but was not expected to receive such stiff sentences in either case.
Presidents have also used their constitutionally-mandated pardon powers over the years on close friends and political allies.
One of the most controversial pardons in recent years was that of former president Richard Nixon by his successor in the White House, Gerald Ford.
Ford granted a “full and unconditional” pardon to Nixon, who was facing potential prosecution over the Watergate scandal, on September 8, 1974.
Trump is the first former president convicted of a crime — falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to a porn star — but he will not be able to pardon himself because the case involved state and not federal charges.

Trump warns ‘hell to pay’ if Gaza hostages not freed before his inauguration

Updated 23 min 34 sec ago
Follow

Trump warns ‘hell to pay’ if Gaza hostages not freed before his inauguration

  • Trump has vowed staunch support for Israel and to dispense with Biden’s occasional criticism
  • Israel’s retaliatory campaign post Oct. 7 has killed more than 44,000 people in Gaza

WASHINGTON: US President-elect Donald Trump on Monday warned Gaza militants of massive repercussions if hostages are not released by the time he takes office.
The threat comes after exhaustive diplomacy by outgoing President Joe Biden’s administration that has so far failed to secure a deal that would both end Israel’s war in Gaza and free hostages seized 14 months ago.
“If the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!“
Trump has vowed staunch support for Israel and to dispense with Biden’s occasional criticism, but has also spoken of his desire to secure deals on the world stage.
Hamas staged the deadliest ever attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. The assault resulted in 1,208 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Militants seized 251 hostages during the attack, some of whom were already dead. Of those, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 35 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 44,429 people in Gaza, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.


Philippine navy tracks Russian submarine spotted in South China Sea  

Updated 02 December 2024
Follow

Philippine navy tracks Russian submarine spotted in South China Sea  

  • Manila has faced increasing territorial confrontations in disputed waters
  • Russia’s Kilo-class submarines are known to be among the stealthiest  

MANILA: A warship and aircraft were deployed by the Philippine military to track a Russian submarine that passed through the South China Sea off the country’s western coast last week, a navy official said on Monday. 

The Russian Kilo-class submarine was sighted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone on Nov. 28, about 80 nautical miles off the western province of Occidental Mindoro, according to the Armed Forces of the Philippines. 

“At the onset, we were surprised. We were concerned why there was a submarine,” Commodore Roy Vincent Trinidad, Philippine Navy spokesman for the South China Sea, told Arab News. 

“We sent four different aircraft over a span of four days, we made several sorties and we also dispatched a frigate, and we established communications.” 

The Russian submarine, which identified itself as UFA 490, said it was waiting for improved weather conditions and was en route home to the eastern city of Vladivostok after wrapping up an exercise with the Malaysian navy. 

It has since left the Philippines’ EEZ and was moving slowly in surface mode, which was “unusual,” Trinidad said. 

Russia’s Kilo-class submarines are considered some of the stealthiest and have been regularly refined since the 1980s. 

The Russian Embassy in Manila could not be reached for comment.

The submarine, like other foreign ships, has the right to pass through the Philippines’ EEZ under the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea’s freedom of navigation. 

But the Russian vessel’s presence still raised concerns in Manila, which has dealt with increasing territorial confrontations in the disputed South China Sea, particularly between Chinese and Philippine coast guard and naval forces. 

“All of that is very concerning. Any intrusion into the West Philippine Sea, of our EEZ, of our baselines, is very worrisome. So yes, it’s just another one,” President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. told reporters on Monday.

The Philippines, China and several other countries have overlapping claims in the disputed waters, a strategic waterway through which billions of dollars of goods pass each year. 

Beijing has maintained its expansive claims of the area, despite a 2016 international tribunal ruling the historical assertion to it had no basis.

In 2022, China and Russia declared a “no limits” partnership when Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Beijing. The two countries carried out live-fire naval exercises in the South China Sea in July.


International Criminal Court chief lashes out at US, Russia over threats and accusations

Updated 02 December 2024
Follow

International Criminal Court chief lashes out at US, Russia over threats and accusations

  • Judge Tomoko Akane: ‘The court is being threatened with draconian economic sanctions by another permanent member of the Security Council as if it was a terrorist organization’

THE HAGUE, Netherlands: The president of the International Criminal Court lashed out at the United States and Russia for interfering with its investigations, calling threats and attacks on the court “appalling.”
“The court is being threatened with draconian economic sanctions by another permanent member of the Security Council as if it was a terrorist organization,” Judge Tomoko Akane, in her address to the institution’s annual meeting, which opened on Monday.
Akane was referring to remarks made by US Sen. Lindsey Graham, whose Republican party will control both branches of Congress in January, and who called the court a “dangerous joke” and urged Congress to sanction its prosecutor. “To any ally, Canada, Britain, Germany, France, if you try to help the ICC, we’re going to sanction you,” Graham said on Fox News.
This marks the first time the global court of justice calls out a sitting leader of a major Western all.
Graham was angered by an announcement last month that judges had granted a request from the court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister and Hamas’ military chief for crimes against humanity in connection with the nearly 14-month war in Gaza.
The decision has been denounced by critics of the court and given only milquetoast approval by many of its supporters, a stark contrast to the robust backing of an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin last year over war crimes in Ukraine.
Graham’s threat isn’t seen as just empty words. President-elect Donald Trump sanctioned the court’s previous prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, with a travel ban and asset freeze for investigating American troops and intelligence officials in Afghanistan.
Akane on Monday also had harsh words for Russia. “Several elected officials are being subjected to arrest warrants from a permanent member of the Security Council,” she said. Moscow issued warrants for Khan and others in response to the investigation into Putin.
The Assembly of States Parties, which represents the ICC’s 124 member countries, will convene its 23rd conference to elect committee members and approve the court’s budget against a backdrop of unfavorable headlines.
The ICC was established in 2002 as the world’s permanent court of last resort to prosecute individuals responsible for the most heinous atrocities — war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression. The court only becomes involved when nations are unable or unwilling to prosecute those crimes on their territory. To date, 124 countries have signed on to the Rome Statute, which created the institution. Those who have not include Israel, Russia and China.
The ICC has no police force and relies on member states to execute arrest warrants.
US President Joe Biden called the warrants for Netanyahu and the former defense minister “outrageous” and vowed to stand with Israel. A year ago, Biden called the warrant for Putin “justified” and said the Russian president had committed war crimes. The US is not an ICC member country.
France said it would “respect its obligations” but would need to consider Netanyahu’s possible immunities. When the warrant for Putin was announced, France said it would “lend its support to the essential work” of the court. Another member country, Austria, begrudgingly acknowledged it would arrest Netanyahu but called the warrants “utterly incomprehensible.” Italy called them “wrong” but said it would be obliged to arrest him. Germany said it would study the decision. Member Hungary has said it would stand with Israel instead of the court.
Global security expert Janina Dill worried that such responses could undermine global justice efforts. “It really has the potential to damage not just the court, but international law,” she said.
Milena Sterio, an expert in international law at Cleveland State University, told the AP that sanctions against the court could affect a number of people who contribute to the court’s work, such as international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney. Clooney advised the current prosecutor on his request for the warrants for Netanyahu and others.
“Sanctions are a huge burden,” Sterio said.
Also hanging heavy over the meeting in the Hague, are the internal pressures that Khan faces. In October, the AP reported the 54-year-old British lawyer is facing allegations he tried to coerce a female aide into a sexual relationship and groped her.
Two co-workers in whom the woman confided reported the alleged misconduct in May to the court’s independent watchdog, which says it interviewed the woman and ended its inquiry after five days when she opted against filing a formal complaint. Khan was never questioned. He has denied the claims.
The Assembly of States Parties has announced it will launch an external probe into the allegations. It’s not clear if the investigation will be addressed during the meeting.
The court, which has long faced accusations of ineffectiveness, will have no trials pending after two conclude in December. While it has issued a number of arrest warrants in recent months, many high-profile suspects remain at large.
Member states don’t always act. Mongolia refused to arrest Putin when he visited in September. Sudan’s former President Omar Al-Bashir is wanted by the ICC over accusations related to the conflict in Darfur, but his country has refused to hand him over. Last week, Khan requested a warrant for the head of Myanmar’s military regime, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, for attacks against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority. Judges have yet to decide on that request.
“It becomes very difficult to justify the court’s existence,” Sterio said.


‘Stampedes’ kill 56 at Guinea football match: government

Updated 02 December 2024
Follow

‘Stampedes’ kill 56 at Guinea football match: government

  • Local media said the match in the southeastern city was part of a tournament organized in honor of Guinea’s junta leader

CONAKRY: Stampedes at a football match killed 56 people in Guinea’s second-largest city of N’Zerekore, the junta-controlled government said Monday.
“Protests of dissatisfaction with refereeing decisions led to stone-throwing by supporters, resulting in fatal stampedes” at Sunday’s match, the government statement said, which was published as a news ticker on national television.
“Hospital services have put the provisional death toll at 56,” it added.
Prime Minister Amadou Oury Bah condemned the “incidents that marred the match between the teams of Labe and N’Zerekore,” in a post on Facebook.
“The government is following the situation and reiterates its call for calm so as not to impede hospital services from aiding the injured,” he added.
Local media said the match in the southeastern city was part of a tournament organized in honor of Guinea’s junta leader, Mamady Doumbouya, who seized power in a 2021 coup and has installed himself as president.
Such tournaments have become common in the West African nation as Doumbouya eyes a potential run in presidential elections expected next year and political alliances form.