Heatstroke killed 33 Indian polling staff on last voting day— state election chief

Polling officials gather to submit electronic voting machines (EVMs) and other polling materials at a collection centre in Varanasi on June 1, 2024, at the end of the seventh and final phase of voting in India's general election. (AFP)
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Updated 02 June 2024
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Heatstroke killed 33 Indian polling staff on last voting day— state election chief

  • Security guards, sanitation staff included among 33 Indian polling staff who died from heat
  • Indian PM Modi expected to win third successive landslide election after results are announced 

Lucknow, INDIA: At least 33 Indian polling staff died on the last day of voting from heatstroke in just one state, a top election official said Sunday, after scorching temperatures gripped swathes of the country.

While there have been reports of multiple deaths from the intense heatwave — with temperatures above 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in many places — the dozens of staff dying in one day marks an especially grim toll.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said temperatures at Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh reached 46.9 degrees Celsius (116 Fahrenheit).

Navdeep Rinwa, chief electoral officer for the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, where voting in the seventh and final stage of elections ended Saturday, said 33 polling personnel died due to the heat.

The figure included security guards and sanitation staff.

“A monetary compensation of 1.5 million rupees ($18,000) will be provided to the families of the deceased,” Rinwa told reporters.

Experts say that when a person is dehydrated, extreme heat exposure thickens their blood and causes organs to shut down.

Rinwa reported a separate incident in which a man queueing to vote in the city of Ballia lost consciousness while waiting in line.

“The voter was transported to a health facility, where he was pronounced dead upon arrival,” Rinwa said.

India is no stranger to searing summer temperatures.

But years of scientific research have found climate change is causing heatwaves to become longer, more frequent and more intense.

Hindu-nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi looks set to win a third straight landslide election victory after voting ended on Saturday.

Exit polls showed he was well on track to triumph and Modi himself was certain he had prevailed.

The results will be formally announced on Tuesday.


Ishiba dissolves Japan’s lower house to set up Oct. 27 parliamentary election

Updated 19 min 15 sec ago
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Ishiba dissolves Japan’s lower house to set up Oct. 27 parliamentary election

  • Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is seeking to secure a majority in the lower house for his governing party while he is still fresh and before the congratulatory mood fades

TOKYO: Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba dissolved Japan’s lower house of parliament Wednesday to set up an Oct. 27 snap election and seek a mandate from voters for his 9-day-old government.
Ishiba took office last week as Fumio Kishida resigned after leading the governing Liberal Democratic Party for three years as it was dogged by corruption scandals.
With the early election, Ishiba is seeking to secure a majority in the lower house for his governing party while he is still fresh and before the congratulatory mood fades.
The move has been criticized as prioritizing an election rather than policies and for allowing little debate. But Japan’s opposition has remained too fractured to push the governing party out of power.
Ishiba announced his plans for an election even before he won the party leadership vote and became prime minister. His Cabinet planned later Wednesday to formally announce the election date and the start of campaigning next Tuesday.
Ishiba and his Cabinet will stay in office until they win the election and are reappointed.
The speaker of the house, Fukushiro Nukaga, announced the dissolution of the lower, more powerful of the two parliamentary chambers at a plenary session. All 465 lawmakers stood up, cheered “banzai” and rushed out of the assembly room.
“We will act fairly and squarely in order to win the people’s endorsement for the current administration,” Ishiba told reporters. “Even while the lower house is dissolved the Japanese government must fully function” in tackling national security, disaster response and deflation, he said. “We will devote all our body and soul for the people.”
Ishiba planned to explain the election plans at a news conference late Wednesday, just before heading to Laos to make his diplomatic debut at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit.
Opposition leaders have criticized him for rushing to hold an election allowing only three days of parliamentary debate on his policies and before achieving any results.
Even though opposition parties are too fractured to topple the governing party’s almost uninterrupted postwar rule, the first public support ratings for Ishiba as prime minister were only about 50 percent or even lower, the lowest levels for a new leader, according to Japanese media.
Ishiba is increasingly seen as backpedaling on a number of proposals he previously advocated so as not to create controversy ahead of the election.
In his first policy speech at parliament Friday, he did not touch on his goal of establishing a stronger regional military framework and a more equal Japan-US security alliance, a dual surname option for married couples, and other issues seen as controversial or opposed by conservatives within the governing party.
Ishiba is unaffiliated with factions led and controlled by party heavyweights, which some experts say could make his tenure as party leader unstable.
None of his Cabinet ministers is from the late Shinzo Abe’s faction that has been linked to damaging misconduct. He also plans to not endorse some members of the Abe faction in the upcoming election to show his determination for cleaner politics. Opponents have said that’s still too lax, but Ishiba is getting backlash within the party for being too strict.


Brazilian nun awarded UN refugee prize for work with migrants

Updated 09 October 2024
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Brazilian nun awarded UN refugee prize for work with migrants

  • Sister Rosita Milesi is a member of the Catholic order of the Scalabrini nuns
  • Religious order renowned for their service to refugees worldwide

BRASILIA: A Brazilian nun who has helped refugees and migrants for 40 years on Wednesday won the Nansen prize awarded every year by the UN High Commission for Refugees for outstanding work to protect internally displaced and stateless people.
Sister Rosita Milesi, 79, is a member of the Catholic order of the Scalabrini nuns, who are renowned for their service to refugees worldwide. Her parents were poor farmers from an Italian background in southern Brazil, and she became a nun at 19.
As a lawyer, social worker and activist, Milesi championed the rights and dignity of refugees and migrants of different nationalities in Brazil for four decades.
The UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award was established in 1954 in honor of Norwegian humanitarian, scientist, explorer, and diplomat Fridtjof Nansen. UNHCR announced the award in Geneva.
Milesi joins a long list of distinguished global laureates, including former US first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, the first person to receive the award when it was set up in 1954, the charity Medecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and Germany’s former chancellor Angela Merkel.
She is the second Brazilian to receive the award. Former Sao Paulo Archbishop Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns won the prize in 1985.
Milesi leads the Migration and Human Rights Institute (IMDH) in Brasilia, through which she has helped thousands of forced migrants and displaced people access essential services such as shelter, health care, education and legal assistance.
She coordinates RedeMIR, a national network of 60 organizations that operates throughout Brazil, including in remote border regions, to support refugees and migrants.
Her work has had a significant impact on Brazil’s legal landscape, including the shaping of its 1997 refugee law and the 2017 migration law, which enshrined critical protections for displaced people and reduced the risk of statelessness, UNHCR said in a statement.


Russia says shot down 47 Ukrainian drones

Updated 09 October 2024
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Russia says shot down 47 Ukrainian drones

  • Around 13 drones were destroyed over the Azov Sea and the rest over regions either bordering or near Ukraine
  • Kyiv says it is carrying out the strikes in response to Russian bombardments of its territory

MOSCOW: The Russian army said on Wednesday that it had shot down 47 Ukrainian drones overnight, nearly half of them over the Bryansk border region.
“Air defenses intercepted and destroyed 47 Ukrainian drones,” 24 of them over the Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine, the defense ministry said in a statement.
Around 13 drones were destroyed over the Azov Sea and the rest over regions either bordering or near Ukraine, it said.
Russia reports shooting down Ukrainian drones over its territory on a nearly daily basis.
Kyiv says it is carrying out the strikes, which often target energy sites, in response to Russian bombardments of its territory.
Kyiv has ramped up strikes targeting Russia’s energy sector in recent months, aiming to dent revenues used by Moscow to fund what the Kremlin calls its special military operation in Ukraine, now grinding through its third year.


Biden expected to speak to Netanyahu on Wednesday, Iran in focus

Updated 09 October 2024
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Biden expected to speak to Netanyahu on Wednesday, Iran in focus

  • Israel’s retaliation will be a key subject of the call, with Washington hoping to weigh in on whether Israel’s response is appropriate, a separate person briefed on the discussions said

WASHINGTON:US President Joe Biden is expected to hold a phone call on Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that will include discussion of any plans to strike Iran, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The Middle East has been on edge awaiting Israel’s response to a missile attack from Iran last week that Tehran carried out in retaliation for Israel’s military escalation in Lebanon. The Iranian attack ultimately killed no one in Israel and Washington called it ineffective.
Netanyahu has promised that arch foe Iran would pay for its missile attack, while Tehran has said any retaliation would be met with “vast destruction,” raising fears of a wider war in the oil-producing region which could draw in the United States.
Israel’s retaliation will be a key subject of the call, with Washington hoping to weigh in on whether Israel’s response is appropriate, a separate person briefed on the discussions said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Biden said last Friday he would think about alternatives to striking Iranian oil fields if he were in Israel’s shoes, adding he thought Israel had not concluded how to respond to Iran.
Israel has faced calls to strike a ceasefire deal in Gaza and Lebanon by the United States and other allies, but has said it will continue its military operations until Israelis are safe.
Biden and Netanyahu are also expected to discuss the conflicts with Hamas in Gaza and with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israel says it is defending itself after Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 and taking 250 hostages according to Israeli tallies, and against other militants including Hezbollah who support Hamas.
The United States has said it supports Israel going after Iran-backed targets like Hezbollah and Hamas.
But Israel and Netanyahu in particular have faced widespread condemnation over the nearly 42,000 killings in the Gaza war, according to the local Palestinian health ministry, and the deaths of over 2,000 people in Lebanon.
Biden and Netanyahu have had sharp differences over the conduct of the war in recent months, setting up a potentially tense encounter.
About three million people in Gaza and Lebanon have been displaced by Israel’s military campaigns, according to Palestinian and Lebanese officials, and Gaza is also facing a humanitarian crisis with a lack of food and fresh water.


ASEAN leaders meet in Laos summit to tackle Myanmar, South China Sea

Updated 09 October 2024
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ASEAN leaders meet in Laos summit to tackle Myanmar, South China Sea

  • ASEAN summit will also be followed by meetings with global powers including China, the United States and Russia
  • ASEAN’s influence has historically been limited even among its own members, but the forum has often served as a platform for dialogues among superpowers

VIENTIANE, Laos: Southeast Asian leaders gathered in the capital of Laos on Wednesday for an annual regional forum that will focus on tackling the prolonged civil war in Myanmar and territorial tensions in the South China Sea, two key challenges that have long tested the bloc’s credibility.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit will also be followed by meetings with global powers including China, the United States and Russia, which are contending for influence in the region.
The timing of the meetings in Vientiane makes it likely that talks will also touch on the escalation of violence in the Middle East, although Southeast Asia has faced only indirect fallout.
ASEAN’s influence has historically been limited even among its own members, but the forum has often served as a platform for dialogues among superpowers looking to engage with the region.
The 10-member states of ASEAN – Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Brunei and Laos – will also hold talks with their dialogue partners from elsewhere in the region including Japan, South Korea, India and Australia on topics ranging from the economy to climate change and energy.
Lao Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone welcomed new leaders from Thailand and Singapore to the summit in his opening speech. He said Lao, one of the poorest countries in the bloc, aims to help members work together to manage geopolitical and economic challenges under its chairmanship.
“We help one another, and work together the ASEAN way,” he said. “We will discuss and strengthen cooperation between ASEAN members and other dialogue partners, along with upholding the unity and centrality of ASEAN.”
Thailand’s Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who took the premiership in August, is the bloc’s youngest leader at 38. Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong took over in May from Lee Hsien Loong, who stepped down after 20 years. Vietnam also has a new leader after President To Lam took office in August, but the country is being represented by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.
President Joko Widodo of Indonesia, ASEAN’s biggest member, is skipping the forum as his successor Prabowo Subianto prepares to take office later this month, sending Vice President Ma’ruf Amin in his stead. It will also be the first overseas trip for Japan’s new prime minister Shigeru Ishiba, who was confirmed just last week.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will fill in for President Joe Biden at the meetings, while China will be represented by Premier Li Qiang.
Frayed US-China relations, particularly over Beijing’s increasing assertiveness in the disputed South China Sea, will be a major agenda item for Blinken, said Dan Kritenbrink, the top US diplomat for Asia. He could not say if Blinken plans to hold separate meetings in Laos with Chinese officials.
“A number of (China)-related issues are likely to come up in the context of the ASEAN meetings, including the situation in the South China Sea and China’s continuing to take a number of escalatory and irresponsible steps designed to coerce and pressure many in the South China Sea claimants,” Kritenbrink said.
ASEAN members Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei, along with Taiwan have overlapping claims with China, which claims sovereignty over virtually all of the South China Sea and has become increasingly aggressive in attempts to enforce them. ASEAN members and China are negotiating a non-binding code of conduct to govern behavior in the sea, but progress has been slow.
Chinese and Philippine vessels have clashed repeatedly this year, and Vietnam charged last week that Chinese forces assaulted its fishermen in disputed areas in the South China Sea. China has also sent patrol vessels to areas that Indonesia and Malaysia claim as exclusive economic zones. The Philippines, a longtime US ally, has been critical of other ASEAN countries for not doing more to get China to back away.
Muhammad Faizal Abdul Rahman, research fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said there’s little chance of clear outcomes as those not in direct conflict with China – the region’s top trade and investment partner – will likely prioritize ties with Beijing,
“It is the preference for conflict avoidance while getting geostrategic benefits where possible,” he said. “In reality, national interests matter more than regional interests.”
ASEAN’s credibility has also been severely tested by the crisis in Myanmar, where close to 6,000 people have been killed and over 3 million displaced since the army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.
Myanmar’s junta has agreed to an ASEAN peace plan that calls for ceasefire and mediation, but hasn’t followed through as it continues battling pro-democracy guerillas and ethnic rebels. It’s widely believed that considerably less than half the country’s territory is under the army’s control.
Thailand is expected to host an informal regional consultation on the Myanmar crisis in December, although it is unclear who will attend from Myanmar. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nikorndej Balangura said the meeting will be open to all ASEAN members at a ministerial level and possible to countries with a shared border with Myanmar.
“Thailand is ready to coordinate to create a concerted ASEAN effort that will lead to peace in Myanmar,” he told reporters.
Myanmar sent Foreign Ministry permanent secretary Aung Kyaw Moe to the summit, its first high-level representative at the summit in three years, after ASEAN barred it from sending political representatives in late 2021.
Allowing a senior diplomat from Myanmar to join the meetings “will be perceived as ASEAN is compromising, confirming the concern that ASEAN is experiencing fatigue in dealing with the crisis,” said Lina Alexandra, senior researcher at Indonesia’s Center for Strategic and International Studies. Chances for any significant breakthrough on the crisis remain slim, she said.