‘Divine Power’ Versus ‘The Bully’: US, India Join Hands To Prevent China From Imposing Its ‘Puppet’ Over Tibet – OpEd

 June 30, 2024

By Manoranjana Gupta

The timing of the US ‘Resolve Tibet Act’ Bill holds significance not only for the Dalai Lama and the people of Tibet but also for India, which has been suffering from China’s bullying for over 70 years because of China’s illegal and colonial presence in Tibet.

Tibet’s exiled leader and the world’s most sought after spiritual personality, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, Buddhist monk Tenzin Gyatso, is one of the most gentle, charming, kind and compassionate human beings that walk the planet. I had the good fortune to meet the Dalai Lama, for the first time in 2007, in one of the remotest states of India that borders Bangladesh. With eyes that shine from behind his iconic spectacles,  to the yellow-maroon robe that he dons, the man carries the most disarming smile that can completely bowl anyone over.

The 89-year old octogenarian monk was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, in recognition of his non-violent campaign to end China’s domination of Tibet, his homeland. The peaceful monk has set an example for the world by sustaining a campaign for the last seven decades to advocate for peaceful solutions based upon tolerance and mutual respect. 

I was meeting him for a television interview and before we formally started, I told him that in the true Indian spirit of accepting someone as a Guru (teacher), we touch their feet and seek their blessings. To my utter surprise as I reached out to touch his feet, he got up and bent down and gave me a hug, looked into my eyes and said “I’m a simple monk. Call all your team members and let me give them all a big hug”. I stood there in deep admiration of the man as he kept speaking while he called out to each one of our crew members and hugged them, getting photographs clicked,while words of wisdom continued to flow from his lips. There was a timelessness about those ten minutes which I have never forgotten. 

A man on whom rests the fate of a nation in exile… A man who is himself in exile thousands of miles away from his homeland… A man who has been fighting for several decades for a cause that has filled up his entire existence…. A man who can infect anyone with that miraculous smile .. 

Yes, the Dalai Lama stepped down in 2011 as the political leader of the Tibetan government-in-exile, which Beijing does not recognise and views as a violation of China’s constitution. And yet, China continues to fume at any interaction that the Dalai Lama has with political personalities or even officials of other countries. They keep an eagle’s eye on his activities calling him “a dangerous separatist”.

Currently, this ‘Divine Power’ has China infuriated ! The Chinese are having sleepless nights as US lawmakers are pressing President Joe Biden to sign the bill that will push China to secure a negotiated and peaceful agreement on Tibet. The ‘Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act’, also known as the ‘Resolve Tibet Act’, recently passed the House of Representatives 391-26 and now awaits President Joe Biden for a signature to become law.

China’s restiveness began on June 19, 2024 when a group of US lawmakers met the Dalai Lama and said they would not allow China to influence the choice of his successor. Political analysts say that while so far Washington recognises Tibet as a part of China, the new bill reverses that position. 

Beijing, on its part, has rejected the Act, saying Tibet is part of China and brooks no interference from external forces. China’s foreign ministry has urged President Biden not to sign the ‘bipartisan’ Bill, reiterating that Tibet’s affairs are China’s domestic matters and warning against external interference. 

What exactly is this Act which has set the cat among the pigeons? 

On 12th of June, the US House of Representatives passed the ‘Resolve Tibet Act’ which for the first time clearly stated Washington’s position on Tibet not constituting ‘a part of China since ancient times’. The Act also called for the dispute between Tibet and China to be ‘resolved in accordance with international law, including the UN Charter, by peaceful means, through dialogue, without pre-conditions’ while enhancing bipartisan US support to the Tibetan issue. The Act can be termed ‘historic’ in the sense that the wording clearly posits Tibet and China as two separate entities locked in a long-standing international dispute instead of the former being a part of the latter’s territory and hence the dispute being ‘internal.’ Also noteworthy is the fact that the Act stipulates the US government to counter Beijing’s disinformation of Chinese historical claims over the Tibetan plateau including not just the current Tibet Autonomous Region but also the provinces of Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu and Yunnan.

Beijing is further intrigued and infuriated as the Dalai Lama arrived in New York last Sunday, ahead of medical treatment for his knees and was greeted by thousands of cheering supporters. This marked his first visit to the country since 2017. 

Interestingly, Dalai Lama’s US visit comes just days after a group of lawmakers including former US House Speaker Representative Nancy Pelosi met him at his exile home in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, India. During the meeting, the American delegation assured the Tibetan leader that the US would not allow China to influence the choice of his successor. Pelosi, during her visit to Dharamsala, criticized Chinese President Xi Jinping and expressed support for the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan cause. This visit coincided with the US Congress passing the Act, which urges China to resume negotiations with Tibetan leaders. It is also well known that some of these lawmakers are also trying to push Beijing to restart talks with Tibetan leaders, which have been stalled since 2010. 

In a bid to further tantalize China, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met the seven-member US delegation and took stock of their visit to Dharamshala. Modi reiterated his commitment to strengthening bilateral relations for global benefit, recalling his State Visit to the US last year. He asserted that India recognises the Dalai Lama as an “honored guest” and a “religious leader” with a significant following. 

Beijing, however, views the Dalai Lama as a political figure engaged in anti-China separatist activities. The Dalai Lama, regarded as the supreme Tibetan spiritual leader, fled to India in 1959 following a failed revolt against Chinese rule. Based in Dharamsala, his advanced age has raised concerns about the selection of his successor, a potential flashpoint between Beijing and the exiled Tibetan community. 

Veteran journalist, Tibetologist and Chairman, Centre for Himalayan Asia Studies & Engagement Dr Vijay Kranti says that the sequence of events during which the seven-member US Congressional delegation, led by Republican Michael McCaul, met the Dalai Lama in Dharamshala, followed it up with a meeting with PM Modi in New Delhi, greeted Modi on his historic third consecutive term as PM and praised the fairness of India’s recent elections … “All this shows that the timing of the visit, the composition of this American delegation and the actual content of these US Bills hold big significance not only for the Dalai Lama and the people of Tibet but also for India, which has been suffering from China’s bullying for over 70 years because of China’s illegal and colonial presence in Tibet.”

Dr Kranti, who has been extremely vocal on the Tibet issue for the last three decades and is considered an authority on the subject, said that Tibet used to play as a ‘safety buffer’ between India and China for millennia. Interestingly, the new American laws say everything formally and clearly, which New Delhi wanted to tell Beijing but never had the courage to say in plain words. “It is high time New Delhi grabs this as a God-sent opportunity and joins the proposed ‘International Diplomatic Coalition’. Rather, India can also play an important role in expanding such a coalition to a dozen countries in South Asia and Southeast Asia that are suffering because of China’s “water bullying” on the strength of controlling Tibetan rivers.”

It is a matter of record that a dozen countries in south and southeast Asia, fed by Tibetan rivers since time immemorial, are now feeling the fear of perpetual droughts because of over-exploitation by China. And countries like India and Bangladesh are facing the danger of being bombed with manipulated floods by China from across the Tibetan borders.

Not that India and China have ever enjoyed a cordial relationship, but off late there have been other reasons for India to be upset. Just before the recent general elections, there were reports from the Virginia-based Microsoft Threat Analysis Centre (MTAC) highlighting China’s attempts to use AI-generated content to influence elections in various countries, including India, the US, and South Korea. Similar tactics were reportedly tested during Taiwan’s presidential elections. The Modi government has not taken kindly to this bid by China to manipulate elections in favor of the Congress party. 

Similarly, in the US, China is using fake social media accounts to poll voters on what divides them most so as to sow division and possibly influence the outcome of the US presidential election in its favor. China has also increased its use of AI-generated content to further its goals around the world. North Korea has increased its cryptocurrency heists and supply chain attacks to fund and further its military goals and intelligence collection. It has also begun to use AI to make its operations more effective and efficient.

Among the MTAC – “Same targets, new playbooks : East Asia threat actors employ unique methods”, key findings confirmed that deceptive social media accounts by Chinese Communist Party-affiliated actors have started to pose contentious questions on controversial US domestic issues to better understand the key issues that divide the American voters. This quite obviously was done to gather intelligence and precision on key voting demographics ahead of their presidential election. It is not difficult to imagine how the US would have reacted to these findings indicative of the surreptitious and mischievous role that China is playing.

Not only this, fake social media accounts also made a bid to create deep mistrust in the minds of the US voters by accusing the US administration of purposefully poisoning other countries’ water supplies to maintain “water hegemony”. This was part of a wider multilingual campaign, principally focused on Japan and its government’s decision to dispose of treated radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean. The campaign called ‘Storm-1376’ tried to cast doubts on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) scientific assessment that the disposal was safe.

Having borne the brunt of these fake social media campaigns by Chinese organizations, both the US and India have decided to teach China a lesson. India’s Foreign Minister S Jaishankar is already on record stating that India will not let China dictate the play’.

“Previous Indian governments have even put Chinese interests ahead of our own,” Jaishankar said. “I cannot, in the name of an open economy, open up my national security to work with a country which is laying claim to my territory. Both our economic and national security are at stake”.

In his article in The Organiser, Dr Kranti quotes a Tibetan activist and renowned Tibetan intellectual, Tenzin Tsundu, who summed up the significance of this US bill and the visit of the US delegation, saying, “This is the first time in the history of the Tibetan struggle for freedom that any country has come out openly and formally in support of Tibet with clear assertions that Tibet is an occupied country and that Tibet has never been a part of China.

More than anything else, it is the actual text of all these bills of 2002, 2019, and 2024, passed by the US Congress, which reflect the real spirit of American support for Tibet. In short, at least seven major assertions and points underlined in these bills pointedly challenge and blast every single claim and narrative of Xi Jinping on Tibet. Put together, these American assertions on Tibet and China amount to rejecting Xi’s most shouted idea of the ‘One China Policy’. These points also reflect the emergence of an unambiguous American approach towards China.

Photo Tibetan prayer wheels.

Manoranjana Gupta is a Journalist, TV opinion leader, and a Special Advisor for GDKP in India, at the Center for Digital Future, Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism under the University of Southern California.

 

Cross-Border Assassinations As A Tool In The Implementation Of Policy – Analysis

 June 30, 2024  0 Comments

By P. K. Balachandran

For long, the world’s big powers have been using cross-border assassinations to advance their domestic and geopolitical interests. Increasingly, lesser powers are also resorting to it to eliminate dissidents, separatists and terrorists.

Cross-border political assassinations, allegedly carried out by States, are no longer the exclusive preserve of the world’s superpowers. Lesser powers are also resorting to it now, to achieve their domestic goals such as the elimination of critics, dissidents, separatists and terrorists. 

Political assassinations on foreign soil are illegal at the very least and are even considered an act of war. For long, fear of consequences had kept even major powers out of the assassination game. But during the Cold War, the US and the USSR began to use assassinations as a substitute for a hot war.

The Americans tended to reserve murder for leaders of defiant countries. The US tried to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro, the South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and the Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. But following severe criticism in America itself, President Gerald Ford banned political assassinations by executive order in 1976. 

But after the 9/11/2001 attack on the Twin Towers in New York by Al Qaida, US restraint about assassinations disappeared and the US Congress sanctioned the use of “all necessary and appropriate force” against those deemed responsible for 9/11. It was under this that Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan in May 2011 and military leader Qassem Suleimani in Iraq in 2020.  

The US began to use drones rather than gunmen and justified these overseas killings saying that they were “legitimate use of military force, authorized by the 2001 congressional authorization.

The Soviets resorted to assassinating those who were a danger to the regime and resident abroad. The Soviets limited their killings to Soviet citizens who criticized the regime from their perches abroad. The earliest example of this was the killing of Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in 1940 by an agent of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. 

After the collapse of the USSR, Russia’s Vladimir Putin perfected the art of assassination on foreign soil. In 2006 his agents poisoned defector Alexander Litvinenko with a radioactive isotope and attempted to poison Sergei Skripal, a former double agent. 

Lesser Powers

Gradually, other countries also subscribed to assassinations. 

Justin Lin in his piece in Foreign Policy dated January 4, 2024 had this to say about this change: “Iran and North Korea have both been accused of brash foreign murders in recent years. Pakistan, a likely target for India’s foreign assassination program, is suspected of carrying out similar murders. Israel, one of the most frequent employers of extraterritorial targeted killings, appears to have renewed its own assassination program to take out senior Hamas leadership. At least three senior figures in the militant group have been killed in recent days.” 

In a landmark case, Saudi Arabia killed Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. Khashoggi was a carping critic of the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohamed bin Salman (MBS).

Iran was allegedly behind as many as 24 successful killings on foreign soil since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Justin Lin says. An Iranian hit squad killed former Prime Minister Shahpur Bakhtiar in Paris in 1991. Bakhtiar was a bitter critic of the Islamic government of Iran. 

However, it was Israel which made assassination abroad a highly efficient tool of foreign policy. From its very founding, it had taken out Palestinian leaders and Nazi war criminals. After the attack on the Israeli Olympic team during the 1972 Munich Olympics, Israel sanctioned the killing of 24 Palestinian militants thought to be directly or indirectly responsible for the Munich attack. These killings occurred in Italy, France, Greece, Cyprus, and even farther afield, Justin Lin says.

Israel also used helicopter gunships to take out leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah. Israel assassinated even Iranian nuclear scientists in Iran. According to The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations(2018) written by Ronen Bergman, Mossad had carried out hundreds of targeted killings since 2000. 

In 2017, Kim Jong Nam—half-brother to North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, was attacked with a deadly nerve gas while transiting through Kuala Lumpur airport. But the then US President Donald Trump made friends with North Korea and the assassination ceased to matter. 

Silence enveloped the murder of Khashoggi because the US made up with the Saudis to rope them into the Abraham Accords with Israel.    

In the allegations against it are proved, India will be the latest member of the club which believes in carrying out killings of separatists and trouble makers abroad. In 2023, Canada and the US alleged that Indian intelligence officials were behind the assassination of the Canada-based Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Vancouver on June 18, 2023 and the bid to assassinate US-based Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York. 

Both Nijjar and Pannun hailed from Punjab in India but were US citizens. Canada and the US argued that India had no right to kill or try to kill their citizens. India reacted saying that Canada had not given any substantive evidence of India’s involvement in the killing of Nijjar and argued that the killing could have been the result of local gang warfare. 

In the case of Pannun, the Indian government said that it was working on the case and that it was reforming its system. The US government, keen to keep India on its side in its quarrel with China, said that India was cooperating.     

Meanwhile, four Indian nationals were arrested in May this year over the fatal shooting of Nijjar in June 18, 2023. They are Amandeep Singh, 22; Kamalpreet Singh, 22; Karan Brar, 22; and Karanpreet Singh, 28.

In the Pannun case, Indian national Nikhil Gupta, suspected of being involved in a plot to kill Sikh separatist, was extradited from the Czech Republic to the US and is being tried in New York. 

According to The Guardian of April 4, 2024, India had allegedly killed almost 20 persons on Pakistani soil since 2020 using unknown gunmen. The allegations also suggested that Sikh separatists in the Khalistan movement were targeted. 

The Guardian quoted two unnamed Indian intelligence officers as saying that the focus shifted to separatists and terrorists living abroad after the Pakistani terrorist attack at Pulwama in Kashmir in 2019. A suicide bomber belonging to the Pakistani terror group Jaish-i-Muhammed, had targeted an Indian convoy killing 40 paramilitary soldiers.  

Sikh separatists of the Khalistan movement were also targeted by Indian agents both in Pakistan and the West. 

“According to Pakistani investigators, these deaths were orchestrated by Indian intelligence sleeper-cells mostly operating out of the United Arab Emirates. The rise in killings in 2023 was credited to the increased activity of these cells, which are accused of paying millions of rupees to local criminals or poor Pakistanis to carry out the assassinations. Indian agents also allegedly recruited jihadists to carry out the shootings, making them believe they were killing infidels,” The Guardian said.

The tone for aggressive action against separatists and terrorists was set by the Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh who declared in an interview to a TV channel: “If terrorists run away to Pakistan, we will enter the country to kill them.” 

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesman stated that Pakistan has long been the epicentre of terrorism, organised crime, and illegal transnational activities. ” To blame others for its own misdeeds can neither be a justification nor a solution.”

Pakistan may be equally culpable, Justin Lin alleges. Karima Baloch, a human rights advocate from Balochistan, was found dead in Toronto in December 2020. Canadian police said there was no evidence of foul play, but her family had demanded a more thorough investigation. Advocates pointed out the striking similarities to the death of fellow Pakistani exile Sajid Hussain in Sweden just months earlier.

Justin Lin quotes Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, as saying that if there is no condemnation from the international community, if nobody is prosecuted, such targeted extrajudicial killings will get a lot worse.

 “The fact is that we have almost normalized targeted killings of so-called terrorists, and that it has become a quasi—if not completely—justified means of conducting legitimate war on terror,” Callamard said.

Far from making the world safer, Callamard argues, this kind of killing only contributes to global insecurity.

“The justification that has occurred over the past 20 years for many violations, in the name of terrorism and counterterrorism, has really greatly weakened our capacity to denounce, to condemn in a strong voice,” she asserted. 

P. K. Balachandran is a senior Indian journalist working in Sri Lanka for local and international media and has been writing on South Asian issues for the past 21 year

 

After Dagestani Attacks, Moscow Seen Increasing Repression Of Muslim Dissidents – OpEd

 June 30, 2024  

By Paul Goble

The terrorist attacks in Dagestan, the result of the lack of consolidation among the peoples of Russia and a clear failure by Moscow’s security services, will further “marginalize and endanger Russia’s Muslims, leading to expanded repression of Muslim dissidents, Leyla Latypova says.

And what is especially worrisome, the Moscow Times journalist who writes a new weekly column for that paper on ethnic and regional issues and who is herself a Muslim, many Russian liberals will not stand up for these new victims of Kremlin repression (themoscowtimes.com/2024/06/25/attacks-in-dagestan-will-marginalize-and-endanger-russias-muslims-further-a85511).

Contrary to Kremlin claims, the attacks in Derbent and Makhachkala happened precisely because of “the lack of consolidation among the Russian populace.” Many seem oblivious to the fact that “opposition to the war in Ukraine is not the only source of deep divisions among Russian nationals.” They differ in their assessment of many things including history.

“For some in Russia,” Latypova continues, “Muslims and ethnic minorities are becoming useful scapegoats for channeling frustration and anger fueled by the war in Ukraine, bearing collective responsibility for tragedies that should rather be blamed on the ineffectiveness of the Russian government.”

 Latypova continues: “As an Indigenous Muslim woman, I look at this trend with great worry; but what concerns me most is knowing that Sunday’s attacks will give the Kremlin and Russia’s security services even more freedom to repress Muslim dissidents” and that this expanding form of repression will not be condemned by Russians, “even the most liberal ones.”

Scene of terrorist attack in Daghestan. Photo Credit: Tasnim News Agency

Myanmar: Thousands Displaced In Mandalay Region

 June 30, 2024  

By RFA

Intense fighting between the military and rebel forces in central Myanmar’s Mandalay region this week has displaced thousands of civilians from more than 10 villages, anti-junta fighters and residents said.

Fighting in Mandalay’s Madaya township began on Tuesday as part of the second round of “Operation 1027” – an anti-junta offensive launched in October by the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, along with two other ethnic armies that comprise the Three Brotherhood Alliance.

On Thursday, a member of the Madaya township defense force who took part in frontline fighting told Radio Free Asia that his group had captured the junta’s No. 1014 Air Defense Battalion in Madaya’s Myaing village. 

Madaya is about 32 km (20 miles) north of junta-controlled Mandalay, which is Myanmar’s second largest city. 

“They [the military] are conducting airstrikes, as we have seized their battalion,” said the defense force fighter who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “We took control of this battalion [on Wednesday].”

The Madaya township defense force is one of scores of anti-junta rebel groups that formed in response to the military’s Feb. 2021 coup and are collectively known as the People’s Defense Force, or PDF. 

In addition to local PDF groups, the Mandalay People’s Defense Force, the Danu People’s Liberation Army, and the Northern Shan State Alliance Army have joined the TNLA in this week’s offensive operations.

The air defense battalion in Madaya is one of 26 military outposts that the TNLA said it had jointly seized with PDF groups in Mandalay and the neighboring Shan state townships of Nawnghkio, Kyaukme and Mongmit over the past several days. 

The junta has yet to issue a statement related to the takeover of its battalion in Madaya. Attempts by RFA to contact junta spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun went unanswered Thursday.

Nonetheless, rebel scout groups reported Thursday that the military had tightened security at the entrance to Madaya township and dispatched reinforcements to the area from Mandalay.

Clashes in Mogoke

Amid the fighting, thousands of civilians have been forced to flee from more than 10 villages in the township, as fighting intensified near Gyin Myaing village, residents said. Many had escaped with “nothing except the clothes we were wearing,” one recounted. 

A volunteer assisting the displaced said that they are sheltering in “safe locations that airstrikes and artillery attacks cannot reach.”

Additionally, clashes are intensifying between the junta and joint forces of the TNLA and PDF in Mogoke township in an area known for its ruby mines, according to the TNLA and residents. Mogoke is about 200 km (120 miles) north of Mandalay.

The TNLA said Thursday that it had started an offensive against the military’s No. 148 Infantry Battalion, stationed in Mogoke’s Aye Pagoda.

A Mogoke resident told RFA that those who have not fled the fighting are sheltering in their homes.

“No one dares to go outside – it’s too dangerous,” he said, adding that the military is targeting the area with heavy artillery.

Another resident said that three Buddhist monks were killed by an artillery shell that hit a monastery Thursday night. It was unclear who launched the shell.

“The weapons fell without any active combat,” the resident said. “Moreover, it was far from the battlefield where the conflict occurred.”

Two other injured monks were sent to Mogoke township’s public hospital.

RFA attempted to contact Thein Htay, the junta’s Mandalay regional spokesperson, to gather further information about the incident, but received no response.

Weapons and ammo seized

On Friday, the TNLA announced it had seized about 380 large and small weapons during an attack on a military junta camp in Nawnghkio in Shan state near the Mandalay border.

Among the seized weapons were 81 mm and 60 mm heavy weapons, RPG-7s, machine guns and assault rifles.

Additionally, the TNLA confiscated mines, communication equipment, more than 50,000 rounds of small arms ammunition and more than 500 rounds of ammunition for RPGs and other heavy weapons.

The TNLA and their allies now control nearly all areas in the township, including government offices in Nawnghkio.

The military council has not issued any official statement on this situation. RFA attempted to contact Khun Thein Maung, the junta’s spokesperson for Shan state, but received no response. Also in Shan state, aid workers in Kyaukme township told RFA that they had buried 23 bodies since fighting began there on Tuesday, including those of six civilians killed by artillery fire.

An aid worker who took part in the burials said that corpses of junta soldiers were among the dead.

The junta has not released any news about the latest fighting in Shan state, and RFA was unable to contact Khun Thein Maung, the junta’s spokesperson and economic minister in the state, for additional information

TNLA rebels on June 27, 2024, in an unknown location inside Myanmar. Photo Credit: PSLF/TNLA via Telegram, RFA

RFA

Radio Free Asia’s mission is to provide accurate and timely news and information to Asian countries whose governments prohibit access to a free press. Content used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.

CGTN interview: Bolivian President Luis Arce discusses failed coup attempt 

Dan Collyns
@yachay_dc
Published June 29, 2024 

Bolivian President Luis Arce is rejecting accusations that the failed mutiny in his country earlier this week was a sham. He said the “take over” failed. Arce sat down with CGTN’s Dan Collyns in La Paz to discuss what happened.

 Investigation after Ryanair Boeing 737 plunges 2,000ft in 17 seconds reaching 321mph

A Ryanair Boeing 737-Max airliner is under investigation after it descended at high speed on approach to Stansted Airport last year.

Flight FR1269 dived at 321mph after a two-hour journey from Klagenfurt, Austria to London on 4 December 2023.

According to flight data, the Boeing 737-Max made a steady descent to 2,350ft to prepare for landing in light rain at Stansted, but aborted the approach to climb for a go-around.

 

Debunking Boeing's 'ridiculous' safety sabotage claims

While Boeing grapples with a series of safety concerns, some people, including Donald Trump, have been falsely suggesting that the company's crisis could be down to 'sabotage.' But who do these people claim is behind this 'sabotage'? Hebe Campbell takes a look into this conspiracy theory. 

Far-right Alternative for Germany reports surge in membership

June 29, 2024 8:00 PM
By Reuters

Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD) party co-leader Tino Chrupalla attends a party convention in Essen, Germany, June 29, 2024.

ESSEN, GERMANY —

Leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany on Saturday reported a surge in membership and vowed to build on the party's success in the European Parliament election, as they target wins in three state votes in the east this year.

The AfD jumped to second place in nationwide polls last year amid frustration with infighting in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's coalition, worries over sluggish growth in Europe's largest economy, and concerns over the impact of the war in Ukraine.

While a string of scandals and anti-extremism protests has dampened the AfD's support in recent months, the nationalist, Eurosceptic party nonetheless came second with 15.9% in the European vote this month, ahead of the three parties in Scholz's coalition.

AfD membership had grown by 60% to 46,881 members since January 2023, co-chief Tino Chrupalla told nearly 600 delegates at a party convention in the western city of Essen. Some 22,000 people had joined while 4,000 had left.

"Despite all the harassment you have to endure as a member of the AfD, this is an absolutely sensational figure," Chrupalla told the convention.

The figure is still a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of members boasted by the "big tent" parties in Germany, Scholz’s Social Democrats and the opposition conservatives.

The congress was held despite resistance from city authorities — marked by the rainbow and EU flags flying on flagpoles outside the convention center — and protesters who sought to prevent AfD delegates from making it there.

Two riot police officers who had been escorting a politician were seriously injured after protesters kicked them in the head after they fell to the ground and had to be hospitalized, police reported. A further seven officers were also injured.

'We are here to stay'

"Melt the AfD snowball before it becomes an avalanche" and "AfD = Despiser of mankind" read some of the signs that protesters carried at an anti-AfD march through the city.

The interior ministry estimated some 20,000 people participated in the demonstration, state broadcaster ZDF said.

The party congress will run until Sunday, the same day neighboring France holds the first round of a snap parliamentary election that could bring the far right to power.

"We will not be intimidated," said co-chief Alice Weidel. "We are here, and we are here to stay."

The AfD is on track to come first in elections in the eastern states of Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg in September, according to polls, which will likely further complicate governance there as other parties refuse to form a coalition with it.

In discussing the party's policy platform, Weidel said AfD's future allies in the European Parliament should oppose the disbursal of taxpayer money to the "debt states" of Europe — a reference to countries such as Italy and Greece — and the idea that Ukraine belongs to the European Union, after it opened membership talks this week.

The AfD is on course to form a new political group in the European Parliament — a move which would require 23 MEPs from at least seven EU countries — after being expelled from the Identity and Democracy grouping last month, Weidel said.

Chinese Golf Carts Surging Into US Prompt Pleas for 100% Tariff

Brendan Murray, Bloomberg News

, Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- The two largest golf cart producers in the US are asking for relief from an existential hazard: a flood of Chinese imports.

Club Car LLC and Textron Specialized Vehicles Inc., both based near Augusta, Georgia, asked the Biden administration this week to slap a 100% tariff on golf carts and other low-speed, often battery-powered personal vehicles made in China — putting them on par with the US tariff on regular Chinese electric automobiles.

“Chinese import volumes have rapidly increased, taking greater consumer vehicle market share while using price benefits from Chinese government subsidies to drive their advantage,” Club Car President and CEO Mark Wagner said in an emailed statement Friday. “We had to take action.”

US imports of Chinese golf carts and other recreational buggies have increased sixfold since 2020, partly because they’re shipped under a product classification where the tariff is lower than those coded as normal-sized EVs. The Chinese carts often avoid higher levies by crossing the border at the lower tariff rate and then undergoing modifications in the US, according to the American companies’ attorneys.

As a result, the golf carts and similar vehicles “are able to skirt the proposed increased duties on electric vehicles” announced by the Biden administration in May, according to a letter filed this week with the US Trade Representative in Washington.

The skirmish between the world’s largest economies is narrow, but it illustrates the scores of loopholes, workarounds, unintended consequences and legal quandaries that accompany the imposition of tariffs across a swath of the economy.

Comment Deadline

Friday was the deadline for public comment on USTR’s so-called 301 case, under which tariffs on Chinese goods are justified.

The filing from Club Car and Textron, which makes E-Z-GO and Cushman carts, was among hundreds of other pleas for either tariff protection or relief posted during USTR’s comment window. The two companies made their case jointly under a group called the American Personal Transportation Vehicle Manufacturers Coalition. 

According to the filing, imports of Chinese golf carts and another tariff classification for similar products called “specially designated vehicles” totaled $916 million last year, up from $148 million in 2020.

Club Car and Textron’s competitors in China have “substantially and systematically undersold domestically produced” vehicles, “resulting in a deterioration in the domestic industry’s performance and a sharp decline in the US industry’s production, capacity utilization, shipments, employment, and financial performance in 2024,” according to the June 25 letter to USTR from the Wiley law firm in Washington.

Their outreach to USTR follows a related case filed with the US Commerce Department and the US International Trade Commission, which alleged dumping of Chinese golf carts and sought relief in the form of anti-dumping and countervailing duties. 

Robert DeFrancesco, a partner in Wiley’s international trade practice, said the process in that case will take about a year.

--With assistance from Chris Miller.

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.

Chinese automakers retain grip over

Southeast Asia's booming electric car

market

By Devjyot Ghoshal

June 21, 2024



Fully-electric Toyota Hilux Revo pickup trucks as public transportation vehicles are seen in the Thai seaside town of Pattaya, Chonburi province, Thailand, April 25, 2024. 

 REUTERS/Artorn Pookasook/File Photo 

BANGKOK, June 21 (Reuters) - Electric vehicle sales are surging in Southeast Asia, led by China's BYD (002594.SZ), opens new tab and Vietnam's VinFast , eating into the internal combustion engine car market dominated by Japanese and Korean firms, Counterpoint Research said on Friday.

EV sales in the region more than doubled in the January to March quarter from a year before, according to the research firm. Sales of ICE cars, meanwhile, slid by 7%.

"As Japanese and Korean automakers, who dominate conventional vehicle sales, lag in EV adoption, Chinese OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) are stepping in to fill the gap," said Counterpoint analyst Abhik Mukherjee.

"Over 70% of EV sales in the region are from Chinese brands, led by BYD," he said. In the first quarter of last year, 75% of all EVs sold in Southeast Asia were made by Chinese car makers.

Thailand, Southeast Asia's second largest economy where Chinese car makers have committed more than $1.44 billion to set up new EV production facilities, is leading the charge.

The regional auto manufacturing hub where Japan's Toyota Motor (7203.T), opens new tab and Honda Motor (7267.T), opens new tab have a major presence accounted for 55% of all Southeast Asia's EV sales in the first quarter, with the segment growing 44% compared to last year.

"Vietnam saw an even more impressive growth, with BEV (battery electric vehicle) sales increasing by more than 400%, contributing to nearly 17% of regional sales," the research firm said.

Across the region, China's top-selling EV maker BYD maintained pole position, cornering 47% of the regional market leader, followed by Vietnam's VinFast.

BYD has had early success in Southeast Asia, which is still a small EV market compared to other regions, on the back of distribution partnerships with large local conglomerates.

U.S. electric carmaker Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab saw its market share in the region drop two percentage points to 4% in the first quarter, in spite of its sales growing 37% in the same period.

A number of Southeast Asian countries, including Thailand and Indonesia, have rolled out incentives to stimulate EV demand and attract new investments - a call answered by Chinese car makers locked in a bruising price competition at home.

"Southeast Asia is becoming a major expansion region for Chinese OEMs," Mukherjee said.