Category: World

London Stabbings | 14-year old dies, 4 injured after man with sword goes on a rampage

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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In an incident in the East London community of Hainault, a man wielding a long sword attacked people, killing a 14-year-old boy and injuring four others, including two police officers, before being arrested, police told AP.

The police are not treating the incident as being terror-related. The Metropolitan Police said that they were informed earlier in the day about a vehicle being driven into a house and people being stabbed near Hainault Tube Station.

The emergency workers treated five people and took them to the hospital, according to the London Ambulance Service. However, the 14-year-old boy succumbed to his wounds in the hospital.

In the video, a man in a yellow hoodie holding a long sword or knife is walking near houses in the area. According to witnesses, police shouted at the suspect, asking him to put down the weapon as he was being chased.

“This must have been a terrifying incident for those concerned,” Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ade Adelekan told AP. “I know the wider community will be feeling shock and alarm. People will want to know what has happened and we will provide more information as soon as we can.”

He added that the police do not see this as a danger to the wider community and are not looking for more suspects. ”This incident does not appear to be terror-related,” he added.

British Home Secretary James Cleverly said he was being regularly updated about the incident. In a post on X, Cleverly said, “My thoughts are with those who have been affected and thank you to the emergency responders. I would urge people not to speculate or share footage online and provide relevant information to the police.”

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London Mayor Sadiq Khan said that he was “absolutely devastated.”

“The police offices and emergency services showed the best of our city, running towards danger to protect others, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart,” Khan said.

Hainault Tube Station was closed, citing a police investigation in the area, according to Transport for London.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

US military ships are working to build a pier for Gaza aid, which will cost over $320 million

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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A US Navy ship and several Army vessels involved in an American-led effort to bring more aid into the besieged Gaza Strip are offshore of the enclave and building out a floating platform for the operation that the Pentagon has said will cost at least $320 million.

Sabrina Singh, Pentagon spokeswoman, told reporters the cost is a rough estimate for the project and includes the transportation of the equipment and pier sections from the United States to the coast of Gaza, as well as the construction and aid delivery operations.

Satellite photos analysed by The Associated Press on Tuesday show the USNS Roy P. Benavidez about 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) from the port on shore, where the base of operations for the project is being built by the Israeli military. The USAV General Frank S. Besson Jr., an Army logistics vessel, and several other Army boats are with the Benavidez and working on the construction of what the military calls the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, or JLOTS, system.

Satellite images from Sunday and Monday by Planet Labs PBC showed pieces of the floating pier in the Mediterranean Sea, alongside the Benavidez. Measurements of the vessel match known features of the Benavidez, a Bob Hope-class vehicle cargo ship operated by the Military Sealift Command.

A US military official confirmed late last week that the Benavidez had begun construction and that it was far enough off shore to ensure that the troops building the platform would be safe. Singh said on Monday that next will come the construction of the causeway, which will then be anchored to the beach.

The US military‘s Central Command early Tuesday published images of the floating pier’s construction online, after the AP’s publication of the satellite photos.

“The pier will support USAID and humanitarian partners to receive and deliver humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza,” the statement on the social platform X said.

US and Israeli officials have said they hope to have the floating pier in place, the causeway attached to the shore and operations underway by early May. The Pentagon said on Monday the operation will cost at least $320 million. The cost was first reported by Reuters.

Under the plan by the US military, aid will be loaded onto commercial ships in Cyprus to sail to the floating platform now under construction off Gaza. The pallets will be loaded onto trucks, which will be loaded onto smaller ships that will travel to a metal, floating two-lane causeway. The 550-metre (1,800-foot) causeway will be attached to the shore by the Israeli Defense Forces.

The US military official said an American Army engineering unit has teamed with an Israeli military engineering unit in recent weeks to practice the installation of the causeway, training on an Israeli beach just up the coast.

The new port sits southwest of Gaza City and a bit north of a road bisecting Gaza that the Israeli military built during the current war against Hamas. The area was the territory’s most populous before the Israeli ground offensive rolled through and pushed more than 1 million people south toward the city of Rafah on the border with Egypt.

Now Israeli military positions are on either side of the port, which initially had been built — as part of an effort led by World Central Kitchen — out of the rubble of buildings leveled by Israel. That effort halted after an Israeli airstrike killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers on April 1 as they travelled in clearly marked vehicles on a delivery mission authorised by Israel. The organisation says it is resuming its work in Gaza.

Aid has been slow to get into Gaza, with long backups of trucks awaiting Israeli inspections. The US and other nations also have used air drops to send food into Gaza. The US military official said deliveries on the sea route initially will total about 90 trucks a day and could quickly increase to about 150 trucks daily.

Aid organisations have said several hundred such trucks are needed to enter Gaza every day.

In the aftermath of Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and saw 250 others taken hostage, Israel cut off or heavily restricted food, water, medicine, electricity and other aid from entering the Gaza Strip. Under pressure from the US and others, Israel says the situation is improving, though United Nations agencies have said much more aid needs to enter.

Gaza, slightly more than twice the size of the city of Washington and home to 2.3 million people, has found itself on the brink of famine. More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the fighting began, local health authorities say.

On Sunday, Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the amount of aid going into Gaza would continue to scale up.

“This temporary pier will provide a ship-to-shore distribution system that will further increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza,” he said in a statement.

However, high-ranking Hamas political official Khalil al-Hayya told the AP last week that the group would consider Israeli forces — or forces from any other country — stationed by the pier to guard it as “an occupying force and aggression”, and that the militant group would resist it.

On Wednesday, a mortar attack targeted the port site, though no one was hurt.

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Chinese scientist who first published COVID sequence protests after being locked out of his lab

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The first scientist to publish a sequence of the COVID-19 virus in China was staging a sit-in protest after authorities locked him out of his lab.

Virologist Zhang Yongzhen wrote in an online post Monday that he and his team had been suddenly notified they were being evicted from their lab, the latest in a series of setbacks, demotions and ousters since Zhang published the sequence in January 2020 without state approval. The move shows how the Chinese state continues to pressure and control scientists conducting research on the coronavirus.

News of Zhang’s protest spread widely on Chinese social media, attracting public attention. In an online statement, the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center said that Zhang’s lab was being renovated and was closed for “safety reasons.” It added that it had provided Zhang’s team an alternative laboratory space.

In response, Zhang wrote online that his team wasn’t offered an alternative lab until after they were notified of their eviction, and that the lab offered didn’t meet safety standards for conducting their research, leaving his team in limbo.

When Zhang tried to enter his lab over the weekend, guards barred him from entering. In protest, he sat outside on flattened cardboard in drizzling rain, pictures from the scene posted online show.

“I won’t leave, I won’t quit, I am pursuing science and the truth!” he wrote in a post on Chinese social media platform Weibo that was later deleted. “The Public Health Center are refusing to let me and my students go inside the laboratory office to take shelter.”

Zhang said it was “inconvenient” for him to speak when an AP reporter reached him by phone on Tuesday, saying there were other people listening in. But in an email to collaborator Edward Holmes seen by AP, Zhang confirmed he was sleeping outside his lab after guards barred him from entering.

An AP reporter was blocked by a guard at an entrance to the compound where Zhang’s lab is located. A staff member at the National Health Commission, China’s top health authority, said by phone that they were not the main department in charge and referred questions to the Shanghai government. The Shanghai government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Zhang’s ordeal started when he and his team sequenced the virus on Jan. 5, 2020 and wrote an internal notice warning Chinese authorities of its potential to spread. At the time, Zhang had not yet made the sequence public. The next day, Zhang’s lab was ordered temporarily shut by China’s top health official, and Zhang came under pressure by Chinese authorities.

Foreign scientists soon learned that Zhang and other Chinese scientists had sequenced the virus but had not yet been permitted to publish them, prompting public calls for publication. In response, Zhang published his sequence of the coronavirus on Jan. 11, 2020, despite a lack of government permission.

The move allowed health authorities around the world to begin testing for the virus, revealing that it was spreading outside China’s borders and triggering the development of test kits, vaccinations and disease control measures. Zhang was later awarded prizes in recognition.

But Zhang’s publication of the sequence also prompted additional scrutiny of his lab, according to Holmes, Zhang’s collaborator and a virologist at the University of Sydney. Zhang was removed from a post at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and barred from collaborating with some of his former partners, crippling his research.

“Ever since he defied the authorities by releasing the genome sequence of the virus that causes COVID-19 there has been a campaign against him,” Holmes said. “He’s been broken by this process and I’m amazed he has been able to work at all.”

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Japan’s PM Kishida refuses to step down despite party’s defeat in special elections

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Tuesday his governing party’s major defeat in last weekend’s by-elections was largely due to a political fundraising scandal and that he would not step down or replace party executives to take responsibility.

Instead, Kishida said he will push anti-corruption measures and political reforms.

“As I take the results seriously, I believe as president of the governing party we must tackle the challenges we face one by one and achieve results, and this is the way I will take responsibility,” Kishida said. “By doing so, I will regain the people’s trust.”

Kishida said the scandal dealt “a big and heavy hinderance” to the party. The scandal centers on dozens of lawmakers in Kishida’s Liberal Democratic Party who allegedly pocketed profits from ticket sales to political events by falsifying accounting reports.

Asked if he would take responsibility for the election loss, Kishida denied he would step down or replace top LDP posts, and pledged to pursue party and political reforms, including a revision to the political funds laws. He also vowed to tackle economic issues.

The conservative Liberal Democratic Party lost all three seats in Sunday’s parliamentary by-elections in Nagasaki, Shimane and Tokyo. Kishida’s party only fielded its own candidate in Shimane, a conservative stronghold, while the liberal-leaning main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan clinched all three seats previously held by LDP.

The loss is seen as a punishment by voters for the governing party’s scandal, which erupted last year and has undermined Kishida’s leadership.

The party is unlikely to lose power because the opposition is fractured. But Sunday’s defeat marks a further setback for Kishida, who will seek reelection as his party’s leader in the fall.

Political analysts say Kishida was hoping to call a snap election possibly after the current parliamentary session ends in late June, seeking to receive a public mandate, and then win another term in the party presidential vote in September.

Kishida’s state visit to the U.S. earlier this month was perceived as a success, but Sunday’s losses could erode his clout and LDP lawmakers may try to bring him down in favor of a fresh face ahead of the next general election.

Such a move would make it difficult for Kishida to run for another three-year term in the party’s presidential race in September. As prime minister, he can call a snap election anytime before the current term for the lower house expires in October 2025.

Kishida on Tuesday denied he has plans to call for a snap election.

He has fought plummeting approval ratings since the corruption scandal broke. He has removed a number of Cabinet ministers and others from party executive posts, conducted internal hearings and drafted reform measures, but support for his government has dwindled to around 20%.

The scandal centers on unreported political funds raised through tickets sold for party events and involved more than 80 LDP lawmakers, mostly belonging to a major party faction previously led by assassinated former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Ten people — lawmakers and their aides — were indicted in January.

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Mexico is taking Ecuador to the top UN court over the storming of the Mexican Embassy

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Mexico is taking Ecuador to the top U.N. court Tuesday, accusing the nation of violating international law by storming the Mexican Embassy in Quito to arrest a former vice president who had just been granted asylum by Mexico.

The April 5 raid, hours after Mexico granted asylum to former Vice President Jorge Glas, spiked tensions that had been brewing between the two countries since Glas, a convicted criminal and fugitive, took refuge at the embassy in December.

Leaders across Latin America condemned the raid as a blatant violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

Ecuador said Glas was wanted on corruption convictions and not for political reasons, and has argued that Mexico granting asylum to a convicted criminal was itself a violation of the Vienna convention.

Two mornings of preliminary hearings at the International Court of Justice are focused on Mexico’s request for interim orders known as provisional measures to be put in force while the case progresses through the court — a process likely to take many months.

Among the measures Mexico is seeking are for the world court to order Ecuador to take “appropriate and immediate steps to provide full protection and security of diplomatic premises” and prevent any further intrusions. It also wants Ecuador to let Mexico clear its diplomatic premises and the homes of its diplomats in the country.

In its case filed April 11, Mexico also asked the court to award reparation and suspend Ecuador from the United Nations.

On Monday, Ecuador also filed a case at the International Court of Justice, accusing Mexico of using its embassy to “shield Mr. Glas from enforcement by Ecuador of its criminal law” and arguing that the actions “constituted, among other things, a blatant misuse of the premises of a diplomatic mission.”

It asked the court to rule that Mexico’s actions breached a number of international conventions. No date was immediately set for hearings in the case filed by Ecuador.

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system gears up for China, intensifying global autonomous vehicle race

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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If Tesla succeeds in bringing its “Full Self-Driving” system to China, the world’s largest car market, the U.S. electric-car pioneer will be shifting into the fast lane of the global race toward autonomous vehicles.

On a whirlwind trip to Beijing starting Sunday, Musk came to discuss the potential rollout of its FSD driver-assistance system and the possibility of securing government approvals for overseas transfers of data from Tesla vehicles in China, according to a source with knowledge of the trip.

Such data, used to train self-driving systems, would boost Tesla’s long-term efforts to produce fully autonomous vehicles.

As it did with electric cars, Tesla could prove a fierce competitor in China’s autonomous-vehicle segment, industry analysts and executives say, citing its early lead in developing driver-assistance systems with some autonomous features.

But Tesla faces potent rivals including BYD, China’s largest EV maker, and Huawei, a smartphone maker emerging as a national tech champion, that have rolled out systems designed to navigate China’s densely packed urban landscapes.

Those two giants are among at least 10 automakers and suppliers that have unveiled driver-assistance systems over the past two years that can navigate city streets and make turns at intersections. Others include EV makers Xpeng and Li Auto, and Xiaomi, the smartphone maker that recently introduced its first car, an instant hit.

Any new model priced at more than $30,000 in China now needs advanced driver-assistance features to compete, said Maxwell Zhou, co-founder of DeepRoute.ai, a China-based startup selling software for advanced driver-assistance systems.

“You must have a high-level driving solution to prove you have a smart car, not a stupid car,” Zhou told Reuters.

Xpeng has said it plans to launch a new mass-market brand, Mona, with self-driving features on a car priced below $21,000. That’s more than $10,000 cheaper than the China price of Tesla’s Model 3.

Many industry experts expect it will take years before fully autonomous cars are commonplace, but predictions vary widely.

Driver-assistance features now offered in China are “level two” systems, meaning they require a driver ready to take over. Tesla’s FSD and its less-advanced options of Autopilot, are also level-two systems requiring attentive drivers.

More fully automated vehicle fleets operated by Baidu, China’s biggest search engine operator, and Pony.ai, an autonomous driving startup, run in limited test zones.

‘CATFISH EFFECT’

Tesla’s push to roll out FSD in China would “pressure the other EV startups to accelerate their research and development”, said Yale Zhang, managing director at Shanghai-based consultancy Automotive Foresight.

China saw the same dynamic in electric-vehicle development when its government approved Tesla to open a Shanghai plant in 2018. At the time, officials hoped for what they called a “catfish effect” – that dropping a big catfish, Tesla, in the tank would make the other fish, China EV makers, swim faster.

China’s industry responded. BYD, the nation’s EV leader, has since introduced a slew of models at all price points – starting below $10,000 – as its China EV sales exploded from just over 105,000 in 2018 to more than 1.5 million last year.

Zhang said Tesla’s autonomous-vehicle development in China could have the same impact: “It would be the ‘catfish effect’ for the second half of the game.”

‘INNOVATIVE AND DISRUPTIVE’

At the Beijing auto show that opened last week, Chinese automakers and suppliers touted “level-two-plus” driver-assistance systems with more advanced sensors and displays. While they are not cleared by regulators for hands-off-the-wheel driving, some are designed to be with future software upgrades.

While Tesla relies only on cameras to detect hazards around self-driving cars, other automakers are rolling out systems that include lidar, which uses pulses of light to detect objects.

Huawei showed off components from telematics receivers that work with both the U.S.-backed GPS system and China’s rival BeiDou satellite system, along with lidar and optical sensors, for advanced driving systems.

The Chinese tech giant aims to compete with other major suppliers of such systems including Bosch and Continental. Bosch welcomes the competition, said Markus Heyn, the Bosch board member who runs the German auto supplier’s mobility unit.

“It’s good for the market,” he said. “We love doing innovative and disruptive stuff.”

Tesla could be among the toughest competitors, in part because of its ability to collect data from its vehicles – the world’s largest fleet of EVs currently on roads. However, under Beijing’s data security rules, it cannot transfer data from its cars in China offshore without approvals.

Musk has pushed for that data to be able to be made available for training its self-driving technology outside China, people familiar with Musk’s discussions with Chinese officials have said. It’s not clear what progress, if any, Musk made on data transfers with Chinese officials he visited in Beijing, including Premier Li Qiang.

Musk did leave China with signals that Tesla is closer to delivering FSD in China, which would open a source of new revenue at a time when its EV sales and pricing are under intense pressure from Chinese rivals.

Wins for Tesla from the trip included an endorsement from China’s auto industry group that Tesla’s best-selling models comply with China’s data-privacy regulations and the announcement of a deal with Baidu allowing Tesla to use its mapping license to collect data.

Xpeng Motors CEO He Xiaopeng said in a statement on LinkedIn that a move by Tesla to launch FSD in China could intensify what he predicted would be a decade-long battle for dominance of “smart EVs”.

China won’t be the only battlefield. It’s critical for China’s self-driving technology industry, He said, to start “making its mark on international markets outside its own turf.”

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

BYD’s Q1 profit growth slows amid fierce price war, still outpaces Tesla

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker BYD posted its weakest quarterly profit growth since 2022 on Monday while its revenue growth slowed to the lowest level in nearly four years, hit by slowing EV demand and a bruising price war in the world’s largest auto market.

First-quarter net profit was up 10.6% at 4.57 billion yuan ($631.08 million) while revenue grew by 4% to 124.94 billion yuan, BYD said in a stock market filing.

The quarterly results suggest BYD still pulled ahead of Tesla which reported its first quarterly revenue fall since 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hampered production and deliveries.

The biggest Chinese rival to Tesla handed back the world’s top EV seller title to the U.S. giant in the first quarter after winning it last year.

With a brand portfolio at different price points, BYD has ramped up efforts to move upmarket while doubling down on discounts to vie for cautious consumers amid a sputtering economic recovery.

BYD unveiled the U7, its third ultra-luxury model under the Yangwang brand at the Beijing auto show from Thursday where BYD’s premium brand Denza also showcased its first sedan.

The push to sell to higher-end segments came alongside a protracted and intensified price war in China that has pulled in more than 40 brands and seen BYD slashing prices since February on the latest versions of its lineup by 5%-20% from earlier iterations.

In a recent research note, Goldman Sachs forecast lower new energy vehicle unit profit in China this year compared with 2023 and said it was possible the industry’s profitability could turn negative if there are further price cuts.

Targeting a 20% jump in annual sales in 2024 from its record-breaking sales last year, BYD is under pressure from local EV upstarts betting big on an all-electric future.

In a much-talked-about interaction, BYD founder Wang Chuanfu and Xiaomi founder Lei Jun visited each other’s booths at the Beijing auto show. Lei, having created an online sensation with the launch of the smartphone maker’s first car SU7, vowed to step up cooperation with BYD.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Indonesia’s Ruang volcano erupts again, alert status at highest

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Indonesia’s Ruang volcano spewed “explosive” flows of incandescent lava into the night sky on Tuesday as lightning flashes dramatically lit up its crater, promoting authorities to raise the alert status and close a nearby airport.

The country’s Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation (PVMBG) raised the alert status to the highest level following the early morning eruption, urging residents not to go near the volcano, according to its website.

Footage shared by Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency showed strikes of lightning flashing above Ruang’s crater, as fiery red clouds of lava and rocks were projected into the air and rained down around the island.

The agency said the eruption column reached 2 km (1.24 miles) high, and has urged residents within a 6-km radius to immediately evacuate, warning of possible further “explosive eruptions”.

The eruption corresponded with a spike in seismic activity around the volcano, the disaster agency said, especially in the number of deep volcanic earthquakes.

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Tuesday’s eruption follows a series of eruptions earlier this month that forced hundreds to evacuate, and the airport in the provincial capital of Manado to close. That eruption also caused damage to some homes.

Authorities closed Manado’s Sam Ratulangi airport again on Tuesday, citing the possible spread of volcanic ash, the airport operator said in an Instagram post. The airport will remain closed until noon on Wednesday, the transport ministry said.

The island of Ruang, which is about 100 km from Manado, is home to more than 800 residents, most of whom were evacuated following the recent eruptions.

Authorities downgraded the status level to level 3 last week before bumping it up again to level 4 on Tuesday.

Indonesia straddles the so-called “Pacific Ring of Fire,” an area of high seismic activity where multiple tectonic plates meet.

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Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

‘Unwarranted and unsubstantiated’ — Here’s how India reacted to the charge that RAW chief approved Pannun assassination plot

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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India’s Ministry of External Affairs has reacted to the Washington Post report, which said that the plot to kill Sikh extremist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun was approved by Samant Goel, the chief of the spy agency in New Delhi at the time. 

“The report in question makes unwarranted and unsubstantiated imputations on a serious matter,” the statement issued on the morning of April 30 said. 

Samant Kumar Goel retired as the chief of India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the country’s premier spy agency, last year after a four-year stint.

The source-based report on Washington Post also said that US officials suspect that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s national security adviser, Ajit Doval, was probably aware of the plan to kill Sikh activists. However, in the same sentence, the article said that “no smoking gun proof has emerged.” 

India’s foreign ministry retorted calling the report speculative and irresponsible. “There is an ongoing investigation of the High Level Committee set up by the Government of India to look into the security concerns shared by the US government on networks of organised criminals, terrorists and others,” it added. 

The US-based Pannun, the leader of a banned Sikh separatist group, is also a designated terrorist with a history of inciting violence.

“We are asking the Sikh people not to fly via Air India. From November 19. Your life can be in danger,” he said in in a video shared on social media last year.

The charge that Indian government plotted an assassination of an American citizen on US soil is one threatens to jeopardise bilateral ties between the two countries.

A criminal investigation Department of Justice is underway in the US. Earlier this month, the country’s ambassador to India called the alleged assassination attempt as “the red line”.

However, the Washington Post report said that officials in the US were wary of disrupting ties with India and that’s the reason why DoJ has decided not to press charges against Goel.

“We’ve been really consistent about that and have laid that out multiple times, whether it’s a meeting here with the prime minister or a meeting abroad. This is a serious matter and we’re taking that very very seriously. The Government of India has been very clear with us that they are taking this seriously and will investigate,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on April 29.

Earlier on Monday, India’s foreign ministry summoned Stewart Wheeler, the Canadian Deputy High Commissioner in New Delhi a day after Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada, attended an event where Sikh separatists raised slogans against India.

“This illustrates once again the political space that has been given in Canada to separatism, extremism and violence,” the Indian government said in a statement after the meeting with Wheeler.

New Delhi’s grouse is that terrorists like Pannun and other separatists who plot and control their activities in India are given shelter and encouragement in countries like the US, UK, and Canada.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow