By Kaamil Ahmed (from DHAKA, Bangladesh)
NEW DELHI – A fading relationship was given a new life when India and Russia signed a package of 20 agreements covering defense, energy and nuclear cooperation. It included a package for Russia to support India in building up to 20 new nuclear power units.
The deals ensured Russian President Vladimir Putin still has an important ally in Asia, even while the West shuns him for Russia's role in the Ukraine crisis. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has met with the leaders of China, Japan and the U.S. in recent months, took the deals as an opportunity to continue his push for a more pragmatic Indian foreign policy.
-- Opposition political parties were outraged at the mass conversion of 57 low-income Muslim families to Hinduism in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. The ceremony was organized by an affiliate of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindu nationalist group allied to India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Muslim activists accused the group of forced conversions and using the promise of rations to lure the Muslim families.
ISLAMABAD – Al Qaeda's head of global operations Adnan Shukri Jumma was killed in a Pakistani army raid in the South Waziristan tribal area on Saturday Dec. 7, and another senior Al-Qaeda commander was killed by a U.S. drone strike in the neighboring North Waziristan area the next day. The killings come as the Pakistani army's anti-militant operations in the northwest approach the six-month mark.
DHAKA, Bangladesh – An environmental disaster is feared after thousands of liters of oil have spilled into the waterways of the Sunderbans delta -- the world's largest mangrove forest, split between Bangladesh and India -- when a collision caused an oil tanker to sink. It is feared it could harm a rare species of dolphins that inhabit the river as well as the endangered Bengal tiger and other protected wildlife that could drink polluted water.
KABUL, Afghanistan – A series of U.S. drone strikes killed at least 35 people over the past week, including senior Taliban leaders. A strike on the Parwan district, 60 kilometers north of capital Kabul, reportedly killed a Taliban "shadow judge" who operated in the Taliban's parallel system of governance.
-- Afghanistan was angered when the U.S. handed over three senior Pakistani Taliban leaders, who had been arrested by Afghan security forces, to Pakistan. “If the Americans have done (the transfer), they have clearly violated the Afghan laws,” Abdul Qadir Watandost, chairman of the foreign affairs committee.
KATHMANDU (AA) – The Asian Human Rights Commission released a statement claiming Nepal has moved towards becoming a police state under the current government coalition elected in November 2013. Local activists challenged the statement, saying there is no clear trend definitively linking police violence with the current government.
www.aa.com.tr/en
