Pakistan court quashes sedition case against Imran Khan

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Written by northsouth

Category: Asia

Published: 28 August 2023

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By Asif Shahzad

ISLAMABAD - A Pakistani court on Monday quashed a sedition case against former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday, his lawyer and a court order said, providing some relief for the cricket hero turned politician who was jailed on corruption charges earlier this month.

Khan, 70, had been charged in March with the sedition case registered in southwestern city of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, on a complaint that alleged that one of his speeches amounted to sedition.

Following an appeal by Khan, the Balochistan High Court said prosecutors had failed to obtain the required consent from the federal or provincial government to lodge the charges of sedition.

The charges are "without lawful authority and are of no legal effect," the court ruled, directing authorities to quash the case.

"God be praised," Khan's lawyer Naeem Panjutha said in a post on X, the messaging platform formerly known as Twitter, celebrating the dismissal of the case.

The sedition case was among dozens of cases brought against Khan since he lost power after being defeated in a parliamentary confidence vote in April, 2022.

Later on Monday, a high court in Islamabad is expected to rule on Khan's appeal to suspend his conviction and three-year jail sentence for corruption.

Khan lost power after falling out with Pakistan's influential military, and his attempts to rally popular support have stirred political turmoil in a country already struggling through one of its worst economic crises.

A general election was expected in November, though it is likely to be delayed until at least early next year.

Khan cannot contest and has been barred from holding political office for five years.

India successfully completes historic ‘far side of the moon’ landing

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Written by northsouth

Category: Asia

Published: 23 August 2023

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NEW DELHI - Chandrayaan-3’s lander has touched down on the lunar surface, making India the first country to successfully land a spacecraft near the moon’s south pole.

Millions watched on as the spacecraft landed on Wednesday – an unchartered territory for space exploration.

“This is a victory cry of a new India,” said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was seen waving the Indian flag as he watched the landing from South Africa, where he was attending the BRICS nations summit.

“India is now on the moon. India has reached the south pole of the moon — no other country has achieved that. We are witnessing history.”

Scientists and officials clapped, cheered and hugged each other as the spacecraft landed.

This was India’s second attempt to land a spacecraft on the moon and comes less than a week after Russia’s Luna-25 mission failed. People across the country were glued to television screens and said prayers as the spacecraft approached the surface.

Scientists believe the “dark side of the moon” could hold important reserves of frozen water and precious elements that could be transformed by future explorers into air and rocket fuel.

A lander with a rover inside orbited before touching down on the lunar surface, after an agonising wait for India’s space scientists in the southern city of Bengaluru.

The craft put down its Vikram lander shortly beforet 1.34pm UK time on Wednesday.

India’s Chandrayaan-3 – “moon craft” in Sanskrit – took off from a launchpad in Sriharikota in southern India on July 14, heading for the far side of the moon.

People crowded around televisions in offices, shops, restaurants and homes to watch the highly anticipated landing. Thousands prayed Tuesday for the success of the mission with oil lamps on the river banks, temples and religious places, including the holy city of Varanasi in northern India.

The successful Chandrayaan-3 landing would be monumental in fueling curiosity and sparking a passion for exploration among youth, the Indian Space Research Organisation said.

“It generates a profound sense of pride and unity as we collectively celebrate the prowess of Indian science and technology. It will contribute to fostering an environment of scientific inquiry and innovation.”

The six-wheeled lander and rover module of Chandrayaan-3 is configured with payloads that would provide data to the scientific community on the properties of lunar soil and rocks, including chemical and elemental compositions.

India was making its second attempt in four years to join the United States, the Soviet Union and China in achieving the landmark landing.

India unexpectedly got into a race with Russia, which had planned to land its Luna-25 spacecraft in the same lunar region on Monday. But Luna-25 crashed into the moon after it spun into an uncontrolled orbit. It would have been the first successful Russian lunar landing after a gap of 47 years.

Russia’s head of the state-controlled space corporation Roscosmos attributed the failure to the lack of expertise due to the long break in lunar research that followed the last Soviet mission to the moon in 1976.

Numerous other countries and private companies are in a race to successfully land a spacecraft on the lunar surface. In April, a Japanese company’s spacecraft apparently crashed while attempting to land on the moon. An Israeli nonprofit tried to achieve a similar feat in 2019, but its spacecraft was destroyed on impact.

With nuclear-armed India emerging as the world’s fifth largest economy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nationalist government is eager to show off the country’s prowess in security and technology.

US, South Korea and Japan condemn China, agree to deepen military ties

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Written by northsouth

Category: Asia

Published: 19 August 2023

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By Trevor Hunnicutt, David Brunnstrom and Hyonhee Shin

CAMP DAVID, Maryland - U.S. President Joe Biden and the leaders of South Korea and Japan agreed at Camp David on Friday to deepen military and economic cooperation and made their strongest joint condemnation yet of "dangerous and aggressive behavior" by China in the South China Sea.

The Biden administration held the summit with the leaders of the main U.S. allies in Asia, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, in a bid to project unity in the face of China's growing power and nuclear threats from North Korea.

In a summit statement the three countries committed to consult promptly with each other during crises and to coordinate responses to regional challenges, provocations and threats affecting common interests.

They also agreed to hold military training exercises annually and to share real-time information on North Korean missile launches by the end of 2023. The countries promised to hold trilateral summits annually.

While the political commitments fall short of a formal three-way alliance, they represent a bold move for Seoul and Tokyo, which have a long history of mutual acrimony stemming from Japan's harsh 1910-1945 colonial rule of Korea.

The summit at the Maryland presidential retreat was the first standalone meeting between the U.S. and Japan and South Korea and came about thanks to a rapprochement launched by Yoon and driven by shared perceptions of threats posed by China and North Korea, as well as Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.

The leaders' language on China stood out as stronger than expected, and is likely to provoke a response from Beijing, which is a vital trading partner for both South Korea and Japan.

"Regarding the dangerous and aggressive behavior supporting unlawful maritime claims that we have recently witnessed by the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the South China Sea, we strongly oppose any unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the waters of the Indo-Pacific," the statement said.

The spokesperson for China's Washington embassy, Liu Pengyu, said the international community was able to judge who was increasing tensions.

"Attempts to cobble together various exclusionary groupings and bring bloc confrontation and military blocs into the Asia-Pacific are not going to get support and will only be met with vigilance and opposition from regional countries," he said.

It was Biden's first Camp David summit for foreign leaders and he said the woodsy venue had long symbolized "the power of new beginnings and new possibilities."

"If I seem like I'm happy, I am," he told a joint news conference with Kishida and Yoon, calling it a "new era" for the three countries. "This has been a great, great meeting."

'BREATHTAKING' DIPLOMACY

Biden praised the leaders for their political courage in pursuing a rapprochement. He said they understood the world was "at an inflection point, where we're called to lead in new ways, to work together, to stand together."

"Critically, we've all committed to swiftly consult with each other in response to threats to any one of our countries from whatever source it occurs." he said. "That means we'll have a hotline to share information and coordinate our responses whenever there is a crisis in the region, or affecting any one of our countries."

"Together we're going to stand up for international law," and against "coercion," Biden said.

Without mentioning China by name, Kishida said, "Unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force in the East and South China Seas are continuing," while adding that the North Korean nuclear and missile threat was "only becoming ever larger."

Yoon said the summit agreement meant that “any provocations or attacks against any one of our three countries will trigger a decision making process of this trilateral framework and our solidarity will become even stronger and harder."

U.S. officials say lingering historical baggage is among the reasons the three countries are not currently pursing a three-way mutual-defense pact like those Washington has separately with both Seoul and Tokyo - who are not themselves formal allies.

However Kurt Campbell, Biden's coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs, said the summit came about thanks to "a breathtaking kind of diplomacy" led by Yoon and Kishida, who had "sometimes gone against the advice of their own counselors and staff."

CHINA VIEWS SUMMIT WARILY

Beijing previously warned that U.S. efforts to strengthen ties with South Korea and Japan could "increase tension and confrontation in the region.

While South Korea, Japan and the United States want to avoid provoking Beijing, China believes Washington is trying to isolate it diplomatically and encircle it militarily.

Asked about charges leveled by China, Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters the aim was "explicitly not a NATO for the Pacific" and also said that a trilateral alliance had not been set as an explicit goal.

The White House, conscious of upcoming elections, wants to make the progress between South Korea and Japan hard to reverse by institutionalizing routine cooperation across the board.

Biden, an 80-year-old Democrat seeking another four-year term in the 2024 presidential election, faces a likely opponent in Republican former President Donald Trump, who has voiced skepticism about whether Washington benefits from its traditional military and economic alliances.

South Korea has legislative elections next year and Japan must hold one before October 2025, and what analysts see as a still fragile rapprochement between the two nations remains controversial among the countries' voters.