Kolkata: The judge of a special CBI court here on Saturday set a 21-day deadline for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to show the progress it made in its probe into the alleged multi-crore recruitment scam in West Bengal.
The judge was especially critical of the CBI for not arresting the government employees named as beneficiaries in the alleged recruitment scam yet.
“Barring two cases, the progress of the probe in the other related cases is extremely demoralising. Is this a civil matter? How long will you be able to keep the accused behind bars in the name of investigation process? Take some concrete steps,” the judge told the CBI counsel.
When the CBI counsel said that there is evidence of involvement of government officials in the alleged scan, the judge asked why the central agency is yet to question them after taking them into custody.
“You are yet to reveal who received money from the accused persons such as Kuntal Ghosh and Tapas Mondal. A scam of such a nature could not have been possible without the involvement of government officials. Please complete the circle. Show your progress in the investigation in the next 21 days,” the judge told the CBI counsel.
Ruqaya Mohammed Mustafa stood next to her few remaining neighbours and the heaped piles they once called home and wearily welcomed the first visitors she had seen since the earthquake last week.
All this time, she and the people of Jindires, in northern Syria, had been begging for help. First to dig survivors from the rubble, then to provide shelter and food in the cruel grip of winter.
“Where was the world when it mattered?” asked Ruqaya, 58, flanked by the remains of buildings where up to 80 people had died. “Why tell our stories when there’s nothing left?”
As aid bosses travelled to regime-held Damascus and Aleppo, desperation in opposition-held north-west Syria had turned to anger, then grief. “We realised there was nothing coming for us,” Ruqaya said. “We dug the bodies out with our bare hands. Those we couldn’t reach died.”
With no one now left alive under the devastation in Jindires, a scramble is under way to source life-saving supplies. Not for the first time, residents of northern Syria feel forgotten – by a world inured to their suffering after more than a decade of civil war, and by unresponsive global bodies that defer to political process.
Devastation in the town of Jindires. Photograph: Ghaith Alsayed/AP
A UN announcement on Monday that it had won the approval of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to open border crossings into the opposition-held north-west drew particular scorn.
Jindires was home to displaced people from all corners of Syria, especially those who had defied Assad and been forced into exile as a result. Tareq Aamer was one of them. “Assad is worse than the earthquake,” he said. “And the UN is killing us more by its policy towards Bashar. We don’t need to wait for them to open the borders. They are already open. Why are people asking for their permission?”
The first non-scheduled aid convoy crossed the border at Bab al-Salam on Tuesday carrying tents, medicines and blankets – a speck in the collective needs of a province ravaged by more suffering over the past decade than most other places in the Middle East.
Mouaz Moustafa, the executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, said the UN announcement was redundant and drew on narrow and bitterly contested interpretations of international law.
“The Assad regime has no right to be the ultimate authority on the fate of millions of civilians in non-regime-held areas of Syria,” he said. “The UN doesn’t need a [security council] resolution for cross-border humanitarian assistance, yet it is allowing Assad to be the only representative of the people he has oppressed for 12 years.”
Food is distributed to earthquake survivors in Jindires. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Ali Bakr, 60, was also demanding help for residents of Jinderes – the few still alive that he knew. Out of 18 members of his family, only one had survived, he said. “I need mental help to calm my nerves. I dug the bodies out with my own hands.”
Next to him stood Omran Sido, 36, whose three children, aged four months, six and eight, all died in the same building. “How will I ever recover from this?” he said. “It’s made worse by knowing that no one else cares.”
Along the road to Jindires, near the city of Afrin, a convoy of trucks carrying aid from Saudi Arabia had parked up. Flags announcing Qatari deliveries flew nearby. NGOs active inside the province have also distributed relief from pre-existing stockpiles.
But the piecemeal global response and readiness, even now, to defer to Assad hangs a pall over the region. “I went to Ukraine and saw UN cars every five metres,” said one resident – one of few with permission to cross into neighbouring Turkey and travel beyond. “I understand what they’ve been through. But so have we, and we continue to.”
A scene in Jindires, Aleppo province, on Tuesday. Photograph: Ghaith Alsayed/AP
In hospitals, medicines and morale are running low. Afrin hospital, one of the region’s biggest, received 750 patients, many of them badly injured or dying, in the hours after the earthquakes. Many were children, up to 15 of whom required amputations. “They are the most difficult things to perform,” said Wadan al-Nasr, who performed most of the surgeries. “Not technically, but because of what they represent.”
Three-year-old Nour clings to an inflated glove. Photograph: Celine Kasem
In a nearby ward, three-year-old Nour lay sleeping, her one remaining leg covered by a blanket. Her other leg had been amputated in the rubble of the family home, where her mother and siblings had died. Her father came to visit her most days, and her comfort in between was a hand-shaped balloon. Nour’s tiny hand held one of its fingers.
In a sports hall, Wahid Khalil had bunkered down with what remained of his family. His young daughter was listless and feverish. A young doctor in a white coat rushed her away amid crowds of men and women who wandered slowly around their makeshift home. A little while later, the girl returned with a lollipop and a cup of medicine, a rare glimpse of hope after a dark week.
But elsewhere there was little to celebrate. “The countries that claim humanitarian rights are paramount, where are they?” asked Aamer, back in Jindires. “They end up exploiting our suffering. They seem to care about animal rights more than humanitarian rights.
“This earthquake will give up more bodies, when we can get to them,” he said. “But this regime has many more secrets that need uncovering. The Russians have tested 400 weapons on us and turned us into lab rats. It’s misery on top of suffering. The world must help us rebuild and it needs to learn the lessons of history. Assad is not your friend.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Global growth is slowing down less than previously expected, the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday in its updated World Economic Outlook.
World output is set to grow by 2.9 percent this year, down from 3.4 percent in 2022, weighed down by tightening monetary policy and the war in Ukraine.
That’s an increase of 0.2 percentage points compared with the 2.7 percent and 3.2 percent figures forecasted in October, thanks to stronger-than-expected growth in the third quarter of 2022.
Growth will resume in 2024 at 3.1 percent.
“This time around, the global economic outlook hasn’t worsened,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, IMF chief economist and research director, wrote in a blog post. “That’s good news, but not enough.”
Eurozone growth is expected to reach 0.7 percent this year—a 0.2 percentage-point upgrade — and 1.6 percent next. In 2022, the IMF reviewed eurozone growth upward to 3.5 percent from 3.1 percent previously because of lower energy prices and additional demand-side support measures.
Global headline inflation has peaked in the third quarter of last year, the Fund said, pushed down by a decline in commodity prices. But so-called core inflation, which excludes volatile energy and food prices, has yet to peak, spurred on by tight labor markets which generate strong wage growth.
The IMF expects global inflation to fall this year to 6.6 percent and to 4.3 percent in 2024, down from 8.8 percent in 2022 on average. Both headline and peak inflation are expected to remain higher than pre-pandemic levels in 2024.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
The gains come as the U.S. and Western allies drastically ramp up support for Kyiv ahead of the expected spring counteroffensive. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin alluded to the upcoming operation last week after a meeting of defense ministers at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, noting that now is the time for the West to provide additional arms and training Ukraine needs to smash through Russian lines.
“We have a window of opportunity here, you know, between now and the spring when they commence their operation, their counteroffensive,” Austin said Friday after announcing a $2.5 billion package of aid that includes additional armored vehicles and artillery. “That’s not a long time, and we have to pull together the right capabilities.”
The new package included 59 Bradley Fighting Vehicles — in addition to the 50 provided in a previous tranche — 90 Stryker armored combat vehicles, 53 mine-resistant vehicles, 350 Humvees, as well as additional air defenses, missiles and artillery.
At the same time, the Pentagon has begun large-scale training of Ukrainian forces on advanced tactics at a U.S. base in Germany. The training will enhance their fighting skills as the war enters a new phase, officials say.
“This is not a moment to slow down when it comes to supporting Ukraine in their defense,” the senior military official said.
The gains near Kreminna also come as Ukrainian officials sound the alarm about Russia laying the groundwork for a massive new campaign in the spring. The Ukrainian military has recently reported seeing increased Russian movement of troops, military equipment and ammunition in the Luhansk area.
Kreminna is one of the towns along Russia’s Svatove-Kreminna defensive line, said Michael Kofman, research program director at CNA’s Russian Studies Program. Taking Kreminna would be an important step for any further advances into Luhansk, he said.
“Seizing Kreminna would put Ukrainian forces on a path towards threatening Rubizhne, and provide one of the potential axes of advance towards Starobilsk, an important Russian logistics hub,” he told POLITICO.
The fighting around Kreminna is a continuation of Ukraine’s counteroffensive that began in the fall, when Kyiv’s forces swept through the country’s northeastern Kharkiv region. Now, Ukrainian soldiers have turned south to focus on Luhansk, but are meeting stiff resistance as Russian forces dig in there.
Moscow has in recent weeks sent in tens of thousands of replacement troops to bolster their front lines after suffering heavy casualties, particularly in the area around the city of Bakhmut in the central Donetsk region, the official said.
The new troops are not necessarily arriving in organized units, but are “filling in gaps” where Russia needs replacements and reinforcements, the official said, noting that they are “ill-equipped, ill-trained, rushed to the battlefield.”
“A key aspect is despite these increased numbers, in terms of replacements, reinforcements, not a significant enhancement in terms of the training of those forces,” the official said.
In Kreminna, Kyiv is looking to “exploit opportunities along the Russian defensive lines,” the official continued.
Top Pentagon officials have said Ukraine is unlikely to push Russia out of the country altogether this year. But Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley suggested on Friday that Kyiv could reclaim significant territory, depending on the new equipment and training Ukrainians receive in the coming months.
The equipment in the new U.S. aid package, combined with the previous one, includes capabilities equivalent to at least two combined arms maneuver brigades or six mechanized infantry battalions, 10 motorized infantry battalions, and four artillery battalions, Milley said.
“Depending on the delivery and training of all of this equipment, I do think it’s very, very possible for the Ukrainians to run a significant tactical- or even operational-level offensive operation to liberate as much Ukrainian territory as possible,” Milley said. “Then we’ll see where it goes.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
