Sikh separatist claims Indian ‘spy network’ operates in US and Canada

Sikh separatist claims Indian ‘spy network’ operates in US and Canada
Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a 56-year-old dual U.S.-Canadian citizen, speaks during an interview in New York City, U.S., October 18, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 28 October 2024
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Sikh separatist claims Indian ‘spy network’ operates in US and Canada

Sikh separatist claims Indian ‘spy network’ operates in US and Canada
  • The US Justice Department has unsealed indictments against two Indian nationals in connection with an alleged plot to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun
  • The two Indians included an ex-government official, who the indictment said worked as an intelligence officer at the time he orchestrated assassination

NEW YORK: Canada and the US must get tougher on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government for trying to silence dissidents on foreign soil, a Sikh separatist who was the target of an alleged India-led murder plot said in an interview.
The US Justice Department has unsealed indictments against two Indian nationals in connection with an alleged plot to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a dual US-Canadian citizen, in New York. The two Indian accused included an ex-government official, who the indictment said worked as an intelligence officer at the time and had orchestrated the assassination plan.
Pannun told Reuters earlier this month that the Modi government should not be allowed to conduct hostile activity in foreign countries and said India’s consulates in the US and Canada were running a “spy network,” although he did not provide any proof.
The US and Canada “need to put their foot down that regimes like Modi’s...should not be allowed to come to America or Canada, challenge their sovereignty and get away with it. They need to put their foot down and close (the consulates) permanently,” he said.
Pannun did not elaborate on the alleged spy network. Similar assertions have been made by Sikh activists in America and Canada.
India’s foreign ministry did not respond to detailed questions from Reuters regarding Pannun’s allegations. India, where Pannun was born, has labelled him a terrorist since 2020.
Authorities in the US and Canada declined comment on Pannun’s allegations.
The US and Canada have alleged Indian agents were involved in assassination plots in their countries last year against campaigners for ‘Khalistan’, a Sikh homeland they want carved out of India’s Punjab state where Sikh militancy in the 1980s and 1990s killed thousands of people.
India has denied involvement in any of the plots.
The allegations have damaged India’s ties with Canada and tested relations between Washington and New Delhi.
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has accused India’s government of involvement in the 2023 murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, another Sikh separatist leader in Canada. In May, Canadian police arrested and charged four Indian men for the murder. They are yet to be tried.
India has said Canada has not provided any evidence to support its allegations and New Delhi and Ottawa expelled six diplomats each earlier this month in a growing diplomatic spat.
However, India has said it is investigating the murder plot against Pannun and US officials have said they want a speedy result.
Pannun said Vikash Yadav, the former Indian official indicted by the US for the alleged attempt on his life, was just a “middle-tier soldier,” assigned the task of organizing the assassination by higher-level Indian officials. He did not offer any proof nor say how he had come to the conclusion.
New Delhi has said Yadav was no longer a government employee, without saying whether he had been an intelligence officer and not detailing when he left. Yadav’s whereabouts are not known but his family told Reuters earlier this month he had been in contact and denied the allegations in the US indictment.
Indian security officials have said they fear that a rise in support for Khalistan overseas may lead to resurgence of militancy that had previously paralyzed Punjab state, the birthplace of Sikh nationalism, where the movement for a separate homeland now commands little support.
Pannun, who has been holding independent referendums in the US, Canada and Europe on creating Khalistan, said in the interview his movement advocates peaceful resolution of the matter, and will continue despite threats to his life.


UK orders Apple to give it access to users’ encrypted accounts, Washington Post reports

A person holds an iPhone 15 Pro at the Apple campus, Sept. 12, 2023, in Cupertino, Calif. (AP)
A person holds an iPhone 15 Pro at the Apple campus, Sept. 12, 2023, in Cupertino, Calif. (AP)
Updated 08 February 2025
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UK orders Apple to give it access to users’ encrypted accounts, Washington Post reports

A person holds an iPhone 15 Pro at the Apple campus, Sept. 12, 2023, in Cupertino, Calif. (AP)
  • UK’s office of the Home Secretary has served Apple with a document called a technical capability notice, ordering it to provide the access, as per Washington Post

LONDON: Britain’s security officials have ordered that Apple create a so-called ‘back door’ allowing them to retrieve all the content any Apple user worldwide has uploaded to the cloud, The Washington Post reported on Friday citing people familiar with the matter.
Rather than break the security promises it made to its users everywhere, Apple is likely to stop offering encrypted storage in the UK, the report said, citing unnamed sources.
UK’s office of the Home Secretary has served Apple with a document called a technical capability notice, ordering it to provide the access, as per Washington Post.
Apple did not respond to a Reuters request for comment outside regular business hours.
Britain’s interior ministry did not immediately comment on the report.
Britain in January used its regulatory powers to launch an investigation into Apple and Google’s smartphone operating systems, app stores and browsers.

 

 


Migrants who break law ‘will be deported’: Polish prime minister

Migrants who break law ‘will be deported’: Polish prime minister
Updated 07 February 2025
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Migrants who break law ‘will be deported’: Polish prime minister

Migrants who break law ‘will be deported’: Polish prime minister
  • Tusk, whose centrist camp faces an electoral threat from the nationalists in the May presidential vote, has in past months vowed to suspend asylum rights partially and backed curbing benefits for Ukrainian refugees

WARSAW: Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Friday said his government would draw up plans to deport migrants who break the law of the EU country as Poland nears a key presidential election in May.
Tusk also reiterated criticism of the EU migrant relocation scheme during a press conference in the port city of Gdansk alongside European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen.
“Anyone who is hosted in Poland, takes advantage of our hospitality and violently violates the law will be deported from Poland,” Tusk said.
He added that the government was working on a “plan for an immediate response to organized crime and violent crime carried out by foreigners.”
He said an outline of the plan, drawn up by the justice and interior ministries, would be presented in the coming days.
Tusk, whose centrist camp faces an electoral threat from the nationalists in the May presidential vote, has in past months vowed to suspend asylum rights partially and backed curbing benefits for Ukrainian refugees.
On Friday, he also said Poland would not accept any “burdens” related to the EU migrant relocation scheme.
Last year, the EU significantly overhauled asylum rules, requiring member states to remove thousands of asylum-seekers from “frontline” states such as Italy and Greece.
Alternatively, they could provide money or other resources to under-pressure nations.
“If anyone in Europe were to say that Poland should take on even more burdens, then no matter who it is, I will tell them that Poland will not fulfill that. The end,” Tusk said.
He said Poland had already “opened its borders and hearts to two million refugees from Ukraine” following the Russian invasion and was facing illegal migration across its border with Belarus.
States in eastern Europe have accused Russia and its ally Belarus of pushing thousands of migrants over their borders in recent years as part of a campaign to destabilize Europe.

 


Zelensky says N Korean troops back on Russia front line

Zelensky says N Korean troops back on Russia front line
Updated 07 February 2025
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Zelensky says N Korean troops back on Russia front line

Zelensky says N Korean troops back on Russia front line
  • “There have been new assaults in the Kursk operation areas... the Russian army and North Korean soldiers have been brought in again,” Zelensky said
  • The Ukrainian leader said a “significant number” of opposing troops had been “destroyed“

KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that North Korean troops were back on the front line in Russia’s Kursk region, after reports Moscow had withdrawn them due to heavy losses.
More than 10,000 soldiers from the reclusive state were sent to Russia last year to help it fight back a shock Ukrainian offensive into the border region, according to South Korean and Western intelligence.
A Ukrainian military spokesman told AFP last Friday that Kyiv had not encountered activity or clashes with North Korean troops for three weeks.
“There have been new assaults in the Kursk operation areas... the Russian army and North Korean soldiers have been brought in again,” Zelensky said in his evening address.
The Ukrainian leader said a “significant number” of opposing troops had been “destroyed.”
“We are talking about hundreds of Russian and North Korean soldiers,” he added.
Kyiv captured dozens of border settlements in its Kursk assault six months ago, the first time a foreign army had crossed into Russian territory since World War II.
The North Korean deployment, never officially confirmed by Moscow or Pyongyang, was supposed to reinforce the Russian army and help them expel Ukraine’s troops.
But as of February Ukraine still holds swathes of Russian territory, something Zelensky sees as a bargaining chip in any future negotiations with Moscow.


UK’s Lammy warns US aid cuts could see China step into ‘gap’

UK’s Lammy warns US aid cuts could see China step into ‘gap’
Updated 07 February 2025
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UK’s Lammy warns US aid cuts could see China step into ‘gap’

UK’s Lammy warns US aid cuts could see China step into ‘gap’

LONDON: British Foreign Secretary David Lammy on Friday warned that US President Donald Trump’s moves to freeze foreign aid and dismantle the USAID agency could see “China and others step into that gap.”
The UK’s top diplomat pointed to reforms by Britain’s previous Conservative government to its foreign aid program as “a big strategic mistake” which the new Trump administration should “look closely at.”
In 2020 the UK government closed down the Department for International Development (DfID) and subsumed it into the Foreign Office, before slashing the aid budget the following year.
The moves earned widespread criticism at the time from aid groups and others in the sector, as well as the countries’ opposition parties.
“What I can say to American friends is it’s widely accepted that the decision by the UK with very little preparation to close down DfID, to suspend funding in the short term or give many global partners little heads up, was a big strategic mistake,” Lammy told the Guardian.
“We have spent years unraveling that strategic mistake. Development remains a very important soft power tool. And in the absence of development... I would be very worried that China and others step into that gap,” he added.
“So I would caution US friends to look closely at what went wrong in the United Kingdom as they navigate this decision.”
Trump on Friday called for the United States Agency for International Development to be shut down, in an escalation of his unprecedented campaign to dismantle the massive government aid agency that has prompted confusion and chaos among its global network.
His administration has already frozen foreign aid and ordered thousands of foreign-based staff to return to the United States, with reported impacts on the ground steadily growing.


Philippine vice president preparing for impeachment battle but silent on option to resign

Philippine vice president preparing for impeachment battle but silent on option to resign
Updated 07 February 2025
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Philippine vice president preparing for impeachment battle but silent on option to resign

Philippine vice president preparing for impeachment battle but silent on option to resign
  • A potential conviction and ban on Duterte holding office would be a major setback to one of the country’s most prominent political families

MANILA: Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte said Friday that her lawyers were preparing for a legal battle in her upcoming impeachment trial but refused to say if resignation was an option so she could preempt a possible conviction that would bar her from running for president in the future.

Duterte was speaking for the first time since the House of Representatives impeached her Wednesday on a raft of criminal charges, including plotting to have President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. assassinated, which she again denied. Marcos was her running mate in the 2022 elections but they have had a bitter falling out.
At the news conference, she underscored economic hardships and said the lives of Filipinos have become “much worse” due to skyrocketing costs of living.
“God save the Philippines,” Duterte said and asked her supporters to turn to social media to express their sentiments instead of holding street protests to avoid disrupting their lives.
A potential conviction and ban on Duterte holding office would be a major setback to one of the country’s most prominent political families that has been perceived as veering toward China.
The impeachment complaint focused on the alleged threats to Marcos, irregularities in the use of office funds and Duterte’s failure to stand up to Chinese aggression in the disputed South China Sea, according to proponents of the petition. The Senate is to take up the case when it reconvenes in June.
Marcos has boosted defense ties with Washington, Manila’s longtime treaty ally, as the Philippines faced China’s increasing aggressive actions in the contested waters.
The vice president’s father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, nurtured cozy ties during his term with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin while threatening to end US military engagements in the Philippines.
That backdrop has made the impeachment proceedings important to the US and China, whose rivalry for influence looms large in the region, said Jean Franco, a political professor at the state-run University of the Philippines.
“China will lose a perceived ally if Duterte gets convicted,” Franco said. The US, which saw its alliance with Manila called into question under the previous Duterte administration, would benefit, she said.
Asked if she was considering resignation, a move that would preempt a possible conviction that would block her from running in the 2028 presidential elections, Duterte refused to give a categorical reply.
“We’re still too far from those matters,” she said, adding that a large number of lawyers have signed up to join her impeachment defense.
She reiterated that she was open to seeking the presidency in 2028 when asked, but added that she has to assess her chances. The vice president’s popularity rating has declined in independent surveys, but she is still regarded as a leading presidential contender.
“We’re seriously considering that but it’s difficult to decide without the numbers,” she said.