NEW DELHI: New Delhi was in a medical emergency on Monday as toxic smog engulfing the Indian capital reached the highest level this year, prompting authorities to close schools and urge people to stay indoors.
Pollution in Delhi and the surrounding metropolitan area — home to around 55 million people — reached the “severe plus” category as some areas reached an Air Quality Index score of 484, this year’s highest, according to the Central Pollution Control Board.
On the AQI scale from 0 to 500, good air quality is represented by levels below 50, while levels above 300 are dangerous.
Delhi was ranked as the most polluted city in the world on Monday by Swiss group IQAir, with a concentration of PM 2.5, 138.4 times higher than the World Health Organization’s recommended levels.
“All of North India has been plunged into a medical emergency,” Delhi Chief Minister Atishi Marlena Singh said in a press conference, adding that many cities were “reeling under severe levels of pollution.”
She said farm fires, where stubble left after harvesting rice is burnt to clear fields, were causing the extreme levels of pollution.
“Why is the (central government) not taking action against these states and implementing concrete steps? People are unable to breathe. I am getting calls from people complaining about breathing and respiratory issues,” she said.
“All of North India is paying the price for this, especially children and elderly who are struggling to breathe.”
Authorities in Delhi have directed all schools to move classes online and tightened restrictions on construction activities and vehicle movements.
Mahesh Palawat, vice president of meteorology and climate change at forecast company Skymet Weather, said people in the capital region are faced with serious health risks.
“If they are non-smokers, then they will also inhale at least 30 to 40 cigarettes per day (at these pollution levels). So, you can imagine how bad it is for our health,” he told Arab News.
“PM 2.5 is a very minute particle (that can be inhaled). It is so minute that it can go into our blood vessels also, so it is very harmful and leads to various diseases, particularly for older people and infants who have breathing problems.”
Palawat is expecting the air quality to remain at this level for at least a few more days.
“It will remain in the very poor to serious category in coming days also,” he said.
China’s foreign minister to visit Britain on Thursday for talks
Wang Yi to hold talks with his British counterpart David Lammy
Issues to be discussed include international security and the war in Ukraine
Updated 10 February 2025
Reuters
LONDON: China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi is due to visit Britain on Thursday to hold talks with his British counterpart David Lammy in a sign that relations between the countries are normalizing after years of tensions.
Issues to be discussed include international security and the war in Ukraine, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesman told reporters.
Lammy and Wang will revive the UK-China Strategic Dialogue, a forum last held in 2018 to discuss bilateral issues.
That dialogue was paused during the COVID-19 pandemic and after Britain restricted some Chinese investment on worries over national security and over a crackdown on freedoms in Hong Kong.
The Labour government, in power in Britain since July, has made improving ties with China one of its main foreign policy goals after a period under successive Conservative governments when relations plunged to their lowest level in decades.
British finance minister Rachel Reeves visited China last month in a bid to revive economic and financial talks that had been frozen since 2019.
Wang’s visit will come two days after the start of an inquiry ordered by British government into China’s stalled plans to build a large embassy in London.
The Chinese government purchased Royal Mint Court, a historic site near the Tower of London, in 2018 but had its requests for planning permission to build the new embassy there rejected by the local council.
The stalled project had been a source of diplomatic tension between the two countries.
Lammy and interior minister, Yvette Cooper, recently come out in support of the plan, which is opposed by local politicians and residents.
Anti-minority hate speech in India rose by 74 percent in 2024, research group says
India Hate Lab said a third of hate speech incidents last year occurred from March 16 through June 1 during the height of election campaigning
Group cited remarks by Modi in April in which he referred to Muslims as “infiltrators” who have “more children”
Updated 10 February 2025
Reuters
WASHINGTON: Instances of hate speech against minorities in India such as Muslims increased 74 percent in 2024, a Washington-based research group said on Monday, with incidents ballooning around last year’s national elections.
India Hate Lab documented 1,165 instances of what it considered to be hate speech in 2024, compared with 668 a year earlier, that it observed at events such as political rallies, religious processions, protest marches and cultural gatherings.
“The fact that 2024 was a general election year in India, with polling held in seven phases between April 19 and June 1, played a crucial role in shaping the patterns of hate speech incidents compared to 2023,” the group said in a report.
India’s embassy in Washington had no immediate comment.
The report comes days before a White House meeting between US President Donald Trump and India’s Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose government is blamed by rights groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International for the mistreatment of minorities in India.
Modi’s government and party have denied being discriminatory and said their policies, such as food subsidy schemes and electrification drives, benefit all Indians.
India Hate Lab said a third of hate speech incidents last year occurred from March 16 through June 1 during the height of election campaigning, with May being a “notable peak.”
The group cited remarks by Modi in April in which he referred to Muslims as “infiltrators” who have “more children.”
Modi won a third successive term and denied stoking divisions. His Bharatiya Janata Party failed to win a majority and relied on coalition allies to form a government.
India Hate Lab said 80 percent of hate speech incidents last year occurred in states governed by the BJP and its allies.
The group, founded by US-based Kashmiri journalist Raqib Hameed Naik, is a project of the Center for the Study of Organized Hate, a nonprofit think tank based in Washington. The BJP has said the group presents a biased picture of India.
Rights advocates, in noting the plight of Indian minorities, point to a 2019 citizenship law the UN called “fundamentally discriminatory,” anti-conversion legislation that challenges the constitutionally protected right to freedom of belief, and the 2019 revoking of Muslim majority Kashmir’s special status.
They also highlight the demolition of properties owned by Muslims that authorities said were illegally constructed, and a ban on the hijab head covering — commonly worn by Muslim girls and women — in classrooms in Karnataka in line with new school uniform rules when the BJP was in power in that state.
India Hate Lab said it used in its report the United Nations’ definition of hate speech: prejudiced or discriminatory language toward an individual or group based on attributes including religion, ethnicity, nationality, race or gender.
Life in limbo for refugees as Trump suspends US admissions
Many refugees live in poverty in countries such as Iran, Turkiye, Uganda, Pakistan and Kenya
Often banned from working, they live in decrepit housing and usually lack most basic services
Updated 10 February 2025
Reuters
NAIROBI/KABUL: Eleven suitcases, stuffed with puffer jackets and winter boots, stood ready outside Somali refugee Hassan’s corrugated iron home in Kenya’s sweltering Dadaab camp.
His dream of a new life in Seattle was finally within reach.
The 24-year-old and his family of 10 were due to fly to the United States on Feb. 10, ending a wait of more than 15 years and filling Hassan with hope for a fresh start on the US Pacific coast.
That was until US President Donald Trump suspended refugee admissions as one of his first acts in office on Jan. 20.
“When I found out our flight was canceled, it was very bad news for us,” Hassan told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from Dadaab in eastern Kenya’s Garissa county.
“My father sold everything, even his sheep. I was born here in Dadaab and thought I was finally leaving this place, but maybe God has other plans,” added Hassan, whose name has been changed to protect his identity.
From Somalia to Afghanistan, thousands of refugees who fled conflict, disaster or persecution, and were approved for resettlement in the United States, have been left stranded after Trump halted the country’s refugee program. The suspension of the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) was to ensure public safety and national security, Trump said in an executive order. It will be reviewed in three months to determine if it sufficiently benefits Americans, the order said.
People gather during a protest against US President Donald Trump’s intensified enforcement of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, US on February 8, 2025. (REUTERS)
This is not the first time that Trump has placed restrictions on refugees.
In his first term, he banned arrivals from some Muslim-majority nations, temporarily halted the resettlements and slashed the country’s admissions cap to a record low.
But refugee rights groups said the new suspension of USRAP was unprecedented.
Erol Kekic, a senior vice president at the Church World Service — a charity that screens refugees for US resettlement — said it was “devastating” and “heart-breaking.”
“We have never seen anything like this at this level before, despite the changes that have taken place during the first Trump administration,” Kekic told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“Refugee resettlement is one of those proud traditions in the United States that has been practiced for such a long time, and we’re hoping to try to find a way to continue to do it.” NO OPPORTUNITIES
According to the United Nations, nearly 38 million people worldwide are refugees — and 65 percent of them come from just four countries: Syria, Venezuela, Ukraine and Afghanistan.
Many refugees live in poverty in countries such as Iran, Turkiye, Uganda, Pakistan and Kenya, and face a barrage of challenges. Often banned from working, they live in decrepit housing and usually lack the most basic of services.
Kenya is home to more than 820,000 refugees, most of whom fled neighboring Somalia after it descended into civil war in 1991. Over the years, more refugees have streamed in, uprooted by drought, famine and persistent insecurity.
Many are housed in sprawling refugee camps like Dadaab — a settlement spread over 50 square km (19 square miles) of semi-arid desert that is home to more than 415,000 people.
Residents have few ways to earn a living other than rearing goats, manual labor and running kiosks sewing clothes, selling camel meat or charging cell phones from solar panels.
Kenya forbids refugees from leaving the camp to seek work.
A woman waves a Mexican and American flag together during a protest against US President Donald Trump’s intensified enforcement of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, US on February 8, 2025. (REUTERS)
As a result, people are poor and bereft of options.
They live in tarpaulin tents or shacks made of corrugated iron and branches, and rely on rations of cooking oil, milk powder, rice and sugar sent by foreign donors.
Many Somali refugees have lived in Dadaab for decades; some were born in the camp and have never seen life outside.
With most unable to return home to Somalia, tens of thousands have sought a better life whole continents away.
While the United States is often a prized destination, US policy on refugee resettlement is complex.
Vetting and screening — X-rays, vaccinations and a host of other medical examinations — can take more than a decade.
Refugee upon refugee recounts the same tale of years lost to process and procedure, interviews, screenings and then — finally — approval granted only to see their long-awaited escape flights suspended until further notice, no explanation given.
During Trump’s first term, the fear of languishing in camps for years saw young men lured by people smugglers into risky, illegal routes to Europe or to the United States via Mexico.
“These people smugglers are smart. They target young men who are desperate after having their flights canceled and promise to take them through another route,” said Abdirahim, 29, who had his flight canceled in Trump’s first term and now again in his second term.
“But many boys just go missing. Or their families here in Dadaab get calls from smugglers in Libya who have kidnapped them and demand thousands of dollars in ransom,” added Abdirahim, whose name has been changed to protect his identity. ‘WE ARE NOT BAD PEOPLE’
As well as refugees, thousands of Afghan and Iraqi nationals — people who had worked with the US government and been granted Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) to resettle in the United States — have also been left in limbo.
In Afghanistan, many people have been forced into hiding fearing reprisals after the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
Subhan Safi, 28, worked with US troops as a plumber for three years. In December 2023, he was granted an SIV and more than one year on, was still awaiting evacuation from Kabul.
“I have been waiting to get on a flight ... but now I am facing an uncertain future and do not know what will happen next,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in Kabul.
“I’m still hopeful that the US president’s decision will change, and that people like me, who are at risk, will be allowed entry. I’m very eager to start a new and better life,” added Safi, whose name has been changed to protect his identity.
The US State Department would not say how many people were awaiting resettlement, but confirmed admissions were on hold.
“Consistent with President Trump’s Executive Order ... the Department of State is coordinating with implementing partners to suspend refugee arrivals and case processing activities,” it said in a statement to the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
People watch demonstrators march during a protest against US President Donald Trump’s intensified enforcement of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, US on February 8, 2025. (REUTERS)
The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said it was analizing the order, and was ready to work with Trump to find solutions.
“Refugee resettlement is a life-saving measure for those most at risk, including survivors of violence or torture, women and children at risk, and individuals with legal or physical protection needs,” said a UNHCR spokesperson.
Dadaab refugees said they had no choice but to hope that Trump would lift his suspension after the three-month review.
Some even said they didn’t blame him.
“I agree with President Trump. Illegal people should not be in his country. I think once he has deported all the illegal people, he will let the refugees come and do their jobs,” said Abdi, 24, who has been waiting 16 years for resettlement.
“We are not bad people. We want go to the US but we want to go properly and legally,” added Abdi, whose name has been changed to protect his identity.
NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to meet US President Donald Trump this week, as New Delhi seeks closer ties with Washington in various fields, including technology, defense and trade.
Modi will be among the first foreign leaders to meet Trump at the White House during his second term. Before flying to the US, he will make a stop in France to meet French President Emmanuel Macron and to attend the AI Action Summit.
“I look forward to meeting my friend, President Trump,” Modi said in a statement before his departure on Monday.
“Although this will be our first meeting following his historic electoral victory and inauguration in January, I have a very warm recollection of working together in his first term in building a Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership between India and the US.”
The two leaders shared cordial relations during Trump’s first term as president.
In 2019, Trump joined Modi at a “Howdy Modi” rally in Houston, Texas that drew about 50,000 people and was billed as one of the largest receptions for a foreign leader in the US.
When Trump made his first visit to India in February 2020, Modi hosted him in his home state of Gujarat, where the “Namaste Trump” welcome event was attended by about 100,000 people.
“This visit will be an opportunity to build upon the successes of our collaboration in his first term and develop an agenda to further elevate and deepen our partnership, including in the areas of technology, trade, defence, energy, and supply chain resilience,” Modi said.
India considers the US as one of its “strongest international partnerships” in recent years, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said on Friday.
The US is India’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade worth more than $118 billion in 2023-2024 and India posting a trade surplus of $32 billion.
Modi’s visit comes just days after US authorities deported 104 Indians in shackles on a military plane, a much-publicized transfer that sparked outrage among legislators and citizens in the South Asian nation.
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s new president embarked on his first Middle East trip on Monday to participate in the World Governments Summit 2025 in Dubai.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake secured the top job in September, taking over the leadership of a country reeling from the 2022 economic crisis — the worst since its independence in 1948 — and the austerity measures imposed under a bailout deal with the International Monetary Fund.
He has so far made two foreign trips: to India in December, where he met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Droupadi Murmu, and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar; and to China, where he held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
During the Dubai trip, Dissanayake will address the annual summit that brings together leaders, policymakers, and experts from around the world to discuss global governance, public policy, and the future of governments.
Accompanied by Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath, he is also expected to hold bilateral meetings with the UAE leadership and witness the signing of several agreements.
“Sri Lanka is set to enter into agreements on fuel and gas purchases, power and energy projects and trade and investment ... Setting up of a joint commission between Sri Lanka and UAE will be another highlight of the visit,” Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry said in a statement to Arab News.
“Government-to-government projects are to be entered into and memoranda of understanding are expected to be signed. Negotiations on the import of fuel and gas advantageous to Sri Lanka will be among the priorities.”
Other agreements that the Sri Lankan government are going to pursue include job opportunities for its expat workers, promotion of tourism and education.
“Sri Lanka is looking forward to promote the export of tea and gems while attracting tourists from UAE. Besides the bilateral meeting with the president of the UAE, meetings will also be held with the business community,” the ministry said.
“Sri Lanka is looking forward to increase investments from the UAE.”
More than 350,000 Sri Lankans live and work in Dubai. The president is expected to have a meeting with the diaspora as well.
