Category: 2. World

JAKARTA: Indonesian students will stage protests at the parliament building in the capital Jakarta on Thursday, a student group said, as a proposed meeting with the government on massive demonstrations that have left 10 people dead was yet to materialise.

Led by students, workers and rights groups, last week’s protests over police violence and state spending priorities spread across the world’s third-largest democracy after a police vehicle hit and killed a motorcycle taxi driver.

The demonstrations have at times turned violent. Rights groups said 10 people have died and over 1,000 people were injured in incidents of looting and rioting.

Rights groups have condemned the use of force by security forces.

The coalition of student bodies, known locally as BEM SI, said ahead of Thursday’s protest that “the people’s anxiety isn’t due to protests on the street, but it’s due to corruption and the politicisation of the law.”

Ten student unions met with parliamentarians on Wednesday.

They called for an independent investigation into police violence, while drawing a contrast between generous benefits for lawmakers and the economic hardship faced by most Indonesians.

The deputy house speaker offered them a chance to meet with the government on Thursday but BEM SI leader Muzammil Ihsan said there had been no follow-up on the invitation.

The protests have been called for by several Indonesian student bodies with varying and at times unaligned interests.

Workers with the union Gebrak will also stage a demonstration in Jakarta on Thursday against the heavy-handed security response and demand the release of those detained.

Indonesian authorities have detained over 3,000 people in a nationwide crackdown, New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.

“Indonesian authorities should not respond to protests over government policies by using excessive force and wrongfully locking up demonstrators,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director of the group.

President Prabowo Subianto has said the military and police would stand firm against violent mobs, and that some of the unrest bore the signs of terrorism and treason.

An aid worker supporting rescue efforts after the devastating Sudan landslide which reportedly killed hundreds of people has told the BBC that it had caused a “mountain to collapse”, leaving just one known survivor so far.

“We have so far managed to recover nine bodies,” said Abdul Hafeez Ali, head of the Coordinating Council of the Tawila and Jebel Marra Emergency Room.

Heavy rainfall led to Sunday’s disaster, which killed at least 370 people according to a UN estimate, and “destroy[ed] the village” of Tarseen in the western Darfur region, Mr Ali added.

The armed group in control of the area has said that 1,000 people died and has appealed for urgent assistance.

Another man told the BBC’s Sudan lifeline programme that many members of his family were still unaccounted for.

“So far, I’ve confirmed the deaths of two relatives: one of my uncles and his grandson. The rest of my family members are still missing,” said Ahmed Abdel Majeed, who lives in Uganda but is originally from Tarseen and keeps in touch with locals from around the affected area.

“The bodies are still buried under the rubble,” he added, stating that rescue teams were struggling to find them due to “massive blocks of stone and mud covering the area”.

An initial estimate of deaths provided by the group which controls the Marra Mountains area, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A), stated that 1,000 people could have been killed.

The UN’s deputy humanitarian co-ordinator for Sudan, Antoine Gérard, said it was difficult to ascertain the exact death toll because the area is hard to reach.

In an interview with the BBC’s Newsday radio programme SLM/A leader Abdel Wahid Mohamed al-Nur stood by his group’s estimate of the number of people killed, saying many had fled the country’s civil war to go to the relatively peaceful area.

The SLM/A has remained neutral in the conflict which has devastated much of the country over the past two years.

“People on the ground have confirmed [the death toll]. We have a civil authority there and they estimate above 1,000 people are dead or at least they are under the mud,” said Mr Nur.

He also called for emergency aid like medical supplies and food as well as urgent rescue efforts.

Speaking to the AFP news agency on Wednesday, an SLM/A official said 270 bodies had been recovered.

“Hundreds remain trapped under the rubble that swallowed homes and farmland,” said Mogeeb al-Rahman Mohamed al-Zubeir via satellite phone.

Aid worker Mr Ali said carrying out his work has been hard because of the conditions.

“Unfortunately, due to limited resources, we have not been able to carry out full-scale rescue operations. Although a support team has already arrived in Sudan, ongoing heavy rains and extremely rough terrain have made access to the affected area very difficult. Despite these challenges, the search for the missing continues.”

Mr Majeed added that communicating with those in the affected area has been challenging: “I try to stay in contact with the rescue teams, but communication is difficult. There are no working networks in the area because the solar-powered systems have gone down.”

He said that two villages had been affected by Sunday’s landslide.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday praised China’s “beautiful ceremony” commemorating the end of World War II but said it should have given greater emphasis to the role of the United States in Japan’s defeat.

“I thought it was a beautiful ceremony. I thought it was very, very impressive,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. His remarks came just hours after he suggested on social media that the gathering of foreign leaders in Beijing could be part of a conspiracy against Washington.

“I watched the speech last night. President Xi is a friend of mine, but I thought that the United States should have been mentioned last night during that speech, because we helped China very, very much.”

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has made the 80th anniversary of the war’s end a major showcase for his government and its close ties with countries at odds with Washington.

Flanked by Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Xi spoke before a crowd of more than 50,000 spectators at Tiananmen Square. He surveyed a parade of goose-stepping troops and cutting-edge military equipment aimed at deterring would-be adversaries including the United States.

Japan’s invasion of China in 1937 was a major escalation in fighting that would lead to World War Two, and Japan’s surrender in 1945 marked the end of the conflict. The US joined the war in 1941, aiding Chinese forces fighting the Japanese military and playing a decisive role in Japan’s defeat.

Deploying history to wage present-day political battles, Xi has cast World War Two as a major turning point in the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” now ruled by his Chinese Communist Party, and its allies.

On Wednesday, Xi thanked “the foreign governments and international friends who supported and assisted the Chinese people,” according to an official. But he did not dwell on the role of the United States in the war.

US-China relations are at a tense moment. The two sides are at odds on a range of security issues, from Ukraine to the South China Sea, and are wrangling over a broad trade deal to stave off tariffs on each other’s goods.

But Trump has repeatedly touted a positive personal relationship with Xi that his aides say can steer the world’s two largest economies in a constructive direction. He has also said he might soon meet with Xi.

In a post directed at Xi on Truth Social as the parade kicked off, Trump said, “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against the United States of America.”

The Kremlin said they were not conspiring and suggested the remarks were ironic.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman says deployment of a post-conflict security force would be ‘fundamentally unacceptable’.

Russia has flatly rejected the prospect of any talks that consider the deployment of foreign troops in Ukraine.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday that Moscow would not entertain discussion of an international post-conflict security force “in any format”.

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“Russia is not going to discuss the fundamentally unacceptable and security-undermining foreign intervention in Ukraine in any form, in any format,” Zakharova told reporters on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok.

Zakharova said that European leaders, who are working on plans for a multinational force in the event of an agreement to end the war in Ukraine, should take note that the “next time they aim to discuss this topic, they should have a pointer in the form of Russia’s position”.

“Judging by Ukraine’s losses, the European Commission has simply outdone itself,” she said.

Zakharova made her comments after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told The Financial Times earlier this week that the European Union had “pretty precise plans” for deploying a multinational force to Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders are set to meet in Paris on Thursday to firm up details of post-conflict security guarantees for Kyiv.

On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron said the details of the security guarantees for Ukraine had been worked out but remained “extremely confidential”.

“We are ready, we the Europeans, to offer the security guarantees to Ukraine and Ukrainians the day that a peace [accord] is signed,” Macron said.

Despite United States President Donald Trump’s pledge to bring a swift end to the conflict, Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart on the terms of any potential peace agreement.

Russia has said that any deal with Ukraine would need to include land in four regions it has annexed since 2022, while Kyiv has ruled out ceding any territory.

Trump is scheduled to speak with Zelenskyy by phone on Thursday, and has said he intends to speak to Putin in the coming days.

DHAKA:

For more than a century, the fate of the dazzling Darya-e-Noor diamond has been sealed inside a bank vault — a mystery that haunts Khawaja Naim Murad, great-grandson of the last prince, or Nawab, of Dhaka.

Locked away in 1908, were the family’s heirlooms lost during the violence at the end of British rule in 1947?

Did they survive Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971 and the string of coups that followed, or are they still safe, dusty but untouched?

Many suspect the jewels are long gone, and officials at the state-run bank hesitate to simply open the vault, fearing they’d carry the cost if it is empty.

But the cash-strapped South Asian government have now ordered a committee unseal the vault — and Murad clings to hope.

“This is not a fairytale,” said Murad, 55, recounting a story passed down from his father about the giant diamond dubbed the “River of Light”, the centrepiece rock of glittering armband.

“The diamond was rectangular in shape and surrounded by more than half a dozen smaller diamonds,” Murad told AFP.

It was part of a trove of 108 treasures. According to original court documents, they include a gold-and-silver sword encrusted with diamonds, a bejewelled fez with cascading pearls, and a fabulous star brooch once owned by a French empress.

The nawab’s riverside pink palace of Ahsan Manzil is now a government museum.

Murad, a former popular film star, lives in a sprawling villa in a wealthy Dhaka suburb.

He flourished a sheaf of documents, including a family book with detailed paintings of the treasures.

“It is one of the most famous diamonds in the world, and its history is closely associated with that of the Koh-i-Noor,” the book reports, referring to the shining centrepiece of Britain’s crown jewels — a gem also claimed by Afghanistan, India, Iran and Pakistan.

“It is absolutely perfect in lustre.”

Another diamond of the same name, the pink-hued Daria-i-Noor, is in Tehran as part of Iran’s former royal jewels.

Murad maintains that the family’s diamond, too, was once owned by Persia’s shahs, then worn by Sikh warrior-leader Ranjit Singh in 19th-century Punjab. It was later seized by the British and eventually acquired by his ancestors.

But fortunes shifted. In 1908, the then-nawab faced financial trouble.

Sir Salimullah Bahadur borrowed from British colonial powers — mortgaging his vast Dhaka estates and placing the treasures in a vault as collateral.

That was their last confirmed sighting. Since then, myth and history merge.

Murad believes his uncle saw the jewels in the bank in the 1980s, but bank officials say they do not know if the vault has ever been opened.

Chairman of the Bangladesh’s Land Reforms Board, AJM Salahuddin Nagri, says the government body inherited custody of the trove, held in a state-owned bank.

“But I haven’t seen any of the jewels yet,” he told AFP.

The 1908 court papers did not specify the diamond’s carat weight but valued it at 500,000 rupees — part of a hoard worth 1.8 million rupees.

By today’s conversion, that equals roughly $13 million, though experts say the market value of such rare and large jewels has since sometimes soared many times higher.

Today’s guardian, Shawkat Ali Khan, managing director of Sonali Bank, said the safe remains shut.

“The vault is sealed,” Khan said. “Many years back, an inspection team came to check on the jewels, but they never really opened it — they just opened the gate that held the vault.” AFP

Hamas has urged the United Nations and the wider international community to intervene immediately to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza, as the Israeli army escalated its brutal assaults on Gaza City and elsewhere in the enclave.

At least 73 Palestinians, including several aid seekers, were killed in relentless Israeli bombardments across Gaza on Wednesday, among them 43 in Gaza City alone.

Entire families are being killed together in their tents and shelters as the Israeli forces are targeting densely populated areas in Gaza.

“My brother was killed, struck inside his room. They killed him with his wife and children; they erased them all. No one is left,” Sabreen al-Mabhuh, a displaced Palestinian, told Al Jazeera.

Israeli grenades have also ignited tents at schools sheltering displaced families in Sheikh Radwan, Reuters reported. “Sheikh Radwan is being turned upside-down,” resident Zakeya Sami said. “If the takeover of Gaza City isn’t stopped, we might die. We won’t forgive anyone who watches this and does nothing.”

Gaza’s media office says Israel has detonated at least 100 explosive-laden robots in Gaza City over the past three weeks to destroy entire residential blocks and neighbourhoods. About 1,100 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza City alone during Israel’s assault there since August 13.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, described the situation as apocalyptic. “It feels endless and all-consuming … entire neighbourhoods are being erased block by block,” he said. “People are losing everything they’ve built over decades. For many, this feels like a living nightmare.”

Hamas ready to accept a comprehensive ceasefire

In a statement on Wednesday, Hamas reiterated its readiness to accept a comprehensive Gaza ceasefire and release of all Israeli captives in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

The call came as Gaza’s Health Ministry reported six more deaths from “famine and malnutrition” in the past 24 hours, including a child. It said 367 Palestinians, 131 of them children, have died from hunger-related causes during Israel’s blockade, which continues to severely limit the entry of food and aid.

Hamas also slammed Israel for committing “horrific war crimes” with a strike on the al-Jarisi family home in northern Gaza City, which killed at least 10, calling it part of a systematic campaign to destroy Palestinian life.

The Israeli operation to seize Gaza City will likely displace one million Palestinians, with most of the enclave’s 2.3 million people displaced multiple times. A spokesperson for UN chief Antonio Guterres on Wednesday said that more than 82,000 new cases of forced displacement were recorded in Gaza between August 14 and 31, including 30,000 people forced from north to south.

UNICEF has warned that 132,000 children under five are at risk of dying from acute malnutrition by mid-2026, adding up to more than 320,000 Palestinian children facing severe hunger. “With famine at risk of spreading, children urgently need a mass influx of humanitarian aid – including specialised nutrition products,” the agency said on X.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification confirmed in August that famine conditions had gripped northern Gaza and were rapidly spreading south. Aid workers say the total Israeli blockade has turned basic survival into a daily struggle.

Abdullah Al-Arian, an associate professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, said Israel’s scorched-earth offensive shows it is waging genocide with “total impunity”. He noted that Palestinians are refusing evacuation orders due to exhaustion from repeated displacements and the absence of safe zones, which Israeli forces have systematically bombed.

Growing global outrage

Israel has rejected Hamas’s latest offer to end the Gaza war. In a statement, the Prime Minister’s Office reiterated Israel’s stance that “the war can end immediately on the conditions set by the cabinet”, which include the release of all the Israeli captives being held in Gaza and the disarmament of Hamas.

Hamas has agreed to ceasefire proposals presented by the mediators, but it has refused to disarm until the Palestinian state is established as part of the so-called two-state solution. Qatar, which has mediated in the conflict, said that Israel has yet to agree to its latest ceasefire proposal, which was accepted by Hamas last month.

Israel’s campaign is drawing mounting international backlash. Several European countries, including France, Britain, Belgium, Canada and Australia, are expected to formally recognise a Palestinian state at the upcoming UN General Assembly later this month.

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez slammed Europe’s response to the war on Wednesday as a “failure” that has damaged its credibility. “We can’t last longer if we want to be taken seriously on crises like Ukraine,” he said. Sanchez was the first European leader to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza as a genocide.

In Scotland, First Minister John Swinney announced his government will block funding to arms companies supplying Israel. “We will pause new awards of public money to arms companies whose products are linked to countries committing genocide. That will include Israel,” he said, urging London to suspend its trade agreement with Israel.

The UAE also issued a stark warning, saying Israel’s potential annexation of the occupied West Bank would cross a “red line” and undermine the Abraham Accords. “Our position has not changed since 2020: We support a Palestinian state,” said Lana Nusseibeh, a senior UAE diplomat.

This came as Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich unveiled a plan for Israel to annex nearly all of the occupied West Bank, urging Prime Minister Netanyahu to endorse it.

Meanwhile, Utrecht University in the Netherlands announced an academic boycott of Israeli institutions over “genocidal policies” in Gaza. Rector Wilco Hazeleger said the move reflects a moral obligation. “We will not start new collaborations with Israeli parties. A boycott is in place until further notice,” he said.