Der Spiegel: India anger over ‘racist’ German magazine cartoon on population

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People crowd as they visit the India Gate in New Delhi on April 23, 2023.Getty Images

Many Indians, including a minister, have been criticising a cartoon in German magazine Der Spiegel that they say was racist and in bad taste.

The cartoon shows a dilapidated Indian train – overflowing with passengers both inside and atop coaches – overtaking a swanky Chinese train on a parallel track.

It is being seen as mocking India as the country overtakes China to become the world’s most populous nation.

Der Spiegel is a weekly news magazine.

Many Indians have tweeted, saying that that the magazine was stuck with an outdated idea of India and hadn’t recognised the progress made by the country in recent decades.

Federal minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar tweeted: “Notwithstanding your attempt at mocking India, it’s not smart to bet against India under PM @narendramodi ji. In a few years, India’s economy will be bigger than Germany’s.”

Kanchan Gupta, senior adviser in the ministry of information and broadcasting, tweeted that the cartoon was “outrageously racist”. Another Twitter user said the cartoon showed the magazine’s “elite mindset”.

The magazine has not reacted to the criticism.

While overcrowded trains can still be seen in many parts of India, significant investments have been made to improve the country’s railway network and its trains.

Cartoons published by Western media have caused outrage in the country earlier as well. The New York Times newspaper had apologised in 2014 for a cartoon on India’s Mars Mission following readers’ complaints that it mocked India.

The cartoon showed a farmer with a cow knocking at the door of a room marked Elite Space Club where two men sit reading a newspaper. It was published after India successfully put the Mangalyaan robotic probe into orbit around Mars.

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Guaifenesin: WHO issues alert over another India-made cough syrup

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Guaifenesin is used to relieve chest congestion and cough symptomsWHO

The World Health Organization has said that a batch of contaminated India-made cough syrup has been found in the Marshall Islands and Micronesia.

The WHO said that the tested samples of Guaifenesin TG syrup, made by Punjab-based QP Pharmachem Ltd, showed “unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol”.

Both compounds are toxic to humans and could be fatal if consumed.

The WHO statement did not specify if anyone had fallen ill.

The latest alert comes months after the WHO linked other cough syrups made in India to child deaths in The Gambia and Uzbekistan.

Sudhir Pathak, managing director of QP Pharmachem, told the BBC that the company had exported the batch of 18,346 bottles to Cambodia after getting all due regulatory permissions. He said he didn’t know how the product had reached the Marshall Islands and Micronesia.

“We did not send these bottles to the Pacific region, and they were not certified for use there. We don’t know under what circumstances and conditions these bottles reached the Marshall Islands and Micronesia,” he said, adding that his company has sent a legal notice to the firm that exported the batch of medicines to Cambodia.

The WHO statement said that the product, which is used to relieve chest congestion and cough symptoms, was tested by Australia’s drug regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration.

The syrup was marketed by Trillium Pharma, based in Haryana state. The BBC couldn’t reach a Trillium representative on the phone. The Indian government has not reacted to the latest alert.

The statement added that “neither the stated manufacturer nor the marketer have provided guarantees to WHO on the safety and quality of these products”.

India is the world’s largest exporter of generic drugs, meeting much of the medical needs of developing countries.

But in recent months, many Indian firms have come under scrutiny for the quality of their drugs, with experts raising concerns about the manufacturing practices used to make these medicines.

In October, WHO had sounded a global alert and linked four cough syrups made by Maiden Pharmaceuticals to the deaths of 66 children from kidney injuries in The Gambia.

Both the Indian government and the company, Maiden Pharmaceuticals, had denied the allegations.

In March, India cancelled the manufacturing licence of a firm whose cough syrups were linked to 18 child deaths in Uzbekistan. Earlier this month, the FDA said it had found that the Indian manufacturer of eye drops linked to three deaths and serious infections in the US had violated several safety norms.

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In centennial year, Turkish voters will face crucial choice

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Turkey has two historic events on the horizon. On May 14, voters will go to the polls for presidential and parliamentary elections, and in October, the country will celebrate the centennial of the Republic.

In 1923, military leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk led the foundation of the Republic of Turkey as a secular and Turkish nationalist state, unlike its forerunner, the Ottoman Empire, which had Islamic laws and was ethnically diverse.

Since taking power in 2003, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has challenged Atatürk’s legacy. Erdogan was prime minister from 2003 to 2014, after which he became president – a position that was largely symbolic in Turkey until a series of constitutional amendments in 2017 made the president the head of government.

Also read: Erdogan is bound to lose even if he wins

During his 20 years leading the country, Erdogan has tried to revive the Ottoman era in various ways, from the conversion of Hagia Sophia from a museum into a mosque again to a wildly popular historical TV series glorifying Ottomans broadcast on a state-run TV network.

As a professor of political science, I have analyzed Turkish politics for many years. The upcoming elections are truly historic because voters will choose which vision they prefer in the second centennial of Turkey – Erdogan’s or Atatürk’s.

The presidential race

Four candidates are running in the forthcoming presidential race. But public surveys suggest that it is a two-man race between President Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, founded by Atatürk.

Erdogan seeks to win the election to present himself as the founder of “a new Turkey,” where populist Islamism prevails. Kilicdaroglu, on the other hand, wants to revive Atatürk’s secular vision, with certain democratic revisions.

Erdogan and populist Islamism

In his first decade in power, Erdogan received the support of the Atatürkist establishment’s discontents. This included many Kurds, members of an ethnic minority in Turkey, who want cultural recognition and therefore resisted Turkish nationalism.

He also garnered the support of Gülenists, followers of the US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen, who supported an Islamization of Turkey, as well as liberal intellectuals who wanted to make Turkey a member of the European Union.

By 2013, these groups succeeded in weakening Atatürkists’ grip on politics and the bureaucracy. Then, old rivalries between them resurfaced and the alliance fractured.

Erdogan established a new partnership with certain Turkish nationalist groups. He went back to the Turkish state’s old policies of discriminating against Kurds. For instance, Selahattin Demirtaş, the former leader of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party, or HDP, has been held in prison for more than six years.

Erdogan also declared Gülenists, his former main allies, to be terrorists, and had more than 100,000 of them jailed. This crackdown escalated after a failed coup attempt in 2017, for which he held Gülenists exclusively responsible.

Erdogan’s oppressive rule also led to the imprisonment of many liberal intellectuals, which pleased his new nationalist partners.

This recent alliance with nationalists, however, does not suggest that Erdogan has converted to Atatürkism. On the contrary, he has wooed nationalists to his populist Islamist regime.

For the upcoming elections, Erdogan’s alliance includes his Justice and Development Party, the Nationalist Action Party, and two smaller nationalist and Islamist parties. All four of these parties agreed to withdraw Turkey from an international treaty on preventing violence against women, commonly called the Istanbul Convention. They argued that it threatened “family values.”

They also all support statism by way of Erdogan’s one-man rule over the economy. And they share anti-Western attitudes, from promoting anti-Western conspiracy theories to proposing Turkey’s exit from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The Atatürkist alternative

As the leader of the CHP, Kilicdaroglu represents the Atatürkist alternative to Erdogan’s populist Islamism.

Yet Kilicdaroglu has been an exception among the Atatürkist elite. He was born in the provincial town of Tunceli, which is mostly populated by Alevis, members of a Muslim minority that has historically been discriminated against by Turkey’s Sunni Muslim majority.

Unlike Erdogan, Kilicdaroglu has defended women’s rights. For example, he has promised to return Turkey to the Istanbul Convention if he is elected. Turkey’s only female political party leader, Meral Akşener of the nationalist Good Party, is Kilicdaroglu’s main ally.

To oversee the economy, Kilicdaroglu is reportedly eyeing two candidates – a former economy minister and a University of Pennsylvania finance professor. Both support liberal market policies, which signals a turn away from the centralized state programs of Erdogan’s tenure.

The most unknown aspect of a possible Kilicdaroglu presidency is foreign policy and whether he would strengthen ties with the West, given the widespread popularity of anti-Westernism in Turkish society.

CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu gives a statement after the November 2015 general election in Turkey. Photo: Wikipedia

Candidates’ advantages and hurdles

Both candidates have strengths and weaknesses heading into the presidential race.

Erdogan will rely on aspects of the authoritarian administration he has built over the last two decades. His system includes a widespread patronage network, near-absolute control over the media, a religious affairs agency that runs 80,000 mosques and serves his political agenda, and imposed loyalty in various state institutions.

But Erdogan faces hurdles related to his authoritarian style, too, particularly the many discontented citizens his 20-year rule has produced. More than 1.5 million Turkish people have faced terror charges in the past seven years.

The ongoing economic crisis – with an inflation rate over 80% – is another hindrance to his re-election. And his vote could take a hit from the fallout of the recent earthquake that killed more than 45,000 people in Turkey. The tragedy highlighted Erdogan’s disastrous deregulation of the construction industry and his ineffective emergency response.

Meanwhile, Kilicdaroglu is likely to benefit from a large percentage of the Turkish nationalist vote, along with the support of Akşener, and a bulk of Kurdish votes. While the pro-Kurdish HDP’s support for him is only implicit – the party chose not to field its own candidate, which would divide opposition votes – the former HDP leader Demirtaş explicitly supports his candidacy, from prison.

Kilicdaroglu’s main weakness is that he has lost many elections to Erdogan since he became the CHP’s leader in 2010. The majority of Turkish voters are conservative Muslims who tend to oppose the CHP’s assertive secularist policies.

To lessen opposition from conservatives, Kilicdaroglu has revised the authoritarian secularism of Atatürkists. He declared that the CHP will not reimpose a headscarf ban in universities and public institutions, and also asked forgiveness from female students for that previous policy.

Kilicdaroglu has also established a broad-based alliance. Under his leadership, the CHP has established a coalition with five right-wing parties, three of which are run by conservatives and Islamists.

Additionally, Kilicdaroglu has promised to appoint two popular CHP politicians who can appeal to conservative voters – Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, and Ankara’s mayor, Mansur Yavaş – as vice-presidents if he is elected.

A global impact?

The outcome of the upcoming presidential election will determine whether Turkey will continue to be ruled by a populist Islamist regime, or return to a path of secular modernization and democratization.

This has international implications.

An Erdogan win will signal that the global rise of right-wing populists is still robust enough to dominate a leading Muslim-majority country.

A victory for Kilicdaroglu, meanwhile, may be celebrated by democrats worldwide as a defeat of a populist Islamist leader, despite his control over the media and state institutions.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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China’s mediation won’t solve Israeli-Palestinian conflict

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Chinese diplomats have been busy this year. The country just announced its desire to serve as a mediator between Israel and the Palestinians on the back of a productive effort to restore ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Entering the deadlocked Israeli-Palestinian conflict represents the next step in China’s foreign policy, which until recently was denoted by large-scale infrastructure projects and cheap loans to emerging countries.

With the era of cheap money closing, Beijing is trying new ways to entrench its global influence and chip away at Washington’s dominant position in the Middle East. Just don’t expect any breakthroughs on Israel-Palestine.

China has previously dipped its toe into the conflict with various iterations of a four-point peace plan. The last effort in 2021 called for de-escalation measures, a boost in aid and the resumption of peace talks based on a two-state solution.

But America’s dominance of any process meant the Chinese efforts were not taken particularly seriously. A shift in geopolitical forces in the region means people are now listening.  

Resisting dollar dominance

China’s recent diplomatic streak is one way the country is trying to protect its status as a global superpower and chip away at American influence. As part of its long-term goal of unseating the US dollar as the global currency, China has redoubled its efforts to have major oil-producing countries like Saudi Arabia trade oil in yuan.

In South America, there have been new discussions from BRICS member states such as Brazil about moving away from the dollar as a trade currency. If any of these rumblings come to fruition, they will cause a profound headache for the United States. 

With these attempts as a background, China’s push into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an apparent assault on America’s position in the Middle East. And it doesn’t come out of thin air. Israel and China have quietly developed close military and trade relations over the past decades, much to the ire of the US.

On a 2017 trip to Beijing, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the two countries were a “marriage made in heaven.” On that visit, they signed a far-reaching trade agreement called the “Comprehensive Innovation Partnership.” 

Behind the European Union and the US, China is Israel’s third-largest trading partner. But what’s important to note is where the trade flows are focused. According to Time magazine, 492 of the 507 trade deals between the two countries from 2002 to 2022 were in the technology sector, including IT, communications, agricultural tech, and robotics. 

China has also pushed its infrastructure initiatives in Israel in the past decade. In 2021, Chinese companies were involved in expanding the Haifa port. Washington expressed serious reservations about the partnership because the US often uses Haifa to dock parts of its Sixth Fleet.

Israel rejected the request when the US demanded to inspect the port to ensure there wasn’t any Chinese surveillance technology that could snoop on the Sixth Fleet.

Mideast encroachment

The Chinese footprint in the Middle East is growing because of decades of careful planning and quiet courtship, regardless of how America feels. With Chinese purchases of Middle Eastern crude oil on the rise and the US divided on the future of its position in the region, Chinese influence will deepen and come fully into the light. 

We can see the fruits of these years of careful planning with China’s diplomatic efforts between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The question now is whether or not China will be able to break the impasse and forge a new approach to ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unfortunately, those prospects don’t look bright. Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian land and livelihoods must change in any equitable and durable peace solutions. 

Let’s consider the economic dimension. Israel’s technology sector has been built around using the occupation as a valuable technological laboratory. The Pegasus spyware software exported around the world, for example, wouldn’t exist without Israel’s occupation.

Israel’s matrix of control over Palestinian life is a perfect laboratory to test surveillance technology. Most engineers behind the Pegasus system were trained by the Israeli army and tested their craft in the occupied territories. China is a significant customer of this technology and doesn’t likely want to risk losing these innovations. 

Palestinians once again find themselves on the wrong end of a geopolitical battle for power in which they are a pawn. Israel will use its warm relationship with Beijing and its budding technology prowess to ensure that the status quo of its control over Palestinians remains unchanged.

If there were actionable support for the Palestinian cause in the Arab world, one would expect more pressure on Beijing to take Israel to task for its unending domination over Palestinian life. Still, the direction of travel is happening in the other way.

Saudi Arabia, for example, could offer to trade more oil in yuan or open up parts of Saudi Aramco to Chinese investors in exchange for concrete pressure on Israel to abide by existing international agreements and treaties regarding Palestine.

As more Arab countries establish full and robust relations with Israel, few carrots or sticks can be used to ensure that Beijing behaves as a reasonable mediator. Thus it matters little from the Palestinian standpoint if China or the US meditates on the conflict. They can expect the same results, such as Israeli entrenchment of its occupation and control over Palestinian life.

China’s push into Middle Eastern diplomacy has more to do with its status as a superpower chipping away at American prestige in the region than solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This article was provided by Syndication Bureau, which holds copyright.

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Asia Pacific emerges as frontrunner in race to harness wind power

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IMPORTANCE OF ASIA PACIFIC

The firm’s president of Asia Pacific business Per Mejnert Kristensen said he believes that the region is very important in terms of the green transition.

“Orsted has a vision to create a world that runs entirely on green energy. And if you want to do that, Asia Pacific is obviously very, very important,” he said.

“It’s an area where a lot of energy is consumed. It’s also an area where we are seeing the effects of greenhouse gas emissions.”

He added that the conditions for setting up offshore wind farms are very good, given the wind speeds. Taiwan has the potential to become one of the frontrunners in the transition into renewables, he said.

Wind is the largest and fastest-growing source of renewable power globally. It generated nearly 8 per cent of all energy last year. Combined with solar, it tallies to 12 per cent.

However, fossil fuels are still generating 80 per cent of total energy. Environmental professionals say that even with wind power generation seeing double-digit annual growth, it would not be enough.

NEED TO INCREASE WIND ENERGY

The Global Wind Energy Council said yearly wind energy installations must scale up by four times in this decade to help keep the worldwide average temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Energy think tank Ember said wind power must account for more than 20 percent of global electricity by 2030 if net-zero emissions goals are to be achieved.

Growth may be the only solution for the wind industry, and this requires bigger turbines, bigger blades and bigger farms.

China now boasts the largest offshore wind turbine at more than 250m tall. Its 128m-long blades can sweep an area equivalent to around seven standard football fields.

But while bigger is better, it presents another problem.

THE ISSUE WITH LARGE WIND FARMS

Giant wind farms are more complicated to install and maintain. They require very specialised and expensive ships, according to Singapore-based fund Seraya Partners.

Last year, the investment firm launched Cyan Renewables, a company that owns, operates, and leases vessels for offshore wind farms.

“We enable wind farms to be built across Asia. And we provide the vessels, specialised vessels, … to help build and maintain these wind farms,” said the fund’s chairman and managing partner James Chern.

However, Cyan Renewables is trying to solve a major problem – the demand for their ships far outstrip supply.

“There are only five or six major shippers in Asia, maybe one in Europe. They’re still churning out new vessels. And generally, it takes about three years to build new vessels,” said Mr Chern.

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BAT fined over US0 million for selling tobacco to North Korea via Singapore subsidiary

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“British American Tobacco and its subsidiary engaged in an elaborate scheme to circumvent US sanctions and sell tobacco products to North Korea through a corporate cutout in Singapore,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen. “This is the single largest North Korean sanctions penalty in the history of the Department ofContinue Reading

Australia helicopter collision: Woman used Sea World pilot’s name to avoid driving fine

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Wreckage from Gold Coast helicopter crashDAVE HUNT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
By Tiffanie Turnbull
BBC News, Sydney

An Australian woman has admitted trying to pin a driving fine on a pilot killed in a horrific mid-air helicopter crash.

Stephanie Louise Bennett was caught using her phone while behind the wheel, but used details in Ashley Jenkinson’s obituary to accuse him of the offence.

The UK-born pilot was among four people killed when two helicopters collided near Brisbane in January.

Ms Bennett pleaded guilty to fraud and identity theft on Wednesday. She will be sentenced in May.

Police say the 33-year-old was sent a fine notice in early January, shortly after she was caught using her phone while driving – an offence which attracts a penalty of A$1,078 (£575).

She disputed the fine online, instead nominating Mr Jenkinson – who she did not know – as the driver at the time of the offence in December.

Mr Jenkinson’s partner alerted authorities after receiving the confusing fine notice weeks after his death.

Ms Bennett had previously avoided court – instead trying to enter a guilty plea by email, which the magistrate rejected – and disguised herself with a scarf as she arrived to heckles on Wednesday.

In Ms Bennett’s email to the court, which was read aloud, she apologised “for the turmoil this has caused anyone” and said she was “immensely regretful for my actions”.

She said she had been going through “personal matters” and “financial troubles” at the time, and had tried to undo her actions the next morning.

Mr Jenkinson’s helicopter, which was taking off, collided with a helicopter coming in to land on 4 January.

He was killed, along with three passengers on board – Sydney woman Vanessa Tadros, and British couple Ron and Diane Hughes – and three others were seriously injured.

The other helicopter was heavily damaged but managed to land on a sandbar.

A report on the Sea World crash last month suggested one pilot may have not heard a vital radio call before the two aircraft came into contact.

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Singapore economy faces uncertain near-term outlook, inflation to slow in second half of 2023: MAS

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Growth is also set to be subdued in the financial sector amid a dimming external outlook, persistent inflation and restrictive financial conditions. In addition, the recent banking turmoil in the United States and Europe has fanned fears of a broader contagion in the sector, raising downside risks to growth.

MAS said that while regulators intervened decisively to limit the fallout, the outlook remains uncertain as “latent vulnerabilities” could emerge among under-capitalised banks globally in the coming quarters.

It added that the local banking system “appears to be well-insulated from the shock” at this juncture, citing diversified, large corporate-heavy and Asia-centric loan books and minimal exposure to the tech start-up ecosystem.

While Singapore banks could face losses on their bond holdings amid the sharp rise in interest rates, less than 20 per cent of their total assets are in bonds, said MAS.

This is compared to the 55 per cent for Silicon Valley Bank, the US bank which collapsed abruptly last month and marked America’s biggest banking failure since the 2008 global financial crisis.

With the bulk of their assets in floating rate loans, the Singapore banks have also been able to pass on the higher funding costs to their customers, the central bank said.

MAS also reiterated that the takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS is not expected to impact the stability of Singapore’s banking system.

That said, the high interest-rate environment will continue to exert “a broad-based drag on the financial sector” in the coming quarters, according to the report.

For example, credit demand is likely to weaken, while the stock of loans could also shrink further as corporates look to reduce interest expenses by repaying early.

Elsewhere in the economy, the pace of expansion in the domestic-oriented sectors will likely moderate as higher consumer prices and interest rates restrain spending.

“The near-term outlook remains uncertain and fragile, with risks to growth skewed to the downside,” said MAS, as it maintained its full-year forecast for growth in 2023 at between 0.5 to 2.5 per cent.

“Should other latent vulnerabilities in the global financial system manifest in the coming months, consumer and investor confidence will take a further hit, with wider adverse implications for the economy beyond the current manufacturing-led downturn.”

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MAS says increase in home rents may moderate in coming quarters as housing supply ramps up

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SINGAPORE: Home rental pressures may ease in the coming months because of a “significant” supply of new housing units, said the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on Wednesday (Apr 26).

Almost 40,000 residential units will be completed across the public and private housing markets this year, which is the highest number of annual completions since 2018.

This pace of completion will continue over the next two years, with nearly 100,000 public and private residential units coming on-stream over 2023 to 2025, the central bank added in its latest half-yearly macroeconomic review.

At the same time, rental demand will also be tempered by people vacating their rental units once their new homes are completed. 

Anecdotally, real estate agencies have seen a decline in viewings for rental units and leasing enquiries since the start of 2023, said MAS.

The global economic uncertainties and slower growth may also further weigh on sentiments in the rental markets.

MAS said rents for Housing Development Board (HDB) and private residential housing units have risen sharply by 38 per cent and 43 per cent, respectively, since 2021.

WHY RENTS WENT UP

This broad-based increase in home rents was largely due to an “exceptional demand-supply imbalance” brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pandemic-induced disruptions, ranging from manpower to construction materials, had led to severe delays in the completion of private and public residential projects.

An average of about 20,000 private and public residential units were completed each year between 2020 and 2022, about 22 per cent lower than the yearly average of 26,000 units from 2018 to 2019.

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