Category World News

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump will meet “in the coming days,” according to a senior Kremlin aide in the foreign policy department. A summit involving the president of Ukraine was on the table, according to the White House, but it has not been confirmed.

Authorities in the troubled Muslim-majority region of India have since banned 25 books from booksellers in the region, saying that works like those by Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy propagate “false narratives” and “secessionism.”

Police said they conducted additional searches of roadside book vendors and other businesses in the main city of Srinagar and other locations in the area to seize the prohibited literature in accordance with the order. Officials didn’t, however, specify whether they had seized any of the above.

In a social media statement, police said that the operation targeted materials that promoted secessionist ideologies or glorified terrorism. To advance peace and integrity, “public cooperation is sought.”

The government launched the raids after the authors were accused of spreading “false narratives” about Kashmir, “while also playing a crucial role in misdirecting the youth” against the Indian state.

Following a similar directive in February, authorities on Thursday also seize Islamic literature from bookshops and homes.

Since 1947, when India and Pakistan have dissolved their country, Kashmir has been divided. Both parties fully claim the Himalayan region.

Since 1989, rebel groups have fought for Kashmir’s independence or its fusion with Pakistan.

Indian authorities have increasingly criminalized dissent and shown no tolerance for any claims that raise questions of Kashmir’s sovereignty.

The Home Department of the region issued the order banning the books on Tuesday, marking the six-year anniversary of New Delhi’s introduction of direct rule, but it took some time to get the ban across.

The ban places sanctions on people who, among other things, sell or own works by constitutional expert AG Noorani and renowned academics and historians like Sumantra Bose, Christopher Snedden, and Victoria Schofield.

The 25 books were effectively prohibited from circulation, possession, and access within the Himalayan region because of the order’s new criminal code of 2023, which declares the 25 books “forfeit.”

According to the Press Trust of India news agency, Bose, a political scientist and author whose book Kashmir at the Crossroads was one of the banned works, “any and all defamatory slurs” were being rejected on his work.

Since 1993, I have worked on Kashmir, among other subjects, including many. My top priority has always been to find peaceful ways for the people of the conflict region, India as a whole, and the subcontinent to enjoy a stable future free of fear and war.

He declared, “I am a committed and principled advocate of peaceful solutions and armed conflict resolutions, whether in Kashmir or elsewhere in the world.”

The ban also included Roy’s 2020 book of essays Azadi: Freedom, Fascism, Fiction.

Although Roy, 63, is one of India’s most well-known living authors, is notorious for her writing and activism, including her incisive criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration.

Siddiq Wahid, a historian, claimed that the edict, which “allows the freedoms of speech and expression,” is in violation of the constitution.

Many of the books listed on the list of prohibited books are those that are written and published by individuals and organizations whose reputations depend on the availability of proof, logic, and arguments for the conclusions they draw, Wahid told the AFP news agency. Does anything still be taken into account for that?

In its first election since New Delhi’s direct control of the region’s assembly, voters in India-administered Kashmir elected a new government in September and October.

However, the territory is still governed by a New Delhi-appointed administrator despite having a limited amount of authority within the local government.

The ban, according to chief cleric and separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, “only exposes the insecurities and limited understanding of those behind such authoritarian actions.”

On the social media platform X, Farooq stated that “bannning books by scholars and reputed historians will not erase historical facts and the collection of lived memories of Kashmiris.”

Historical facts and the collection of Kashmiri people’s lived memories will not be erased by the ban on books written by scholars and reputed historians. It only exposes the contradiction in proudly…

Three people in Southeast Asia who are aware of the situation said that it is anticipated that tougher US trade sanctions on goods that come from one country and are re-shipped from another will not immediately follow new US tariffs, which eases a major source of concern.

Southeast Asian nations, including Vietnam and Thailand, have been specifically targeted by White House officials because of their alleged involvement in facilitating the so-called transshipment of Chinese goods into the US, which would incur higher tariffs if they were shipped directly from China.

From Thursday through to the end of an executive order, US President Donald Trump’s administration will impose tariffs on goods from dozens of nations, causing additional duties of 40% on products deemed to have been illegally rerouted to conceal their country of origin. However, it did not provide a definition for transshipment.

About 19% of the largest economies in Southeast Asia’s are now subject to tariffs, many of which have significantly decreased from the previously threatened rates, on imports from the US.

Even if the components are entirely imported from another country, such as China, according to current US customs guidance, goods from those nations that have not signed free trade agreements with Washington can be labelled as being made there.

Some officials in Southeast Asia have informed exporters that the current regulations still apply because there are no updated US guidelines on origin or definitions of what transshipment means.

That effectively limits transshipment&nbsp cases to illegal activities, such as the use of forged export certificates or documents obtained defrauded.

Because there aren’t any regulations in place for transshipment yet, the Thai Ministry of Commerce’s Department of Foreign Trade, Arada Fuangtong, told Reuters on Thursday. “All exported goods] from Thailand are currently subject to a 19 percent rate.”

According to a person with knowledge of the conversation, US officials in Vietnam also stated that businessmen would be subject to a 20% tariff on Vietnamese goods even if they were entirely made with Chinese components and only assembled there.

Before the new wave of US tariffs, trade consultants advised clients to export at least 40% of local content to the US, despite the fact that the rules are vague. One of them said that meant to be on the safe side.

A request for comment was not immediately addressed by the US embassy in Vietnam. A request for comment outside of US working hours was not immediately addressed by the US Trade Representative.

A consultant from Vietnam said that “goods that are defined by US customs as transshipped are subject to 40 percent duties, but that is only applicable to old definitions” .

In order to speak more freely, both people declined to be named.

China’s dependence

Repackaging typically doesn’t lead to a “substantial transformation,” but assembly may, depending on how complex the operations are.

If other nations can follow this lenient interpretation of transshipment, it’s not clear if it will.

The economic ministries of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Singapore did not respond to requests for comment on the situation right away.

Southeast Asian manufacturers, which rely heavily on Chinese components, have been unsure of what transshipment would mean in Washington for months.

Even when goods are legitimately transformed in Southeast Asian countries, there are still questions about whether that would include goods with a sizable, but undefined, share of components or raw materials.

Multiple investment consultants warned that a strict definition of transshipment and &nbsp might come later.

According to an executive order signed by Trump last week, the US will “publish a list of nations and specific facilities used in circumvention schemes every six months.”

That will “inform commercial due diligence, national security reviews, and public procurement,” it said.

Dezan Shira and Associates, an investment consultancy, said Marco Forster, director for Southeast Asia, “the message from Washington is deterrence.”