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Tom Steyer ends presidential campaign after Biden wins South Carolina primary
02/29/20 6:20 PM
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Biden wins South Carolina Democratic primary, Fox News projects, in crucial boost to campaign after early losses
02/29/20 4:01 PM
Biden wins South Carolina Democratic primary, Fox News projects, in crucial boost to campaign after early losses
02/29/20 4:01 PM
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President Trump speaks at CPAC on closing day of conference
02/29/20 12:32 PM
President Trump speaks at CPAC on closing day of conference
02/29/20 12:32 PM
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President Trump to deliver update on coronavirus measures
02/29/20 10:34 AM
President Trump to deliver update on coronavirus measures
02/29/20 10:34 AM
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Washington state health officials say 1 person has died from coronavirus
02/29/20 10:10 AM
Washington state health officials say 1 person has died from coronavirus
02/29/20 10:10 AM
New world news from Time: What Happens Next with the Violence Tearing Apart India
It takes a lot to overshadow a foreign visit by a sitting U.S. president. India managed the feat this week, as Delhi was plunged into violent chaos as protests over India’s controversial new citizenship law reached disturbing new levels.
Why It Matters:
Because it’s India, home to roughly 18 percent of the world’s population. But more than that, India was supposed to be a symbol—for emerging markets making the transition to advanced industrial status, and as a pluralistic society in which hundreds of millions of people belonging to different faiths could coexist peacefully. Both those storylines are falling to the wayside.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi—vegetarian, yogi, hugger—first came to national power in 2014 as an economic reformer who promised to shake up India’s sclerotic bureaucracy. Though he had made a name for himself as the chief minister of Gujarat (one who often turned a blind eye to violence against Muslims), by the time Modi was approaching the premiership, he had refashioned his image to present himself as a competent, pro-business technocrat. That was a compelling message for millions of Indians who hadn’t seen many of those before in national politics, and he convincingly won election. Modi quickly set about enacting both economic and social reforms.
Not all those reforms were successful, but they were ambitious. Eventually though the reforms India’s government championed started yielding less and less political returns for Modi. As Modi geared up for his reelection campaign with a slowing economy, he began to stoke the flames of Hindu nationalism, which made sense from a political numbers perspective given that 80 percent of the country is Hindu (though the country is also home to 170 million Muslims). And while that Hindu nationalism (and the accompanying anti-Muslim sentiment it entails) helped him secure reelection, he hasn’t let up—in December, his government introduced and passed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which fast-tracks citizenship for persecuted religious minorities from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh as long as they met certain criteria, chief among them that they are not Muslims. The act is widely seen as anti-Muslim despite the government’s protestations to the contrary.
Unsurprisingly, the citizenship announcement—along with plans to build detention centers to house (primarily Muslim) people that don’t have the proper documentation to prove their legal-status in the country—have inflamed passions in the country’s Muslim community, who have been protesting on and off for the last few months. Matters reached a fever pitch this week in Delhi when Kapil Mishra, a member of Modi’s BJP party addressed a rally against a group of protestors (mainly women and Muslim) over their closure of a road in protest of the citizenship law. Mishra issued an ultimatum to the police, saying they either remove the demonstrators, or his supporters will. They made good on that threat. As of last count, more than 300 people had been hurt and more than 40 killed, the worst violence Delhi has seen since the 1984 riots that targeted Sikhs following the assassination of prime minister Indira Gandhi.
What Happens Next:
Not that you would know much about the religious strife gripping India based off U.S. Donald Trump’s comments during the trip. Given the opportunity to comment, Trump not only passed at the offer but actually commended Modi on the religious freedom being enjoyed throughout India.
Trump’s decision not to engage on the religious violence may well have been the highlight of the trip for Modi, who has been furiously trying to rehabilitate his international standing; had Trump commented, Modi would have been forced to talk about the issue as well, a fact that he has so far avoided doing (he eventually tweeted out a simple call for “peace and brotherhood” a couple of days later). Trump’s silence on the issue allowed for a quick and successful foreign visit, even as the long-shot goal of the trip—a trade deal between the U.S. and India—failed to materialize. A new deal to sell military arms to India did get inked.
The reality is that Modi is now attempting to lead two separate India’s—one for the world to see, where foreign leaders visit and he visits foreign leaders, and the second India which is just bubbling beneath the surface. Increasingly though, the two are bleeding into one another—this is the second time a planned trip by a foreign leader was punctuated by public violence since the new citizenship law was announced (Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was forced to skip his December trip to India due to violence in Assam).
The violence is only likely to only get worse from here—to date, the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protestors have been peaceful when protesting, but the events of this week may change their calculus. Modi, meanwhile, no longer has to play host to a foreign dignitary, giving him and his BJP party more room to crack down. What’s more, Modi’s demonstrated comfort pivoting from economic reformer to Hindu nationalist has already begun unnerving foreign investors; the violence of this week will unnerve them even more, hitting India’s economy and likely forcing Modi to rely even more on Hindu nationalism as a political crutch going forward. And that’s before coronavirus…
The Key Number That Explains It:
N/A—usually, polling of a leader’s favorability gives good insight into their thought process. Unfortunately, India doesn’t really do polling given the complexity and scale required for good numbers.
That is both good and bad for Modi: good because he doesn’t have to worry about public opinion in real-time, bad because he can afford to ignore public opinion until it is too late for him to do anything to fix it.
The One Thing to Read About It:
If you haven’t read the excellent Dexter Filkins New Yorker profile about Modi’s precedent-busting rise, you really should.
You can’t understand India today without understanding the man who leads it, and will continue to do so for what’s shaping up to be a consequential next few years.
The One Major Misconception:
That the hard part for Modi is now over since Trump left the country. Maybe more than other world leader (Israel’s Bibi Netanyahu has an election next week, so he doesn’t count), Modi has genuine affection and thrown in his lot with Donald Trump, and he has been rewarded with a U.S. president who has kept silent on Modi’s most controversial policies. If Trump fails to win reelection, there will be plenty of world leaders that will be over the moon—Modi won’t be one of them. And if Modi thinks he has problems on his hands now, imagine how he’ll feel if he also has to face a U.S. president focused on holding Modi to account when it comes to human and religious rights. Even if Trump does win again, progressive members of Congress will look to take punitive measures against India for its human rights violations.
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US signs peace deal with Taliban
02/29/20 5:14 AM
US signs peace deal with Taliban
02/29/20 5:14 AM
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CDC: 2nd coronavirus case due to 'community spread' confirmed in California
02/28/20 4:57 PM
CDC: 2nd coronavirus case due to 'community spread' confirmed in California
02/28/20 4:57 PM
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President Trump holds a rally in North Charleston, S.C., 24 hours before the polls close in the state's Democratic primary. Watc
02/28/20 4:09 PM
President Trump holds a rally in North Charleston, S.C., 24 hours before the polls close in the state's Democratic primary. Watc
02/28/20 4:09 PM
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Trump announces he will nominate Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, to become new Director of National Intelligence
02/28/20 2:37 PM
Trump announces he will nominate Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, to become new Director of National Intelligence
02/28/20 2:37 PM
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Dow closes down 356 points after late Friday rally, sliding over 3,500 points in worst week since financial crisis
02/28/20 1:07 PM
Dow closes down 356 points after late Friday rally, sliding over 3,500 points in worst week since financial crisis
02/28/20 1:07 PM
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Appeals court temporarily blocks ‘Remain-in-Mexico’ policy
02/28/20 10:44 AM
Appeals court temporarily blocks ‘Remain-in-Mexico’ policy
02/28/20 10:44 AM
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Biden walks back claim he got arrested in South Africa 30 years ago while trying to see Nelson Mandela
02/28/20 7:45 AM
Biden walks back claim he got arrested in South Africa 30 years ago while trying to see Nelson Mandela
02/28/20 7:45 AM
New world news from Time: A Silent Epidemic? Experts Fear the Coronavirus Is Spreading Undetected in Southeast Asia
As coronavirus cases continue to soar globally, in at least one region a steady façade of optimism persists. Southeast Asia’s foreign ministers have joined hands with China and declared their intention to “stay strong!”
Yet their hastily called meeting in secretive, socialist Laos last week suggests not so much resiliency as the need to shore up mutual support. Health experts are widely skeptical of the numbers reported by China’s neighbors, and believe the deadly infection is spreading undetected throughout much of Southeast Asia.
With infection clusters increasingly sprouting outside the mainland, where the virus originated, many fear these pockets—rooted out or not—are sustaining the outbreak and pushing the world toward a global pandemic.
The disease, officially COVID-19, has sickened over 83,000 and killed more than 2,850, primarily in China. But cases have spread to more than four dozen countries, and been identified as far away as Brazil and Finland.
Strangely absent from the list are Myanmar and Laos, which border China, as well as Brunei, East Timor, and Indonesia—of which the latter had daily, direct flights to the virus epicenter, Wuhan. Every other country in the region, all beneficiaries of Chinese aid, investment and tourism, has reported cases.
“The transmission dynamics of this virus are like the flu. It’s very, very difficult to stop,” says Richard Coker, a Bangkok-based professor emeritus of public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
At the beginning of the outbreak, several of these governments downplayed the severity of the threat, publicly voicing their wariness of offending the superpower upon whom their economies rely. In lieu of public health precautions or stringent defenses, they offered folk remedies—suggesting everything from consuming onions or alcohol to working less to ward off coronavirus.
“Surely the desire not to alienate China was a factor,” says Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Overall, the region is just so heavily tied to China now.”
In Cambodia, which has increasingly gravitated into China’s orbit, Prime Minister Hun Sen insists he won’t cut air travel, beyond suspending the six weekly flights from Wuhan. He also refuses to evacuate citizens stranded in Wuhan, as other countries have done. While Beijing chided the U.S. for banning Chinese travelers, saying it “set a bad example,” Hun Sen earned plaudits when he flew to China earlier this month.
“A friend in need is a friend indeed,” he wrote on his official Facebook page.
But Hun Sen’s vehement denial of the disease’s risks has stoked fears that Cambodia, a tourism hotspot with limited health resources, will become yet another vector of transmission.
“The cost of his decision is the health of his people,” says Sophal Ear, an expert on Cambodian politics at Occidental College in California. “Cambodia has become the weakest link: a country with poor health care, poor disease surveillance, and a long rap sheet of non-reporting.”
READ MORE: The Coronavirus Outbreak Could Derail Xi Jinping’s Dreams of a Chinese Century
Earlier this month, a study by five researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health concluded that it is statistically implausible that Cambodia and Thailand do not have more cases, and virtually impossible that Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country, has not reported a single one. Based on its direct flights from Wuhan, the archipelago should have at least five patients by now, the study found.
It’s not that these countries are getting lucky, says Marc Lipsitch, director of Harvard’s Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, and one of the study’s authors. “They’re missing infections.”
About 2 million Chinese tourists visit Indonesia annually, mostly holidaying in Bali. According to China’s consulate there, 5,000 Chinese tourists, 200 from Wuhan, were visiting the resort island when news of the outbreak suspended flights on Feb. 5. Most were not quarantined or tested.
“There are definitely cases. We just haven’t found them yet,” says Dr. Shela Putri Sundawa, an Indonesian physician who hosts health podcast “Relatif Perspective.”
“I think the surveillance we’re doing now is too loose.”
Doctors in Indonesia are not testing all respiratory infections for coronavirus, relying instead on weeding out suspected patients by their links to known cases or their travel history, she says.
But cases have already turned up in several countries among those who have not been to China. Missing one potential carrier can lead to further infections that can’t be linked to travel, meaning more and more patients who might never be screened.
“You can’t find things you don’t look for,” says Lipsitch, the Harvard epidemiologist. “We estimated that even high surveillance countries were missing about half their imported cases.”
He predicts that a global coronavirus pandemic is “likely” and that 40 to 70 percent of the world’s population could be infected (though they won’t all become sick).
‘So what can we investigate?’
In Indonesia, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, security minister Mohammad Mahfud MD has told reporters “the coronavirus does not exist” in the country.
Indonesia’s health officials insist their protocols follow the World Health Organization’s guidelines with a system focusing on temperature checks at arrival gates and self-reporting. Most of Southeast Asia follows this approach, even as several studies indicate border screenings are not effective.
“I think airport scanning is more of a political measure than a practical measure. It might calm people down and demonstrate that the government is doing something, but as for public health, it’s not very useful,” says Coker, the emeritus public health professor.
These screenings must catch people in a very narrow window, between when they are well enough to travel, but sick enough to detect. Temperature scanners, fickle at the best of times, will also not find anyone whose fever may have subsided after a Tylenol on the plane. And just because someone doesn’t present clinical symptoms, doesn’t mean they aren’t sick. Asymptomatic patients still in the incubation phase have shed this coronavirus, according to doctors.
Two tourists who traveled through Indonesia before later testing positive have prompted alarm. A Chinese visitor who traveled to Bali from Wuhan was reportedly confirmed to have the virus on Feb. 4, after he left, while a man from Tokyo was hospitalized with the infection soon after returning to Japan on Feb. 19.
Indonesia’s health directorate general secretary, Achmad Yurianto, told local media he did not know the Japanese man’s name or where he visited. “So what can we investigate?”
The government also said that none of the 243 people who were evacuated from Wuhan on Feb. 2 showed signs of the virus while quarantined at a military hospital on an island northwest of Borneo.
But Dr. Putri Sundawa noted that the standard quarantine lasts 14 days, while the disease incubation period can stretch potentially as long as 24 days.
“If there were no complaints of pneumonia, they would not be checked,” she says.
READ MORE: ‘It Will Be Catastrophic.’ Asia’s Tourism-Dependent Economies Are Being Hit Hard by the Coronavirus
Relying on self-reporting once cases are introduced to the country creates further problems if patients and medical workers don’t know what to look for. An Indonesian woman with viral pneumonia was reportedly discharged because she had not been to China, while a nurse who cared for her had “no idea” the case could have been a coronavirus suspect.
It’s also hard to test for coronavirus without the right lab kits, which Indonesia lacked until February 5. The country’s health minister, a former military doctor who previously stoked controversy for urging a “brainwashing” treatment on stroke victims, determined that prayer had kept the virus away. His message to the public: “don’t be anxious.”
Myanmar, like Indonesia, has not reported a single case of coronavirus as of Friday. The restive country shares a 1,400-mile, porous border with China over which goods and people continue to flow.
Until donated testing kits arrived on Feb. 20, no domestic hospitals were able to confirm coronavirus cases. Previously, samples had to be shipped to Thailand or Hong Kong with results taking up to one week.
In a country with limited political freedoms and a kneejerk reaction to negative press, the government has kept a tight lid on coronavirus. Even government spokespeople said they did not have permission to comment on what preparations were being taken for an outbreak. Rather than empower the spread of information, the Health Ministry has reportedly proposed amending legislation to punish any healthcare workers who talk to the press or public about the virus with up to six months in jail or a $70 fine.
‘Extreme risk’
“Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director general, said earlier this month.
With the exception of small and affluent Singapore, which experts have praised for its response to coronavirus, Southeast Asian governments spend little on health per capita by international standards. Even Indonesia, with a population of nearly 270 million spread over thousands of islands, faces discrepancies in health resources and suffers an overall shortage of facilities and personnel.
While admitting they may struggle amid an outbreak, Indonesian health officials insist they will contain the virus before it becomes one. But many health experts say it’s too late, as coronavirus will ultimately evade containment.
Coker, in Bangkok, says all countries should be preparing for a pandemic and implementing mitigation measures, like closing schools, preparing hospitals and redistributing medical staff as needed. Southeast Asian countries, he says, should assume they have cases.
The U.K.’s National Health Services has already seemingly made the leap. Anyone returning from Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos with symptoms, however mild, is advised to call the NHS hotline. Global risk analysis firm Verisk Maplecroft warns of “extreme risk” in Indonesia and Cambodia based on those countries’ ability to respond to a pandemic.
Yet even amid concerns about regional preparedness and possible equipment shortages, several Southeast Asian nations have been rushing to donate goggles, face masks and respirators to China. Laos, with a GDP comparable to Mali’s and Afghanistan’s, mustered $400,000 and $100,000-worth of supplies for the world’s second-largest economy after a national fundraising campaign.
Such political genuflection may have broad consequences. How nations across the world cope with coronavirus, and what they choose to prioritize, could resonate globally. And because of cross-border travel, migration and international tourism, Southeast Asia is highly interconnected with the rest of the world.
As countries everywhere grapple with or brace for coronavirus, the possibility of undetected cases spreading throughout the region underscores how the virus can no longer be assumed to stay confined to a handful of outbreak clusters.
“The significance of not recognizing the true breadth of the outbreak is that it continues to suggest to some that the travel bans and quarantines are effective tools in limiting global spread,” says virologist Christopher Mores at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health.
“The sooner this outbreak is appreciated for the pandemic it has become, the better for a coordinated global response.”
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Watch live: Klobuchar, at Fox News town hall, seeks to jolt struggling candidacy ahead of key primaries
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Watch live: President Trump addresses coronavirus in primetime news conference
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'Critical' shooting incident at Molson Coors' Milwaukee facility; at least 7 killed: report
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Trump administration launches new unit to strip US citizenship from foreign-born terrorists, criminals
02/26/20 9:31 AM
Trump administration launches new unit to strip US citizenship from foreign-born terrorists, criminals
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Winners and losers: Mary Anne Marsh breaks down last night's Democratic debate
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New best story on Hacker News: Smithsonian Releases 2.8M Images into Public Domain
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Coronavirus infects US soldier for first time, military says
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Bob Iger out as Disney CEO, to remain executive chairman; Bob Chapek named new CEO
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Dow sinks nearly 900 points following CDC coronavirus warning
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New world news from Time: Syrian Refugees Fleeing Assad’s Onslaught in Idlib Have Nowhere Left to Hide
Syrian-British humanitarian worker Mohannad Othman faces a stark choice. It occupies his mind as he drives his two children to Arabic language classes in the Turkish border city of Gaziantep, where he has lived for six years. About 100 miles south of here, in an enclave of Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province—the fate of 90 children and infants, including 20 babies in neonatal incubators—hangs in the balance.
They are patients in a pediatric hospital, funded by the World Health Organization but managed by the Turkey-based Al-Shams Humanitarian Foundation. As its CEO, Othman contends daily with the question of whether to shutter Sarmada Hospital, about 20-miles north of Idlib City. The facility currently covers about 40% of Idlib’s needs, but is threatened by an escalating offensive by the Syrian regime and its allies.
Last week, Syrian government forces backed by Russian airpower struck two hospitals to Sarmada’s east, taking them out of service. The safety of the children and incubated babies in the hospital, already forced to share beds due to the attacks on other medical facilities, cannot be guaranteed. “My staff is asking me, should we evacuate or should we stay? We don’t know,” Othman says over coffee at a hotel in Gaziantep. Even if the hospital could obtain ambulances equipped to meet the babies’ 24-hour monitoring needs, no safe destination can be assured. Othman says he brought the problem to contacts within the U.N. but wasn’t given a clear directive on how to proceed.
Othman’s dilemma is a variant of one now afflicting millions of Syrians. In December, Syrian President Bashar al Assad ramped up an offensive aimed at recapturing northwest Syria’s Idlib province, the last rebel holdout standing between the regime and Assad’s total victory.
The military operation has prompted the largest single wave of displacement since the civil war erupted in Syria nine years ago, forcing more than 900,000 people, including over half a million children, to flee their homes. With nighttime temperatures dipping as low as 19°F (-7°C), families have burned garbage to keep warm and children have frozen to death. But returning risks putting them back in the firing line.
Syria is on the cusp of the “biggest humanitarian horror story of the 21st century” the U.N.’s emergency relief coordinator Mark Lowcock said on Feb. 17. With humanitarian camps at full capacity, up to a third of Idlib’s population is estimated to have fled to tents and makeshift shelters close to northwest Syria’s border with Turkey, which already accommodates about 3.6 million Syrian refugees, the majority in urban centers in Turkey’s south.
The largest of those is the sprawling industrial city of Gaziantep, whose population has ballooned by about 30% since the start of the war. As U.N. Deputy Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis Mark Cutts warned on Feb 21 of an approaching “bloodbath, a real massacre of civilians,” just south of Turkey’s border, aid workers in Gaziantep are scrambling to tackle the rapidly worsening crisis.
A decade ago, Idlib would have seemed an unlikely stage for the Syrian revolution’s last stand. A rural province known for its olive groves and wheat fields, some of Idlib’s towns and villages were among the first to protest the Assad regime in 2011. But uprisings across the country soon forced the dictator to divert his security forces to major urban centers, leaving Idlib a comparative bastion of freedom.
After Russian airpower turned the bloody war in Assad’s favor in 2015, and as rebel cities fell one by one to the regime, Idlib took on another function. Under a reconciliation mechanism guaranteed by Russia, surrendered fighters and their families were given the choice of either assimilating or bussing to the province. Fearful of violent recriminations or being forced to fight for the regime they had opposed, many rebels opted to leave. As Assad consolidated his hold on Syria, arrivals from conflict zones like eastern Ghouta and Aleppo swelled Idlib’s population from 1 million to an estimated 3 million before the most recent offensive.
Assad’s December escalation forced many of them to uproot again. “Some families have fled up to 14 times, moving from village to village,” Nada Farra, who sits on the steering committee of the Syrian Women Humanitarian Network, tells TIME at the Gaziantep offices of Jana Watan, a multi-platform aid agency that like other members of the network has devoted all of its efforts to emergency relief in recent weeks.
With three out of four of Idlib province’s schools now occupied by the displaced, Farra says, those fleeing violence have holed up in half-completed buildings. In many instances, multiple families share a single tent, while others sleep under trees with the prospect of a tent “a dream,” she says. The loss of privacy presents “a huge problem for women and girls in Syria,” whose safety and dignity are compromised, Farra says. According to the U.N., the situation has contributed to a number of reported rape cases.
A 2018 ceasefire agreed between Russia and Turkey, which supports rebel groups in Idlib, was meant to bring a semblance of stability. Under the agreement, the province was designated a “de-escalation zone.” But that was soon complicated by Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which staged a de-facto takeover of Idlib’s security in early 2019.
The dominance of HTS—a successor to the jihadist group and onetime Al Qaeda ally the Al Nusra Front—presented Assad with a pretext to escalate military operations, while checking the efforts of international aid agencies afraid of being perceived to be financing terrorists. Despite several rounds of Russian-Turkey talks, that ceasefire has collapsed completely.
A January U.N. Security Council report estimated that HTS had a fighting force of between 12,000 and 15,000. While other jihadist groups are also present, their numbers remain a fraction of Idlib’s civilian population. “We understand the risk posed by HTS, but at the same time, civilians should not be punished,” says Al-Shams’ CEO Othman. “Displacing 900,000 people is not “‘collateral damage.’”
Although President Trump said in a Feb. 15 phone call with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Russia should halt its support for regime “atrocities”, the White House has been near silent on the bloodbath in Idlib, where human rights groups have documented the death of nearly 2,000 civilians in the past year.
“The Trump Administration has publicly assured the Russians and the Assad regime that they will not have to deal with U.S. military strikes aimed at protecting civilians from mass homicide and state terror,” Frederic Hof, who advised President Barack Obama on Syria told TIME recently. “For people like Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad, this is a bright green light to do as they wish.”
In effect, that leaves Turkey the sole bulwark against the Syrian government advance. Since Feb. 1, Ankara has poured 1,240 Turkish military vehicles and around 5,000 soldiers over the border, according to the U.K. based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and Erdogan has threatened to drive Syrian troops from Idlib unless they withdraw by the end of the month. On Feb. 24, Turkey-backed forces retook one strategic northwest Syrian town in a battle with regime allied fighters.
But Turkey is unwilling to open its borders to a fresh influx of refugees from Idlib. In a Feb. 19 call with journalists, mother of two Joumane Mohamed, who was displaced from her home in southern Idlib, told TIME the situation at the border had become so desperate many were considering attempting to breach the barrier, with a view to eventually crossing into Europe. “That’s our last solution. That’s our last lifeboat,” said Mohamed, who gave a pseudonym for fear of her safety.
The pattern of Russian airpower indiscriminately targeting civilians before regime ground forces advance is well documented. But attacks on schools, hospitals, and markets have stepped up markedly in recent weeks. Ten hospitals and 19 schools have either been directly hit or affected by airstrikes since the beginning of the year, according to the U.N. Facilities targeted include those under the U.N.’s so-called “deconfliction mechanism,” a system that provides warring parties the coordinates of humanitarian facilities like hospitals that international law exempts from attack.
In Syria, aid groups say that the mechanism has failed. “There is no area that is safe, whether it’s deconflicted, a civilian area, humanitarian project, or funded by the U.N.,” says Yakzan Shishakly, co-founder of the Maram Foundation, a humanitarian organization operating in northwest Syria. On Feb. 8., regime airstrikes hit an already evacuated Maram Foundation reception center that was under the deconfliction mechanism.
Days later, pro-government Syrian television broadcast footage of the U.N.-funded facility, claiming it had harbored terrorists. Says Shishakly, “It’s scary for humanitarian workers. If the regime considers those people a terrorist group, we’re in danger.”
Like Al-Shams Humanitarian Foundation’s Othman, Shishakly and his colleagues are now working on an evacuation plan for a displaced people’s camp Maram manages about 10 miles north of Idlib city. But as the “killing machine” approaches, it is not clear where the camp’s 4,000 residents—or those in makeshift settlements nearby that use its facilities—can be relocated.
But with nowhere in Syria safe and with Turkey refusing to allow refugees across the border, it’s not clear where they can go if government forces advance. For now, the plan is to evacuate people, tents and other mobile infrastructure to two nearby villages. “We have our point A but we don’t have a Z,” Shishakly says.
It’s a situation he says is replicated across Idlib, where roads are snarled with human traffic as areas of free movement shrink, and journeys that before could be completed in minutes now take hours. “If you stop anyone on the road and ask where they are going: they don’t know.”
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President Trump, departing India, accuses Supreme Court's Sotomayor of trying to 'shame' justices into ruling against his admini
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President Trump, departing India, accuses Supreme Court's Sotomayor of trying to 'shame' justices into ruling against his admini
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Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s former autocratic president, dead at 91, state TV reports
02/25/20 3:33 AM
Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s former autocratic president, dead at 91, state TV reports
02/25/20 3:33 AM
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New world news from Time: President Trump Can Expect a Warm Welcome on His India Trip. Other U.S. Leaders Saw Chillier Relations
When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the U.S. last year, he was greeted by a massive crowd at a Texas rally, billed as one of the biggest-ever receptions for a foreign leader. India is now preparing to return the favor ahead of President Donald Trump’s first official visit to the country on Feb. 24 and 25.
About 100,000 people are expected to attend the “Namaste Trump” event planned in the Indian city of Ahmedabad in Modi’s home state of Gujarat. Modi and Trump will also lead a parade through the city on Trump’s two-day trip, which is expected to focus on trade relations between the two countries and their shared concern about China’s growing influence in the region.
This won’t be the first time massive crowds have turned out in India to receive a visiting U.S. leader. President Bill Clinton also received a large, cheering reception during his trip to India in 2000. But not every U.S. president has been received so warmly, and the history of official visits tracks the ups and downs in the relationship between the world’s two largest democracies over the last 70 years.
Trump’s state visit also comes at a difficult time for Modi. Anti-government protests against a controversial citizenship law have engulfed the country since December. India’s move to revoke Kashmir’s autonomy in August also drew sharp criticism from many in the international community, including members of the U.S. Congress. But experts believe Trump is not likely to raise these issues during his trip, much to the Indian government’s relief.
“There is a lot of pressure on India over its socially divisive policy moves,” Richard M. Rossow, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, tells TIME. “A presidential visit is a sign that the U.S. will continue developing the relationship despite these issues.”
Ahead of Trump’s trip to the South Asian nation, here is a look at previous U.S. presidential visits to India.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1959
The first state visit by a U.S. president to independent India came in the throes of the Cold War, in which India decided to remain neutral. India’s presence at the head of the Non-Aligned Movement, which committed the country not to take sides between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, had kept the two countries estranged until then.
During his trip, Eisenhower addressed both houses of the Indian Parliament and visited the Taj Mahal with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. The trip marked a significant shift in the perspective of many in Washington, who had thought of India as being close to the communist Soviet Union.
Richard Nixon, 1969
Nixon’s one-day trip to India was primarily aimed at de-escalating tensions with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The two leaders had a frosty relationship because of India’s decision not to take sides in the Cold War and and the U.S. decision in the early 1960s to deepen its partnership with India’s archrival, Pakistan.
Two years later, the relationship soured further when Nixon supported Pakistan in the India-Pakistan War of 1971, which led to the creation of Bangladesh. In the run-up to the war, India had signed a treaty with the Soviet Union shifting from its original position of Cold War neutrality.
Jimmy Carter, 1978
When Carter visited India, the intention was to thaw tensions that remained after the 1971 war and India’s first nuclear test in 1974. He addressed the Indian Parliament and left a lasting impact on a small town near New Delhi, which was later renamed Carterpuri after him.
However the trip couldn’t convince Prime Minister Morarji Desai to give up India’s nuclear ambitions, a move that irritated the Americans.
Bill Clinton, 2000
Clinton’s India trip, the first by a U.S. President for more than 20 years, was a landmark one that came after a prolonged lull in the relations between the two countries. Following the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, alliances had shifted. During the 1999 war between Pakistan and India, the U.S. under Clinton sided with India, the first time the country had supported India against Pakistan. In 1991, India initiated a policy of economic liberalization that opened doors to foreign investment. This was also a major boost to trade relations between the U.S. and India.
Clinton visited with his daughter, Chelsea Clinton. His speech in the Indian Parliament received rapturous applause and he toured several Indian cities, leaving many in the country star-struck. “President Clinton was wildly popular in India,” said Bruce Riedel, a senior adviser at Brookings Institute who helped organize Clinton’s trip to India. “It was like traveling with the Beatles or the Rolling Stones in the 1960s.”
George W. Bush, 2006
The highlight of George W. Bush’s trip was the finalization of a landmark nuclear deal, which was agreed upon in 2005. Under the agreement, India separated its civil and military nuclear programs and opened its civilian facilities including nuclear power plants for international inspection. In return, the U.S. ended a ban on nuclear trade with India. The significant move was also accompanied by other measures that boosted economic and security ties.
In an administration defined by the post-9/11 war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq, experts think developing relations with India was one of Bush’s significant foreign affairs achievements. Ahead of his trip to India, TIME had described his relationship with the country as “something of a bright spot.”
“He definitely deserves credit for recognizing India as a security partner,” Riedel says. “He walked a fine line that allowed for the development of stronger relations with India as well as with Pakistan.”
Barack Obama, 2010 and 2015
Obama visited India twice. During his first trip in 2010 during the administration of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, he backed India’s bid for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council. In addition to $10 billion in trade deals, the two leaders also agreed to boost defense and national security ties, which led to the easing of export regulations on high-technology goods to India.
The second time around, Obama came to India on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s invitation to be the chief guest at the country’s Republic Day celebration, which marks India’s constitution going into effect. The trip went smoothly until Obama made comments on religious freedom in the country, saying “India will succeed so long as it is not splintered along the lines of religious faith.” On his return to Washington, he cited concern about “acts of intolerance” on religious lines in India. His comments didn’t go down so well with some members of Modi’s Hindu nationalist government and triggered backlash in the national media.
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