Azerbaijan has ordered the BBC to shut its office in the country, officials in Baku said Thursday, in what the British broadcaster denounced as a “move against press freedom.”

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has long faced accusations of stifling the media and persecuting political opponents in the energy-rich Caucasus nation.

Foreign ministry spokesman Ayahan Hajizade said Baku had told the BBC there was no “legal grounds” for it to operate a representative office in Azerbaijan, saying that Baku operated on the basis of “reciprocity.”

He did not elaborate further on the reasons for the forced closure.

In a statement, the BBC said: “Following verbal instructions from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, the BBC has made the reluctant decision to close its office in the country.”

“We deeply regret this restrictive move against press freedom, which will hinder our ability to report to and from Azerbaijan for our audiences inside and outside the country.”

BBC’s Azeri language service has an audience of around one million people a week and had been operating in the country since 1994.

Azerbaijan’s Hajizade accused the BBC of trying to “politicise” the issue and of “double standards.”

He said that the closure of the local office does not affect the accreditation rights for one BBC correspondent.

Azerbaijan is one of the worst places in the world for media freedom, according to the Reporters Without Borders rights group.

“Virtually the entire media sector is under official control,” and “authorities are trying to suppress the last of the still-independent media, as well as journalists who reject self-censorship,” it says on its website.

Baku said “similar decisions” had been taken regarding “other foreign media organisations,” without providing further details.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Astana:

Azerbaijani and US officials believe a Russian surface-to-air missile caused the deadly crash of an Azerbaijani passenger jet, media reports and a US official said Thursday, as the Kremlin cautioned against “hypotheses” over the disaster.

The Azerbaijan Airlines jet crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau, an oil and gas hub, on Wednesday after going off course for undetermined reasons.

Thirty-eight of the 67 people on board died.

The Embraer 190 aircraft was supposed to fly northwest from the Azerbaijani capital Baku to the city of Grozny in Chechnya, southern Russia, but instead diverted far off course across the Caspian Sea.

An investigation is underway, with pro-government Azerbaijani website Caliber citing unnamed officials as saying they believed a Russian missile fired from a Pantsir-S air defence system downed the plane.

The claim was also reported by The New York Times, broadcaster Euronews and the Turkish news agency Anadolu.

Some aviation and military experts said the plane might have been accidentally shot by Russian air defence systems because it was flying in an area where Ukrainian drone activity had been reported.

A former expert at France’s BEA air accident investigation agency said there appeared to be “a lot of shrapnel” damage on the wreckage.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said the damage was “reminiscent” of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which was downed with a surface-to-air missile by Russia-backed rebels over eastern Ukraine in 2014.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “It would be wrong to make any hypotheses before the investigation’s conclusions.”

– Shrapnel strikes reported –

Euronews cited Azerbaijani government sources as saying that “shrapnel hit the passengers and cabin crew as it exploded next to the aircraft mid-flight”.

A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, also said early indications suggested a Russian anti-aircraft system struck the plane.

Kazakhstan news agency Kazinform cited a regional prosecutor as saying that two black-box flight recorders had been recovered.

Azerbaijan Airlines initially said the plane flew through a flock of birds, before withdrawing the statement.

Kazakh officials said 38 people had been killed and there were 29 survivors, including three children.

Jalil Aliyev, the father of flight attendant Hokume Aliyeva, told AFP that this was supposed to have been her last flight before starting a job as a lawyer for the airline.

“Why did her young life have to end so tragically?” the man said in a trembling voice before hanging up the phone.

Eleven of the injured are in intensive care, the Kazakh health ministry said.

– Day of mourning –

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev declared Thursday a day of mourning and cancelled a planned visit to Russia for an informal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a grouping of former Soviet nations.

“I extend my condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in the crash… and wish a speedy recovery to the injured,” Aliyev said in a social media post Wednesday.

The Flight Radar website showed the plane deviating from its normal route, crossing the Caspian Sea and then circling over the area where it eventually crashed near Aktau, on the eastern shore of the sea.

Kazakhstan said the plane was carrying 37 Azerbaijani passengers, six Kazakhs, three Kyrgyz and 16 Russians.

– Bloodied survivors –

A Kazakh woman told the local branch of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) she was near where the plane crashed and rushed to the site to help survivors.

“They were covered in blood. They were crying. They were calling for help,” said the woman, who gave her name as Elmira.

She said they saved some teenagers.

“I’ll never forget their look, full of pain and despair,” said Elmira. “A girl pleaded: ‘Save my mother, my mother is back there’.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin held a phone conversation with Aliyev and “expressed his condolences in connection with the crash”, Peskov told a news conference.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Baku:

Tens of thousands of people from around the globe will gather next week for COP29, the annual UN climate summit, in Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku.

But as each year’s summit has produced its own set of promises, plans, and paperwork to chase, the rationale for these discussions can be hard to follow.

Here’s what you need to know about why COP, short for Conference of the Parties, matters:

Why do we have a yearly COP?

Because climate change will affect every country, regardless of whether it contributed to the problem, it demands global solutions that can address the diversity of needs across countries.

In signing the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that launched the global negotiations, the parties that agreed to it took pains to differentiate between the wealthy nations that caused the bulk of warming and poorer countries that suffer disproportionately from it.

Put another way, the talks are framed around the idea that the countries that benefited the most from industrialising should take the most responsibility for dealing with the warming that resulted.

Addressing that imbalance has become more difficult as developing countries’ economies have grown and rich nations juggle competing costs including war.

What can a yearly summit achieve?

The summit provides a place for countries to discuss solutions, including energy policies, financing schemes or funding needs.

Nearly every summit is also attended by world leaders, giving an important signal that their countries are committed to the UNFCCC goals. The leaders’ presence also helps countries hold one another accountable for past promises.

But the annual COP is just the main event in a continuous process. Country representatives meet year round to build support for new climate action proposals ahead of the COP, where they can be agreed by consensus of all countries.

Is the process working?

While each summit is meant to advance global climate action from the year before, the event also offers countries a chance to show their citizens the problem is being addressed.

Importantly, the exercise has seen countries counting and reporting their emissions, and has helped move hundreds of billions of dollars in climate aid to developing nations.

By requiring decisions by consensus, the process also ensures strong global support for agreed actions, improving the chances these actions will be implemented.

But the pace of progress has been too slow to contain the rise in global temperatures. Since COP summits began in 1995, both emissions and temperatures have continued to rise, meaning the world is on track for extreme climate change.

Proponents of the UNFCCC process say there is no alternative for negotiating major socioeconomic changes to try to limit global warming.

What will we get out of COP29?

This year’s summit is hoping for a few headline agreements: a new annual climate finance target, a deal to get multilateral carbon credit markets working, and more aid money pledged for countries already hit by costly climate disasters.

Beyond that, negotiators will continue to work on technical agreements that build on work done at previous summits.

Outside the formal COP framework, groups of countries could launch their own initiatives or pledge funding for specific projects. Companies will likely announce commercial deals related to climate action, while financiers try to raise cash for climate investments.

What is Azerbaijan’s role in COP29?

Azerbaijan holds the presidency of COP29 this year, when the rotating COP presidency fell to Central and Eastern Europe.

Next year Brazil will serve as Latin America’s host for COP30.

As summit host, a country works the entire year to steer pre-summit negotiations and lobby other governments for ambitious action. This gives the presidency an important part in defining the summit’s priorities.

What else happens at COP?

Beyond the country negotiations, the COP summit offers a chance for anyone to try to draw attention – or funding – to their cause.

Hundreds of side events see activists and scientists rubbing shoulders with industry lobbyists and banking heavyweights.

Public-facing conference stages host panel discussions on topics from ocean acidification to designing carbon offset projects.

An exhibition hall, dubbed the “Green Zone,” features discussions led by national delegations, non-profit organisations and corporations.

While some summits have seen big organized protests, such as the rally of thousands outside of COP26 in Glasgow in 2021, the last two conferences in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have allowed for protests only in designated, roped-off areas.

Azerbaijan, which also has banned public protests, will likely see little civic action outside of the high-security conference site.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Deep in the Caspian Sea, around 100 kilometres off the coast of Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, lies Neft Daslari, the world’s oldest offshore oil platform. Also known as “Oil Rocks”, this vast, rusting city has been shrouded in mystery for decades.

“The degree of mystery was enormously high,” filmmaker Marc Wolfensberger, who first discovered Neft Daslari in the late 1990s, told CNN. “It was beyond anything I had seen before.”

Constructed in the late 1940s during the Soviet era, Neft Daslari began as a lone drilling rig on a tiny island and has since grown into an extensive network of oil wells, production sites, and over 100 miles of bridges. At its peak, this floating city housed more than 5,000 inhabitants and produced millions of tonnes of oil. Today, fewer than 3,000 workers remain, working 15-day rotations amid an environment slowly being reclaimed by the sea.

Neft Daslari has long faced environmental issues, with concerns over pollution and oil spills in the Caspian. Mirvari Gahramanli, head of the Oil-Workers Rights Protection Organisation, has raised alarm over untreated wastewater and reports of oil discharge. 

SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state-run oil company, pledged to take action, saying in a 2019 post that it would “take appropriate administrative measures on employees who pollute the environment.” Still, environmental advocates remain worried about the platform’s long-term impact.

As production dwindles, so does Neft Daslari’s significance in Azerbaijan’s oil industry, with output now down to under 3,000 tonnes per day. With COP29 around the corner, where global leaders will discuss climate initiatives, Neft Daslari is an obvious symbol of the fossil fuel industry’s environmental costs.

Mr Wolfensberger believes the city could have a future beyond oil. “It’s really the cradle of offshore oil exploration,” he said. Many, including energy experts, see potential in converting Neft Dasları into a tourist destination or even a museum, honouring its legacy. For now, however, the rusting platform continues its slow decline.

Paris, France:

World leaders kick off UN climate talks next week, days after a knife edge US election that could send shockwaves through global efforts to limit dangerous warming.

The stakes are high for the COP29 conference in Azerbaijan where nations must agree a new target to fund climate action across huge swathes of the world.

It comes in a year likely to be the hottest in human history that has already witnessed a barrage of devastating floods, heatwaves and storms in all corners of the globe.

Nations are falling far short of what is needed to keep warming from hitting even more dangerous highs in the future.

But leaders arriving in Baku are wrestling with a host of challenges, including trade spats, economic uncertainty and conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine.

Adding to the uncertainty, the US vote and potential return of Donald Trump, who pulled out of the Paris Agreement and has called climate change a “hoax”, could ripple through the negotiations and beyond.

“You can imagine that if Trump is elected, and if the election outcome is clear by the time that we get to Baku, then there will be sort of a crisis moment,” said Li Shuo, a Washington-based expert on climate diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

He said that countries, likely including China, are preparing to send a “clear message” in support of global climate cooperation if Trump beats his rival Kamala Harris to the White House.

The UN talks are seen as critical to laying the groundwork for a major new round of climate commitments due early next year.

Current pledges would see the world blast past the internationally agreed limit of a 1.5 degrees Celsius rise in temperatures since the pre-industrial era.

“Decisions in Baku could profoundly shape the climate trajectory and whether 1.5 degrees remains within reach,” said Cosima Cassel, of think tank E3G.

Clash over cash

Azerbaijan hosting the 11-22 November talks has drawn concerns over its heavy reliance on fossil fuels and its human rights record.

Countries last year committed to transition away from fossil fuels and triple renewables usage by 2030.

This year, negotiators must increase a $100 billion-a-year target to help poorer nations prepare for worsening climate impacts and wean off coal, oil and gas.

The overall amount of this new goal, where it comes from, and who has access are major points of contention.

Experts commissioned by the UN estimate that developing countries, excluding China, will need to spend $2.4 trillion per year by 2030 on climate priorities.

From that, $1 trillion must come from international public and private finance.

Wealthy existing donors, including the EU and US, have said new sources of money will have to be found, including from China and oil-rich Gulf states.

China –- today the world’s largest polluter and second-largest economy –- does pay climate finance but on its own terms.

Between 2013 and 2022, China paid on average $4.5 billion a year to other developing countries, the World Resources Institute said in a September paper.

Money could also be raised by pollution tariffs, a wealth tax or ending fossil fuel subsidies, among other ideas.

Rachel Cleetus, policy director of the Climate and Energy programme at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said negotiators in Azerbaijan should aim for a $1 trillion deal.

This money “is not charity”, Cleetus told AFP, adding that it should mostly come as aid or very low interest loans to avoid adding to developing nations’ debt.

“Finance might sound like a technical issue, but we all know money talks,” she told AFP.

“Nations either make those investments up front, or we’ll be paying dearly for it after the fact, in disaster costs, in pollution costs. So this is a fork in the road. We have a choice.”

Green power

Current climate pledges, even if implemented in full, would see the world lurch towards 2.6C warming by the end of the century — threatening catastrophe for human societies and ecosystems, the UN Environment Programme has said.

A deal in Baku is seen as crucial to underpinning a set of more ambitious national pledges in the coming months.

Li said those future pledges could be impacted by the US vote, with countries, including China, waiting to see the outcome before finalising longer-term targets.

Beyond Baku, there is also an “increasing interconnection between climate and the economic agenda”, he said, including trade tussles between clean energy powerhouse China and the US and Europe.

He said progress is more visible in “the green economy, who is winning the race when it comes to solar, wind, electric vehicles and energy storage”.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

An ethnic Armenian resident of Nagorno-Karabakh drives his Soviet-made vehicle past Azerbaijani border guard servicemen after being checked at the Lachin checkpoint on the way from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, in Azerbaijan.
| Photo Credit: AP

Armenia and Azerbaijan on April 23 came a step closer toward normalizing relations after a bitter conflict over territory, as experts in both countries worked to demarcate their boundaries and the first border marker was placed.

The two nations are working toward a peace treaty after Azerbaijan regained full control of the Karabakh province which had been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces since the 1990s. A six-week war in 2020 resulted in Azerbaijan retaking large parts of the breakaway region, and in September 2023, Azerbaijani forces launched a lighting blitz that forced Karabakh’s Armenian authorities to capitulate in negotiations mediated by Russian forces.

Several days ago, Armenia and Azerbaijan reached an agreement over a stretch of border that would cut though four Armenian villages in the Tavush province, meaning that Armenia would cede some territory to Azerbaijan.

Armenian and Azerbaijani authorities on April 23 announced that the first border marker was installed. It wasn’t immediately clear where exactly it was placed.

In Armenia, protests erupted, and demonstrators blocked roads in the northeastern region that the proposed border would run through. They also set up roadblocks along two key routes elsewhere in the country, including one leading to neighboring Georgia. Photos carried by Armenian and Russian media showed cars and trucks lining country lanes as protesters stood in groups around them.

And yet, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said Baku and Yerevan were edging closer to a common understanding of what a peace agreement might look like.

“We are close and maybe closer than ever before (to signing a peace agreement),” Mr. Aliyev said.

Last month, Armenia’s Prime Minister said the Caucasus nation needs to quickly define the border with Azerbaijan to avoid a new round of hostilities. Many residents of Armenia’s border regions have resisted the demarcation effort, seeing it as Azerbaijan’s encroachment on areas they consider their own.

Earlier this month, Russia began withdrawing its forces from Karabakh, where they have been stationed as peacekeepers under a truce brokered by Moscow that ended the 2020 war.

The peacekeepers’ duties included ensuring free passage on the sole road connecting Karabakh with Armenia. But Azerbaijan began blocking the road in late 2022, alleging Armenians were using it for weapons shipments and to smuggle minerals, and the Russian forces did not intervene.

After months of increasingly dire food and medicine shortages in Karabakh due to the blockade, Azerbaijan launched its offensive last year.

After Azerbaijan regained full control of Karabakh, the vast majority of its nearly 120,000 population fled to Armenia, although Azerbaijan said they were welcome to stay and promised their human rights would be ensured.

The Armenian flag hangs from a lamp post as Azeri police patrol a road leading into the city of Stepanakert, retaken last week, during an Azeri government organized media trip, in Azerbaijan’s controlled region of Nagorno-Karabakh, on October 2, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The story so far: On September 20, Azerbaijan claimed full control over the contentious Nagorno-Karabakh region after local forces, mostly Armenians, agreed to be disarmed and disbanded. Hundreds of local Armenians fled the area overnight, fearing ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan.

The disputed region, called Artsakh in Armenian, has been a major ethnic conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. While it is home to a majority population of ethnic Armenians and an Azeri minority, it is internationally recognised as a part of Azerbaijan.

What is the history of the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh?

Nagorno-Karabakh is located within the international borders of Azerbaijan. It is in the South Caucasus region between eastern Europe and western Asia, spanning the southern part of the Caucasus mountains that roughly includes modern-day Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.

The conflict between Azeris and Armenians goes back to almost a century, when the Ottomans attacked the South Caucasus during World War I with the help of the Azeris. They targeted ethnic Armenians during this attack, and the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia descended into a full-blown war in 1920. This war especially affected the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, as the region had been incorporated into the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic.

Azerbaijan and Armenia became part of the Soviet Republic soon after, and Nagorno-Karabakh was made an autonomous Oblast (administrative region) in Azerbaijan’s territory, while its population was majorly Armenian. In the final days of the Soviet Union, Nagorno-Karabakh’s majority Armenian-Christian population held a referendum to break away from the Shia-majority Azerbaijan.

As the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, Armenia and Azerbaijan became independent countries, and Armenian rebels declared Nagorno-Karabakh an independent territory (although not recognised internationally). By 1993, most of Nagorno-Karabakh was under Armenian control. The war between the two parties lasted till 1994 and killed around 30,000 people.

In 1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia entered a ceasefire brokered by Russia, but international borders for the countries were not demarcated. The Minsk Group, co-chaired by Russia, the U.S., and France, was created by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in early 1990 to arrive at a peaceful resolution for Nagorno-Karabakh. None of the three suggested peace proposals could last.

The Madrid Principles of 2007, modified in 2009, proposed giving control of seven Karabakh districts to Azerbaijan, self-governance to the region, a corridor link with Armenia, an opportunity to the region’s inhabitants to express their will, return of refugees, and setting up of a peacekeeping operation. They weren’t accepted, even after another modification in 2011.

A four-day war between Azerbaijan and Armenia broke out in 2016. The Minsk Group met again in 2017 in Geneva but failed to arrive at a resolution.

In 2020, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev launched an offensive to take Nagorno-Karabakh back, leading the country into a fierce war with Armenia that lasted six weeks and killed more than 2,000 people. The Azeri forces attacked Armenian defences and took back 40% of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan was backed by Turkey, and while Armenia’s ally Russia did little to support it, , it helped broker a ceasefire. Stepanakert, the region’s biggest city, remained within local control.

Despite the ceasefire, Azerbaijan did not give up attempts to capture Nagorno-Karabakh. In December 2022, it blockaded Lachin Corridor, the main road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia and the rest of the world, adding to the economic misery of the 1,20,000 people of the region. The road was blocked under the pretext of environmental concerns. “Prior to that blockade, around 90% of all consumed food was imported from Armenia. The people of Nagorno-Karabakh no longer receive 400 tonnes of essential goods daily,” Armenia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ararat Mirzoyan said in a U.N. press release published on August 16, 2023.

Azerbaijan faced international criticism and promised to lift the blockade but added a checkpoint to contain the flow of goods. Russian peacekeepers deployed in the area were responsible for ensuring supplies to the region since 2020, but experts believe that the country’s war in Ukraine diverted its attention and resources from the area.

Latest developments

A fresh round of violence broke out in the area in September 2023 when Azerbaijan launched an attack against ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh. The fighting lasted one day, and a ceasefire was announced a day later.

In a statement, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and expressed “deep concern for the ethnic Armenian population” in the disputed region.

Why was Azerbaijan able to accomplish the accession now?

Experts believe Turkey has a big role to play in the latest developments in Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijanis/Azeris are a Turkic ethnic group of mixed heritage and speak a language belonging to a branch of the Turkic family. Reuters reported that Turkey, however, denied any direct involvement in Azerbaijan’s offensive, although it is a political and military supporter of Azerbaijan.

“Turkey’s cooperation with Azerbaijan in military training and army modernisation has been underway for a long time. The Azerbaijani army’s success in the latest operation clearly shows the level they achieved,” a Turkish defence ministry official was quoted as saying.

Russia’s absence in the Caucasus is owing to its war in Ukraine. As retaliation to Russia’s lack of help over the last few years, Armenia on Tuesday voted to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) despite Russia’s warnings. Russian President Vladimir Putin can be arrested for war crimes if he enters countries that have signed and ratified the Rome Statute that created the ICC. Armenian officials, however, argued that the move has nothing to do with Russia.

Over 100,000 ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, which is almost the entire population of the disputed region, have fled to neighbouring Armenia in the last ten days, World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates. The exodus has triggered a massive humanitarian crisis.

(With inputs from agencies)

Army says officer injured in ‘grenade accident’ at a post in J&K’s Rajouri

The Army on October 5 evening said one officer has been injured in a likely grenade accident at a post in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri sector. “The officer was evacuated and stable post initial treatment. Further investigation of the incident in progress,” the Army said in an official statement. 

Sikkim flash floods death toll mounts to 18; searches on for 98 missing people

The toll in the flash flood in Sikkim mounted to 18 on Thursday as Army and NDRF teams worked their way through slushy earth and fast flowing water in the Teesta river basin and downstream north Bengal for the second day in search of those who were swept away and are still missing, officials said. Ninety eight people, including 22 army personnel, remained missing after a cloudburst over Lhonak Lake in North Sikkim in the early hours of Wednesday triggered the flash flood, Chief Secretary V.B. Pathak said.

Supply copy of FIR to NewsClick founder, court tells Delhi Police

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Amit Shah suggests uniform anti-terrorism structure under NIA for all States 

Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Thursday that along with a ruthless approach, an uniform anti-terrorism structure should be established under the purview of National Investigation Agency (NIA) in all the States. Mr. Shah made the remarks at the inauguration of the two-day anti-terror conference organised by the NIA.

INDIA parties speak up for arrested AAP MP Sanjay Singh; Congress gives qualified support

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IIT-Bombay ‘veg. table’ row | Dean says policy made by elected body, calls protest ‘provocative, insensitive’

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India, Canada in conversation on parity of diplomatic staff: MEA

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India conveys concerns to U.S. over American envoy to Pakistan’s visit to Gilgit-Baltistan

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Reports say dozens have been killed and wounded as drone strikes hit a Syrian military ceremony

A drone attack struck a packed graduation ceremony for military officers in the Syrian city of Homs on Thursday, killing and wounding dozens, including civilians and military personnel, reports said. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack and the reports could not be independently confirmed.

EU Parliament decries ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Nagorno-Karabakh

EU lawmakers on Thursday accused Azerbaijan of carrying out “ethnic cleansing” against the Armenian residents of Nagorno-Karabakh, and urged the bloc to impose sanctions on Baku. Almost all of the 120,000-strong ethnic Armenia population has fled the breakaway region since Azerbaijan seized it back in a lightning offensive last month.

Chinese firm sold satellites for intelligence to Russia’s Wagner: contract

Russian mercenary group Wagner in 2022 signed a contract with a Chinese firm to acquire two satellites and use their images, aiding its intelligence work as the organisation sought to push Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to a document seen by AFP. The contract was signed in November 2022, over half a year into Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in which the Wagner group under its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin was playing a key role on the battlefield.

Musk’s X strips headlines from news links

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Political stability, policy consistency needed to ensure Indian economy’s growth to world’s third-largest: FM

Taking on critics who argue that India will become the world’s third largest economy in a few years with or without government intervention, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that political stability and policy consistency was essential for the prospect to turn into a reality, especially in a world marred by unprecedented volatility. 

Lower prices for tomatoes, chillis and LPG may have pulled food inflation down last month

Retail food inflation may have eased in September, thanks to cooling tomato prices and a reduction in LPG cylinder prices, even as onion prices rose further during the month, a CRISIL study on food plate costs suggested. Retail inflation had eased to 6.83% in August from a 15-month high of 7.44% in July, but food price inflation stood at about 10%.

SEBI to tell court Adani inquiry began 2014, but hit dead end: sources

Markets regulator SEBI will tell the Supreme Court why it paused, then restarted investigations into the Adani Group after a tip in 2014 amid questions around regulatory delays, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. SEBI will say for the first time that India’s customs authority alerted it to an alleged misuse of offshore funds by Adani Group companies in 2014 but that the initial investigation did not yield anything and was paused in 2017, the sources said.

Asian Games | Indian compound archery teams’ domination complete

With the scores tied at 200 each, Indian archers needed to hit three perfect 10s in a row to stay alive in the compound women’s team final at the Fuyang Arena. First, Parneet Kaur hit a 10 before Aditi Swami and Jyothi Surekha followed suit with 10s to put the pressure back on Chinese Taipei. Taipei slipped up with the first arrow which assured India’s gold medal and it won 230-229 Later, the trio of Abhishek Verma, Ojas Pravin Deotale and Prathamaesh Jawkar won the men’s team gold by beating South Korea 235-230 in the final.

Azeri sappers inspect a village outside the city of Stepanakert, known as Khankendi in Azerbaijani, in Azerbaijan’s controlled region of Nagorno-Karabakh on October 5, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AFP

EU lawmakers on Thursday accused Azerbaijan of carrying out “ethnic cleansing” against the Armenian residents of Nagorno-Karabakh, and urged the bloc to impose sanctions on Baku.

Almost all of the 120,000-strong ethnic Armenia population has fled the breakaway region since Azerbaijan seized it back in a lightning offensive last month.

The European Parliament approved a resolution saying it “considers that the current situation amounts to ethnic cleansing and strongly condemns threats and violence committed by Azerbaijani troops.”

The lawmakers called on the EU’s 27 member states to “to adopt targeted sanctions against individuals in the Azerbaijani government” over the assault and alleged human rights breaches in Nagorno-Karabakh.

They also urged the bloc “to reduce the EU dependency towards gas exports from Azerbaijan” and demanded Brussels review its relations with the country.

The resolution — approved by 491 legislators to nine — does not compel the EU to act.

But it will infuriate Baku, which has fiercely denied allegations of ethnic cleansing and publicly called on ethnic Armenians to remain and “reintegrate” into Azerbaijan.

European diplomats say that sanctions against Azerbaijan are not on the table at the moment and action would likely only be taken if the situation worsens further.

The EU has stepped up its imports of natural gas from Azerbaijan as the bloc has turned away from Russia since Moscow’s all-out invasion of Ukraine.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen inked a “strategic partnership” deal with Baku last year aimed at more than doubling gas imports by 2027.

After a 24-hour offensive by Azerbaijani forces in September the self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno-Karabakh announced that it would be dissolved on 1 January 2024.

Since the fall of the Russian Empire, this mountainous region, populated mainly by Armenians who regard it as part of their ancestral land, has been part of Azerbaijan.

It unilaterally proclaimed its independence with the support of Armenia when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

Nagorno-Karabakh separatists resisted Baku with the support of Yerevan for three decades, notably during the first Karabakh war from 1988 to 1994 and the second in 2020.

The international community never recognised the self-proclaimed republic.

This handout photograph released by State Border Service of Azerbaijan on September 27, 2023, shows Ruben Vardanyan, former separatist head of Nagorno-Karabakh, detained by two Azerbaijani security officers.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Azerbaijan said it arrested the former head of Nagorno-Karabakh’s separatist government as he tried to cross into Armenia on Wednesday, following Azerbaijan’s 24-hour blitz last week to reclaim control of the enclave.

The arrest of Ruben Vardanyan was announced by Azerbaijan’s border guard service. It appears to reflect Azerbaijan’s intention to quickly and forcefully enforce its grip on the region after the military offensive that has prompted a rapid exodus of tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians.

Mr. Vardanyan, a billionaire businessman who made his fortune in Russia where he owned a major investment bank, moved to Nagorno-Karabakh in 2022 and served as the head the regional government for several months before stepping down earlier this year.

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Azerbaijan’s border guard service said Mr. Vardanyan was escorted to the country’s capital of Baku and handed over to “the relevant state bodies” that will decide his fate. It posted a picture of Mr. Vardanyan held by two border guards next to a helicopter.

Also Wednesday, Azerbaijan’s Health Ministry said a total of 192 Azerbaijani troops were killed and 511 were wounded during the offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh. One Azeri civilian also died in the hostilities, the ministry said.

Nagorno-Karabakh officials said earlier that at least 200 people on their side, including 10 civilians, were killed and over 400 were wounded in the fighting.

The 24-hour Azerbaijani blitz involving heavy artillery, rocket launchers and drones, forced the separatist authorities to agree to lay down weapons and sit down for talks on Nagorno-Karabakh’s “reintegration” into Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan and separatist officials have since held two rounds of talks, but no details have been made available and prospects of “reintegration” of Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population into the mostly Muslim country have remained unclear.

Despite Azerbaijan’s promises to respect the rights of the region’s residents, they have rushed to flee the region en masse fearing reprisals.

Over 47,000 people, or nearly 40% of Nagorno-Karabakh’s population of 120,000, have left the region for Armenia as of early afternoon Wednesday, according to the Armenian authorities.

Hours-long traffic jams were reported on Tuesday on the road out of Nagorno-Karabakh as residents hurried to leave, fearing that Azerbaijan could shut the only road leading to Armenia.

Monday’s explosion at a gas station near the region’s capital Stepanakert, where people were queuing to fuel up their cars before leaving for Armenia, killed at least 68 people, according to Nagorno-Karabakh’s human rights ombudsman Gegham Stepanyan. Another 290 were wounded, and a total of 105 were considered missing as of Tuesday evening, he said.

The massive blast exacerbated already dire fuel shortages.

Tatev Mirzoyan, a 27-year-old citizen of Nagorno-Karabakh’s regional capital of Stepanakert who arrived in the Armenian city of Goris with her family after a 28-hour drive, said they used fuel they had stashed for emergency purposes.

“We were seven in one little car,” she said. “That was a horrible journey as people are in panic and nervous.”

Mirzoyan said she and her family are planning to stay with her sister who lives in Yerevan, adding that she doesn’t want to think about the future for now.

Some of her relatives are still searching for fuel to leave Nagorno-Karabakh, she added. “My cousin is still under siege in Martuni, she is waiting to be taken out to Stepanakert, and after that figure out what to do next.”

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Azerbaijan’s swift onsslaught followed a nine-month blockade of the road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. Armenia charged that the closure denied basic food and fuel supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh’s residents, while Azerbaijan countered by alleging that the Armenian government was using the road for mineral extraction and illicit weapons shipments to the region’s separatist forces.

Nagorno-Karabakh was an autonomous region within Azerbaijan during the Soviet times and it came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by the Armenian military in a six-year separatist war that began in the waning years of the Soviet Union and ended in 1994.

Azerbaijan regained substantial territory, including parts of Nagorno-Karabakh, in a six-week war with Armenia in 2020 that ended with a Moscow-brokered truce and the deployment of 2,000 Russian peacekeepers to monitor the region.

Russia, which has been Armenia’s main sponsor and ally since the 1991 Soviet collapse, has also sought to maintain warm ties with Azerbaijan. But Moscow’s clout in the region quickly faded as Russia’s war on Ukraine diverted Moscow’s resources and made it increasingly dependent on Azerbaijan’s main ally, Turkey.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on the arrest of Vardanyan, who renounced his Russian citizenship after moving to Nagorno-Karabakh.