PM Modi concludes Japan visit, heads to China for SCO summit
Tokyo (PTI): Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday left for China to attend the SCO summit after wrapping up a two-day visit to Japan.
During his visit, India and Japan firmed up 13 key agreements and declarations and announced the launch of several transformative initiatives.
"This visit to Japan will be remembered for the productive outcomes which will benefit the people of our nations. I thank PM Ishiba, the Japanese people and the Government for their warmth," the prime minister said in an X post.
The new measures to further expand the India-Japan special strategic and global partnership were unveiled following summit talks between Prime Minister Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shigeru Ishiba.
Japan set an investment target of 10 trillion yen (approximately Rs 60,000 crores) in India over a decade and the two sides sealed a raft of big-ticket pacts, including a framework for defence ties and a 10-year roadmap to largely boost economic partnership.
Other agreements signed include an economic security architecture to promote supply chain resilience in strategic sectors such as semiconductors, clean energy, telecom, pharmaceuticals, critical minerals and new and emerging technologies.
The prime minister, who landed in Tokyo on Friday, said India-Japan cooperation is crucial for global peace and stability, and both sides have laid a strong foundation for a "new and golden chapter" in the partnership.
The 10-year roadmap focuses on significantly expanding overall economic ties. It comprised several key pillars for boosting engagement that included economic security, mobility, ecological sustainability, technology and innovation, health, people-to-people exchanges and engagements between Indian states and Japanese prefectures.
The two sides also signed an implementing arrangement for the Chandrayaan-5 mission, a joint exploration of the polar region of the moon by the space agencies of the two countries.
On Saturday, Modi met governors of 16 Japanese prefectures in Tokyo and called for strengthening state-prefecture cooperation under the India-Japan Special Strategic and Global Partnership.
Later, he also travelled with Ishiba to Sendai in the Japanese prefecture of Miyagi to visit a semiconductor plant.
During his two-day visit to China, Modi will attend the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Tianjin on August 31 and September 1.
The summit of the 10-member bloc is regarded as significant and most consequential from the point of view of India-China relations in the current context of a sudden downturn in India-US ties after Trump imposed 50 per cent tariffs on Indian exports.
This will be Modi’s first visit to China in seven years.
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Malian defence minister killed in attack that saw jihadis and rebels seize towns, military bases
Dakar (AP): Malian Minister of Defence Gen. Sadio Camara was killed in an attack as jihadi and rebel forces seized towns and military bases across the country, according to a military officer and two other sources on Sunday.
There was no immediate comment from the Malian government.
“Unfortunately, the Ministry of Defence, Gen. Sadio Camara, has been killed during the attack which targeted his house yesterday,” said a military official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not have permission to speak to the media.
Two other people, a civil society leader and a security member, confirmed the information.
Separatist fighters on Saturday joined Islamic militants in launching one of the biggest coordinated attacks on the Malian army in the capital and several other cities that left at least 16 wounded.
The separatists have been fighting for years to create an independent state in northern Mali, while al-Qaida and Islamic State group-aligned militants have been fighting the government for over a decade.
Malian troops and Russian mercenaries withdrew from the northern city of Kidal after the attacks, the rebels said Sunday.
A spokesperson for the Tuareg-led Azawad Liberation Front, or FLA, a separatist group, said the Russian Africa Corps troops and the Malian military withdrew from the city after an agreement was reached for their peaceful exit.
“Kidal is declared free,” said FLA spokesperson Mohamed El Maouloud Ramadan.
The Malian army did not respond to requests for comment but in an earlier statement said they were “tracking down terrorist armed groups in Kidal.”
The separatists have been fighting for years to create an independent state in northern Mali. Kidal had long served as a stronghold of the rebellion before being taken by Malian government forces and Russian mercenaries in 2023. Its capture marked a significant symbolic victory for the junta and its Russian allies.
It was the first time the separatists worked alongside the al-Qaida-linked militant group JNIM, which also claimed responsibility for Saturday's attacks on Bamako's international airport and four other cities, including Kidal, in central and northern Mali.
“This operation is being carried out in partnership with the JNIM, which is also committed to defending the people against the military regime in Bamako,” Ramadan said.
Wassim Nasr, a Sahel specialist and senior research fellow at the Soufan Center security think tank, said that the coordination between the two groups, as well as the explicit call for the Russian military to leave, is new.
“The coordination, conducting attacks all over the country at the same time, real coordination on the military level but also on the political level because both claims of both groups they acknowledged that they worked together, this is a first,” said Nasr.
Mali government spokesperson Gen. Issa Ousmane Coulibaly said on state television late Saturday that 16 people were wounded, including civilians and military personnel, and that several militants were killed. He did not provide a death toll.
The governor of Bamako's district, Abdoulaye Coulibaly, announced a three-day overnight curfew, from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.
The Economic Community of West African States has condemned the attacks and called on “all states, security forces, regional mechanisms and populations of West Africa to unite and mobilize in a coordinated effort to combat this scourge.”
The separatists called on Russia to “reconsider its support for the military junta in Bamako, whose actions have contributed to the suffering of the civilian population.”
Following military coups, the juntas in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso turned from Western allies to Russia for help in combating Islamic militants. But the security situation has worsened in recent times, with a record number of attacks by militants. Government forces have also been accused of killing civilians they suspect of collaborating with militants.
In 2024, an al-Qaida-linked group claimed an attack on Bamako's airport and a military training camp in the capital, killing scores of people.
Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, said that while the attacks were a major blow to the credibility of Mali's Russian partners, JNIM is unlikely to take control of Bamako in the near term due to opposition from the local population.
“The attacks are a major blow to Russia as the mercenaries had no intelligence about the attacks and were unable to protect major cities. They have unnecessarily worsened the conflict by not distinguishing between civilians and combatants,” Laessing said.
