NEWS
TICKER
Iran says no to
bilateral talks
with U.S.Iran’s President
Hassan Rouhani said
that he’d never hold
bilateral talks with the
U.S., and that dialogue
on reviving a nuclear
deal could resume only
if the U.S. lifted all
sanctions on Iran. His
Sept. 3 announcement
came alongside
reports that French
President Emmanuel
Macron offered Iran
$15 billion in credit to
keep the old deal alive.Pence stays
at Trump golf
club in IrelandVice President Mike
Pence stayed at
President Trump’s
private golf club
during an official trip
to Ireland at Trump’s
“suggestion,” Pence
Chief of Staff Marc
Short said on Sept. 3.
Facing criticism of
taxpayer funds going
to the President’s
business, the Vice
President defended the
move as “logical.”Italy leaves
right-wing
party outThe anti-establishment
Five Star Movement in
Italy backed a coalition
with its former
political rival, the
center-left Democratic
Party, in order to keep
the far-right League out
of power. Led by Prime
Minister Giuseppe
Conte, the new
government is to be
sworn in on Sept. 5.when india’s naTional regisTer of
Citizens (NRC) was published on Aug. 31,
after a six-year effort to catalog all legal resi-
dents of the state of Assam, some 1.9 million
people —mostly Bengali speakers accused of
being “infiltrators” from Bangladesh—were
left off the list. Their exclusion, the first step
in an experiment the Indian government
says it wants to replicate nationwide, puts
them at risk of statelessness. Rights groups
warn it could also presage a humanitarian
crisis in the world’s largest democracy.
CITIZENS OF NOWHERE To be deemed
a true citizen, residents of Assam had to
provide documentation dating prior to
March 24, 1971, the day before the eruption
of a war with East Pakistan that spurred a
wave of migration. Rights groups say that
burden of proof is too high for many fami-
lies that don’t keep meticulous records dat-
ing back nearly half a century, and espe-
cially for women, the illiterate and people
who have fled persecution.
STRUCK OFF The NRC process in Assam
has roots in a history of acute anxiety about
successive waves of immigration to the state
by Bengali speakers, many of whom are
Muslim. When Prime Minister Narendra
Modi came to power in 2014, he seized on
the issue, which dovetailed with his Hindu-
nationalist message: that India’s Hindus are
being displaced by Muslims, who make up
14% of India’s population.WHAT NEXT It’s unclear if India can actually
expel people, as most people left off the NRC
hold no other citizenship. It would be illegal
under humanitarian law for India to make
them stateless, and Bangladesh is unlikely to
accept the people India attempts to deport.
With thousands already detained in Assam,
at least 10 new detention camps are being
built, and family separations seem likely.
And the government still wants to roll out the
NRC nationwide. “We will,” Home Minister
Amit Shah said, “remove every single
infiltrator.” —billy perrigoTHE BULLETIN
India’s register of citizens leaves nearly
2 million people off the list—and at risk
LOST AT SEA James Miranda, a resident of Santa Barbara, Calif., mourns on Sept. 2 at a harbor
near where an early-morning fire sank a boat of recreational scuba divers with more than 30 people
trapped below deck. Rescue workers searched the waters around Santa Cruz Island where the
Conception sank, but by the following day, all 34 remaining people who had been onboard were
presumed dead and it appeared that only the boat’s five crew members had escaped.