WeekDay AM: 10 Things you need to know this morning
A stampede in India, Trump revives Gitmo, and a flood museum gets flooded

 
today's religion story

Crush kills 30 at India's Kumbh Mela festival

What happened
A stampede left at least 30 people dead and 60 injured at the world’s largest religious gathering, the Hindu festival Kumbh Mela in northern India.

The crush occurred in the city of Prayagraj when devotees rushed to participate in an early morning bathing ritual, jumping over barricades that had been erected to control crowds.

Who said what
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on X that the accident was "extremely sad" and offered condolences to those who had lost loved ones.

The BBC reported that its journalists had witnessed "scenes of chaos, with clothes, shoes, blankets and backpacks strewn on the ground as crowds tried to escape the site of the accident".

Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi blamed what he called a "VIP culture" for the incident, writing on X that "mismanagement and (the) administration's special focus on VIP movement instead of common devotees are responsible for this tragic incident".

Up to 400 million people are expected to take part in the six-week-long Kumbh Mela, which translates as the "Festival of the Sacred Pitcher". Pilgrims believe that swimming in Prayagraj will absolve them of sins and liberate them from the cycle of life and death.

What next?
Local officials said paramilitary troops had been deployed to restore order. Special train services bringing people to the festival have been halted and some devotees are reportedly making an early exit from the event.

 
 
today's immigration story

Trump to hold migrants at Guantanamo Bay

What happened
Donald Trump has signed an executive order to prepare a detention centre at Guantanamo Bay that could hold up to 30,000 migrants who are living illegally in the US.

Who said what
At a ceremony to sign an immigration detention bill into law, the new US president said there were thousands of beds at Guantanamo to "detain the worst criminal illegal aliens", adding "we don't want them coming back, so we're going to send them out to Guantanamo".

The US naval base outpost at Guantánamo Bay, in south-eastern Cuba, already has a "secretive" facility that is used to house migrants picked up at sea, which is separate from the prison used in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, said The Guardian. It does not appear in public government reports and details have only recently surfaced, "including about alarming conditions".

What next?
Trump has already taken "numerous actions" to deport undocumented migrants en masse, said CNBC. Detaining migrants at Guantanamo Bay "almost certainly could lead to legal challenges", both under US and international law, said USA Today.

 
 
Today's brexit story

Truck drivers avoiding UK due to Brexit delays

What happened
Long delays at post-Brexit checkpoints are discouraging European truckers from bringing goods to the UK and contributing to a retention and recruitment crisis, industry bodies have warned. Lorry drivers can be stuck queueing for hours without access to toilets, food or water when Operation Brock (the system installed at Dover to manage traffic) is triggered.

Who said what
"No other worker would accept that in their working environment," said Nichola Mallon, head of trade and policy at Logistics UK, representing the freight sector.

"We are struggling to replace drivers who are leaving the profession," said Phil Pluck, chief executive of the Cold Chain Federation. That could interrupt crucial supply chains to supermarkets and hospitals.

What next?
The government is "significantly investing in improving roadside facilities and rest areas – a change lorry drivers are already benefitting from", said the Department for Transport. But the EU's Entry/Exit system could exacerbate delays when it comes into force this year.

 
 

It's not all bad

India and China may be at loggerheads over water (see our Under the Radar story below), but the two nations have agreed to resume direct commercial flights, a step towards easing tensions that escalated following a deadly 2020 border clash in the Himalayas. Flights had been suspended due to Covid-19, but high-level diplomacy has led to renewed ties, including eased restrictions on access to Tibet and Ladakh. On Diwali, Chinese troops brought gifts to their Indian counterparts at border checkpoints, signalling a thaw in relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

 
 
under the radar

China and India's dam war in the Himalayas

India is building a giant hydropower dam near the Siang river to counter a huge Chinese dam further north.

But this latest move in a tit-for-tat saga of water geopolitics between the nations is seen as a threat by the millions of people who live and work in the surrounding areas, or further downstream in Bangladesh.

India's $13.2 billion (£10.6 billion) Siang Upper Multipurpose Project will "create a reservoir that can hold nine billion cubic metres of water and generate 11,000 megawatts of electricity", said Al Jazeera.

And news of these construction plans comes a mere month after Beijing approved the building of its "most ambitious – and the world's largest – dam over the Yarlung Zangbo river, in Tibet's Medog county", just before it enters Indian territory (where it's known as the Siang river).

For all this "dam for a dam" water war, relations between the two nations along their disputed Himalayan border are not currently at boiling point. But the effects of climate change could "make these tensions" much more "dangerous and potentially destabilising in the coming decade", Michael Kugelman, South Asia Institute director at the Wilson Center, a US think tank, told Al Jazeera.

What's needed is a "comprehensive water-sharing agreement between China and India", said Rouhin Deb in The Indian Express, with the current "unilateral assurances" replaced by a "binding" formal framework.

 
 
on this day

30 January 1948

Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist who opposed his calls for Hindu-Muslim unity after Partition. His killing exposed the deep sectarian tensions that still shape Indian politics. In recent years, rising religious nationalism under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sparked fears that Gandhi's vision of a secular, inclusive India is being eroded.

 
 
Today's newspapers

The Mirror describes the chancellor's "vision for growth" as a "revolution", while Metro says it's "Boom or Bust". The i Paper warns that tax rises and further public spending cuts cannot be ruled out. Reeves' "Heathrow plan" has flown "straight into turbulence", the Daily Mail says. Meanwhile, says The Times, assisted dying campaigners will consider dropping the requirement of having a High Court judge sign off on whether people should be allowed to end their own lives.

See the newspaper front pages

 
 
tall tale

Flood memories come flooding back

A museum dedicated to remembering a 19th-century flood in Pennsylvania has temporarily closed due to flooding. The Johnstown Flood Museum said it was forced to shut due to an influx of water inside the facility caused by a leak stemming from the recent extremely cold weather. The museum said on its social media accounts that “nothing of historic significance was affected” by the flooding.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Arion McNicoll, Jamie Timson, Harriet Marsden, Ross Couzens, and Chas Newkey-Burden, with illustrations by Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Deepak Gupta / Hindustan Times / Getty Images; John Moore / Getty Images; Justin Tallis / AFP / Getty Images; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images.