DRULAP

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s minister for information technology and telecommunication confirmed Friday the government is implementing an internet firewall but rejected talk that the tool will curb free speech online, defending it as a cybersecurity upgrade.

“It’s a system. It is not a physical wall that we are putting up,” Shaza Fatima Khawaja, the state minister, told VOA. “It will not curb anything.”

The junior minister, currently the ministry’s top official, defended the government’s decision to implement a nationwide internet regulatory tool, saying the country was under daily cyberattacks.

“If a cybersecurity system, a capability, comes to the government, it’s a good thing,” Khawaja said in response to a VOA question at a news briefing earlier.

Pakistan has allocated more than $70 million for a Digital Infrastructure Development Initiative in the latest budget. Critics and digital rights activists worry the nationwide firewall will be used to silence dissent.

Pakistani authorities have hinted at a nationwide censorship tool for months but hesitated to issue a formal statement.

In a January interview with a news channel, Pakistan’s then-interim prime minister, Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, announced the measure.

“Very soon a national firewall will be deployed,” Kakar said.

A high-ranking government official confirmed to VOA Urdu in June that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government was working to deploy a nationwide tool meant to control internet traffic and filter content available to online users in Pakistan.

Sharif’s government has rebuffed calls for clarity, however, while downplaying censorship concerns.

“I think if there is a firewall system, it will be about cybersecurity and data security. It will have nothing to do with freedom of speech, as far as I know,” Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar said at a news briefing Sunday.

Earlier the minister dismissed reports that Pakistan was acquiring an online censorship tool from China.

Digital terrorism

The firewall comes as the Pakistani military faces severe criticism online for its alleged role in keeping former Prime Minister Imran Khan behind bars while his party continues to face a crackdown.

The military, which denies meddling in political affairs, has lately been using the term “digital terrorists” for online critics.

“Just as terrorists use weapons to get their demands met, digital terrorists use negative propaganda and fake news on social media platforms, mobiles and computers to create despondency to get their demands met,” Pakistani military spokesperson Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said at a news conference this week.

Chaudhry said the military had become the sole target of digital terrorists.

He blamed a “certain” political party without naming Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf party, which has a formidable social media presence.

This week, police raided the PTI’s headquarters in the Pakistani capital, detaining its chief spokesperson and several other media team members, accusing them of running an “anti-state campaign.”

Service disruption

On Thursday, Pakistani media outlet The News reported recent problems users encountered in sharing content via the Meta-owned messaging app Whatsapp were a result of a test run of the firewall.

Refusing to comment on the implementation process of the firewall, the spokesperson of the independent Pakistan Telecommunication Authority said the regulator did not receive any reports of service disruptions.

“Our systems were clear. They were up and running. They did not falter anywhere,” Malahat Obaid told VOA, adding that the problems users faced could be because of a technical glitch.

Cybersecurity watchdog NetBlocks recorded five incidents of authorities restricting internet access so far this year. The disruptions occurred around February’s general elections.
…

BEIJING — What was Typhoon Gaemi was heading to inland China on Friday after weakening to a severe tropical storm soon after making landfall on the east coast the previous night.

The storm felled trees, flooded streets and damaged crops in China but there were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage. Five people died in Taiwan, which Gaemi crossed at typhoon strength on Thursday before heading over open waters to China.

The worst loss of life, however, was in a country that Gaemi earlier passed by but didn’t strike directly: the Philippines. A steadily climbing death toll has reached 34, authorities there said Friday. The typhoon exacerbated seasonal monsoon rains in the Southeast Asian country, causing landslides and severe flooding that stranded people on rooftops as waters rose around them.

China

Gaemi waned into a severe tropical storm after coming ashore Thursday evening in coastal Fujian province, but it is still expected to bring heavy rains in the coming days as it moves northwest to Jiangxi, Hubei and Henan provinces.

About 85 hectares (210 acres) of crops were damaged in Fujian province and economic losses were estimated at 11.5 million yuan ($1.6 million), according to Chinese media reports. More than 290,000 people were relocated because of the storm.

Elsewhere in China, several days of heavy rains this week in Gansu province left one dead and three missing in the country’s northwest, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Taiwan

Residents and business owners swept out mud and mopped up water Friday after serious flooding that sent cars and scooters floating down streets in parts of southern and central Taiwan.

Five people died, several of them struck by falling trees and one by a landslide hitting their house. More than 650 people were injured, the emergency operations center said.

Visiting hard-hit Kaohsiung in the south, President Lai Ching-te commended the city’s efforts to improve flood control since a 2009 typhoon that brought a similar amount of rain and killed 681 people, Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported.

Lai announced that cash payments of $20,000 New Taiwan Dollars ($610) would be given to households in severely flooded areas.

Philippines

At least 34 people have died in the Philippines, mostly because of flooding and landslides triggered by days of monsoon rains that intensified when the typhoon — called Carina in the Philippines — passed by the archipelago’s east coast.

The victims included 11 people in the Manila metro area, where widespread flooding trapped people on the roofs and upper floors of their houses, police said. Some drowned or were electrocuted in their flooded communities.

Earlier this week, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered authorities to speed up efforts in delivering food and other aid to isolated rural villages, saying people may not have eaten for days.

The bodies of a pregnant woman and three children were dug out Wednesday after a landslide buried a shanty in the rural mountainside town of Agoncillo in Batangas province.
…

ISLAMABAD — New research suggests that poppy cultivation in Afghanistan will drop to record-low levels in 2024, due to the ban on the crop imposed by the Taliban government two years ago.

The findings, released this week by Alcis, a geospatial analytics firm, are based on high-resolution satellite mapping of 14 out of the 34 Afghan provinces.

“These 14 provinces were responsible for 92% of the country’s total poppy cultivation in 2022, cultivating 201,725 hectares out of a total of 219,978 hectares grown,” according to the study published on Thursday.

“In 2023, cultivation in these provinces had fallen to 15,648 hectares (50% of the crop that year), and in 2024, only 3,641 hectares of poppy were grown,” it said.

“This year, as in 2023, it is expected that poppy cultivation will be at close to historically low levels,” said Alcis.

The Afghan provinces in focus include Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan, and Farah in the south and southwest and Nangarhar and Baghlan in the east and north.

The Taliban banned poppy cultivation and production eight months after the then-insurgent group reclaimed power from an internationally backed Afghan government in August 2021.

The following year, Afghanistan still supplied about 80% of the global illegal opiate demand and 95% of Europe’s heroin in 2022, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, or UNODC.  But the U.N. agency noted in its 2024 World Drug Report that the ban had reduced opium production in the impoverished country by 95%.

The Alcis study warns there are pockets of resistance to the Taliban’s ban, particularly in the remote, northeastern border province of Badakhshan.

“Widespread [poppy] cultivation persists” in the province, the study noted, and the Taliban’s eradication efforts have been met with violence, leaving at least five people, including three Taliban soldiers, dead in April.

“The events in Badakhshan and elsewhere, where farmers have responded to the ban by abandoning important cash crops, growing staple food crops such as wheat, and leaving land fallow, suggest the Taliban’s poppy ban is fragile and will become more difficult to enforce in the future,” Alcis cautioned.

The firm noted that without the income brought in by opium production, many Afghan farmers are struggling to earn a livelihood.  It said without markets for cash-producing crops and an increase in non-farm opportunities, the Taliban may face “further unrest and further outmigration.”

The Taliban takeover has led to deepening economic troubles in Afghanistan, mainly attributed to international financial and banking sector sanctions. It has also exacerbated a long-running Afghan humanitarian crisis.

The country remains a global pariah largely because of the Taliban’s curbs on women’s access to education and work, deterring the international community from formally recognizing the de facto Afghan government and offering any financial aid.

On Tuesday, Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi told a national conference in Kabul that the drug ban had led to immense economic pressures and severe hardships for Afghans already reeling from the effects of years of war and natural disasters. He lamented the ongoing lack of international cooperation in response.

“The illegal production of drugs has ceased. The [more than 4 million] addicts [in Afghanistan] are now in need of medical treatment while the farmers need livelihoods and employment,” Muttaqi said.  

“Regrettably, the international community has failed to fulfill its responsibility in this matter. Instead, they have imposed sanctions on Afghan trade, travel, and banking sectors in breach of the universal fundamental human rights,” he added.
…

…

New Delhi — Sri Lanka will hold its first presidential election since the country sank into a deep economic crisis two years ago. The vote to be held September 21, will be a referendum on the reforms that have helped stabilize the economy but also led to hardship for millions in the island nation.    

After the Election Commission announced the polls on Friday, President Ranil Wickremesinghe filed as an independent candidate. He had taken charge in 2022, after widespread protests forced his predecessor, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, to resign.    

His rise to the top job had disappointed the protesters, analysts say. “This is an election that people are really looking forward to because it will restore a government with the mandate of the people which was lost two years ago following the popular uprising against the government led by Rajapaksa, who was blamed for massive economic mismanagement and corruption,” Jehan Perera, a political analyst in Colombo told VOA.    

Wickremesinghe had been elected as president by Parliament, largely with the support of lawmakers from Rajapaksa’s party.    

Economic issues will dominate the five-week campaign in a country that was ranked as a middle-income nation before it faced virtual bankruptcy and defaulted on its foreign debt.    

Wickremesinghe is credited with putting the economy on the path to recovery with the help of a $2.9 billion bailout package from the International Monetary Fund. The economy is expected to grow 3% this year after shrinking by 7.3% two years ago. The severe shortages of fuel, cooking gas, food and medicines that the country witnessed two years ago have eased and the hourslong daily power cuts have ended.   

But austerity measures imposed by his government to rescue the economy have been deeply unpopular. Taxes have been hiked on businesses and professionals and massive subsidies for electricity and other utilities have been slashed.    

As a result, millions of ordinary Sri Lankans face plummeting standards of living. 

 “Prices have risen threefold since 2022, but for a vast majority of people incomes are still the same. While it is true that there are no long lines for food and gas now, that is because people cannot really afford to buy much,” Perara said.    

An April World Bank report said that poverty rates have continued to rise in the country, with an estimated 25.9% of Sri Lankans living below the poverty line last year.    

Opposition parties have been critical of what they call “hard reforms” imposed on the country.    

Wickremesinghe’s main rival is expected to be Sajith Premadasa, who heads the country’s main opposition party. Anura Dissanayake, who leads a leftist party that has gained popularity in the last year, is expected to be another contender for the top job.      

“The opposition says it will relieve the austerity measures and will renegotiate part of the IMF program, but it is not yet clear what exactly they are proposing,” Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the Center for Policy Alternatives in Colombo told VOA. “Polls conducted over the last month suggest that the public mood is also one of disapproval of the reforms.”     

Saravanamuttu also calls the presidential election critical for democracy – it will be the first vote to be held in the country since the economic collapse triggered political turmoil.    

Local elections due to be held last year were postponed indefinitely after the government said it had no money to conduct a nationwide vote.
…

Vientiane, Laos — China and Russia’s foreign ministers met their Southeast Asian counterparts Friday after vowing to counter “extra-regional forces,” a day before Washington’s top diplomat was due to arrive.

Wang Yi and Sergei Lavrov were attending a three-day meeting of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc in the Laos capital of Vientiane.

Both held talks with counterparts from the bloc, while Wang also met with new British Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

On Thursday Wang and Lavrov agreed to work together in “countering any attempts by extra-regional forces to interfere in Southeast Asian affairs,” according to Moscow’s foreign ministry.

They also discussed implementing “a new security architecture” in Eurasia, Lavrov said in a statement, without elaborating.

According to a readout from Chinese state news agency Xinhua, Wang said Beijing was “ready to work with Russia to… firmly support each other, safeguard each other’s core interests.”

China is a close political and economic ally of Russia, and NATO members have branded Beijing a “decisive enabler” of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to arrive in Vientiane on Saturday morning for talks with ASEAN foreign ministers.

Blinken has made Washington’s alliances in Asia a top foreign policy priority, with the aim of “advancing a free and open” Indo-Pacific — a veiled way of criticizing China and its ambitions.

But Blinken shortened his Asia itinerary by a day to be present for Thursday’s White House meeting between Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Wang and Blinken will meet in Laos, a spokeswoman for Beijing’s foreign ministry said, to “exchange views on issues of common concern.”

South China Sea dispute

On Friday Wang met ASEAN foreign ministers and hailed Beijing’s deepening economic ties with the region.

For the customary joint handshake, Wang stood next to Myanmar’s representative Aung Kyaw Moe, permanent secretary to the foreign affairs ministry.

The ASEAN bloc has banned Myanmar’s junta from high-level meetings over its 2021 coup and crackdown on dissent that have plunged the country into turmoil.

Lavrov also met ASEAN counterparts at the venue in Vientiane but did not take questions from journalists.

ASEAN ministers are expected to issue a joint communique after the three-day meeting.

One diplomatic source said the joint communique is being held up by lack of consensus over the wording of the paragraphs on the Myanmar conflict and disputes in the South China Sea.

Beijing claims the waterway — through which trillions of dollars of trade passes annually — almost in its entirety despite an international court ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.

Several Southeast Asian countries have competing claims. 
…

MELBOURNE, Australia — At least 26 people were reportedly killed by a gang in three remote villages in Papua New Guinea’s north, United Nations and police officials say.

“It was a very terrible thing … when I approached the area, I saw that there were children, men, women. They were killed by a group of 30 young men,” acting Provincial Police Commander in the South Pacific island nation’s East Sepik province James Baugen told Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Friday.

Baugen told the ABC that all the houses in the villages had been burned and the remaining villagers were sheltering at a police station, too scared to name the perpetrators.

“Some of the bodies left in the night were taken by crocodiles into the swamp. We only saw the place where they were killed. There were heads chopped off,” Baugen said, adding that the attackers were hiding and there were no arrests yet.

U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a statement Wednesday that the attacks happened on July 16 and July 18.

“I am horrified by the shocking eruption of deadly violence in Papua New Guinea, seemingly as the result of a dispute over land and lake ownership and user rights,” Turk said.

Turk said at least 26 people had reportedly died, including 16 children.

“This number could rise to over 50, as local authorities search for missing people. In addition, more than 200 villagers fled as their homes were torched,” Turk said.

The Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary in the capital Port Moresby did not immediately respond to The Associated Press’s request for comment on Friday.

East Sepik Governor Allan Bird said violence across this diverse nation of more than 10 million people, who are mostly subsistence farmers, had escalated in the past decade. Police were under-resourced and rarely intervene, Bird said.

Papua New Guinea has more than 800 Indigenous languages and has been riven by tribal conflicts over land for centuries.

Most of the country’s land belongs to tribes rather than individuals. With no clear borders, territorial disputes never end.

These conflicts have become increasingly lethal in recent decades as combatants move from bows and arrows to assault rifles. Mercenaries are increasingly becoming involved.

Blake Johnson, an analyst at the Australian Security Policy Institute think tank, said while the East Sepik slayings appeared to be a “particularly gruesome event, it is not the first instance of mass murder this year” in Papua New Guinea.

“Escalation of violence between groups, often leading to retaliatory murder is, at best, culturally accepted and at worst encouraged,” Johnson said.

Law enforcement officers lacked the resources and training to police most of the country, he said.

“The country is took big, too harsh and too difficult to navigate, and we don’t even know how many people live in these places,” Johnson said.

Papua New Guinea’s tribal fighting attracted international attention in February, when at least 26 combatants and an unconfirmed number of bystanders were killed in a gunbattle in Enga province.

Ongoing conflict complicated an emergency response in May when a landslide in the same province devastated at least one village. The Papua New Guinea government said more than 2,000 people were killed, while the United Nations estimated the death toll at 670.

Internal security problems in Papua New Guinea, the South Pacific’s most populous country after Australia, has become a battle line for China’s struggle against U.S. allies for influence in the region.

Australia, Papua New Guinea’s former colonial master and its most generous provider of foreign aid, signed a bilateral security pact last year that targets its nearest neighbor’s growing security concerns, while Beijing also reportedly wants to ink a policing agreement with Port Moresby.

In 2022, China struck a secretive security pact with Papua New Guinea’s near-neighbor Solomon Islands in 2022, which included police aid and has raised concerns that a Chinese naval base could be established in the South Pacific.
…

The Indian Sundarbans is home to millions of people and the region’s endangered Bengal tigers. In recent years, rising sea levels and deadly storms forced farmers to travel deep into the tigers’ forests to make a living. Hundreds of men have been killed, leaving widows impoverished and shunned.
…

TOKYO — Heavy rain in the past week has triggered floods and landslides in Japan, disrupting transportation and forcing residents to take shelter on safer ground. Four people were missing Friday, including two police officers.

The rain had subsided in Yamagata and Akita prefectures Friday, but the area was still at risk of flooding and landslides. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida urged people to “put safety first.”

According to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency, one person was missing Thursday in Yuzawa city in Akita prefecture after being hit by a landslide at a road construction site. In Akita city, rescuers were searching for an 86-year-old man whose bicycle and helmet were found floating by a river, media reports said.

Rescue workers in Yokote city evacuated 11 people from a flooded area with the help of a boat.

In Shinjo city in Yamagata prefecture just south of Akita, two police officers were missing after reporting from a patrolling vehicle that they were being swept away by floodwaters. A police vehicle half filled with water was found by the swollen river, the agency said. Thirty-seven people were stranded at a flooded nursing home in the city.

More than 10 centimeters of rain fell in the hardest-hit Yuza and Sakata towns in Yamagata within an hour earlier Thursday.

Thousands of residents have been advised to take shelter at higher and safer grounds, but it was not immediately known how many people took that advice.

Yamagata Shinkansen bullet train services were still partially suspended Friday, according to East Japan Railway Company.

The Japan Meteorological Agency forecast up to 20 centimeters of more rainfall in the region through Friday evening, urging residents to remain cautious.
…

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka will hold a presidential election on Sept. 21 that will likely be a test of confidence in President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s efforts to resolve the country’s worst economic crisis.

The date was announced by the independent elections commission Friday, which said nominations will be accepted on August 15.

Wickremesinghe is expected to run while his main rivals will be opposition leader Sajith Premadasa and Anura Dissanayake, who is the leader of a leftist political party that has gained popularity after the economic debacle.

It will be the first election in the South Asian island nation after it declared bankruptcy in 2022 and suspended repayments on some $83 billion in domestic and foreign loans.

That followed a severe foreign exchange crisis that led to a severe shortage of essentials such as food, medicine, fuel and cooking gas, and extended power outages.

The election is largely seen as a crucial vote for the island nation’s efforts to conclude a critical debt restructuring program and as well as completing the financial reforms agreed under a bailout program by the International Monetary Fund.

The country’s economic upheaval led to a political crisis that forced then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign in 2022. Parliament then elected the then-Prime Minister Wickremesinghe as president.

Under Wickremesinghe, Sri Lanka has been negotiating with the international creditors to restructure the staggering debts and to put the economy back on the track. The IMF has also approved a four-year bailout program last March to help Sri Lanka.

Last month, Wickremesinghe announced that his government has struck a debt restructuring deal with countries including India, France, Japan and China — marking a key step in the country’s economic recovery after defaulting on debt repayment in 2022.

The economic situation has improved under Wickremesinghe and severe shortages of food, fuel and medicine have largely abated. But public dissatisfaction has grown over the government’s effort to increase revenue by raising electricity bills and imposing heavy new income taxes on professionals and businesses, as part of the government’s efforts to meet the IMF conditions.

Sri Lanka’s crisis was largely the result of staggering economic mismanagement combined with fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, which along with 2019 terrorism attacks devastated its important tourism industry. The coronavirus crisis also disrupted the flow of remittances from Sri Lankans working abroad.

Additionally, the then-government slashed taxes in 2019, depleting the treasury just as the virus hit. Foreign exchange reserves plummeted, leaving Sri Lanka unable to pay for imports or defend its beleaguered currency, the rupee.

Under the agreements with its creditors, Sri Lanka will be able to defer all bilateral loan instalment payments until 2028. Furthermore, Sri Lanka will be able to repay all the loans on concessional terms, with an extended period until 2043. The agreements would cover $10 billion of debt.

By 2022, Sri Lanka had to repay about $6 billion in foreign debt every year, amounting to about 9.2% of gross domestic product. The agreement would enable Sri Lanka to maintain debt payments at less than 4.5% of GDP between 2027 and 2032.
…

washington — Militant attacks in Pakistan’s northwest have plagued the region for years, leading to tensions between some of the region’s civilian leaders and the Pakistani military.

Last month, the military announced the Azm-e-Istehkam or “Resolve for Stability” offensive would be an operation that cracks down on militants, but after a decade of similar interventions, many residents in the region are wary.

This week, a man recorded a video while standing next to debris from a girls school that militants blew up Monday night in a small village in the North Waziristan district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. He lamented how violent the province has become, especially compared with other, more peaceful parts of Pakistan.

“We never heard that a school was blown up in Punjab,” Pakistan’s most populous province and home to the majority of the country’s armed forces, he said.

Mohsin Dawar, the former chairman of the foreign affairs committee in Pakistan’s lower house, posted video of the destroyed school on the X platform with a comment, “The state stands by, complicit in the destruction.”

Monday’s destruction of the girls school was not unusual. Last week there were attacks on police stations, a hospital and an army base, all in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a province about the same size as Iceland or South Korea.

After years of violence, the local Pashtun population is questioning why peace has not returned to the border region despite the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces from neighboring Afghanistan.

The ongoing militant attacks have boosted support for a local rights movement, the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement, which is leading a series of mass peace rallies aimed at holding Pakistan’s military accountable for its track record in combating terrorism.

The group is the major voice opposing the government’s plan to launch another military operation in the region to try to drive out militants and end the attacks.

The prospect of another military offensive has drawn opposition from residents, who remember the large-scale displacements that happened when the military launched offensives twice before in the last decade.

Army spokesperson Lieutenant General Ahmad Sharif on Monday blamed groups who oppose the new offensive for allegedly trying to sabotage the operation with a disinformation campaign.

He insisted the proposed Azm-e-Istehkam is aimed at destroying militant groups operating in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan, two provinces that border Afghanistan, Iran and the strategic Arabian Sea, and also host several major Chinese-backed development projects.

Murad Ali, an academic at Malakand University in the nearby Swat Valley, says the region’s history of military offensives has left many skeptical of the army’s plans.

“It is a fact that [the] military also suffered in terms of sweat and blood in [the] fight against militants,” Ali said, but many in the Pashtun population doubt the capability of the military to eradicate militancy or suspect it is an “accomplice in perpetrating this hide and seek with ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban.”

The army spokesman said security forces have lost 137 soldiers so far, including officers, in 2024 in the fight against militants.

Ahmad Kundi, an elected member of Pakhtunkhwa’s regional assembly, says over the years, the national government has sent a mixed message about how to combat militancy.

“One prime minister said negotiations with militants was a way forward and another prime minister opts for military operations, though it didn’t deliver in the past,” Kundi said.

Hamid Ullah in Peshawar contributed to this report.
…