China Releases South Korean Soccer Star After Detention Over Bribery Suspicions

Seoul, South Korea — A star South Korean soccer player who was detained and investigated in China for nearly a year over bribery allegations has been released and returned home, Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said Monday.

Son Jun-ho, a former member of the South Korean national team who had played professionally in China, was detained by Chinese authorities at the Shanghai airport in May on suspicion of taking bribes.

The Foreign Ministry confirmed that Son was back in South Korea but didn’t provide further details, including when he returned or whether the charges against him were proven.

South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper, citing anonymous sources, reported that Son returned Monday afternoon.

Son had played for Shandong Taishan and won the 2021 Chinese championship with the Jinan-based club. Hong Kong newspaper the South China Morning Post reported last year that the bribery allegations concerned suspected match-fixing involving the team’s coach, Hao Wei. 

“We have been communicating with Chinese authorities through various channels to request their cooperation in ensuring a fast and fair process (for Son) while also communicating closely with his family in South Korea,” the South Korean ministry said in a statement. It said it had conducted about 20 consular interviews with Son to provide assistance and ensure fair access to lawyers.

Son, 31, played seven seasons with South Korea’s Pohang Steelers and Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors before joining Shandong Taishan in 2021 on a four-year contract, according to industry website transfermarket.com. He has played for South Korea 18 times, including the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Chinese soccer has struggled for years to rid itself of a reputation for corruption.

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In India, Political Parties Woo Women Voters

Haryana, India — After the morning chores of cooking, and milking buffaloes are completed in the narrow alleys of Mankrola village in India’s northern Haryana state, women gather in the house of Rekha Sabharwal, who heads a women’s community group. An animated discussion follows about the forthcoming general elections that begin April 19.

While Mankrola is still a largely patriarchal society, women have begun asserting their voice loudly in one place — at polling booths.

“In the village, the system was that women had to vote as their families told them to. But now we have freedom to vote as we choose,” said Sabharwal.

Women are not just making independent decisions; they also are turning out in huge numbers to cast ballots, closing a gender gap that had existed for decades.

Their emergence as an influential voting bloc has prompted political parties to woo women. From funding millions of concrete homes and household toilets for poor families in villages, to providing cooking gas and piped water connections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has targeted many of his welfare programs at women during his 10 years in power.

Such programs have helped his Bharatiya Janata party widen its support among female voters, especially in rural areas and in poor homes.

“These programs have had a cascading effect. Women are in favor of Modi by leaps and bounds because he is delivering these programs,” according to Yashwant Deshmukh, head of C-Voter polling agency.

The money Sushila Kumari in Mankrola got to build a concrete room and a toilet has eased her life — her earlier one-room home had a tin roof. “I don’t have to go into fields now because I now have a toilet. When my relatives visited, there was no place for them to sit. Now I have a room where they can relax,” said Kumari.

She also got $800 in aid for her daughter’s marriage, which helped her repay the loan she took for the wedding expenses. She said she will keep these in mind at voting time.

Such programs are likely to have weaned women voters away from the main opposition Congress Party, for which they voted in huge numbers before the BJP became India’s dominant political party after it registered a massive win in the 2014 elections.

“Our current data shows that for every one female voter that is going to the Congress Party, two women are going to the BJP,” said Deshmukh.

The Congress Party, which has fared poorly in the last two general elections, is also eyeing women voters. It has unveiled a “Women Justice” program promising financial aid of $1,200 per year to poor women, and a 50 percent reservation for them in new federal government jobs if voted into power.

In India’s vast rural outback, there also is a growing demand for more economic opportunities for women, especially as rural distress and inflation emerge as key concerns.

27-year-old Neha Sabharwal, a mother of two, knows what she wants – in a country where women make up only 37 percent of the workforce, she wants a chance to work. The sole option in the village is tilling the fields, but only those at the bottom of the economic ladder work as farm laborers.

“Women should also be able to earn money, so that they can spend on their children’s education and clothes, and plan their future,” she laments.

In this village, which lies close to a gleaming business hub, aspirations are rising. Women say they do not want just free gas connections and homes, but a government that can empower them with better education and more work opportunities.

Village resident Manju Ranga, who has struggled with financial problems, says she desperately wants her two daughters to acquire college degrees or diplomas that will open the door to better economic opportunities.

“I don’t want my two daughters to have the kind of life I have lived. The government should give them some support to study so that they can get good jobs,” said Ranga.

Sociologists say political consciousness is growing both because of better levels of education among girls, and a 1993 law that mandated reservation of up to half the seats in village councils for women. However, it remains a work in progress. Neha Sabharwal will vote as her family tells her to, otherwise, she says, they will be offended.

While gender inequality is still entrenched in the village, women are becoming more politically assertive. They weigh issues such as development, governance and women’s safety, rather than caste and community, which have long influenced electoral choices in India.

Pollster Deshmukh calls that a “seismic shift.” He pointed out that building toilets, for example, was a huge factor that prompted women to vote for the BJP in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh in state elections held in 2022.

“For them the important issue in getting toilets at home was not sanitation. It was an issue of safety because they were vulnerable to sexual assaults when they went into the fields early morning and late evening,” he noted.

Social activist Sunil Jaglan, who has been spearheading programs to raise the status of women and girls for nearly two decades in villages like Mankrola, has noticed a huge change.

“Younger women look at issues like education, safe transportation when they travel to colleges, and social security when they go to vote,” according to Jaglan. “Older women assess if their household expenses are reducing or increasing.”

Those choices will influence the poll outcome, especially in seats where victory margins are narrow.

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In India, Political Parties Woo Women Voters

As India heads into a national election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other political leaders are wooing women voters, who have been turning out in huge numbers to cast ballots in recent polls. Anjana Pasricha visited a village in Haryana in northern India to find out that Modi’s welfare programs have won support.

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Environmentalists Allege Mass Illegal Land Clearing in Australia

sydney — A joint investigation by three environmental groups has documented six potentially illegal large-scale deforestation cases in Australia.

Greenpeace Australia Pacific, the Queensland Conservation Council and the Wilderness Society published their findings Monday.

The groups have provided their allegations of unauthorized land clearing to the federal government in Canberra for assessment.

The alliance has said that in each case, habitat for threatened and endangered species, including the koala, were bulldozed without official permission.

The report says Australia’s national environment law is ineffective and the Canberra government is neglecting the problem.

Campaigners have argued that Australia ranks second in the world for biodiversity loss, leads the world in mammal extinctions and has been named as the only developed nation on a global deforestation hotspot list.

Glenn Walker, who heads the nature program at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Monday that deforestation in Australia has reached crisis levels.

“The figures are really alarming. There’s a lot of wildlife being killed — one native animal every single second because of this destruction happening right across Australia, and it is the responsibility of the federal government to step in,” he said. “This should be an issue of national environmental leadership, particularly as the government is reforming our national environment law, and we can fix this problem.”

Australia’s national environment law, the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, is currently being reviewed by the Labor government.

A spokesperson for Tanya Plibersek, the federal minister for the Environment and Water, has said the Canberra government was undertaking broad consultation on what would be “strong new environment laws.”

Draft sections of the new conservation laws, which are scheduled to be introduced to Parliament this year, have been shared with conservation, business and other organizations.

The minister has, so far, not responded to allegations of widespread illegal land clearing.

The Canberra government previously declared that Australia supports up to 700,000 native species. A very high proportion of these are found nowhere else in the world. For example, about 85% of Australia’s plant species are endemic to the continent, and Australia is home to half of the planet’s marsupial species.

Officials also have estimated that Australia’s biodiversity is far greater than is currently categorized.

They say about 70 percent — or 400,000 — of the continent’s species of animals, plants, fungi and other organisms have not yet been discovered, documented, named and officially classified.

 

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New Zealand and EU Trade Agreement to Take Effect on May 1

sydney — New Zealand said Monday a free trade agreement with the European Union would come into effect on May 1, after the country’s parliament ratified the deal.

New Zealand notified the European Union it ratified the agreement earlier on Monday, Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay said in a statement.

Wellington and Brussels signed the deal in July 2023, with the European Parliament ratifying its side of the agreement in November.

New Zealand expects the deal to benefit its beef, lamb, butter and cheese industries, as well as removing tariffs on other exports like its iconic kiwi fruit.

The EU will see tariffs lifted on its exports including clothing, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and cars, as well as wine and confections.

The EU is New Zealand’s fourth-largest trade partner, according to government data, with two-way goods and services trade worth $12.10 billion in 2022.

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North Korea Says Japan’s Prime Minister Proposed Summit

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Monday that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has proposed a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Kim’s sister and senior official, Kim Yo Jong, made the comments in a state media dispatch. She said Kishida used an unspecified channel to convey his position that he wants to meet Kim Jong Un in person at an early date.

Kim Yo Jong said whether to improve bilateral ties hinges on Japan. She said if Kishida sticks to his push to resolve the alleged past abductions of Japanese nationals by North Korea, he cannot avoid criticism that he would only pursue talks to boost his popularity.

Some experts say North Korea is seeking to improve ties with Japan as a way to weaken a trilateral Tokyo-Seoul-Washington security partnership, while Kishida also wants better ties with North Korea to increase his declining approval rating at home.

The U.S. and South Korea have been expanding their military drills and trilateral exercises involving Japan in response to North Korea’s provocative run of weapons tests since 2022.

Earlier Monday, North Korea’s state media that Kim Jong Un supervised a tank exercise and encouraged his armored forces to sharpen war preparations in the face of growing tensions with South Korea.

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Protests in Ladakh Enter Third Week as Locals Seek Protection of Fragile Ecology  

SRINAGAR, India — Thousands of people in the remote region of Ladakh have been protesting for over two weeks in freezing temperatures, demanding constitutional provisions from the Indian government to protect their territory’s fragile ecology and to have autonomy over land and agriculture decisions. 

Situated between India, Pakistan and China, Ladakh has faced territorial disputes and suffered the effects of climate change. Shifting weather patterns in the sparsely populated villages altered people’s lives through floods, landslides and droughts. 

Top climate activist Sonam Wangchuk is taking part in the demonstrations in the town of Leh. He has been on a fast since the protests started on March 6, in the open in subzero temperatures and surviving only on salt and water. 

Wangchuk, also an engineer working on solutions for sustainability at his Himalayan Institute of Alternative Ladakh, has called his protest a “climate fast.” 

“We’re already facing climate disaster and these glaciers and mountains will be destroyed if there is not a check on unbridled industrial development and military maneuvers” in the region, Wangchuk told The Associated Press on Sunday. 

Ladakh’s thousands of glaciers, which helped dub the rugged region one of the “water towers of the world,” are receding at an alarming rate, threatening the water supply of millions of people. The melting has been exacerbated by an increase in local pollution that has worsened because of the region’s militarization, further intensified by the deadly military standoff between India and China since 2020. 

He also said Ladakh critically needs ecological protection because “it’s not just a local disaster in [the] making but an international one as these mountains are part of [the] Greater Himalayas intricately linked to over 2 billion people and multiple countries.” 

Wangchuk said the Ladakh nomads were also losing prime pastureland to huge Indian industrial plans and Chinese encroachment. The region’s shepherds complain that Chinese soldiers have captured multiple pasturelands and restricted them from grazing their herds. 

Locals and nomadic tribes will march to the border with China on April 7 to highlight what they say has been the loss of land to Chinese encroachment and corporate interests, Wangchuk said. Local shepherds allege that China has taken over some of their grazing land and earlier this year some shepherds clashed with a Chinese army patrolling unit. 

In August 2019, Ladakh was split from Indian-controlled Kashmir after New Delhi stripped the disputed region of its statehood and semiautonomy. 

The federal interior ministry, Ladakh lieutenant governor’s office and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party did not immediately respond to requests for comment, Reuters reported. 

Talks on March 4 between the federal interior ministry and regional leaders about the local demands failed. 

While restive Kashmir has largely been silenced through a crackdown on any form of dissent and slew of new laws, demands for political rights in Ladakh have intensified with demands of statehood with a local legislature to frame its own laws on land and agriculture. The region’s representatives have held several rounds of talks with Indian officials, including with the powerful Home Minister Amit Shah earlier this month, without any results. 

“This government likes to call India the ‘Mother of Democracy,’ ” Wangchuk recently posted on X, formerly Twitter. “But if India denies democratic rights to people of Ladakh & continues to keep it under bureaucrats controlled from New Delhi then it could only be called a Stepmother of Democracy as far as Ladakh is concerned.” 

Some information for this report came from Reuters. 

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Analysts: Resignation of Vietnam’s President Shows Party Infighting

Ho Chi Min City/Washington — Analysts say this month’s resignation of Vietnamese President Vo Van Thuong, one year into his five-year term, indicates infighting within the Communist Party and shakes the country’s reputation for political stability, a key driver of foreign investment. 

On March 20, the party’s Central Committee held an extraordinary session in which it agreed to allow Thuong to give up the presidency and all official duties. Thuong’s resignation comes amid an anti-corruption drive led by the party’s leader, 79-year-old General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

The office of the Party Central Committee said in a written statement that day that an investigation from the Central Inspection Commission revealed that Thuong had committed violations of party regulations.  

Nguyen Khac Giang, visiting fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute,  told VOA March 23 that the government’s statement on Thuong’s dismissal is vague but many suspect his resignation is connected to his time serving as party secretary of Quang Ngai province from 2011 to 2014.

On March 8, the province’s chairman, Dang Van Minh, and former chairman Cao Khoa were arrested in relation to an ongoing investigation into Phuc Son real estate group. According to government statements, police found that the real estate firm had committed acts of forgery, perjury, and selective bookkeeping which caused $26 million in losses to the state budget.

“Thuong served as a party secretary at that time so those are linked together and people allege that probably Thuong was forced to step down because of that,” Giang said.

Succession struggle

Giang added that Thuong’s resignation is an “extremely rare and surprising incident” particularly because he is the second president to step down in less than two years.

Thuong’s predecessor, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, was forced to give up the role in January 2023. Phuc’s downfall is believed to have been due to his alleged connection to the inflation of COVID-19 test kit prices. 

“One man was brought down in the anti-corruption campaign and the next man that was brought in to replace that position … one year later he was forced out for the same reason,” Giang said of the two presidents. 

“This doesn’t sound really good for the party’s organization and for the party’s image as the protector of stability,” he said.

Florian Feyerabend, the Vietnam representative of German political foundation Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung, struck a similar chord, telling VOA that Phuc and Thuong’s successions in such a short time “raises unavoidably questions about the predictability, reliability, and inner workings of the system.”

“While the system as such remains stable, the internal balance of power seems to be in limbo ahead of the next party congress,” he said. 

The timing of Thuong’s resignation is significant, experts said, as it comes ahead of planned  changes to the country’s top echelon of leadership at the 14th National Congress in 2026.

Carl Thayer, emeritus professor with the University of New South Wales in Australia, said Thuong’s resignation would have the effect of speeding the process of selecting candidates for the new Central Committee and “exposing differences within the leadership.”

At 54 years old, Thuong was the youngest member of the Politburo and considered to be a potential candidate for the leading position of general secretary.

“[Thuong] was clearly going for something larger. … There were reasons to believe that he might be an appealing choice for a party increasingly out of touch with the younger generation,” Zachary Abuza, Southeast Asia expert and professor at the National War College in Washington, told VOA on March 20.

“It was a pretty spectacular fall,” Abuza said.

Although it is unclear what political motivations led to Thuong’s downfall, Abuza said that Public Security Minister To Lam appears to be vying for the country’s most powerful position. Are we talking president or general secretary here?

“We still don’t know who wanted to take [Thuong] down,” Abuza said. “All eyes are on the minister of public security because he has been pretty ruthless in taking down rivals. He clearly eyes the top job for himself.”

Thayer told VOA that the two likely candidates to succeed Thuong are Lam and Truong Thi Mai, head of the Central Committee’s Organization Commission. He said that the fact that the case has surfaced after 12 years “leads to the supposition” that Lam is getting rid of possible rivals in an attempt to stay in power after the 2026 party congress. 

Duy Hoang, executive director of Viet Tan, an unsanctioned political party that promotes democracy in Vietnam, also said he sees Thuong’s fall as a result of a power struggle.

“This is probably a proxy war for who’s going to be the leader of the Communist Party in the foreseeable future,” he told VOA on March 20. 

Economic challenges

The political shake-up poses a threat to the country’s economy, Abuza said. Along with the two presidents and high-profile arrests in the private sector, officials including a deputy prime minister, two ministers, and more than a dozen provincial leaders have also been dismissed since 2021.

“For a country that prides itself on political stability as one of its key selling points to foreign investors, it sure isn’t looking very stable,” Abuza said.

Feyerabend also said that political stability is important among the factors that make Vietnam attractive for foreign direct investment. He said, though, that recent political events do not immediately affect the overall stability of Vietnam’s political system or its attractiveness for foreign direct investment.

Hoang of Viet Tan pointed to concerns for the livelihoods of the country’s more than 100 million citizens.

“I think it’s going to affect people’s lives because there’ll be economic disruption,” Hoang said. He added that corruption is endemic in Vietnam but due to the anti-corruption campaign many officials are “concerned that they are going to be drawn into the blazing furnace.” General Secretary Trong has described his anti-graft campaign as a “blazing furnace.”

“Permitting decisions are being dragged out and people can’t make decisions,” Hoang said. “Things are so frozen because of this power struggle.”

Still, Giang at ISEAS said there is room for optimism. He said foreign direct investment is the country’s key economic engine and remains the Communist Party’s priority.

“We’ll muddle through the current uncertainty and we’ll continue to perform well no matter who’s in charge,” he said. “Vietnam still wants to maintain … high sustainable economic growth, political stability, and balancing well between China and the U.S. no matter which factions or people are in charge.”

Linh Dan of VOA’s Vietnamese Service reported from Washington.

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3 Men in Armenia Attempt to Storm Yerevan Police Station

YEREVAN — Three armed men attempted to storm a police station in the Armenian capital of Yerevan on Sunday detonating hand grenades that injured two of the attackers. 

The injured assailants were hospitalized with shrapnel wounds from the blast in Yerevan’s northern Nor-Nork district. A third man was detained by police after a brief standoff, Narek Sargsyan, spokesperson for Armenia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, told journalists. There were no other reported injuries. 

The men had hoped to free members of the Combat Brotherhood organization, who were being held at the station after being detained earlier Sunday, Armenian media outlets reported. 

The group opposes the planned transfer of several villages in Armenia’s Tavush region to neighboring Azerbaijan. 

Last year, Azerbaijan waged a lightning military campaign to reclaim the Karabakh region, ending three decades of ethnic Armenian separatist rule there. 

In December, the two sides agreed to begin negotiations on a peace treaty. However, many residents of Armenia’s border regions have resisted the demarcation effort, seeing it as Azerbaijan’s encroachment on the areas they consider their own. 

Speaking to residents of the border village of Voskepar in the Tavush region Tuesday, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan warned that Armenia’s refusal to delineate the border could trigger a new confrontation. 

“It would mean that a war could erupt by the end of the week,” Pashinyan said. He said the border demarcation should be based on mutual recognition of territorial integrity of Armenia and Azerbaijan based on Soviet maps from 1991, when both were part of the Soviet Union. 

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Taliban Chief Defends Islamic Criminal Justice System, Including Stoning Women for Adultery 

Islamabad — The leader of Afghanistan’s fundamentalist Taliban government has said it is determined to enforce the Islamic criminal justice system, including the public stoning of women for adultery.

“Our mission is to enforce sharia and Allah’s Hudud [law],” said Hibatullah Akhundzada in an audio clip Taliban officials said was from his latest speech. They did not say where the reclusive leader spoke, but Akhundzada lives in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar and rarely leaves what is known as the Taliban’s historical birthplace and political headquarters.

He primarily addressed Western critics of the Taliban government, which Akhundzada is effectively controlling from Kandahar, through edicts based on his strict interpretation of Islam.

“You may call it a violation of women’s rights when we publicly stone or flog them for committing adultery because they conflict with your democratic principles,” said the Taliban chief.

“Just as you claim to be striving for the freedom of entire humanity, so do I. I represent Allah, and you represent Satan,” Akhundzada said.

He criticized Western human rights values and women’s freedoms, saying Taliban religious scholars would persistently resist the West and its form of democracy in Afghanistan. “Thanks to these scholars, such a democracy was evicted from this land,” the Taliban leader said.

The Taliban returned to power in August 2021, when the then-internationally backed government collapsed, and U.S.-led Western nations withdrew all their troops after nearly 20 years of involvement in the Afghan war.

Taliban authorities have since publicly flogged hundreds of Afghans, including women, for theft, robbery, and committing “moral crimes” in sports stadiums in the presence of thousands of onlookers. At least four men have also been publicly executed after having been convicted of murder by Taliban courts.

Akhundzada has suspended girls’ education in Afghanistan beyond the sixth grade and prohibited many women from public and private workplaces, including the United Nations and other aid organizations.

Women are not allowed to undertake long road and air trips unless accompanied by a male relative, and cannot visit public places, such as parks, gyms, and bathhouses.

The Taliban leader defends his governance, saying it is aligned with Afghan culture and Islam.

The new academic year started in Afghanistan last week, but girls above 12 were excluded for the third consecutive year.

The United Nations and the world at large have been urging the Taliban to reverse all sanctions on women and halt corporal punishments and public executions of convicts.

“It is heartbreaking to mark another year where school doors open without the participation of Afghan girls above the age of 12,” Rina Amiri, the U.S. special envoy for Afghan women and human rights, said Saturday on X, formerly known as Twitter.

She reiterated the U.S. call for the Taliban to reverse their “destructive decrees,” saying they are destroying the potential of more than 50% of Afghanistan’s population.

“The Taliban’s relentless, discriminatory edicts against women & girls are keeping Afghanistan poor & aid-dependent, & forcing Afghan families to leave. There is no substitute for all Afghans participating in the formal education system, which has existed for over 100 years,” Amiri wrote.

The international community has not granted formal recognition to the de facto Afghan authorities, citing human rights concerns, especially the harsh treatment of women.

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Campaigners Urge Australia to Let Ukrainian Refugees Stay Permanently 

Sydney — Australian community leaders are urging the Canberra government to allow displaced Ukrainians to apply to stay permanently in the country. Temporary humanitarian visas for thousands of refugees from the Ukraine war expire next year.

More than 11,000 Ukrainians on various types of Australian visas, including visitors’ permits, have come to Australia since Russia invaded in February 2022.

About 3,790 Ukrainians were granted three-year temporary humanitarian visas under a special Australian government program that ran from April to July 2022. The humanitarian visas are to expire next year. The government has said displaced Ukrainians with that type of immigration permit might be allowed to stay by applying for the skilled, family, student and visitor visa programs.

Community groups, though, say some displaced Ukrainians might find it hard to qualify for permanent visas because of such obstacles as applicant age limits, lack of recognition of overseas qualifications and limited English language skills. Some visas require applicants to be younger than 45 and to have relevant experience and qualifications in occupations that are in short supply in Australia, such as accountants, pilots and engineers.

Andrew Mencinsky, the vice president of the Ukrainian Council of New South Wales, told local media that for many visa holders their future in Australia is uncertain.

“At the moment there is no clear pathway to permanent residency and their current humanitarian visas are approaching expiry,” he said.

New Zealand and Canada have already established special residency pathways for Ukrainians in their countries.

Natalia Borodina is a Ukrainian refugee who works for a charity in Sydney helping new migrants.

She told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that many Ukrainians in Australia worry about what will happen when their current visas expire.

“Over the past six months and currently, that is the first question I hear from my clients. Everyone who calls, the first question [is] have you heard anything in terms of our visa future? And that causes a lot of worries within the community,” she said.

Australia’s Department of Home Affairs said in a statement that it was processing “visa applications from Ukrainian nationals as a priority, particularly for those with a connection to Australia.”

It added that Ukrainian nationals could apply for a so-called bridging visa, which would allow them to “stay in Australia lawfully while [their] immigration status is resolved.”

Australia is among the largest non-NATO contributors to Kyiv’s war effort, supplying missiles and armored personnel carriers.

The government also has placed sanctions on hundreds of Russian politicians, including President Vladimir Putin, military commanders and businesspeople. They are the most sweeping penalties Australia has ever imposed on another country.

Additionally, Canberra has banned imports of Russian oil, petroleum, coal and gas.

A statement Friday following annual security talks between the foreign and defense ministers of Australia and Britain “unequivocally condemned Russia’s full-scale, illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine and demanded Russia immediately withdraws its forces from Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory.”

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Southeast Asian Police, Prosecutors Join Forces to Fight ‘Scamdemic’ 

Bangkok — Police and prosecutors across Southeast Asia are forging new ways of working together to thwart and pursue the sprawling criminal networks behind the online scam centers that have quickly taken root in the region, experts involved in the effort have told VOA.

In a few short years, scamming hubs bilking billions of dollars out of victims across the globe have set up shop in Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines and, increasingly, Myanmar.

The United Nations estimates that hundreds of thousands of often unwitting job seekers have been lured into the operations with promises of jobs that do not exist, only to be trapped and forced to run the scams under threat of torture and even death.

Experts say the international scope of the “scamdemic” demands a coordinated response from the region’s law enforcement.

“This issue of human trafficking into forced criminality is far more transnational than any human trafficking situation that I’ve seen before,” said Andrew Wasuwongse, Thailand country director for the International Justice Mission, which helps trafficking victims and works with local authorities to foil the traffickers.

“It’s also far more sophisticated, so the need for local and international law enforcement collaboration is really important,” he said. “The need has never been greater.”

Because the criminal networks running the scams span borders, so does the evidence needed to catch them, meaning the problem “cannot be addressed unilaterally,” added Marika McAdam, who has consulted for the U.N. and others on the issue.

“In order to do anything effective about this, it has to involve affected countries, of which there are many,” said McAdam.

They and others say that collaboration has started and is gaining pace.

“Cooperation has picked up over the past years, resulting in some of the raids we have seen but also the repatriation of people rescued from scam compounds,” said Benedikt Hofmann, deputy representative of the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime for Southeast Asia and the Pacific (UNODC).

“We are seeing increased information sharing and a focus on the issue as countries cooperate across jurisdictions, for example prosecutors working together,” he said, adding that some of the raids “wouldn’t have been possible without operational coordination.”

He cited operations in Cambodia and Myanmar that freed trafficking victims or shut down scam centers, and said the information authorities are sharing also includes intelligence on suspects and on how they may be moving their dirty money across borders.

But he said those efforts have been mostly ad hoc and limited in area and scope, which allows the criminal networks to set up elsewhere in the region, usually where a government’s reach and oversight is weakest in a practice dubbed “jurisdiction shopping.”

The UNODC is trying to disrupt that by helping the region mount a more comprehensive counterattack. In September, together with ASEAN and China, where many of the networks — and their victims — hail from, it launched a “roadmap” to do just that.

The plan calls on the countries to share more information about the scam centers within each of their borders and to set up dedicated national teams spanning government agencies to tackle the problem. Those teams are meant to work with each other and meet annually. Hofmann said the countries were still working on putting their teams together.

“As long as [the] countries want to help each other, that will be very helpful,” Col. Jay Guillermo, who runs the cyber response unit of the Philippines police force’s Anti-Cybercrime Group, said of the roadmap.

Just last week, the UNODC also co-hosted a two-day meeting in Thailand of prosecutors and law enforcement officials from around the region on collaborating and finding better ways to prosecute trafficking cases tied to the scam centers through their courts.

Wasuwongse, whose group also helped organize the meeting, said it was the first of its kind for Southeast Asia.

McAdam, though, said most of the cross-border cooperation taking place is limited to rescuing the scam centers’ trafficking victims and that the collaboration needs to evolve into using those rescues as evidence to arrest, try and convict those running the networks.

“We really need to link the pieces of the puzzle to get at those perpetrators. But those puzzle pieces are strewn across borders, so unless we are actually linking the evidence that victims both are and may bring with more proactive evidence of who’s behind it, we are never actually going to combat the organized crime perpetrating this,” she said.

The countries were starting to “lean” in that direction, she added, but were “miles off” from where they need to be.

Wasuwongse sees progress in that direction too.

He recalled a case from last year in which Thailand agreed to allow a group of Thais rescued and repatriated from a scam center in the Philippines to participate virtually in a related court case back in the Philippines to give evidence.

He said the International Justice Mission was also helping Thailand and the Philippines prosecute the alleged criminals behind another scamming operation and joined Thai police on a recent trip to the Philippines to work on the case.

“So, we’re seeing some efforts on this,” Wasuwongse said.

But the experts agreed that progress was slow, hampered by the complexity of the problem.

They said authorities in different countries were still working with disparate definitions of human trafficking, meaning a scam center worker treated as a trafficking victim in one country may be tagged a migrant worker or a criminal in another, and suggested they all agree on a shared standard.

Guillermo also complained of the slow pace at which useful evidence for prosecutions was crossing borders and suggested Southeast Asian countries work on standardizing related laws and definitions.

“It’s very hard to implement because laws are [lagging] behind [the scammers’] technology. Improving the laws will benefit [all] countries. We should have the same interpretation in terms of cybercrime cases, because cybercrime cases cross boundaries,” he said.

As with most lucrative criminal enterprises in the region, the experts said corruption also remained a big barrier to closer cooperation.

Many of the scam centers in Myanmar operate under the umbrella of armed groups tied to the military, which seized control of the country three years ago. In Cambodia, several reports and investigations have linked some of its scam centers to powerful local political figures.

“When it comes to transnational organized crime, and often trafficking in persons, there’s always some element of corruption, especially when there are massive amounts of money being generated,” Wasuwongse said. “So, I am sure there are barriers in the region to effectively combating this because of where some of that money might be flowing.”

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Manmade Water Crisis in Kashmir Tourist Spot

Kolkata, India — Rosy, who goes by her nickname, was 26 when she was married in Gudoo, a locality within one of the 50 hamlets or small villages bordering Dal Lake in the Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir’s Srinagar city.

Deemed the “jewel” of Kashmir by the state government, the urban freshwater lake in the Himalayan region attracts tens of thousands of tourists every year from around the globe. It has been for decades the source of water, livelihood and food for the 50,000 locals who reside nearby.

But for those living in the Dal Lake hamlets, clean water is a luxury, waterborne diseases are common and brides for men of marriageable age are elusive.

In 2017, a Right to Information request — an Indian constitutional right that allows citizens to request information under the control of a public authority — found that about 11 million gallons (41.6 million liters) of sewage was released into the lake from the city every day.

Rosy, now 29, told VOA that she “regrets” moving to the Dal Lake area.

“I keep going back to my parents’ house in a different area of Srinagar because there I can use as much water as I like for washing clothes and cooking. You won’t believe it — I can only take a bath once a week. When I need to wash clothes, I have to pick a day and visit my acquaintances in a separate area to use their water. It is torturous living here,” she said.

Farooque Ahmad, 55, who lives near Dal Lake, told VOA that in the past few months, three girls have rejected his son’s marriage proposal after initially accepting it.

“Whenever a girl’s family finds out that we have no water here, they reject the marriage proposal immediately. In fact, even matchmakers have stopped bringing any matches for boys here,” he said.

“Many feel that their daughters, if married here, will have to carry gallons of water to their houses every day. Who would want their child to marry in an area like this, especially in an age where most people have every facility reaching their doorstep in the blink of an eye?”

Water resources and environmental experts say that the water crisis in Kashmir’s Dal Lake region is largely caused by human activity.

Kashmir-based Shakil A. Romshoo, vice chancellor at Islamic University of Science and Technology, told VOA that contrary to popular misconceptions, Kashmir’s water supply has not been affected by climate change.

“Kashmir is sitting atop the water tower of Asia [the Himalayan region]. With almost 18,000 glaciers nourishing the water supply in the state, the problem is not the quantity of water but the quality of it.

“Around 80% of Srinagar gets its water supply from the Dal Lake. Yet, untreated wastewater from several sources — households, hotels on the periphery of the lake and toilets in the houseboats on the lake — goes directly into the lake untreated. This makes the water undrinkable due to the high chloroform count,” said Romshoo, a researcher specializing in glaciology and climate change.

A Jammu and Kashmir High Court-appointed committee of experts (CoE), formed two years ago, stated in its latest report that about 70% of the sewage generated in Srinagar city finds its way into Dal Lake.

The three sewage treatment plants — which are supposed to treat the wastewater making it safe for disposal before it goes into the lake — were called “heavily over-utilized,” “under-maintained” and “far below” the standards set by the Pollution Control Board of India.

Bashir Ahmad Bhat, vice chairman of the state’s Lake Conservation and Management Authority (LCMA), which is the sole authority responsible for “managing and conserving” Dal Lake, among other water bodies in Kashmir, said that the claims made by the CoE are “factually incorrect.”

“No sewage from catchments goes directly into the Dal. … There are systems in place to treat the remaining waste coming in from houseboats, of which 90% have already been connected to the system. The sewage from hamlets is taken up under the prime minister’s development package.

“All the five steps of treating 36 million liters [of wastewater] per day are done under the vigilance of an online monitoring system, all of which conform to the norms of the Pollution Control Committees,” he told VOA.

Climate activist and columnist Raja Muzaffar Bhat said that the water pollution problem in Kashmir is not limited to Dal Lake.

“The entirety of the Srinagar city’s liquid waste goes untreated into the Dal Lake, Jhelum and Doodh Ganga rivers, and other water bodies through drainage systems,” he told VOA.

Mushtaq Ahmad, president of the Gudoo locality where Rosy lives, said that more than 13 areas in Srinagar are affected by the water scarcity issue.

“Many of us have been paying out of our pockets to build trenches in our yards because of the lack of a drainage system in the area. But since not every household can afford it … the sewage waste flows directly into the Dal Lake. Sewage from houseboats also flows directly into the lake, damaging it beyond repair,” he told VOA.

“Our elders used to drink water directly from the Dal Lake. Now we can’t even think of washing our hands with this contaminated water — but sometimes due to our helplessness, we are forced to.”

Najmus Saqib contributed to this report from Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir. 

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Myanmar Drivers Shift to EVs Made in China

Yangon, myanmar — Myanmar’s drivers are shifting to electric vehicles, a move that underscores the military junta’s growing ties with China, where most of the EVs and component parts are manufactured.

Industry experts in Myanmar suggest China’s affordable vehicles will continue to dominate the EV market because the ruling junta has banned importing EVs made elsewhere. The prohibition extends to luxury models.

The experts also said that international sanctions have made it difficult for the regime to obtain the hard currency it needs to buy imported gas or diesel fuel that powers internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.

And while young Burmese view EVs as “iPhones on wheels,” because of their user interface and driver-assistance features, a larger swath of would-be buyers sees the push for EVs as unrealistic given the lack of charging infrastructure and persistent power outages

The outages have been a problem since the February 1, 2021, coup staged by the military, which made unsubstantiated claims of fraud in an election dominated by State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and the governing National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

Last year, Myanmar launched a one-year EV pilot project that led to a more than six-fold increase in EVs within a year, according to Myanmar’s Road Transport Administration Department.

An EV industry analyst based in Myanmar, who asked to remain anonymous to avoid attracting the regime’s attention, told VOA Burmese via Zoom on March 15 that the trend was boosted by China’s oversupply of EVs and the military government’s prohibition against importing high-end luxury EVs.

Electric cars, along with lithium batteries and solar panels, were named by Chinese President Xi Jinping as “pillars of the economy” in his New Year’s address. Beijing sees these sectors as driving a manufacturing export boom designed to offset flagging domestic demand, which still has not recovered from draconian pandemic lockdowns.

China is accused by the European Union and others of selling EVs at below the cost of making them to drive out competitors. Beijing’s official Global Times said it is increased international competition in the sector that has pushed prices down while a decline in the value of the yuan has made Chinese vehicles more economical.

China denies dumping. Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington,  said, “Chinese cars are popular in the global market because of their innovative features and high quality coming out of fierce competition rather than the so-called low-price dumping.”

He continued, “The leapfrog development of China’s auto industry has provided cost-effective products with high quality to the world. Every one in three exported automobiles from China is an electric car, which contributes significantly to the world’s green and low-carbon transition.”

The Myanmar-based analyst said Chinese-made EVs are the only option for those wanting new cars. … People are turning to EVs due to new fuel-run motor vehicle import bans.”

The military government initially permitted the importation of about 3,000 Chinese-made EVs in 2023, including those for personal use, buses and vehicles intended for taxi services.

Since then, Myanmar’s major economic hubs — Yangon, Mandalay and Naypidaw, the capital city, along with some other major cities not directly affected by armed conflict — are now dotted with new EV showrooms featuring Chinese brands like BYD.

BYD outpaced former market leader Tesla in EV sales globally in the fourth quarter of 2023.

A Burmese scholar watching China-Myanmar affairs from elsewhere in the region and who asked not to be named to avoid endangering family still in the country, said expanding EV sales reflect the junta’s economic ties with China.

The scholar said they also underscore an effort by the junta chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, to reduce energy imports in any way possible.

Vehicle ownership rates in Myanmar remain among the lowest in Southeast Asia, with just 741,370 registered vehicles in 2022 for a population of approximately 55 million. According to the World Bank, the per capita GDP hovers around $1,149.

Thant Zin, an electric car dealer from Yangon, said consumer interest is strong for vehicles priced around 1,500,000,000 kyats or about $35,000, because they come with a solid warranty.

The dealer said EVs face challenges, such as spare parts taking two to three months to arrive from China. Thant Zin said that before the coup, ICE vehicle parts from Japanese carmakers were readily available nationwide.

An EV owner in Yangon, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, told VOA Burmese that compared with an ICE vehicle, he saved about 600,000 kyats or $200 while driving more than 4,000 kilometers (2,485 miles) with an EV.

“The advantages become apparent once you start using it,” said the EV owner.

The analyst said there are charging stations along the major expressway connecting Myanmar’s two largest cities, Yangon and Mandalay, but elsewhere it can be hard to find a charge. Some private businesses, such as hotels and restaurants, have begun offering charging stations for their clientele, he added.

The EV owner said Myanmar needs significant infrastructure improvements to support EV adoption. While there are a few charging stations in shopping malls and at some gas stations in Yangon, they don’t fully function due to the power outages.

“There is only one fully operational charging station here in Yangon, and it operates from 6 in the morning to 5 or 6 in the evening,” he said. “We want them to extend operating hours. We also wish for other stations to be fully functional.”

VOA’s Burmese Service contributed to this report.

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India’s Millions of Dairy Farms Creating Tricky Methane Problem

BENGALURU, India — Abinaya Tamilarasu said her four cows are part of the family. She has a degree in commerce from a local college, but prefers being home milking cows and tending to her family’s land.

“Our family cannot let farming go, it’s a way of life for us,” said the 28-year-old, who lives on her family farm in India’s southern Tamil Nadu state. Even when she could be making more money elsewhere, she said she’s “still happy we have our cows.”

India is the world’s largest milk producer, and is home to 80 million dairy farmers who made 231 million tons of milk last year. Many farmers, like Tamilarasu, only have a few cows, but the industry as a whole has 303 million bovine cattle like cows and buffalo, making it the largest contributor to planet-warming methane emissions in the country. The federal government has made some positive steps to reduce methane, but wants to focus emissions cuts elsewhere, like by moving to renewable energy, saying most methane emissions are a fact of life. But experts say the industry can and should make more reductions that can quickly limit warming.

India is the third-largest emitter of methane in the world, according to figures published earlier this month by the International Energy Agency, and livestock are responsible for about 48% of all methane emissions in India, the vast majority from cattle. Methane is a potent planet-warming gas that can trap more than 80 times more heat in the atmosphere in the short term than carbon dioxide.

The Indian government has not joined any global pledges to cut methane emissions, which many see as low-hanging fruit for climate solutions, as methane emissions only last in the atmosphere for about a dozen years, compared to CO2 that can linger for a couple of hundred years.

But there’s some work on methane reduction in agriculture on the national level: The government’s National Dairy Development Board, which works with more than 17 million farmers across the country, is looking into genetic improvement programs to provide more nutritious feed to livestock which would make cows more productive, meaning each farmer would need fewer cows to produce the same amount of milk. Studies by the NDDB show that emissions are reduced by as much as 15% when a balanced diet is provided to the animals.

The board is also looking into reducing crop burning, a high-emitting practice that some farmers use to clear their lands, by feeding those crops to cows.

“Climate-smart dairying is the need of the hour,” said Meenesh Shah, the board’s chairman.

Vineet Kumar, from the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, agreed that good quality feed can help lower emissions. He also said encouraging more local breeds that emit less can help. “These solutions can be a win-win for everyone,” he said.

But Thanammal Ravichandran, a veterinarian based in the southern Indian city of Coimbatore, noted that there’s currently a shortage of feed in India, so farmers give their cattle whatever they can, which is mostly lower quality and higher emitting.

“Farmers are also not able to invest in better quality feed for their cattle,” she said. To get better, and more affordable feed, dairy farmers need more government support, she said.

Whatever measures are taken to reduce methane emissions, experts note that it should have minimal impact on farmers’ livelihoods, and should account for the ways people raise their livestock.

“Livestock have been closely integrated within the Indian farming system,” said Kumar, meaning any drastic changes to farming methods would have severe effects on farmers. He added that efforts to reduce emissions shouldn’t reduce the use of cow manure as fertilizer on India’s farms, as chemical fertilizers emit nitrous oxide, an even more potent greenhouse gas.

But looking at India’s methane emissions as a whole could provide some more obvious solutions to slashing the gas, said Bandish Patel, an energy analyst at the climate thinktank Ember. Focusing on the energy sector is an easy win for targeted reduction of methane emissions, he said.

“You look at agriculture, those emissions are very dispersed in nature, whereas, with oil, gas and coal mining, there are very pointed sources from which you can basically reduce methane going forward,” he said.

Shah from the NDDB added that India’s high agricultural emissions must be considered in the context of the country being home to the world’s largest cattle population, the largest producer of milk, and the largest rice exporter, as rice production also produces significant methane emissions.

“In this light, India’s agriculture sector emissions must be considered significantly low,” Shah said. Because of its large population, India’s per capita emissions are well below average.

For dairy farmers like Tamilarasu, better welfare for her cows and programs for farmers to have better practices are welcome, but she won’t be leaving her cows for the climate any time soon. She plans to continue dairy farming for the foreseeable future.

“The way we see it, our cows and us support each other. If we can make their lives better, they will make ours better too,” she said. 

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Chinese Coast Guard Hits Philippine Boat With Water Cannons; Crew Hurt

MANILA, Philippines — Chinese coast guard ships hit a Philippine supply boat with water cannons Saturday in the latest confrontation near a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, causing injuries to its navy crew members and heavy damage to the wooden vessel, Philippine officials said.

The United States and Japan immediately expressed their support to the Philippines, as well as alarm over Chinese forces’ aggression off the Second Thomas Shoal, which has been the scene of repeated confrontations between Chinese and Philippine vessels over the past year.

The far-flung shoal has been occupied by a small contingent of Philippine navy and marines on a marooned warship since 1999 but has been surrounded by Chinese coast guard and suspected militia vessels in an increasingly tense territorial standoff. It’s the second time the Philippine boat Unaizah May 4 has been damaged by the Chinese coast guard’s water cannon assault in March alone.

The repeated high-seas confrontations have sparked fears they could degenerate into a larger conflict that could bring China and the United States into a collision.

Washington lays no claims to the busy seaway, a key global trade route, but has deployed Navy ships and fighter jets in what it calls “freedom of navigation” operations, which China has criticized.

The U.S. has also warned repeatedly that it’s obligated to defend the Philippines — its oldest treaty ally in Asia — if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.

Escorted by two Philippine coast guard ships, the Unaizah May 4 was en route to deliver supplies and a fresh batch of Filipino sailors to the territorial outpost in the shoal at dawn Saturday when they were blocked and surrounded by Chinese coast guard ships and suspected militia vessels.

“Their reckless and dangerous actions culminated with the water cannoning of Unaizah May 4, causing severe damage to the vessel and injuries to Filipinos onboard,” a Philippine government task force dealing with the territorial conflicts reported without elaborating.

The two Philippine coast guard patrol ships maneuvered through the Chinese blockade to treat the injured Filipino crew members and tow the disabled supply boat away.

Another motorboat managed to transport the new batch of Filipino sailors and supplies to the Philippine outpost in the shallows of the shoal despite the Chinese coast guard’s attempt to block them by placing a floating barrier in the waters, Philippine officials said.

The hostilities dragged on for about eight hours, they said.

“The Philippines will not be deterred — by veiled threats or hostility — from exercising our legal rights over our maritime zones,” the government task force said in a statement. “We demand that China demonstrate in deeds and not in words that it is a responsible and trustworthy member of the international community.”

Chinese coast guard spokesperson Gan Yu said the Philippine vessels intruded into what he said was China’s territorial waters despite repeated warnings. “The China coast guard implemented lawful regulation, interception and expulsion in a reasonable and professional manner,” Gan said.

Washington’s ambassador to Manila, MaryKay Carlson, said, “The U.S. stands with the Philippines against the PRC’s repeated dangerous maneuvers and water cannons to disrupt” the Philippine coast guard’s “lawful activities” in Manila’s exclusive economic zone.

Japan’s ambassador-designate to Manila, Endo Kazuya, reiterated his country’s “grave concern on the repeated dangerous actions by the Chinese coast guard in the South China Sea, which resulted in Filipino injuries.”

Aside from China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei also have overlapping claims in the resource-rich and busy waterway, which Beijing continues to claim virtually in its entirety despite a 2016 international arbitration ruling that invalidated its expansive claims on historical grounds.

Video released by the Philippine military shows two Chinese coast guard ships hitting the smaller wooden-hulled boat Unaiza May 4 with high-pressure water cannon sprays at close range, causing the boat to shift in the high seas.

Chinese coast guard previously blasted the Unaizah May 4 with high-pressure water cannons in a confrontation near the Second Thomas Shoal on March 5, shattering its windshield and slightly injuring a Filipino admiral and four of his men with glass shards and splinters of debris.

The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila summoned China’s deputy ambassador after the March 5 confrontation to convey a protest of the Chinese coast guard’s actions, which it said were unacceptable.

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Historic Win Shatters Stereotypes, Empowers Women in Pakistani Politics

Washington — When Suriya Bibi was running for a seat earlier this year on the Khyber Pakhtunkwa provincial assembly, she faced numerous challenges beyond being a woman and hailing from a minority sect in Pakistan’s remote district of Chitral.

Another obstacle appeared when the Election Commission randomly assigned a hen symbol as her identifier on ballot papers — such symbols are tools to aid illiterate voters. In January, Pakistan’s Supreme Court barred her political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, from using the cricket bat symbol associated with former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

The hen symbol inadvertently perpetuated the stereotype that women in Chitral were better suited for poultry farming than politics. Her opponents capitalized on their good luck, ridiculing her and mocking the symbol’s association with domesticity.

In a phone interview with VOA, Bibi said that there was no shame in poultry farming and rejected the attempt to diminish her worth based on her election symbol.

History made

Bibi made history in early February by becoming the first woman from Chitral district to secure an assembly seat through a direct election rather than assuming a seat reserved for women, as is customary in the region. Not only did she clinch victory in the PK-1 constituency in Chitral with a decisive majority, but she also ascended to the position of deputy speaker in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assembly.

In Pakistan, where women’s involvement in governance is often restricted, Bibi encountered obstacles while navigating and challenging traditional norms to carve out her place in male-dominated politics.

According to social critic and feminist writer Sabahat Zakariya, Bibi belongs to the rare category of women parliamentarians who have secured their positions through open seats without relying on the political influence or lineage of male family members.

“Currently, all the big female names in Pakistani politics are scions of big feudal or industrial political families,” Zakariya said. “In that, Suriya Bibi’s achievement is not just unique for Chitral but also [for] all of Pakistan.”

Campaigning in rough terrain

Bibi also reflected on how the severe winters and the daunting terrain of the Hindukush mountains presented yet another challenge to her campaign.

Dilapidated roads and inadequate infrastructure made reaching the remote areas of her constituency difficult. Spanning approximately 210 kilometers (about 130 miles), the upper Chitral PK-1 district encompasses the farthest village, Broghil, which borders the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan.

“Sometimes, I had to walk kilometers on foot when there were no roads for vehicles,” she said. “Despite facing these difficulties and even being unwell at times, I remained dedicated to connecting with people and meeting voters. The support of women who walked with me provided comfort and bolstered my determination throughout this demanding campaign.”

Bibi grew up with both her father and a grandfather engaged in local politics and knew that she, too, wanted to be a politician.

“Despite my family’s support for another party, I made an independent choice and joined Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, PTI party, [which means] ‘Pakistan movement for justice,’ in 2007,” she said.

“Joining politics, I initially faced resistance and received criticism for participating in protests and rallies, as it wasn’t common for women in the conservative region like Chitral to break through a male-dominated field like politics.”

Starting as a grassroots worker, Bibi began by mobilizing women at the village level, then represented Chitral as a female leader and then became the vice president of PTI Malakand Division. So, she ascended through the ranks within her party before getting a nomination to run for election from the party.

In the recent election, Bibi’s constituency was predominately female. Women voters surpassed men in supporting her, giving Bibi 35,377 votes, compared with the 30,345 votes from men.

In Chitral, where no local woman had previously secured an electoral victory and where her opponents wielded greater financial resources, Bibi initially doubted her chances.

“Men establish connections, friendships, and network with party officials, gaining exposure and influence,” she said. “However, as a woman, I couldn’t do the same. Despite these challenges and cultural norms, I only had dedication and the unwavering support of my family, particularly my husband. He consistently encouraged me when I was nominated to run for the seat, urging me to take it up as a challenge.”

Speaking about her plans, Bibi said her focus would be on tackling property rights issues for women and prioritizing girls’ education. Given her background as an educator, she eagerly anticipates establishing a nursing school in the region, recognizing that young women who pursue nursing careers often must move far from their families.

Aspiring female students have begun approaching her about internship opportunities in her office, she said, reflecting a shift in the perception that politics are exclusively dominated by powerful men.

She said her political journey shows how even an ordinary middle-class woman like herself can ascend to great heights in the realm of politics.

This story originated in VOA’s Urdu Service.

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Multiple Factors Behind Thailand’s Birth Rate Decline, Experts Say

BANGKOK — Thailand will face a population crisis should the country’s low birth rate continue, possibly shrinking its population by half. Experts say the government must prioritize boosting Thailand’s parenthood welfare to find a solution to the crisis.

The average number of children born to one woman in Thailand is about 1.16, according to the World Bank figures for 2021, while some media report the rate was 1.08 for 2022. Thai health officials confirmed fewer than half-a-million new births, 485,085, in 2022 — the lowest number in 70 years.

Experts say that by the year 2083, Thailand’s population will shrink to 33 million should the current trend continue, with the majority being senior citizens.

Thailand currently has a workforce of about 39 million out of a nationwide population that exceeds 70 million.

Thai Health Minister Cholnan Srikaew has said the country’s birth rate decline is at a critical level.

Variety of causes

Sasiwimon Warunsiri Paweenawat, associate professor of economics at Thammasat University, cites numerous reasons for the declining birth rate.

“It’s decreasing a lot because we have an improvement of the health care system and the excess of the birth control,” she told VOA. “And in the past, the government has the policy to encourage the birth control.”

Thailand’s first national population program began in the 1970s. Sasiwimon said the government promoted a policy for the population to have fewer children.

Data show it worked: From 1963 to 1983, Thailand saw approximately 1 million new births annually before it steadily declined over four decades.

“They even had the slogan that ‘if you have more children, you will become poorer,’” Sasiwimon said.

Cholnan wants to rid Thailand of that notion under the “Give Birth, Great World” campaign, which makes boosting the country’s birth rate a national cause. He said the campaign aims to increase fertility throughout the country and provide medical help to those with reproductive issues.

Thailand isn’t the only Asian country grappling with low birth rates. Singapore, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan all have declining birth rates.

Sasiwimon says said education, cost of living, changing attitudes and maternity leave also affect Thailand’s low birth rate.

In Thailand pregnant women are entitled to no more than 98 days, or 14 weeks, maternity leave, which is one of the lowest in the Southeast Asia region. The International Labor Organization Maternity Protection Convention recommends 18 weeks maternity leave for a parent to recover from the pregnancy.

“In my research we found when women have more and more years of education, they prefer to have fewer children. When women are more educated, they join the labor market and earn income. If they have more and more children, they lose that income because of the costs,” she said. “Having children, [costs are] very high now — and the more educated the woman, the less likely they are to have children.”

Changing opinions about family

Many younger Thais have different attitudes than their elders.

“The attitude among the Thai population, the Gen Y, around 21 to 37 years old, are a large group of Thai population right now.  Compared to Gen X, who prioritize the family, this generation Y, they prioritize their career path and their personal life,” Sasiwimon said. “So, that’s why getting married or having children is their last priority. Instead of a work-family balance, they tend to prioritize themselves and it becomes a ‘work-and-me balance.’”

Jongjit Rittirong, associate professor for the Institute for Population and Social Research at Mahidol University, says Thailand has no time to waste implementing better welfare structures for parents.

“Increasing the birth rate within a short period or in a few years is impossible,” she told VOA. “Thailand needs a national plan in all policies to maintain the fertility level and needs a lot of effort to increase the birth rate, which may take years.

“According to the lesson from other developed countries,” she said, “increasing the birth rate is not that simple. It requires effort in many dimensions of social welfare to raise the birth rate.”

Rittirong also told VOA that families need a socially supportive environment to raise a child.

“For example, working couples need safe childcare in the first five years to care for their kids during working time. Some prefer childcare at their workplace, so they can stop by during the day to see their kids and give breastfeeding,” she said.

“Longer paid parental leave, flexible working hours for working parents, quality of school with affordable tuition fees, affordable housing with a friendly environment for kids’ activities, [and] medical insurance for young children [are also needed].”

Despite the concerns, Sasiwimon said she is happy Thailand’s new government is paying attention to the issue.

“The good news? The current government, they made it a national agenda to encourage people to have children,” she said. “When I look at the policy, if that can implement, it will be very good — the government has to adjust to the environment, provide a family friendly policy, provide assistance for mothers and encourage the role of both father and mother. This would be good to correct this crisis.

“If you want to adjust the population structure, it takes time,” Sasiwimon said. “If you want to have one child today, it can be in [the] labor force after 15 years. So, it’s a long-term plan, but I’m quite happy they have said it is a national agenda.”

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China’s Renewables, Oil Consumption Fit Gulf States, Analysts Say

Tel Aviv, Israel — During China’s annual national legislature this month, Premier Li Qiang announced plans to construct more solar and wind farms as well as hydropower projects.

China is already the world’s largest producer of renewable energy and also holds near-monopolies on the globe’s renewable energy manufacturing and supply chain. Last year alone China produced more solar panels than the U.S. has ever produced in total.

China’s dominance in electric vehicle battery components and solar power panels has rattled Western governments, including those of the European Union and the United States, which blame Beijing’s “huge” state subsidies. The U.S. has responded with its own subsidies and incentives to boost American production.

China is also the world’s biggest consumer of fossil fuels and the globe’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide. But analysts say that puts Beijing in a good position to partner on renewable energy growth with a somewhat surprising group — oil producers in the Persian Gulf.

Gulf States including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Kuwait and Iraq produced about a third of the world’s crude oil in 2022, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But they’re also diversifying away from those industries with help from China, say analysts.

Energy and Geopolitics Researcher Elai Rettig at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University tells VOA it’s a mutually beneficial investment as the shift to green energy will free up oil for sale to the Gulf’s main consumers in Asia, especially China.

“In that region, oil is cheaper than water,” notes Rettig.  “The more you invest in the Gulf, the more you can trust they’ll see you get oil even under sanctions. China is the biggest oil importer in the world and needs to make sure someone will sell them cheap oil if there’s a confrontation with the U.S.”

But it’s less about the Gulf states’ love of China and more about Beijing’s ability to deliver on large-scale projects at lower costs, says Li-Chen Sim, a nonresident fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute.

“The Chinese can produce low-priced, polysilicon for solar panels because labor costs are cheaper, so products are cheaper. Solar model assembly in China is 50% cheaper than in Europe,” she told VOA.

Western countries have raised tariffs on Chinese imports and offered fresh subsidies to encourage domestic competition. The European Union this month approved import taxes on Chinese electric vehicles and is considering them for solar panels.

The EU this month moved closer to banning products made with forced labor, which is expected to include polysilicon components for solar panels made in China’s western Xinjiang region, which supplies nearly half the global demand.

The United States stopped all imports from the region in 2022 as part of a crackdown on forced labor imposed on the region’s ethnic Uyghur Muslim minority, which China denies.

Despite pushback from the West, plunging solar prices are making it harder to compete with Chinese manufacturers.

Nonetheless, China has some competition when it comes to renewable energy in the Gulf States, says Sim.

“China plays a role [in the Gulf] in the financing, contractor and equipment sectors — in financing they are significant. But in fact, not as significant as the Japanese,” she said.  “Japan’s role in green energy financing in the Gulf is huge.”

During his July 2023 Middle East tour aimed at promoting Japan’s green technology and regional economic ties, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida signed signed 23 agreements with the UAE to strengthen cooperation and existing partnerships.

Japan in 2017 became the first country in the world to formulate a national hydrogen strategy with plans to become the first “hydrogen society.”

But it will have to compete with China, already the world’s top producer and consumer of hydrogen, though most of it is generated with high-carbon emission fossil fuels like coal.  

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Japanese Bar Urges Tokyo to Halt Park Development

TOKYO — The Japanese bar association is urging Tokyo’s metropolitan government to suspend a disputed redevelopment of the city’s beloved park area, saying that its environmental assessment by developers lacked objective and scientific grounds.

The metropolitan government approved the Jingu Gaien redevelopment project in February 2023, based on the environmental assessment submitted by the developers, allowing the start of construction.

The plan involves razing a famous baseball stadium and rebuilding it as part of a vast construction project that critics say would threaten thousands of trees in a city of meager green space.

Hundreds of outside experts, including architects, environmentalists and academics, have demanded the suspension of the project in open letters and petition campaigns.

The developers are the real estate company Mitsui Fudosan, Meiji Jingu shrine, Itochu Corp. and the government-affiliated Japan Sports Council.

In the latest opposition to the project, the Japan Federation of Bar Associations issued a statement Thursday in which the lawyers’ group said the environmental assessment lacks sufficient data and used erroneous research methods.

In one example, the developers’ report failed to mention the status of gingko trees even though a United Nations-affiliated environmental group has detected deterioration in the health of gingko trees in the area, the statement said. Environmentalists have said that high-rise buildings planned as part of the development would come too close to nearby gingko trees.

Also, the Japan branch of the International Council on Monuments and Sites, which has issued a “heritage alert” for Tokyo’s Gaien area, was never invited to environmental assessment meetings, the bar association said.

“We do not consider the report objective or scientific,” the statement said.

It urged the Tokyo metropolitan government to suspend the project, ask the developers to resubmit their environmental assessment and have it reviewed by an investigative panel of experts.

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike told a news conference Friday that she was unaware of details in the bar association’s statement but defended the metropolitan government’s 2023 approval of the development plans as appropriate.

Although the Tokyo government has never formally suspended the project, the developers have voluntarily delayed portions of it, including the felling of trees, presumably due to the outcry. The main developer, Mitsui Fudosan, has said it is reexamining the project’s effects on nearby gingko trees and is working to improve transparency and communication with the public.

The bar association also noted that a respected group, the International Association for Impact Assessments, urged the Tokyo governor in June 2023 to stop the project, but that the appeal was ignored.

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Pakistan Urged to Release Journalist, Unblock Access to Social Media

Islamabad — Free speech advocates are urging Pakistan authorities Friday to unconditionally release an independent journalist and remove a month-long blockade of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Journalist Asad Ali Toor, who has nearly 300,000 followers on X and more than 160,000 subscribers to his YouTube political affairs channel, was arrested on February 26 by the Federal Investigation Agency, or FIA. 

He was accused of running a “malicious” and “anti-state” drive through his social media platforms against Pakistani government officials and state institutions.

Toor was frequently broadcasting commentaries critical of the chief justice of Pakistan and the country’s powerful military establishment before being arrested. 

The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, demanded Friday that authorities immediately and unconditionally release Toor, return his devices, and stop harassing him in retaliation for his journalistic work.

“The ongoing detention and investigation of journalist Asad Ali Toor, as well as authorities’ seizure of his devices and pressure to disclose his sources, constitute an egregious violation of press freedom in Pakistan,” the CPJ statement quoted its Asia program coordinator Beh Lih Yi as saying.

She urged Pakistani authorities to stop using the country’s Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act and other “draconian laws” to persecute journalists and silence critical reporting and commentary.

In a remand application filed in court on March 3, the FIA stated that Toor was “non-cooperative to disclose his sources of information,” even though local laws protect journalists’ right to privacy and non-disclosure of their sources.

Matiullah Jan, a well-known Pakistani journalist with 1 million X followers and more than 270,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel, criticized Toor’s arrest, saying he is being denied the due process of law. 

Jan told VOA that instead of doing justice, the due process of law has been used to punish a journalist. 

“Arresting a journalist who is already cooperating in the inquiry, putting handcuffs on him and pushing him around to produce him in court, not allowing his family members to meet him. This is all abuse of the process of law against a journalist for reporting (critical) things,” Jan said. 

Toor is the second Pakistani journalist to have been arrested over the past month. In late February, authorities in the country’s most populous province of Punjab took a nationally known journalist, Imran Riaz Khan, into custody on alleged corruption charges. 

The jailed Khan denied any wrongdoing and told the judge during a recent court hearing that he was being punished for criticizing alleged state-sponsored rigging in the February 8 national elections. 

Pakistan’s elections were marred by allegations of widespread voter fraud to enable pro-military parties to win the elections, charges officials rejected.

X remains inaccessible 

Meanwhile, access to social media platform X remained restricted in Pakistan Friday, nearly a month after services were suspended amid the election rigging charges. 

Users in Pakistan, including government officials and ministers, bypass the ban through virtual private networks, or VPNs, which allow users to hide their identities and locations online. 

Human rights defenders and even Pakistani lawmakers from ruling and opposition parties have criticized the restriction, saying it has placed Pakistan in a group of countries that have imposed long-term or permanent bans on international social media platforms.

A group of nearly 60 local and foreign civil society groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, and prominent individual activists, in a collective statement Wednesday, criticized internet service disruptions in Pakistan, saying they “infringe upon the fundamental rights” of access to information and freedom of expression.

The statement said, “The arbitrary blocking of platforms, including the prolonged and unannounced disruption of “X” since 17 February 2024, is a sobering illustration of growing digital censorship in the country.” 

It called on Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s newly elected coalition government to immediately issue a clarification outlining the reasons and legal basis for blocking X and other affected platforms.

Government officials have denied any disruption in internet services, saying they have “not seen any directive” to ban X. Independent monitor groups and Pakistani users have rejected the official claims.

“Metrics show that X has now been restricted in #Pakistan for three weeks; the popular microblogging platform has been largely unavailable since 17 February following a series of social media shutdowns targeting political opposition and an election day telecoms blackout,” NetBlocks, a global cybersecurity monitor, said on X on March 9. 

Authorities shut down mobile internet services across Pakistan on election day, citing terrorism threats to the voting process. The move, however, triggered domestic and international backlash and fueled vote-rigging allegations.

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Australia Resumes Aid to UN Palestinian Aid Agency

Sydney — Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong said Friday the government will resume funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which is providing humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza.  In January, Australia joined several Western nations in suspending funding to UNRWA after Israeli intelligence suggested a dozen of its workers had been linked to the October 7 attack by Hamas militants.  Australia is also being criticized for canceling the visas of several Palestinians fleeing the conflict with Israel in Gaza.  The Australia Greens party says the move “shows a lack of humanity.”

Speaking to reporters Friday in Canberra Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong  said she was confident UNRWA was “not a terrorist organization.”  She added that the United Nations aid agency for Palestinians was critical to providing help to people in Gaza “who are on the brink of starving.”

Earlier this month, Canada and the European Union announced they would also resume funding to UNRWA. The United States, the agency’s largest donor, continues to freeze payments.

Wong told reporters she is satisfied an investigation into the allegations following the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas has been thorough.

“The nature of these allegations warranted an immediate and appropriate response. The best available current advice from agencies and the Australian government lawyers is that UNRWA is not a terrorist organization, and that existing additional safeguards sufficiently protect Australian taxpayer funding,” she said.

Australia’s resumption of aid to the agency comes amid criticism for canceling the visas of Palestinians fleeing the conflict.

Data from the Department of Home Affairs states that Australia granted 2,273 temporary visas for Palestinians with connections to Australia between October 7 and February 6.  

More than 2,400 visitor visas were also granted to people declaring Israeli citizenship during that period.

The visa category does not allow recipients to work or have access to education or government-funded health care in Australia, although they would not be turned away from emergency rooms.

Campaigners for refugees and migrants say several Palestinians have had their Australian visas abruptly canceled by the Canberra government in recent days. The government, citing “privacy reasons,” refuses to say how many visas are affected.

A cancelation notification obtained by local media asserted a particular applicant had never intended to genuinely “stay temporarily in Australia.”

Australia’s left-leaning Labor government has defended its actions, insisting they were based on ongoing security checks.  A spokesperson for the Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said the “Australian government reserves the right to cancel any issued visas if circumstances change.”

But Adam Bandt, the leader of the Australian Greens party, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.  Friday that visa applicants are being treated unfairly.

“What Labor is saying is that peoples’ visas are being canceled because Labor does not know how long the Labor-backed invasion of Gaza will last, and, accordingly, they are refusing them entry into the country.  That is callous inhumanity,” said Bandt.

Australia has said Israel has the right to defend itself after the attack by Hamas militants last October.

Canberra advocates a two-state solution in which Israel and a future Palestinian state co‑exist within internationally recognized borders. 

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