washington — The hardships and heartbreak of three years of Taliban rule are reflected in the shining brown eyes of schoolgirl Parwana Malik. And on the anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, advocates say Washington should take a harder look at the plight of countless young girls who have suffered under the hard-line regime.

In 2021, as the last U.S. troops were leaving after two decades in the country, Malik’s father sold her into marriage to a much older man.

She was 9 years old — young even by local standards, which see many Afghan girls married off in their teens.

In 2021, the U.N. Children’s Fund sounded the alarm about a drastic rise in child marriage as Western forces and aid organizations withdrew, and as desperate Afghan families lost the safety net those groups provided. Some betrothals, they said, involved infant girls as young as 20 days old.

And local media have reported that girls as young as 7 have been married off to Taliban commanders.

“What the Taliban is doing to women and girls is absolutely a crime against humanity,” said Stephanie Sinclair, a photographer and founder of the nonprofit group Too Young to Wed. “And Afghan girls and women inside the country are really suffering, unlike anywhere else in the world.”

Earlier this month at an event marking the anniversary, a Taliban official gave a defiant speech criticizing foreign interference.

The new leadership “eliminated internal differences and expanded the scope of unity and cooperation in the country,” said Deputy Prime Minister Maulvi Abdul Kabir. “No one will be allowed to interfere in internal affairs, and Afghan soil will not be used against any country.”

Neither he nor the other three speakers at the event spoke about the day-to-day struggles of civilians. Women — including female journalists — were barred from the event. And this month, the regime passed a law that restricts women’s movements and requires them to cover their bodies and silence their voices in public.

The U.N.’s human rights body condemned the law as “egregious” and demanded its repeal.

“The newly adopted law on the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice by the de facto authorities in Afghanistan cements policies that completely erase women’s presence in public, silencing their voices and depriving them of their individual autonomy, effectively attempting to render them into faceless, voiceless shadows,” said Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The Taliban are not officially recognized as Afghanistan’s leaders by the U.N. or by most countries. Yet this regime has been slowly gaining recognition. China this year became the first country to accept credentials from a Taliban-appointed ambassador. And Russia’s foreign minister recently called the Taliban “the real power” in the country.

“We never removed our embassy from there, and neither did the People’s Republic of China,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. “The Afghan ambassador presented his credentials to Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing along with other ambassadors. Kazakhstan recently decided to remove them from the list of terrorist organizations. We’re planning to do the same.”

Washington has refused to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government, and has kept its distance, though the White House has repeatedly mentioned that it maintains leverage over the group and has “over the horizon” capabilities to strike.

U.S. President Joe Biden did not mention the Taliban in his statement this week marking the anniversary of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal. He likes to describe Afghanistan as “the graveyard of empires” — so called because of the stubborn resistance to foreign influence by its lionized protectors.

Near the top of that ladder is late resistance fighter Ahmad Shah Massoud, dubbed the “Lion of the Panjshir.” The anti-Soviet guerrilla leader — slain by Taliban sympathizers in 2001 — is memorialized everywhere in the vivid green valley of that name. Panjshir was the last of the nation’s 34 provinces to fall in 2021.

From exile, Massoud’s eldest son now leads the nation’s resistance movement. This week, Ahmad Massoud, head of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, argued that trampling the human rights of half of the population is not just bad policy but also bad politics.

“They do not represent the will of the population,” he said. “Afghanistan’s youth, especially young girls, have dreams and aspirations no different from their peers around the globe.”

Vice President Kamala Harris also issued her own statement on the anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal. Like Biden, she did not mention the regime’s dismal treatment of girls and women — though her campaign for her nation’s top job is a strong repudiation of the Taliban’s rule that girls cannot be schooled past sixth grade.

Republican presidential challenger Donald Trump also focused on the deaths of 13 American servicemembers in criticizing the Biden administration’s pullout.

“Caused by Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, the humiliation in Afghanistan set off the collapse of American credibility and respect all around the world,” he said. “And the fake news doesn’t want to talk about it.”

Sinclair urged American leaders to focus not on the men in charge but on the female voices they have silenced, and to impose harsher consequences for it.

“I saw those statements, and I really think that we really need to put more accountability, make more accountability, for the Taliban about addressing their crimes,” she said.

She and other advocates are urging foreign powers to further squeeze the regime.

“Otherwise, we’re inching towards normalization little by little,” she said. “The next thing we’re going to hear is that primary schoolgirls are going to be out of school. … It’s only going to get worse. It’s been clear that this is not Taliban 2.0. This is the original hardline stance that they had in the late ’90s. And we really need to do better.”

And now, amid these dismal discussions: a plot twist.

Too Young to Wed persuaded Parwana’s aged husband to return her to her family. Her story inspired the group to launch a fund in her name, which now feeds about 1,000 Afghan families per month and provides essential supplies like blankets and infant supplies.

And Parwana is now back where she belongs, Sinclair says: in school.

“She’s quite the character,” Sinclair said. “She has a lot of big opinions, and she wants to be a teacher or a doctor, and she wants to do something, and she’s got the power to do it. … The problem is, she’s not living in a society that is permitting it under this regime, and unfortunately, there are millions of Parwanas right now.”

And as Parwana nears sixth grade — where most girls worry not about husbands but schoolwork, friends and the gale-force winds of puberty — she carries a heavy burden on her young shoulders: the knowledge that, unless something changes, her education will soon end.

But in the few years she has left, her smile wide and deep brown eyes shining with hope and joy, she clutches something else close to her chest: schoolbooks.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press.
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TOKYO — The intrusion of a Chinese spy plane into Japanese airspace is a “wake-up call” for Tokyo about the aggressive nature of China’s leadership, U.S. lawmaker John Moolenaar, who chairs the House Select Committee on China, said Wednesday.

The incident on Monday involving a Y-9 reconnaissance aircraft flying near the southern Kyushu island was the first time a Chinese military aircraft had breached Japan’s airspace, according to Tokyo, which told Beijing it was “utterly unacceptable.”

The Chinese foreign ministry said Tuesday it was still trying to understand the situation.

We’ve “seen a very different China in the last few years and the question is what’s the best way to deter future aggression and malign activity,” Moolenaar, who is a Republican member of the House of Representatives, said in an interview in Tokyo on Wednesday.

His visit to Japan, with half a dozen members of a bipartisan committee that has looked at topics ranging from China’s exports of fentanyl precursor chemicals to Beijing’s influence over U.S. businesses, comes as President Joe Biden’s administration looks to expand restrictions on semiconductor manufacturing equipment exports.

While Japan has worked with its U.S. ally to restrict shipments of such technology, unlike Washington it has avoided trade curbs that directly target its neighbor and largest trading partner.

A new rule that will broaden U.S. powers to halt semiconductor manufacturing equipment exports to China from some foreign chipmakers will exclude Japan, the Netherlands and South Korea, two sources told Reuters last month.

In Japan, Moolenaar met trade and industry minister Ken Saito, who oversees Japan’s technology exports and is meeting with the Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and other senior Japanese officials.

“The question is what’s the best way to deter future (Chinese) aggression and malign activity. We don’t want to feed into a military complex that can be used against us,” Moolenaar said.
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Three years of Taliban rule in Afghanistan has brought misery upon that nation’s girls and women, say critics of the hard-line regime. Both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris this week marked the third anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal – but advocates want to see Washington push harder against the egregious human rights situation. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Washington.
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WASHINGTON — Movie ticket sales in China have generated more than $1.5 billion so far this summer, a little more than half of last year’s record total of $2.89 billion, according to China’s Film Data Information Network, an institution directly under the Central Propaganda Department. 

Summer is usually one of three lucrative periods for China’s movie industry, but industry analysts, observers and customers say a slower economy and a lack of creative domestic films are to blame for the decline.

Some would-be moviegoers explained why they are staying home this summer.

One posted on social media: “The impact from last year’s economic downturn officially appeared this year. Everyone thinks 40-80 yuan ($5-$11) per ticket is expensive.” 

“Many movies in theaters in July are on streaming services in August,” another posted. “We’d rather watch them at home than go to the theater.”

A moviegoer in Beijing who identified herself as Ms. Yu, told VOA that this year’s film market is sluggish because the themes are plain, and streaming services allow everyone to watch movies at home without spending money.

“Everyone’s life is already miserable,” she said, “so we don’t want to watch sad movies.”

Although the streaming services have become theaters’ biggest competitors, the economic downturn may be the main reason for the ticket sales plunge, said Shenzhen-based film director Zhang, who did not want to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.

“The spending power of young people and parents has decreased,” Zhang told VOA. “One [reason] is that young people don’t date, and parents whose income has been reduced are under great pressure to raise children, so they naturally cut the consumption activities except eating and drinking, not just movies.”

China’s economy has been struggling to stabilize since the pandemic, according to the World Bank, with growth falling to 3% in 2022 before a moderate recovery to 5.2% in 2023. The global lender expects China’s growth rate to drop back below 5% this year, while youth unemployment has surged.

China’s National Bureau of Statistics removed students from its unemployment calculation after China hit a record high 21.3% youth unemployment rate in June 2023, prompting authorities to temporarily suspend publication of the statistic. 

Darson Chiu, director-general of the Confederation of Asia-Pacific Chambers of Commerce and Industry in Taiwan, told VOA that China’s controls on film and creativity have also contributed to the lackluster box office figures.

“China has a very strict censorship system,” Chiu said. “Cultural activities need creativity, and it must be bottom-up. But it is obviously a top-down [censorship] mechanism, so it [the Chinese film industry] is not as creative as it is in other more open and free economies.”

Lee Cheng-liang, an assistant professor of communications at National Chengchi University in Taipei, Taiwan, said Chinese cinemas in the summer mainly show domestic movies, which are struggling to find investors.

“The economy is declining; investors are more cautious to minimize risks. So they diversify the movie themes they invest in,” Lee told VOA. “If you focus on the Chinese market, you will not necessarily make money unless you are at the top of the pyramid.”

Director Zhang said the Chinese summer comedies “Successor,” which critiques the Chinese social education system, and “Upstream,” which portrays package deliverers, are movies that do not “empathize with the general public.” 

Commercial movies are often condescending, he said, with hypocritically fabricated plots to show the suffering of people at the bottom. “It is actually a very deformed route,” Zhang added.

Other film critics, however, find “Upstream” a great work with increasing favorable audience feedback, which uncovers China’s immense economic problems and the struggle of its army of gig workers.

China’s state Xinhua News agency said “Successor,” grossing nearly 3.2 billion yuan as of Aug 20, accounted for almost 30% of China’s summer box office sales.

Zhang said the more depressed the social and historical period is, the more popular comedy is because the audience wants to feel “dreamy and painless.”

Despite the poor summer box office showing, not all critics are negative about China’s film industry.  

“The ticket sales are not good this summer, but it does not mean that their [China’s] movies are bad,” Michael Mai, a film critic based in Taipei, told VOA. “Their audience is hard to please. Why? Because their appetite is too big. They have all kinds of movies.”

Mai noted that there are three major periods in the Chinese movie market: the Lunar New Year, in January and February; the summer season, from June to August; and the weeklong National Day season from Oct. 1.  

Movie ticket sales always have seasonal ups and downs, Mai said, so people should be focusing more on long-term trends.      

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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WASHINGTON — China pledged support for Pakistan’s anti-terrorism campaign after Baloch insurgents, with a history of opposing Chinese investments in the region, carried out a series of attacks in the southwestern Baluchistan province Sunday.

More than 40 civilians and military personnel were killed. The military reported killing more than 20 attackers.

The province is home to China-funded mega projects, including the strategic deep-water port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea.

Lin Jian, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, condemned the latest attacks.

“China stands prepared to strengthen counterterrorism and security cooperation with Pakistan in order to maintain peace and security in the region,” Lin said during a Tuesday briefing in Beijing.

The insurgent group, Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), claimed responsibility for the attacks.

The multiple attacks in the resource-rich but impoverished Baluchistan province coincided with a trip to Pakistan by Li Qiaoming, the Chinese commander of the People’s Liberation Army ground forces, who met with Pakistan’s army chief General Syed Asim Munir.

“The meeting afforded an opportunity for in-depth discussions on matters of mutual interest, regional security, military training, and measures to further augment bilateral defense cooperation,” said a press release issued by the Pakistani army.

Baloch separatist groups have strongly opposed the China-Pakistan alliance in Baluchistan, launching their third major secession campaign since 2006. They have targeted Chinese interests within and beyond the province. No Chinese were targeted in the latest attacks.

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif told his Cabinet the attacks aimed to disrupt a multibillion-dollar set of projects in the province known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Pakistan Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has said in a statement, “these attacks are a well-thought-out plan to create anarchy in Pakistan.”

Growing violence in cash-strapped Pakistan, especially attacks targeting Chinese nationals and interests, have been a concern for Beijing.

Pakistan has been facing a prolonged debt crisis and has put all its eggs in China’s basket. Beijing had invested around $26 billion in Pakistan under CPEC, said Donald Lu, the U.S. State Department’s assistant secretary for South and Central Asian affairs, during a congressional hearing last month

“The recent attacks have apparently worried China, but what we see is that China kept pressuring Pakistan in the wake of [a past] attack, instead of helping it out in its fight against militancy,” Pakistani analyst Murad Ali told VOA.

He was referring to an attack by an Afghan citizen in March that killed five Chinese engineers.

“These attacks are particularly troubling for China, which has invested heavily in CPEC. The government is not doing enough to stop the violence,” Abdullah Khan, an Islamabad-based security expert, told VOA. 

Last month, weeks-long violent demonstrations in Pakistan’s Gwadar port city aggravated concerns about the country’s security situation and its impact on the Chinese projects in the province.

China called on Pakistan in March to eliminate security risks to its nationals following the suicide attack that killed five Chinese engineers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan’s northwestern volatile province.

Following that attack, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian asked Pakistan at a news conference “to conduct speedy and thorough investigations into the attack, step up security with concrete measures, completely eliminate security risks, and do everything possible to ensure the utmost safety of Chinese personnel, institutions, and projects in Pakistan.” 

Speaking in Islamabad in October Chinese Ambassador Jiang Zaidong said CPEC had brought more than $25 billion in direct investments to Pakistan, created 155,000 jobs, and built 510 kilometers (316.8 miles) of expressways, 8,000 megawatts of electricity, and 886 kilometers (550.5 miles) of core transmission grids in Pakistan.

This story originated in VOA’s Deewa Service. Ihsan Muhammad Khan and Malik Waqar Ahmed contributed to the story from Pakistan.
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STATE DEPARTMENT — The White House says U.S. officials continue to raise concerns about what they describe as unfair trade policies and non-market economic practices by the People’s Republic of China.

Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is expected to unveil its final implementation plans for substantial tariff increases on selected Chinese imports in the coming days.

Some U.S. manufacturers, however, including those in the electric vehicle and utility equipment sectors, have requested that the higher tariff rates be reduced or delayed, citing concerns about rising cost.

On May 14, the White House announced a significant increase in tariffs on Chinese imports, raising duties on electric vehicles to 100%, doubling tariffs on semiconductors and solar cells to 50%, and introducing new 25% tariffs on lithium-ion batteries and other strategic products such as steel.

The move is seen as an effort to reshore U.S. manufacturing, enhance supply chain resilience, and protect domestic U.S. industries from what officials described as China’s overproduction.

This week, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during their talks near Beijing that Washington will continue to take necessary actions to prevent advanced U.S. technologies from being used to undermine national security, while avoiding undue limitations on trade or investment.

In Beijing, China has vowed to take countermeasures.

Wang this week accused the U.S. of using overcapacity as an excuse for “protectionism.” He urged the U.S. to “stop suppressing China in the economic, trade, and technological fields and to stop undermining China’s legitimate interests.”

Sullivan and Wang have discussed arranging a call between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in the coming weeks. Disputes over trade and tariffs are expected to be among the issues on the agenda.

Former U.S. officials told VOA that the leaders also are likely to have face-to-face talks before Biden leaves office next January.

“The first opportunity is the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) leaders’ summit in November, and the second is the G20 summit in November,” Ryan Haas, a former NSC senior official from 2013 to 2017 and currently a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, told VOA on Wednesday.

Some analysts have downplayed the likelihood of immediate inflation, noting that the tariff increases announced in May target a relatively small portion of products — $18 billion in imports from China, which accounts for only 4.2% of all U.S. imports from China in 2023.

“Because many of the tariffs affect products that are not currently being imported in large quantities, and because they are phased in over two years, the immediate inflationary effect is likely to be small,” wrote William Reinsch, the Scholl Chair in International Business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in a CSIS analysis earlier this year.

This week, following the Biden administration’s May announcement, Canada said that it will impose a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicle imports and a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum imports from China, effective Oct. 1.

In Beijing, China’s Commerce Ministry issued a statement expressing strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to Canada’s planned tariff increases, stating that they would disrupt the stability of global industrial and supply chains, severely impact trade relations, and harm the interests of businesses in both countries.

Some material in this report came from Reuters.
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Islamabad — Pakistan urged Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders Wednesday to explain their relationship with a globally designated terrorist group waging cross-border bloodshed and address concerns about sweeping restrictions they have imposed on Afghan women.

The remarks by Islamabad’s special representative to Afghanistan, Asif Durrani, came as the militant group in question — Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP — has intensified deadly attacks on Pakistani soil from its alleged sanctuaries on the Afghan side of the border.

The violence has claimed the lives of hundreds of security forces and civilians in recent months, with TTP formally claiming credit for most of them.

“The TTP-led terrorism is linked with the Afghanistan problem. Therefore, both countries will need to address the menace of TTP together,” Durrani told a seminar in the Pakistani capital.

The Taliban “will have to come clean about their image as ideological cousins of TTP. This is the minimum for a durable [bilateral] relationship that [they] can do,” he stressed.

The Pakistani envoy spoke just hours after the Taliban army chief, Qari Fasihuddin Fitrat, rejected previous allegations that TTP was based on and orchestrating attacks from Afghan soil.

“There is no evidence, nor anyone can prove, that TTP is present in Afghanistan,” Fitrat told a news conference in the Afghan capital, Kabul. “TTP has bases in Pakistan and controls some areas from which it launches attacks inside Pakistan,” Fitrat said without elaborating further.

TTP has publicly pledged allegiance to the Taliban leadership. The militant group sheltered Taliban commanders on Pakistani soil and provided recruits to support their insurgent attacks against U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan for years until their withdrawal three years ago when the Taliban swept back to power.

Durrani highlighted on Wednesday that despite the mutual tensions resulting from TTP attacks, his government is assisting landlocked Afghanistan in conducting international trade through Pakistani land routes and seaports to help Kabul address national economic and humanitarian challenges.

The United Nations has, in a recent report, described TTP as “the largest terrorist group in Afghanistan.” It noted that Taliban authorities are supporting stepped-up TTP attacks against Pakistan, and the militants are being trained, as well as equipped, in al-Qaida-run terror training camps on the Afghan territory, charges Kabul rejected.

On Tuesday, the United States reiterated its worries about the growing threat of terrorism in Afghanistan.

“We know that we can’t turn a blind eye to the threats from organizations such as ISIS-K and that we must keep a relentless focus on counterterrorism,” Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder told reporters in Washington, referring to the Afghan affiliate of the Islamic State. “But there are many other terror groups that are resident right now in Afghanistan,” Ryder added without elaborating.

Curbs on Afghan women

Durrani on Wednesday praised the Taliban for establishing national security since their takeover but reiterated concerns about restrictions on Afghan women’s access to public life and supported international demands for their reversal.

“Many have acknowledged the positive aspects of the changed Afghanistan, including less corruption, a drastic reduction in poppy cultivation, and an improvement in the overall security situation,” Durrani said. “[However], there are concerns for girls’ education and women’s right to work, which no society, whether Islamic or otherwise, should allow to happen.”

Durrani also noted the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, comprising 57 Muslim-majority countries, had “unequivocally” called on the Taliban to lift the ban on girls’ education and their right to work.

De facto Afghan leaders have persistently denounced the U.N.-led global criticism of their policies, saying they are governing the country strictly in line with Islamic law, or Shariah, and local customs.

The Taliban have barred girls from attending school beyond the sixth grade and women from most public and private sector employment, as well as prohibiting them from making road trips without a male guardian.

Last week, the radical rulers enacted new regulations prohibiting women from speaking aloud or showing their faces in public at any time, drawing international outrage.

On Monday, Taliban chief spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid lambasted the U.N. and Western critics of their governance, claiming that the objections of “non-Muslims” stemmed from their “lack of understanding” of Islam.

“We view this as disrespect to our Islamic Shariah,” he said.
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Tokyo — Southwestern Japan braced on Wednesday for what officials say could be one of the strongest storms to ever hit the region, as some residents in the path of Typhoon Shanshan were ordered to evacuate and major firms like Toyota closed factories.

Airlines and rail operators canceled some services for the coming days as the typhoon, categorized as “very strong,” barreled towards the main southwestern island of Kyushu with gusts of up 252 km per hour (157 mph). 

The meteorological agency issued an emergency warning saying the typhoon could bring flooding, landslides and wind strong enough to knock down some houses.

“Maximum caution is required given that forecasts are for strong winds, high waves and high tides that have not been seen thus far,” Satoshi Sugimoto, the agency’s chief forecaster, told a news conference.

After striking Kyushu over the next few days the storm is expected to approach central and eastern regions, including the capital Tokyo, around the weekend, the agency said.

Authorities issued evacuation orders for more than 800,000 residents in Kagoshima prefecture in southern Kyushu and central Japan’s Aichi and Shizuoka prefectures.

In Aichi, home to Toyota’s headquarters, two people believed to be residents of a house that collapsed in a landslide during heavy rains were unaccounted for. Three residents of the house had been pulled out, according to public broadcaster NHK.

Toyota will suspend operations at all 14 of its plants in Japan from Wednesday evening through Thursday morning, it said. Nissan  said it would suspend operations at its Kyushu plant on Thursday and Friday morning, while Honda  will also temporarily close its factory in Kumamoto in southwestern Kyushu.

Also, Mazda Motor plans to suspend operations at its Hiroshima and Hofu plants, both in western Japan, from Thursday evening through Friday, the automaker said.

Shanshan is the latest harsh weather system to hit Japan following last week’s Typhoon Ampil, which also led to blackouts and evacuations.

ANA said it would cancel more than 210 domestic flights in total between Wednesday and Friday slated to leave or arrive in southwestern Japan, affecting about 18,400 passengers.

Japan Airlines said it would cancel 402 domestic flights over the same three-day period. A total of 10 international flights operated by both airlines will also be suspended.
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BEIJING — Air China and China Southern Airlines will become the second and third Chinese carriers to fly China’s homegrown COMAC C919 passenger jet when their first planes are delivered on Wednesday, state-run Chinese Central TV said.

Chinese planemaker COMAC is trying to break into a passenger jet market dominated by Western manufacturers Airbus and Boeing that has been strained by aircraft shortages and a Boeing safety crisis.

The C919 entered domestic service in May last year with China Eastern, which flies seven of the jets domestically.

China’s three big state-owned airlines have each ordered 100 C919s, and COMAC has said more than 1,000 have been ordered overall.

China Southern last week said on social media platform Weibo that the first C919 would be integrated into its fleet by Wednesday.

The C919 seats up to 192 people and is in a similar category as Boeing 737 MAX and Airbus A320neo planes.

COMAC this year has increased sales and production plans and has been marketing the C919 abroad, especially within Southeast Asia and also to growing aviation market Saudi Arabia.

It is also developing a wide-body plane design.

Zhongtai Securities last month said it expects COMAC to be able to produce 100 aircraft a year by around 2030, with total jets produced exceeding 1,000 by 2035.

Airbus delivered 735 commercial aircraft in 2023.

Industry sources caution that COMAC is a long way from making inroads internationally, especially without benchmark certifications from the United States or European Union – which COMAC is pursuing – or more efficient planes.

A forecast from aviation consultancy Cirium in May sees just under 1,700 C919 deliveries by 2042, giving the C919 around a 25% market share compared to Boeing’s 30% and Airbus’s 45%.

The first C919 delivery to a private airline is expected by year-end.

Shanghai-based Suparna Airlines, a subsidiary of China’s fourth biggest carrier Hainan Airlines 600221.SS which has 60 C919s on order, has said it eventually aims to fly only C919s.

China will more than double its commercial airplane fleet by 2043 and will need 8,830 new planes, Boeing’s annual Commercial Market Outlook said in July.
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Jakarta, Indonesia — When the wife of Indonesian snack seller Surya asked why he stopped sending money home to his West Java village, he broke down, confessing to a gambling addiction that had cost him more than $12,000.

“When I lost big I was determined to win back what I lost. No matter what — even if I had to borrow money,” the 36-year-old father of two told AFP, declining to use his real name.

While gambling is illegal in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation — with sentences of up to six years in prison — government figures show around 3.7 million Indonesians engaged in it last year, placing more than $20 billion in bets.

The stats prompted President Joko Widodo in June to set up a task force, headed by the country’s security minister, and that month the government ordered telecoms providers to block overseas gambling websites — typically in Cambodia and the Philippines.

Some VPN services, which gamblers use to bypass firewalls on foreign sites, were also blacklisted, but diehard gamblers are still able to bet from their phones or through illegal bookies, and it is easy to borrow money from loan sharks.

Surya was earning up to $250 a month in the West Java capital Bandung, but once he started gambling, he said he was sending home to his family only one-quarter of that.

He would play mobile gambling games until dawn and squander away his hard-earned money.

“Even when you’re winning, the money will be gone instantly. Now, I’d rather give money to my wife,” he said.

‘I want to quit’

Eno Saputra, a 36-year-old vegetable seller in South Sumatra, started buying lottery tickets five years ago but is now addicted to mobile gambling.

He spends at least $6 a day gambling and once won $500, but usually suffers losses.

“From the bottom of my heart, I want to quit, for my children,” the father of three told AFP.

“I know this is wrong and forbidden by my religion.”

There is hope for some in Bogor, south of the capital Jakarta, where a clinic at a psychiatry hospital, since the beginning of the year, has been treating patients struggling to break their gambling addiction.

So far 19 addicts have received counseling and therapy for anxiety, paranoia, sleep disorders and suicidal thoughts, said Nova Riyanti Yusuf, director of the Marzoeki Mahdi Psychiatric Hospital.

But doctors believe there are many more struggling without treatment. 

“I believe this is the tip of the iceberg because not everybody understands that gambling addiction is a disorder,” Nova told AFP.

The hospital is now conducting a study to collect data on how many Indonesians are addicted.

Crime spree

A spate of murders, suicides and divorces linked to illegal online gambling has further cast a spotlight on the surging trade.

In June, an East Java policewoman set her husband on fire because of his gambling, while last year a 48-year-old man in Central Sulawesi robbed and killed his mother to fund his habit, according to local media reports.

Local media have also reported a spike in suicides this year by gambling addicts while Islamic courts on Java island say they are dealing with more divorce requests from women whose husbands won’t stop betting.

“Gambling puts our future at risk … also the future of our family and our children,” President Widodo said when launching the task force.

Experts say, however, that the government’s initiative isn’t enough.

Police say they arrested 467 online gambling operators between April and June, seizing more than $4 million in assets.

But Indonesian judges have been criticized for handing out lenient prison sentences, with operators receiving sentences ranging from seven to 18 months.

“The investigation must be extended to the big names,” said Nailul Huda, an economist from the Center of Economic and Law Studies (Celios) research group.

“Those operators did not work alone. They answered to someone big.”

Surya, meanwhile, has quit gambling for the past month and says he is committed to stopping long-term.

“Nobody is getting rich from online gambling. Now I’ve learned my lesson,” he said.

But for other addicts like Eno, breaking free from the habit is no easy feat.

“This is a stupid thing to do,” he said, “but I am addicted.”
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SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attended the test of an upgraded 240mm rocket launcher system, state media said on Wednesday.

The system “proved its superiority in mobility and strike concentration” during the inspection testing, state news agency KCNA said.

Earlier this week, Kim oversaw tests of new “suicide drones,” and urged researchers to develop artificial intelligence for the unmanned vehicles.

U.S. and South Korean officials have accused North Korea of supplying Russia with artillery shells, missiles and other equipment in recent months for Moscow to use in its war on Ukraine.

From last year until Aug. 4, North Korea has shipped more than 12,000 containers to Russia, sending three or four kinds of shells of different sizes including rockets, and separately also supplied dozens of short range missiles, South Korean Defence Minister Shin Won-sik told Reuters this month.

Moscow and Pyongyang have denied accusations of arms transfers but have vowed to deepen military relations.

A Russian delegation led by the vice minister of industry held talks with North Korean counterparts on Tuesday to further develop economic cooperation between the two countries, according to KCNA.
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Islamabad/Washington — Pakistan’s military is increasingly issuing warnings about what it calls “digital terrorism,” a poorly defined term that some rights activists fear can be applied to anyone who posts criticism of the military online.

Pakistani General Asim Munir, chief of army staff, recently warned that digital terrorism was being used to spread “anarchy and false information” against the armed forces. On Pakistan’s 77th Independence Day at the Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad earlier in August, the top general said, digital terrorism aims to divide state institutions and citizens.

The general did not try to differentiate between political opponents of the military who believe it should play a smaller role in the country’s civilian government, versus insurgent separatist groups in places like Balochistan that have battled the army for years. Nor did he identify any individuals, groups or parties as leaders of what he called a “digital terrorism campaign.”

Pakistan has seen a surge of online political activism since former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s fall from power in 2022. Many online campaigns have argued against the military’s presumed involvement in politics and its role in framing foreign policy.

In a news conference earlier this month, army spokesman Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said that not enough steps were being taken against what he called digital terrorism and warned that legal action would be taken against those involved.

Reaction from rights activists

Haroon Baloch, a Pakistani digital rights activist and researcher, said digital terrorism is a term that isn’t clearly defined and is used vaguely by the army.

“The government is using this term as a tool to control online speech and silence those who criticize the government, instead of dealing with real terrorist threats,” Baloch said in an interview with VOA.

But Haq Nawaz Khan, a Peshawar-based journalist who covers issues on Pakistan and Afghanistan, says that while both digital and real-world terrorism pose threats, focusing on digital issues could distract troops from fighting terrorism on the ground. The actual terror groups need immediate attention, he says.

Salma Gul, a history student at the University of Peshawar, told VOA that digital terrorism “is not a word in Pakistan’s legal framework. It is an unfamiliar term coined by the army to attack those who raise their voices. In my opinion, I could not speak the truth now. This clearly restricts my freedom of speech.”

She believes institutions should not be defamed, but they can be openly criticized.

Others say that online criticism of the military has become too extreme, with online posts mocking the country’s army leadership.

“The Pakistani army chief’s picture has been shared on social media with inappropriate words, which gives the government a reason to restrict social media usage in the country,” said Anis Qureshi, an expert on Pakistani digital rights.

Prelude to a firewall?

Internet users in Pakistan have reported slow broadband speeds for the past several weeks. The problem has affected millions of users, disrupted businesses and drawn nationwide complaints.

Technology experts say a recently installed internet firewall could give the government more power to block access to social media, websites and messenger platforms. Many have likened it to China’s famous internet firewall that gives Beijing near total power to censor and restrict communications.

Pakistani authorities have denied allegations that a national firewall has been slowing down internet speeds. Last week, Pakistan’s minister for information technology told local media that the government is not responsible for the internet slowdown.

Terror attacks continue

As the military has publicly focused more on combating online criticism in recent weeks, it has faced increased militant attacks on security forces and government installations.

On Monday, militants’ attacks on police stations, railway networks and highways in the restive provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan killed more than 70 people, including 14 security personnel.

In the tribal areas and districts with high militant activity, Pakistani law enforcement agencies and the military have intensified counterterrorism operations. The surge in terrorism increased after the U.S. withdrawal from neighboring Afghanistan in 2021 and the Taliban’s takeover in Kabul. 
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KOLKATA, India — Police in India fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse thousands of protesters demanding the resignation of a top elected official in the country’s east, accusing her of mishandling an investigation into a rape and killing of a resident doctor earlier this month. 

The August 9 killing of the 31-year-old physician while on duty at Kolkata city’s R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital triggered protests across India, focusing on the chronic issue of violence against women in the country. Kolkata is the capital of West Bengal state. 

The protesters say the assault highlights the vulnerability of health care workers in hospitals across India. 

Protesters from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party tried to break the police cordon and march to the office of Mamta Banerjee, whose Trinamool Congress party rules the West Bengal state, and demanded her resignation. 

Modi’s party is the main opposition party in West Bengal. Police had banned its rally and blocked the roads. 

Police officers wielding batons pushed back the demonstrators and fired tear gas and water cannons. Four student activists were arrested ahead of the rally, police said, accusing them of trying to orchestrate large-scale violence. 

India’s top court last week set up a national task force of doctors to make recommendations on the safety of health care workers at the workplace. The Supreme Court said the panel would frame guidelines for the protection of medical professionals and health care workers nationwide. 

An autopsy of the killed doctor later confirmed sexual assault, and a police volunteer was detained in connection with the crime. The family of the victim alleged it was a case of a gang rape and more were involved. 

In the days since, mounting anger has boiled over into nationwide outrage and stirred protests over violence against women. The protests have also led thousands of doctors and paramedics to walk out of some public hospitals across India and demand a safer working environment. The walkouts have affected thousands of patients across India. 

Women in India continue to face rising violence despite tough laws that were implemented following the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in Delhi in 2012. 

That attack had inspired lawmakers to order harsher penalties for such crimes and set up fast-track courts dedicated to rape cases. The government also introduced the death penalty for repeat offenders.
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New Delhi — Days after visiting Ukraine, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Russian President Vladimir Putin that he supports a quick end to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Modi’s discussion with the Russian leader on Tuesday came a day after he had a phone conversation about the war with U.S. President Joe Biden.

In a post on X, Modi wrote that he had “exchanged perspectives on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and my insights from the recent visit to Ukraine” with Putin. He said that he reiterated “India’s firm commitment to support an early, abiding and peaceful resolution of the conflict.”

During his meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week, the Indian prime minister had urged talks between Russia and Ukraine and said that “we should move in that direction without losing any time.” He had offered to play an active role in efforts to achieve peace.

Modi’s visit to Kyiv came amid criticism from Western allies that New Delhi has not condemned Russia’s invasion.

The Indian foreign ministry said that during his phone talk with Putin, Modi underlined the importance of dialogue and diplomacy as well as “sincere and practical engagement between all stakeholders.”

Modi and Putin also reviewed progress on bilateral ties and discussed measures to further strengthen their partnership, the statement said.  

In his talk on Monday with Biden, Modi had also expressed India’s support for an early return of peace and stability.

“I think Modi’s conversations with the Russian and American leaders come amid an effort by India to convey that it is serious about using its leverage to resolve this conflict and to stake a claim for itself as an autonomous actor,” according to Harsh Pant, vice president for studies at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. “It has been faulted for not doing that in the past, so it is reaching out to the countries most closely involved in the conflict.”

India has not proposed any peace plan to resolve the war. But with New Delhi being one of the few countries that enjoys good relations with both Russia and the West, it hopes to push talks between Moscow and Ukraine.

Following Modi’s visit, Zelenskyy told reporters that he had told Modi that he would support India hosting the second summit on peace as Kyiv hopes to find a host among the countries in the Global South. The first peace summit was held in Switzerland in June.

In Kyiv, India’s foreign minister, Subrahmanyan Jaishankar, had said that India is willing to do whatever it can to help end the war “because we do think that the continuation of this conflict is terrible, obviously for Ukraine itself but for the world as well.”

The resolution of the conflict is important for India, as Russia’s continued isolation could push Moscow into a tighter embrace with New Delhi’s arch rival, China, say analysts.

“India does not want Russia and the West’s rupture to be permanent because that only means that the Moscow-Beijing dynamic becomes much more solid,” according to Pant. “India also wants a stable Europe which can then play a larger role in ensuring a stable Indo-Pacific. That is very important for India. A Europe which is involved with its own internal challenges rather than a global role is something India does not want.”

Modi visited Ukraine six weeks after his visit to Moscow elicited strong criticism from Zelenskyy and Western allies. The first-ever visit by an Indian prime minister to the country was billed as a “landmark” one.

However analysts in New Delhi point out that Modi’s trip to Ukraine will have no bearing on India’s warm relationship with the Kremlin. Before he visited Kyiv, India’s foreign ministry had said that India has “substantive and independent ties with both Russia and Ukraine, and these partnerships stand on their own.”
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MANILA — The U.S. military is open to consultations about escorting Philippine ships in the disputed South China Sea, the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said Tuesday amid a spike in hostilities between Beijing and Manila in the disputed waters.

Adm. Samuel Paparo’s remarks, which he made in response to a question during a news conference in Manila with Philippine Armed Forces chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., provided a glimpse of the mindset of one of the highest American military commanders outside the U.S. mainland on a prospective operation that would risk putting U.S. Navy ships in direct collisions with those of China.

Chinese coast guard, navy and suspected militia ships regularly clash with Philippine vessels during attempts to resupply Filipino sailors stationed in parts of the South China Sea claimed by both countries. As these clashes grow increasingly hostile, resulting in injuries to Filipino sailors and damage to their ships, the Philippine government has faced questions about invoking a treaty alliance with Washington.

Paparo and Brawner spoke to reporters after an international military conference in Manila organized by the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, at which China’s increasingly assertive actions in the South China Sea were spotlighted. Military and defense officials and diplomats from the U.S. and allied countries attended but there were no Chinese representatives.

Asked if the U.S. military would consider escorting Philippine ships delivering food and other supplies to Filipino forces in the South China Sea, Paparo replied, “Certainly, within the context of consultations.”

“Every option between the two sovereign nations in terms of our mutual defense, escort of one vessel to the other, is an entirely reasonable option within our Mutual Defense Treaty, among this close alliance between the two of us,” Paparo said without elaborating.

Brawner responded cautiously to the suggestion, which could run afoul of Philippine laws including a constitutional ban on foreign forces directly joining local combat operations.

“The attitude of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, as dictated by the Philippine laws, is for us to first rely on ourselves,” Brawner said. “We are going to try all options, all avenues that are available to us in order for us to achieve the mission… in this case, the resupply and rotation of our troops.”

“We will then seek for other options when we are already constrained from doing it ourselves,” Brawner said.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has said there has been no situation so far that would warrant activating the treaty, which requires the allies to come to each other’s aid if they come under external attack.

President Joe Biden and his administration have repeatedly renewed their “ironclad” commitment to help defend the Philippines under the 1951 treaty if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.

Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr said at the conference that China is “the biggest disruptor” of peace in Southeast Asia and called for stronger international censure over its aggression in the South China Sea, a day after China blocked Philippine vessels from delivering food to a coast guard ship at the disputed Sabina Shoal in the contested waters.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said that “the label of undermining peace can never be pinned on China,” blaming unspecified other actors for “making infringements and provocations in the South China Sea and introducing external forces to undermine the large picture of regional peace and stability.”

Teodoro later told reporters on the sidelines of the conference that international statements of concern against China’s increasingly assertive actions in the disputed waters and elsewhere were “not enough.”

“The antidote is a stronger collective multilateral action against China,” Teodoro said, adding that a U.N. Security Council resolution would be a strong step, but unlikely given China’s security council veto.

He also called for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to do more. The 10-nation Southeast Asian bloc includes the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei, which have South China Sea claims that overlap with each other, as well as China’s and Taiwan’s.

“ASEAN, to remain relevant and credible, cannot continue to ignore what China is doing in the South China Sea,” Teodoro said.

In the latest incident in the South China Sea, Philippine officials said China deployed “an excessive force” of 40 ships that blocked two Philippine vessels from delivering food and other supplies to Manila’s largest coast guard ship in Sabina Shoal on Monday.

China and the Philippines blamed each other for the confrontation in Sabina, an uninhabited atoll claimed by both countries that has become the latest flashpoint in the Spratlys, the most hotly disputed region of the South China Sea.

China and the Philippines have separately deployed coast guard ships to Sabina in recent months on suspicion the other may act to take control of and build structures in the fishing atoll.

The Philippine coast guard said Chinese coast guard and navy ships, along with 31 suspected militia vessels, obstructed the delivery, which included an ice cream treat for the personnel aboard the BRP Teresa Magbanua as the Philippines marked National Heroes’ Day on Monday.

In Beijing, China’s coast guard said that it took control measures against two Philippine coast guard ships that “intruded” into waters near the Sabina Shoal. It said in a statement that the Philippine ships escalated the situation by repeatedly approaching a Chinese coast guard ship.

China has rapidly expanded its military and has become increasingly assertive in pursuing its territorial claims in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims virtually in its entirety. The tensions have led to more frequent confrontations, primarily with the Philippines, though the longtime territorial disputes also involve other claimants, including Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei.

Japan’s government separately protested to Beijing on Tuesday, saying that a Chinese reconnaissance plane violated its airspace and forced it to scramble fighter jets.
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Beijing — U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and China’s top diplomat Wang Yi said on Tuesday they were hoping for productive talks as they met in Beijing.

Washington allies Japan and the Philippines have blamed China in recent days for raising regional tensions, with Tokyo accusing Beijing of violating its airspace and Manila calling it the “biggest disruptor” of peace in Southeast Asia.

Sullivan said after he arrived in the Chinese capital on Tuesday afternoon that he looked forward to “a very productive round of conversations” with foreign minister Wang.

“We’ll delve into a wide range of issues, including issues on which we agree and those issues… where there are still differences that we need to manage effectively and substantively,” he said.

Wang told Sullivan he was keen for “substantive” and “constructive” talks during his visit, the first to China by a U.S. national security adviser since 2016.

Wang added that he wanted the two sides to “help China-U.S. relations move forward towards the San Francisco vision,” referring to a framework hashed out by Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping during talks in the U.S. city last year.

An American official said ahead of the visit Sullivan would discuss the South China Sea with counterparts in Beijing, including Wang.

She did not indicate whether the United States expected any breakthroughs on the trip.

“We are committed to making the investments, strengthening our alliances, and taking the common steps on tech and national security that we need to take,” the official said, referring to sweeping restrictions on U.S. technology transfers to China imposed under Biden.

“We are committed to managing this competition responsibly… and preventing it from veering into conflict,” she added, speaking on condition of anonymity.

She said the United States would press China on its mounting “military, diplomatic and economic pressure” on Taiwan, the self-ruling democracy that Beijing considers part of its territory and has not ruled out reunifying through force.

China has kept up its sabre-rattling since the inauguration this year of President Lai Ching-te, whose party emphasizes Taiwan’s separate identity.

“These activities are destabilizing, risk escalation, and we’re going to continue to urge Beijing to engage in meaningful dialogue with Taipei,” the American official said.

Managing tensions

Sullivan will also reiterate U.S. concerns about China’s support for the expansion of Russia’s defense industry since its invasion of Ukraine.

Beijing counters that, unlike the United States, it does not give weapons directly to either side.

China has been eager to work with U.S. national security advisers, seeing them as decision-makers close to the president who can negotiate away from the media spotlight that comes with the secretary of state or other top leadership.

The modern U.S.-China relationship was launched when Henry Kissinger, then national security adviser to Richard Nixon, secretly visited Beijing in 1971 to lay the groundwork for normalizing relations with the communist state.

Sullivan and Wang have met five times over the past year-and-a-half — in Washington, Vienna, Malta and Bangkok, as well as alongside Biden and Xi at the November summit in California.

Those meetings between Wang and Sullivan were sometimes announced only after they concluded and the two had spent long hours together behind closed doors.

Sullivan’s visit also comes before U.S. elections in November.
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BEIJING — China called U.S. sanctions on its entities over the Ukraine war “illegal and unilateral” and “not based on facts,” in comments on Tuesday ahead of White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s arrival in Beijing for days of high-level talks.

Last week the United States imposed sanctions on more than 400 entities and individuals for supporting Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, including Chinese companies that U.S. officials say help Moscow skirt Western sanctions and build up its military.

Washington has repeatedly warned Beijing over its support for Russia’s defense industrial base and has already issued hundreds of sanctions aimed at curbing Moscow’s ability to exploit certain technologies for military purposes.

China’s special envoy for Eurasian affairs, Li Hui, who has done four rounds of shuttle diplomacy, opposed the sanctions at a briefing for diplomats in Beijing after the latest round of meetings with officials from Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa.

“A particular country uses the crisis … to shift blame in an attempt to fabricate the so-called China responsibility theory and threatens countries that have normal economic and trade ties with Russia with illegal and unilateral sanctions,” said Li.

Li did not name the United States, but China’s commerce ministry said on Sunday it strongly opposed the sanctions and the foreign ministry has expressed similar opposition to previous rounds of curbs.

Last week’s sanctions include measures against companies in China involved in shipping machine tools and microelectronics to Russia.

“These words and deeds are totally for their selfish interests and are not based on facts, the international community will never accept them,” added Li.

China has been striving to present itself as a party that is actively looking for a solution to the conflict, despite skipping a Swiss peace conference in June.

After past rounds of talks led by Li, Beijing put forward proposals on supporting the exchange of prisoners of war, opposing the use of nuclear and biological weapons and opposing armed attacks on civilian nuclear facilities.

In a 12-point paper more than a year ago China set out general principles for ending the war, but did not get into specifics.

China and Brazil jointly called this year for Russia-Ukraine peace talks. On Tuesday, Li expressed the hope that more countries would endorse China’s peace efforts.
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Manila, Philippines — China deployed “an excessive force” of 40 ships that blocked two Philippine vessels from delivering food and other supplies to Manila’s largest coast guard ship in a disputed shoal in the latest flare-up of their territorial disputes in the South China Sea, Philippine officials said Tuesday.

China and the Philippines blamed each other for the confrontation on Monday in Sabina Shoal, an uninhabited atoll both countries claim that has become the latest flashpoint in the Spratlys, the most hotly disputed region of the sea passage that is a key global trade and security route.

China and the Philippines have separately deployed coast guard ships to Sabina in recent months on suspicion the other may act to take control of and build structures in the fishing atoll.

The hostilities have particularly intensified between China and the Philippines since last year and Monday’s confrontation was the sixth the two sides have reported in the high seas and in the air. The confrontations have sparked concerns of a larger conflict that could involve the United States, the longtime treaty ally of the Philippines.

The Philippine coast guard said the “excessive force” of Chinese coast guard and navy ships, along with 31 suspected militia vessels, illegally obstructed the delivery of the food supplies, including an ice cream treat for the personnel aboard the BRP Teresa Magbanua as the Philippines marked National Heroes’ Day on Monday.

The Philippine coast guard said it “remains steadfast in our commitment to uphold national interests and ensure the safety and security of our waters” and urged “the China coast guard to abide with the international law and stop deploying maritime forces that could undermine mutual respect, a universally recognized foundation for responsible and friendly relations among coast guards.”

In Beijing, China’s coast guard said that it took control measures against two Philippine coast guard ships that “intruded” into waters near Sabina Shoal. It said in a statement that the Philippine ships escalated the situation by repeatedly approaching a Chinese coast guard ship. The Chinese coast guard did not say what control measures it took.

China has rapidly expanded its military and has become increasingly assertive in pursuing its territorial claims in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims virtually in its entirety. The tensions have led to more frequent confrontations, primarily with the Philippines, though the longtime territorial disputes also involve other claimants, including Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei.

Chinese and Philippine coast guard ships have collided near Sabina, which Beijing calls Xianbin and Manila refers to as Escoda, prior to Monday.

Sabina Shoal lies about 140 kilometers west of the Philippine province of Palawan, in the internationally recognized exclusive economic zone of the Philippines.

Sabina is near the Second Thomas Shoal, another flashpoint where China has hampered the Philippine delivery of supplies for Filipino forces aboard a long-grounded navy ship, the BRP Sierra Madre. Last month, China and the Philippines reached an agreement to prevent increasingly hostile confrontations at the Second Thomas Shoal, allowing a Philippine vessel to deliver food supplies a week later without any hostilities.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday discussed the Russia-Ukraine war following Modi’s visit to Ukraine, along with the situation in Bangladesh where protests led to the ousting of former leader Sheik Hasina earlier this month.

Modi posted online that he discussed the situation in Ukraine with Biden over the phone and “reiterated India’s full support for early return of peace and stability.” He also said the two leaders stressed “the need for early restoration of normalcy, and ensuring the safety and security of minorities, especially Hindus, in Bangladesh.”

The White House issued a separate statement, saying Biden commended Modi’s recent visit to Poland and Ukraine, and that both leaders expressed “support for a peaceful resolution of the conflict in accordance with international law, on the basis of the UN Charter.”

Last week, Modi visited Ukraine in the first visit by an Indian prime minister in modern Ukrainian history. It came at a volatile juncture in the war launched by Russia in February 2022. Moscow is making slow gains in eastern Ukraine as Kyiv presses a cross-border incursion.

Modi urged President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to sit down for talks with Russia to end the war and offered to help bring peace.

Modi’s Ukraine visit followed a visit he made to Russia in July where he embraced President Vladimir Putin on the same day that a deadly Russian missile strike hit a children’s hospital. That visit angered Ukraine, and the U.S. State Department said it raised concerns with India about ties with Russia.

Moscow has been a large weapons supplier to India since the Soviet Union days. Washington in recent years has looked to woo New Delhi to counter China’s influence.

Modi said the two leaders also discussed the situation in Bangladesh where about 300 people, many of them university and college students, were killed during protests that began in July with students agitating against quotas in government jobs before the events spiraled into demonstrations to oust long-serving former Prime Minister Hasina.

An interim government headed by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus was sworn in after Hasina fled to India. Attacks were reported against Muslim-majority Bangladesh’s minorities, especially Hindus, amid the protests.

Hindu nationalist Modi’s own government in Hindu-majority India has faced criticism over the years over attacks on minorities, especially Muslims.
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islamabad — Taliban leaders in Afghanistan expressed outrage Monday at the U.N.-led objections to their new vice and virtue laws that silence women in public and require them to cover their faces. 

“Non-Muslims expressing concerns over these laws or rejecting them should first educate themselves about Islamic laws and respect Islamic values,” said Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesperson for the Taliban government, which is not recognized by any country.  

“We find it insulting to our Islamic Sharia [law] when they object due to a lack of knowledge and understanding,” Mujahid stated on social media platform X. 

His response came a day after the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) decried the enactment of the morality law as a “distressing vision” for the impoverished country’s future.

“It extends the already intolerable restrictions on the rights of Afghan women and girls, with even the sound of a female voice outside the home apparently deemed a moral violation,” UNAMA chief Roza Otunbayeva said Sunday.  

The Taliban announced last Wednesday the ratification of their law on “the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice,” forbidding women from singing, reciting poetry or speaking aloud in public, and requiring them to keep their faces and entire bodies always covered when outdoors.

The 35-article law imposes severe restrictions on the personal freedom of Afghan men and women and empowers the Taliban Ministry of Vice and Virtue to enforce it. The ministry’s controversial policing of public morality is already under criticism from the U.N. and global human rights groups.  

The legal document prohibits the broadcasting and publication of images of living beings, as well as content believed to violate Sharia or insult Muslims in accordance with the Taliban’s interpretation of Islam. 

“After decades of war and in the midst of a terrible humanitarian crisis, the Afghan people deserve much better than being threatened or jailed if they happen to be late for prayers, glance at a member of the opposite sex who is not a family member, or possess a photo of a loved one,” Otunbayeva stated. 

Mujahid, while responding to the UNAMA chief’s statement and objections from other foreign critics, said Monday that “such uncalled-for concerns” would not deter them from “upholding and enforcing Islamic Sharia law” in Afghanistan. 

The Taliban introduced the morality law against the backdrop of their wide-ranging restrictions on female members of Afghan society. Since returning to power three years ago, the de facto rulers have banned Afghan girls from attending school beyond the sixth grade and women from working in most fields, as well as taking part in public activities at large.
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GENEVA — Sea level rises in the Pacific Ocean are outstripping the global average, a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report showed Tuesday, imperiling low-lying island states. 

Globally, sea level advances are accelerating as higher temperatures driven by the continued burning of fossil fuels melt once-mighty ice sheets, while warmer oceans cause water molecules to expand. 

But even compared to the global average rate rise of 3.4 millimeters a year over the past three decades, the WMO report showed that the average annual increase was “significantly higher” in two measurement areas of the Pacific, north and east of Australia. 

“Human activities have weakened the capacity of the ocean to sustain and protect us and – through sea level rise – are transforming a lifelong friend into a growing threat,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo in a statement to coincide with the release of the regional State of the Climate report 2023 at a forum in Tonga. 

Already, such rises have brought a surge in the frequency of coastal flooding since 1980, with dozens of instances happening in islands like the Cook Islands and French Polynesia which previously reported just a handful of such cases annually. 

Such events are sometimes caused by tropical cyclones which scientists think could also be intensifying due to climate change, as sea surface temperatures climb. 

Over 34 hazards like storms and floods were reported in the Pacific region in 2023, resulting in more than 200 deaths, the WMO report said, adding that only a third of small island developing states had early warning systems. 

A WMO spokesperson said that the impact of rising water levels on Pacific islands was disproportionately high since their average elevation is just a meter or two (3.3 to 6.5 feet) above sea level. 

To raise awareness of the dangers, Tuvalu’s foreign minister gave a speech to the U.N. climate conference in 2021 while standing knee-deep in seawater, making global headlines. 

But the WMO report said further rises across the planet would “continue for centuries to millennia due to continuing deep ocean heat uptake and mass loss from ice sheets.” 
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NUKU’ALOFA, Tonga — As leaders of Pacific nations were welcomed to their annual meeting in Nuku’alofa, Tonga, on Monday, they were greeted first by torrential rain and then by an earthquake.

The magnitude 6.9 quake was deep enough not to cause damage, but the long shudder and ankle-deep water served as a reminder of the natural vulnerabilities of many of the member countries of the Pacific Islands Forum, who are locked in an existential struggle for economic and environmental survival.

It also underscored the tension at the heart of an event that once barely captured the world’s notice and now draws delegations from dozens of countries across the globe — the way a fierce skirmish for geopolitical influence in the South Pacific among major powers further afield threatens to overtake local concerns, often to island leaders’ dismay.

“We don’t want them to fight in our backyard here. Take that elsewhere,” Baron Waqa, the forum’s secretary-general and a former president of Nauru, told reporters last month.

Still, there are more than 1,500 delegates from more than 40 countries at this year’s meeting of Pacific member states, all hoping to further their agendas in a region where oceans, resources and strategic power have grown increasingly contested.

Founded in 1971, the Pacific Islands Forum brings together 18 member states to discuss and coordinate responses to the issues confronting a remote and diverse region, who know that their countries — with populations as small as 1,500 people — attract more notice on the global stage when they speak with one voice. Its leaders — from Pacific Island nations, some of them among the world’s most imperiled by rising seas, as well as Australia and New Zealand — have long been at the forefront of urging action on climate change.

For the first few decades of the forum’s existence, the annual meetings of its leaders largely escaped wider notice. In recent years that has changed, regular forum-goers say: China’s campaign of aid, diplomacy and security agreements with leaders across the Pacific has prompted a rapid expansion of the size and scope of the organization and its meetings.

This week’s summit features the forum’s largest ever delegation from China and a sizeable deputation from the United States, led by Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell.

Both countries are among 21 “dialogue partners” — a group of nations with interest in the region — in the forum. There is a waiting list for entry, but applications are currently closed while the forum reviews its structure. Observers said Monday that a tiered system — reflecting partners’ genuine interests and involvement in the Pacific — was a possibility.

“We’ve been mindful that our region is of great interest from a geopolitical perspective over the last few years or so,” Mark Brown, the Cook Islands prime minister and outgoing chair of the forum, told Islands Business this month. “But the security issues that are seen by our bigger development partners are not the same security issues that we consider as important.”

Where large powers might attend the forum seeking to curry influence while undermining others’ sway, the focus of the region’s leaders sits squarely where it always has been: the perils of climate change and rapidly rising seas.

Reminders are everywhere in the Tongan capital, Nuku’alofa — metal water bottles supplied as keepsakes to delegates are labeled “one less plastic bottle,” but at each meeting and meal, plastic bottles of water are distributed. Rising seas and natural disasters, as in many Pacific Island nations, have contaminated rainwater and groundwater and made them unsafe to drink.

This year, the topic has another champion — the United Nations secretary-general, António Guterres, who in a speech at Monday’s opening ceremony decried “humanity treating the sea like a sewer” and applauded Pacific leaders and young people for declaring a climate emergency and calling for action.

Some leaders tried to bring pressing issues at home to center stage: The Tongan prime minister and incoming forum chair, Siaosi Sovaleni, spoke on Monday of the health and education challenges confronting his country — and echoed throughout the Pacific.

Other topics include the legacy of nuclear horrors in the region, the cost of living and debt, and regional security — including a Pacific police training center scheduled for construction in Brisbane, Australia, that is seen as a direct challenge to China’s eagerness to equip the law enforcement agencies of some island nations.

Fiji’s prime minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, in June referred to the confluence of problems — also including transnational drug trafficking in his assessment — as a “polycrisis,” with each challenge exacerbating others.

But the Forum’s most fraught matter is likely to be the ongoing unrest in New Caledonia. Deadly violence flared in the French territory in May over a longstanding independence movement and Paris’ efforts to quash it. A failed attempt by Pacific leaders to visit the capital, Noumea, ahead of the summit has further inflamed tensions.

Longtime forum watchers say the test for major powers at the event is whether their leaders can engage in the “Pacific way,” a kind of humble consensus politics that centers on relationships and holds at its heart the idea of the so-called Blue Pacific family — island nations linked by shared culture and heritage, and distinct from the wider Indo-Pacific, whose interests are seen as more disparate and remote.

Raised eyebrows greet summit participants who are loud, pushy, or over-eager in vying for sway. “There is a way that Pacific countries do business with each other and it should be something that we’d like the rest of the world to acknowledge,” Brown, the Cook Islands leader, told Islands Business.

But the leaders are pragmatic that global interest in the Pacific is here to stay.

“It needs to be something the world pays attention to. It’s not the way it used to be,” New Zealand’s foreign minister, Winston Peters, told The Associated Press last week.

“We’ve been a lucky people and a lucky theater. We must do our utmost to secure that in the long term.”
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