Washington — Afghan diplomats and diplomatic missions in Europe, Australia and Canada say they will continue providing consular services despite the Taliban’s recent announcement disavowing them.

The Taliban’s Foreign Ministry announced in a statement Tuesday that it would not recognize the legitimacy of consular services performed at Afghan diplomatic missions in Australia, Canada and 11 European countries.

“[T]he consular services such as deeds, endorsements, NOCs, issuing passports, passport renewal stickers, visa stickers, etc., from the missions in London, Belgium, Berlin, Bonn … Austria, France, Italy, Greece, Poland, Sweden, Norway, Canada and Australia are no longer accepted by MoFA and relevant departments, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs bears no responsibility toward these documents and no actions will be taken thereof,” read the statement.

Afghan diplomats working in the 13 missions disavowed by the Taliban are the employees of the former Afghan government, which collapsed after the Taliban seized power in August 2021. They have remained at their posts in the years since, helping Afghan citizens with a range of consular services.

Representatives of the missions said they would continue their services without interruption.

“The diplomatic and consular missions of Afghanistan in Europe, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere remain committed to continue providing consular services within the framework of national and international laws and regulations, and in understanding and collaboration with host country authorities,” said a statement issued on Tuesday by the Coordination Council of Ambassadors and General Consulates of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

“I am confident that the consular services [in these countries] would continue as usual,” said Nigara Mirdad, Afghanistan’s deputy ambassador in Poland.

She added that the consular services are permitted by the host countries and provided in accordance with international conventions and laws.

In the council’s statement, the Taliban said they “repeatedly urged” the missions in these countries to “engage” with the Taliban’s Kabul-based rulers, but “unfortunately, the actions of most of the missions are carried out without coordination, arbitrary and in explicit violation of the existing accepted principles.”

Mirdad called the Taliban’s decision “unreasonable” and said that consular services are “transparent and based on Afghan laws.”

She added that the diplomats working in the missions do not recognize the Taliban’s government as it does not have “any internal and international legitimacy.”

“Instead, the Taliban should work on its government’s internal legitimacy and respect human rights and Afghanistan’s commitments to the international conventions and laws,” Mirdad said.

The Taliban’s government is not yet recognized by any country, although China has accepted the credentials of the Taliban’s ambassador to Beijing.

The international community says that to gain recognition, the Taliban must honor their commitment to respect women’s rights and form an inclusive government in Afghanistan.

While the Taliban lack formal international recognition, some countries have handed over their local Afghan diplomatic missions to the Taliban.

In March 2023, the Taliban said they sent diplomats to at least 14 countries.

Last week, the spokesperson for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, Randhir Jaiswal, said in a news conference that “visas to people in Afghanistan are being given and that to and fro movement is happening.”

In November, the Afghan Embassy in New Delhi closed as the diplomats appointed by the former government were not given visas.

Afghan diplomats in Spain and the Netherlands announced in October that they established contact with the Taliban’s Foreign Ministry.

Diplomatic missions in these two countries are not included in the list of missions that the Taliban announced cutting ties with.

Shah Sultan Akifi, former cultural attache of Afghanistan in Moscow, told VOA that the Taliban’s decision would not affect the operations of the 14 diplomatic missions listed in the announcement, but it would “create problems” for ordinary Afghans living in the host countries.

“It will be problematic for Afghans who want to travel to Afghanistan or those who want to attest their documents if the Taliban don’t accept the consular services in these countries,” Akifi said.

Farkhunda Paimani and Noshaba Ashna of VOA’s Afghan Service contributed to this report, which originated in VOA’s Afghan Service.
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bangkok — The outcome of pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai’s trial won’t suddenly seal the decline of press freedom in Hong Kong, journalists say. The national security law has already done that.  

It’s been a slow decline marked by arrests and raids that resulted in media shutdowns and the loss of hundreds of jobs.

The Hong Kong anti-government protests of 2019 were followed by Beijing imposing a national security law on the city in 2020. A political crackdown ensued, which also saw press freedom in Hong Kong go into freefall. 

In four years, at least 28 journalists and press freedom defenders have been arrested, with 10 still in jail, and more than a dozen media outlets closed, according to Reporters without Borders, also known as RSF. 

Apple Daily and Stand News are two of Hong Kong’s biggest casualties. 

Lai, the founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper, has been imprisoned for more that 3-½ years and is currently on trial in one of Hong Kong’s most high-profile national security cases, facing charges of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and to publish seditious publications. 

The 76-year-old was first arrested at the end of 2020 on various charges and has been sentenced to prison on multiple occasions for offenses ranging from fraud to unauthorized assembly. 

Stand News executives also are on trial for conspiring to publish seditious publications. Like Lai, the trials have been delayed more than once, with Lai’s recently postponed until November 2024. 

Many Western media observers and critics say the outcome of Lai’s trial will measure the decline of Hong Kong’s limited freedoms and democracy. 

But Selina Cheng, the chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, or HKJA, says the trials of Lai and other media executives won’t make much difference to what Hong Kong is today. 

“Eventual convictions are not going to move the needle too much. The fact that these two media companies have already shut down, they’ve ceased the day their executives are arrested, even before they face trial. That’s already set in stone and conviction or not, is not going to reverse that,” she told VOA. 

Ronson Chan, an independent journalist and former editor of Stand News, said it’s clear that press freedom in Hong Kong has its limitations. 

“Jimmy Lai’s case makes Hong Kong journalists think what the red lines are. I think the fall of Apple Daily and Next Media, it represents the freedom of press has limitations,” he told VOA. 

Since the national security law came into effect, at least 900 journalists have lost their jobs, according to RSF. 

The closure of Apple Daily and Stand News have contributed, but Cheng says other factors have played a part in this. TVB — Hong Kong’s free-to-air broadcaster — laid off 300 staff last year for cost-saving purposes. 

The job losses are “not necessarily directly because of the national security law or Hong Kong’s political situation, but also because of general lack of confidence in the economy,” she said. 

Under pressure

Media unions like the HKJA have come under pressure in recent years. The press group has been criticized by authorities and Chinese-state media for alleged links to activist organizations. 

Cheng said some of its members are worried about being affiliated with the group, which has contributed to its dwindling numbers. Since 2019, membership in the association dropped from “about 500 to 300,” Cheng said. 

“People are worried that if they get seen as members in public or if their employers find out that they’re active in the union, then they could face retaliation and the company could be affected,” she said. “I wouldn’t say it’s very widespread. But I can tell that because we have fewer members from sort of government-backed media or large mainstream organizations like the TV channels.” 

Cheng discovered firsthand the risks of being associated with the media union.  She was dismissed from her staff role at The Wall Street Journal in July, having worked with the paper since 2022. She says she was fired from her job because she was recently elected as the chair at the HKJA. 

“The editor said employees of The Journal should not be seen as advocating for press freedom in a place like Hong Kong,” Cheng’s statement read.  

A spokesperson at Dow Jones, parent company of The Journal, confirmed to VOA they had made personnel changes but declined to comment on specific individuals. 

Ronson Chan, who is the former chair of the HJKA, said the firing “gives a very bad example to whole media industry in Hong Kong. The mainstream media, news channel, radio, TV channels – they are not willing for their staff to be HKJA members, chair or vice members,” he told VOA. 

“It seems that if you work for foreign media that you cannot hold your position in [HKJA]. Who can be chair? Maybe only people like me, people who work for independent media,” he said. 

Eric Wishart, standards editor at Agency France-Presse in Hong Kong, said international media outlets have prevented their journalists from running as presidents of press clubs in recent years. 

“I know of several good potential candidates who were told by their management that they could not run — that’s why the election for president is often uncontested, due to a lack of candidates,” he told the China Media Project. 

The Foreign Correspondents Club — Hong Kong (FCCHK) has faced scrutiny in recent years, including concerns over whether its lease in a state-owned building would be renewed, due to criticism over its stance on press freedom. The club scrapped its annual Human Rights Press Awards in 2022, leading several board members, including Wishart, to resign in protest. 

Wishart is a former president of FCCHK and recently wrote the book “Journalism Ethics: 21 Essentials from Wars to Artificial Intelligence.” He told VOA the city’s journalist clubs should stick together. 

“Organizations such as the HKJA, the AAJA [Asian-American Journalist Association] and the FCC play an important role in speaking up for press freedom, and local and international journalists should work together to defend their rights,” he said. 

“At a time when press freedom is under unprecedented attack around the world … journalists must be confident that they have the support of their news organizations and should not fear retribution or punishment for defending press freedom.” 

Hong Kong ranks 135 out of 180 on the RSF World Press Freedom Index where number 1 represents the best environment. In 2019, the year before the national security law took effect, Hong Kong ranked 73. 
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ISLAMABAD — Authorities in northwestern Pakistan said Friday that suspected militants had ambushed and opened fire on a vehicle transporting a group of local judges, killing two police officers who were escorting them. 

The deadly shooting took place in Tank, a militancy-hit district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan. Area police officials said the attack also injured two of their personnel, but all three judges escaped unharmed.  

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the shooting. 

Militants linked to the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, a globally designated terrorist group, routinely target security forces and government officials in Tank and surrounding districts, killing dozens of people in recent weeks.  

On Wednesday, unidentified attackers fired at a bulletproof vehicle transporting Pakistani staff of a United Nations development agency in Tank, but they escaped unharmed.  

Pakistan maintains that the TTP, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, and militants linked to other anti-state groups have taken shelter and orchestrated cross-border attacks from sanctuaries in Afghanistan. 

“Afghanistan has hideouts and sanctuaries for terrorist groups, including the TTP, that continue to threaten Pakistan’s security,” Mumtaz Baloch, the Pakistani foreign ministry spokesperson, reiterated Thursday at her weekly news conference.  

“We urge Afghanistan to take immediate, effective, and robust action against these terror groups, especially the TTP, and to ensure that Afghan territory is not used as a staging ground for terrorism against Pakistan,” Baloch stated.  

Afghanistan’s de facto Taliban government denies the presence of foreign militants in the country, saying it does not allow anyone to threaten neighboring countries, including Pakistan, from Afghan soil.  

The United States and the United Nations have expressed concerns over the threat of terrorism emanating from Afghanistan. They have identified Islamic State Khorasan, or IS-K, an Afghan affiliate of the Islamic State, as the most serious regional threat. 

“ISIS-K is a transnational terrorist network that has the ambition and capacity to launch international terrorist attacks,” Vedant Patel, the U.S. State Department principal deputy spokesperson, told a news conference on Thursday. He used an acronym for the Afghan branch of the militant network.  

Patel said that Washington is working to ensure Afghanistan “never serves as a launching pad” for terrorist attacks against the U.S. or its allies.   

“We are cooperating with partners and allies, including in the immediate region, and we’re working vigilantly to prevent the re-emergence of external threats from Afghanistan, including by working with partners to counteract terrorist recruitment efforts as well.” 

A recent U.N. report estimated that up to 6,500 TTP militants are based in Afghanistan and are being trained, as well as armed at al-Qaida-run camps there, leading to an increase in attacks in Pakistan. 
…

washington — North Korea continues to keep its doors shut to international aid workers as the country struggles with massive flooding that destroyed thousands of homes and covered vast farmlands.

The International Federation of Red Cross told VOA on Thursday that it was  assessing North Korea’s humanitarian situation and needs from the floods as it remained hopeful about reentering the country.

“We are deeply concerned about the impact of the floods and are working closely with the DPRK Red Cross Society to assess the situation,” the IFRC said in a statement to VOA Korean.

“With the recent opening of DPRK borders and increased international cooperation, we are hopeful about the reestablishment of IFRC’s international presence in DPRK,” the statement continued.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is North Korea’s official name.

The U.N. resident coordinator in North Korea, Joe Colombano, told VOA on Thursday that “we stand ready to return to the country to support” North Korea as it recovers from flood damage, “as well as with longer-term resilience work, should the government so request.” He also extended condolences to those impacted by the floods in a written statement from the U.N. Development Coordination Office in New York.

North Korea reopened its borders in August 2023 and lifted draconian pandemic measures put in place since 2020 that blocked all cross-border activities, including humanitarian aid.

No international aid workers are in the country despite the open border, although there was a four-day visit to Pyongyang by the head of the Food and Agricultural Organization in July.

The U.S. State Department told VOA Korean on Thursday that it hoped North Korea “will soon allow international humanitarian workers back into the country” as it stood ready to support international aid efforts.

“We continue to support international efforts to provide critical humanitarian aid to the DPRK,” a State Department spokesperson said.

The U.S. provided $1 million in humanitarian aid to North Korea in 2017 after the country was hit by Typhoon Lionrock the previous year, resulting in flooding. But the U.S. does not currently provide any aid to North Korea.

After being pummeled by heavy rains since last week, North Korea has mobilized officials and residents of several provinces to send relief items such as tents, blankets, garments and medical supplies to the flood-hit areas of North Pyongan and Jagang provinces, according to state-run KCNA on Thursday.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held an emergency meeting after inspecting flood-hit areas in North Pyongan province, where the rains flooded more than 4,100 houses and nearly 3,000 hectares of farmland in Sinuiju city and Uiju county that borders China, KCNA said Wednesday.

More than 4,300 people were rescued by North Korean army helicopters from the flood-hit regions, according to KCNA on Monday. But North Korea did not provide an estimated number of deaths or injured from the devastating flood.

North Korea is prone to flooding from summer downpours because the country lacks proper infrastructure to support drainage.

VOA contacted North Korea’s mission at the U.N. and asked whether the country was willing to accept international aid toward flood recovery but did not receive an answer by the time this report was published.

The South Korean Unification Ministry that handles inter-Korean affairs said  Thursday that North Korea seemed to have incurred considerable casualties.  Some South Korean media reported the number of flood victims, including deaths and those displaced, to be more than 1,500.

Jerome Sauvage, who served as the U.N. resident coordinator in North Korea from 2009 to 2013, said the impact of the flood, including an estimated number of deaths, is difficult to assess “from a distance” and should be done from inside the country.

“Without data obtained on the ground and independently,” it is also difficult to assess how much aid is needed, Sauvage said. He suggested North Korea “urgently” let in a staff for an assessment on the impact of the floods, including damage done to crops, houses and facilities.

South Korea’s Red Cross said in a statement released through the Unification Ministry on Thursday that it was willing to provide relief aid to North Korean flood victims.

The Korean Red Cross said it was “ready to discuss details including relief items, amount of aid supplies and delivery methods” with the DPRK Red Cross Society as it looked forward to a “prompt response” from North Korea.

It was uncertain whether Pyongyang would accept help from Seoul amid tense relations between the two.

Keith Luse, executive director at the National Committee on North Korea in Washington, who facilitates engagement between the U.S. and North Korea, said, “If DPRK officials decide to accept assistance from other countries, China and Russia will likely be the initial points of contact.”

Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA that “China is paying close attention to the flooding and expresses heartfelt sympathies to the bereaved families and those who are affected.”

“We believe that the people of the DPRK are capable of overcoming the impact of the disaster and rebuilding their homes soon,” he said.

Liu added, “In the meanwhile, areas on the Chinese side near the border have also been hit by severe flooding. We hope the two sides will share flooding information in a timely way to better prevent the flooding and ensure the safety of people’s life and property.”

VOA contacted the Russian embassies in Washington and Seoul to ask whether Moscow had a plan to send disaster relief aid to North Korea but did not receive a reply.

Eunjung Cho contributed to this report.
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VILLEPINTE, France — Imane Khelif of Algeria won her opening Olympic boxing bout Thursday when opponent Angela Carini of Italy quit after just 46 seconds.

Khelif was disqualified from the 2023 world championships after failing an unspecified gender eligibility test, and her presence at the Paris Olympics has become a divisive issue.

Carini and Khelif exchanged only a few punches before Carini walked away and abandoned the bout — an extremely unusual occurrence in Olympic boxing. Carini’s headgear apparently became dislodged at least once before she quit. Carini didn’t shake Khelif’s hand after the decision was announced but cried in the ring on her knees.

Afterward, a still-tearful Carini said she quit because of intense pain in her nose after the opening punches. Carini, who had a spot of blood on her trunks, said she wasn’t making a political statement and was not refusing to fight Khelif.

“I felt a severe pain in my nose, and with the maturity of a boxer, I said, ‘Enough,’ because I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to, I couldn’t finish the match,” Carini said.

Carini further said that she is not qualified to decide whether Khelif should be allowed to compete, but that she had no problem fighting her.

“I am not here to judge or pass judgment,” Carini said. “If an athlete is this way, and in that sense it’s not right or it is right, it’s not up to me to decide. I just did my job as a boxer. I got into the ring and fought. I did it with my head held high and with a broken heart for not having finished the last kilometer.”

Khelif is an accomplished amateur who won a silver medal at the International Boxing Association’s 2022 world championships. The same governing body disqualified her from last year’s championships shortly before her gold-medal match because of what it claimed were elevated levels of testosterone.

The 25-year-old entered the ring at the North Paris Arena to a chorus of cheers, but the crowd was confused by the bout’s sudden end. Khelif, who fights again Saturday, didn’t speak to reporters.

“I am heartbroken because I am a fighter,” Carini said. “My father taught me to be a warrior. I have always stepped into the ring with honor, and I have always (served) my country with loyalty. And this time I couldn’t do it because I couldn’t fight anymore, and so I ended the match.”

Khelif and Lin Yu‑ting of Taiwan suddenly have received massive scrutiny for their presence in Paris after years of amateur competition. Lin won IBA world championships in 2018 and 2022, but the governing body stripped her of a bronze medal last year because it claimed she failed to meet unspecified eligibility requirements in a biochemical test.

Lin begins her Paris run Friday, fighting Uzbekistan’s Sitora Turdibekova in her opening bout after receiving a first-round bye.

The Algerian Olympic Committee issued a statement Wednesday condemning what it termed “lies” and “unethical targeting and maligning of our esteemed athlete, Imane Khelif, with baseless propaganda from certain foreign media outlets.”

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, who was visiting Italian athletes in the Olympic Village on Thursday, voiced criticism that Carini had to box Khelif, saying she had since 2021 opposed allowing athletes with “genetically male” characteristics to compete against women.

“We have to pay attention, in an attempt to not discriminate, that we’re actually discriminating” against women’s rights, Meloni said.

She said it was necessary to guarantee the rights of athletes so they are competing on an even playing field.

“In these things, what counts is your dedication, your head and character, but it also counts having a parity of arms,” Meloni said.

Khelif and Lin are two-time Olympians who fought in the Tokyo Games with no controversy. Lin has been an elite-level amateur boxer for a decade and Khelif for six years. They were allowed to compete in Paris by the IOC task force, which has run the past two Olympic boxing tournaments.

The IOC on Tuesday defended their right to compete. Olympic boxing reached gender parity for the first time this year, with 124 men and 124 women competing in Paris.

“Everyone competing in the women’s category is complying with the competition eligibility rules,” IOC spokesperson Mark Adams said. “They are women in their passports, and it’s stated that this is the case, that they are female.”

Lin is the top seed in the 57-kilogram category, although Olympic seeding is frequently not indicative of the top medal contenders in a division.

Several sports, including World Aquatics, World Athletics and the International Cycling Union, have updated their gender rules over the past three years. The track body also last year tightened rules on athletes with differences in sex development.

The IOC said it made its eligibility decisions on boxers based on the gender-related rules that applied at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

The IOC oversees boxing in Paris because the IBA has been banned from the past two Olympics because of years of governance problems, a lack of financial transparency and many perceived instances of corruption in judging and refereeing.

The IOC has revoked the Olympic status of the IBA, which is controlled by president Umar Kremlev, who is Russian. He brought in Russian state-owned Gazprom as its primary sponsor and moved much of the IBA’s operations to Russia.

The IBA has since lost more than three dozen members who have formed a new group called World Boxing, which hopes to be recognized by the IOC as the sport’s governing body ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

The IBA has aggressively seized on the boxers’ presence in Paris to criticize the IOC. After the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld the IOC’s ban earlier this year, the IBA appealed to the Swiss Federal Tribunal.

The banned body issued a statement Wednesday in which it claimed both boxers did not have a “testosterone examination” last year but were “subject to a separate and recognized test” for their disqualification. The IBA said the test’s “specifics remain confidential,” refusing to explain it.

Women boxers have been asked about Khelif and Lin repeatedly this week. Many have expressed concern, while others have urged more consideration of an obviously complicated issue.

“I don’t agree with that being allowed, especially in combat sports as it can be incredibly dangerous,” Australia middleweight Caitlin Parker said. “But right now, my focus is on getting through each fight. It’s not like I haven’t sparred with guys before, but it can be dangerous for combat sports, and it should be seriously looked into. It is good that these things are coming out, and it’s being put under the spotlight to be looked into further.

“Biologically and genetically, they are going to have more advantages. Combat sports can be dangerous. Fairness is what it’s all about. We all want fairness in sport.”
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Dhaka — Bangladesh on Thursday banned the Jamaat-e-Islami party, its student wing and other associate bodies, terming the party as a “militant and terrorist” organization as part of a nationwide crackdown following weeks of violent protests that left more than 200 people dead and thousands injured.

Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her political partners blamed Jamaat-e-Islami, its Islami Chhatra Shibir student wing and other associate bodies for inciting violence during recent student protests over a quota system for government jobs.

In an official circular seen by The Associated Press, Bangladesh’s Ministry of Home Affairs said Thursday the ban was imposed under an anti-terrorism law.

Since July 15, at least 211 people have died and more than 10,000 people were arrested across the country.

Bangladesh Jamaat-e Islami was banned from taking part in the three national elections since 2014 after the Election Commission cancelled its registration.

In 2013, the High Court disqualified the party from elections, saying that its constitution violated the national constitution by opposing secularism. However, it was not barred from conducting political activities such as holding meetings, rallies and making statements.

Ten years later, the Supreme Court in 2023 upheld the High Court decision, sealing off the long legal battle and barring the party from participating in elections or using party symbols. But again, the Supreme Court did not ban it outright.

Jamaat-e Islami was founded during British colonial rule in 1941 by a controversial Islamist scholar and campaigned against the creation of Bangladesh as an independent state during the war of independence from Pakistan in 1971.

Most of the senior leaders of the party have been hanged or jailed since 2013 after courts convicted them of crimes against humanity including killings, abductions and rapes in 1971. The party had formed militia groups to help the Pakistani military during the nine-month war against Pakistan in 1971. Bangladesh won independence on Dec. 16 in 1971 with the help of neighboring India.

Bangladesh says 3 million people died, 200,000 women were raped and nearly 1 million people fled to neighboring India during the war.

The party was banned after Bangladesh’s independence in 1971 for its role in the mass killings and atrocities under the administration of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s founding leader and Hasina’s father. The ban was lifted in 1976, a year after Rahman was assassinated along with most of his family members in a military coup. Only Hasina and her younger sister Sheikh Rehana survived as they were touring Germany in 1975.

Jamaat had also been banned earlier twice, in 1959 and 1964 in Pakistan, for its communal role.

There was no immediate response on Thursday from the party, but the party’s chief Shafiqur Rahman said in a statement on Tuesday night that such any decision must be condemned after Law Minister Anisul Huq, from Hasina’s Awami League party, said that a decision was imminent.

“We strongly condemn and protest the illegal, unauthorized, and unconstitutional decision … to ban Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami. The 14-party alliance led by the Awami League is a political platform. One political party or alliance cannot make decisions about another political party,” Rahman said.

“The laws and constitution of Bangladesh do not grant such authority. If a trend of banning one party by another party or alliance begins, it will lead to chaos and the collapse of state order,” he said.
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Doda, Jammu and Kashmir — Residents of Kastigarh, a sub-district in central Jammu and Kashmir, say they are staying close to their homes following a recent attack by anti-India militants that injured two soldiers who were sheltering in a dilapidated school after a patrol.

A large group of Indian forces “had decided to rest in the school after a long search in the area. At around 2 a.m. we woke up to gunfire and realized that militants had attacked them,” said a local resident who requested anonymity to discuss the pre-dawn July 18 incident.

“Since then we have been living in fear. People prefer not to venture alone, especially after dark, for safety,” he told VOA.

The patrol at Kastigarh was part of a larger effort of the Indian army to search for anti-India militants believed to be hiding in the dense forests and remote areas of the larger Doda district, which includes Kastigarh.

In recent months, the Jammu region of the disputed Himalayan territory has witnessed 14 skirmishes between anti-India militants and security forces, resulting in the deaths of 10 soldiers, nine civilians and five militants.

“This is the first attack in our village in 20 years. I remember the previous incident that took place in 2004 during the elections,” Kumar said. “Soldiers nowadays regularly patrol in our area and during that time we feel secure,” he added, saying that the villagers did not observe any suspicious activity before or after the shootout.

In June 2023, VOA reported a resurgence of militancy by separatist insurgents in Jammu after a 14-year gap. This year, the armed conflict has expanded from two to four districts, including the Hindu-dominated Reasi district.

“The deployment of troops to address border tensions with China in Ladakh has resulted in a relatively lower presence of security forces in certain areas of Jammu,” said Deependra Singh Hooda, a former commanding-in-chief of the Indian army’s Northern Command.

“This reduced security presence has provided an opportunity for terrorists to establish a foothold and increase their activities in the region,” he told VOA.

The first major attack of the year took place in Reasi district on June 9, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi took his oath for a third consecutive term. Militants reportedly chased a passenger vehicle carrying Hindu pilgrims and later opened fire on it. The driver lost control and the vehicle fell into a gorge, resulting in the deaths of nine pilgrims, including an infant.

India blames Pakistan for the rise in militancy in the part of the disputed territory under New Delhi’s control. Islamabad rejects the charge.

Ayaz Gul and Sarah Zaman contributed to this report.
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LAHORE, Pakistan — Pakistan’s cultural city of Lahore saw record-high rainfall early Thursday, leaving at least one person dead, while flooding streets, disrupting traffic and affecting normal life, officials said.

The downpour started before dawn and is expected to continue for a week at intervals, according to the National Disaster Management Authority. In an advisory, it said the rains are likely to cause flash flooding and landslides.

The monsoon rains also lashed Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, and other areas.

The latest spell of rains in Lahore was so heavy that it quickly flooded many streets and rainwater entered some wards in the Jinnah and Services hospitals in the capital of Punjab province, causing problems for patients undergoing treatment there.

At least one person died after being electrocuted in the Nishat Colony neighborhood, police said.

Some areas in the city received a record-high 35.3 centimeters of rainfall in a few hours, breaking a 44-year-old record in Lahore, according to the water and sanitation agency. In a statement, it said efforts were under way to pump rainwater off of main roads.

Drainage systems quickly became overwhelmed after the rains, flooding several residential areas, officials said. The rainwater entered scores of homes in various parts of the city, residents said.

Monsoon rains have returned to Pakistan as the country is still struggling to recover from devastating 2022 floods that affected 33 million people and killed 1,739. But weather forecasters say the country will receive less heavy rains compared to 2022, when climate-induced downpours swelled rivers.

Pakistan recorded its wettest April since 1961, with more than double the usual rainfall for the month. Weather forecasters and scientists have blamed climate change for the unusually heavy monsoon rains.
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The United States has moved to significantly strengthen its alliances in the Indo-Pacific in recent days amid the security threat from China – including a major upgrade of its military command in Japan. Just how ready are the United States and its allies to act if conflict erupts? Henry Ridgwell reports from Tokyo.
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washington — A rare visit by the head of the Food and Agricultural Organization to North Korea has drawn criticism from former U.S. officials and humanitarian experts, with some raising the possibility of the U.N. official, a former Chinese official, using his position to serve China’s political interests.

FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu, currently in his second term and who formerly served as China’s vice minister of agriculture and rural affairs, took a rare trip to Pyongyang, July 13-16, and praised North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for making “great achievement” in food security and agricultural development, according to a FAO statement.

Qu’s trip was the first by an aid organization since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019.

For several decades, North Korea has suffered chronic food shortages exacerbated by recurring famine and floods damaging harvests. A FAO report released in July described North Korea’s food situation as “fragile.”

Hit again by heavy rains that flooded vast farmlands in Sinuiju and Uiju near the Chinese border, Kim “expressed deep concern” at an emergency meeting held to restore the damage after inspecting flood-hit areas, said state-run KCNA on Wednesday.

“The fact that North Korea has suffered periodic famines and for the head of the FAO to praise” the country’s food situation “is beyond ironic,” said Kevin Moley, former U.S. ambassador to the U.S. Mission to the U.N. in Geneva from 2001 to 2006.

“It’s nothing more or less than a political agenda between China and North Korea,” he added.

Other former U.S. officials and analysts said the visit seems to have been made to benefit bilateral interests of Beijing and Pyongyang.

“Qu’s comments were probably an attempt by the DPRK leadership to use the U.N. to tell the world everything is fine” at a time when “we have evidence there was a second famine from 2018 to 2023 that killed tens of thousands or more,” said Andrew Natsios, who served as administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development from 2001 to 2006.

“The Chinese government is worried of an increase in Russian influence in the DPRK and a decline in [its own] influence. The Russians are providing food to North Korea beginning last year in exchange for the DPRK providing them artillery shells, which the Russians are running out of in the Ukraine war,” added Natsios, the director of the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs at Texas A&M University.

North Korea’s official name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

China has long been the primary food aid provider to North Korea, and deepening ties between Moscow and Pyongyang since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Pyongyang in June is believed to make Beijing nervous about its own influence on North Korea.

VOA contacted the FAO for its comments on the criticism of Qu’s Pyongyang visit but did not receive a reply.

Max-Otto Baumann, a senior researcher at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability, said China might be interested in promoting agricultural productivity in North Korea through the FAO.

He said that could be done “with little transparency and accountability” such as through Qu’s signature Hand-in-Hand Initiative “seen by some FAO insiders and diplomats as a continuation of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative.”  

The Hand-in-Hand Initiative is aimed at eradicating poverty and ending hunger and malnutrition through data-driven agricultural transformation.

Courtney Fung, a non-resident fellow at the Lowy Institute, said the Chinese Embassy in Pyongyang “sends an implicit message” that China’s leadership role at the FAO can gain access to North Korea “when other leaders cannot or have not, while advancing ostensibly apolitical technical solutions for global governance problems.”

The Chinese Embassy in Pyongyang was the first to release a statement about Qu’s trip there ahead of the FAO.

Qu has been accused of using the FAO as a vehicle to spread China’s influence in countries the agency serves and to fulfill Beijing’s goals in the several occasions in the past.

On the other hand, Jerome Sauvage, the U.N. resident coordinator in North Korea from 2009 to 2013, said, “No FAO director-general has ever been completely protected from the influence of their country of origin.”

Qu’s “connection with China actually facilitates the reentry of one U.N. agency into DPRK,” he added.

Bradley Babson, a former World Bank adviser and a current advisory council member of the Korea Economic Institute of America, said Qu’s trip does not seem to be motivated by China’s political interest but rather by “trying to help North Korea find a better way to feed its people with U.N. support.”
…

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA — China’s new ambassador to Cambodia, Wang Wenbin, arrived in early July with a reputation as a highly experienced and combative diplomat in what is seen as the first move in a coming battle for influence between superpowers in the Southeast Asian nation.

The United States and Australia are expected to follow soon with their own new envoys who are seasoned in China relations. The personnel moves come less than a year into the first term of Prime Minister Hun Manet, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and Cambodia’s first new prime minister in decades.

Hun Manet is the son of Cambodia’s longtime leader Hun Sen and part of a new generation of politicians from the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, which has been in power for more than 40 years. Diplomats are waiting to see whether he will adjust his country’s “ironclad friendship” established with China by his father.

At present, China is Cambodia’s largest trading partner and a significant source of foreign investment and development assistance. China wants to deepen those ties through its Belt and Road Initiative and other cooperative frameworks.

Potentially standing in the way of that goal are concerns in Cambodia about an over-reliance on China, an effort by Phnom Penh to balance relations with the West, and public concerns about corruption and Chinese investments primarily benefiting the elite.

Wang is a former Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson and former ambassador to Tunisia, with more than 30 years of diplomatic experience, according to China Daily. He is one of what China describes as a new breed of combative “wolf warrior” diplomats.

With his extensive experience, analysts believe Wang will be able to sustain the close ties between China and Cambodia or even increase Beijing’s influence with the Phnom Penh government and the region.

Seng Vanly, a doctoral candidate in international relations at China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing, said Wang’s wealth of experience could make him more influential than his predecessors.

“Because of his reputation as a spokesperson and his articulation talent, as well as his responses, he is well-recognized among Chinese diplomats and around the world who see him as strongly responding to the enemy countries or the West, such as the United States, on issues relating to China’s rise, China’s aggressions, whether in the South China Sea or its conflict with Taiwan,” he told VOA Khmer via Telegram.

Seng emphasized that Western countries such as Australia and the United States are expected to send their own new ambassadors with China expertise to Cambodia.

However, he said he believes that Wang can offer substantial benefits to Cambodia while holding his own in any diplomatic battles with rival countries. 

The U.S, meanwhile, is awaiting the final confirmation by the U.S. Senate of its next ambassador to Cambodia, according to a U.S. Embassy spokesperson in Phnom Penh. He is Robert Forden, a career diplomat who has held the second-ranking position at the U.S. missions in both Beijing and Taipei and was charge d’affaires at the Beijing embassy from 2020 to 2021.

Australia, for its part, this month named its next ambassador to Phnom Penh as Derek Yip, who has held two postings to Beijing and served most recently as assistant secretary of the Foreign Ministry’s East Asia political branch. 

According to Em Sovannara, a political science professor at the University of Cambodia in Phnom Penh, the appointment of capable, senior diplomats from both superpowers could make Cambodia a diplomatic battleground on issues such as the South China Sea, where China has competing territorial claims with several of Phnom Penh’s fellow ASEAN members.

The U.S. is also concerned about Chinese involvement in Cambodia’s controversial Ream naval base.

Wang’s arrival also coincided with a visit to Cambodia in early July by Yoko Kamikawa, the foreign affairs minister of Japan. Analysts told VOA Khmer that strengthening relations with Japan could reduce Chinese influence in Cambodia and lead to a more balanced approach to foreign relations.

“By diversifying Cambodia’s partners, it could, to some extent, relieve the pressure and expectation that Phnom Penh has on Beijing to live up to its name as an economic partner,” said Ek Bunly, a research fellow at the Cambodian Center for Regional Studies.

At the same time, he said, “Cambodia would be in total vulnerability should China decide to weaponize its economic domination in Cambodia for Beijing’s political goal in the future.”

According to Bunly, Cambodia has become a significant player in the U.S.-China rivalry in the region. Other elements of that rivalry include the rise of U.S.-led groups such as AUKUS, the Quad, and NATO’s forthcoming IP4 initiative in the Indo-Pacific, all of which are seen as countering China’s agenda.

“Thus, having and maintaining a strong partner like Cambodia in the Indo-Pacific region provides Beijing with critical geopolitical leverage,” he said.

In its latest move to demonstrate its ironclad ties with China, the Cambodian government named a 50-kilometer section of Phnom Penh’s newly constructed third ring road as Xi Jinping Boulevard. Construction of the road cost about $270 million and was partly paid for with concessional Chinese lending.

“The naming of Xi Jinping Boulevard is symbolic of the Cambodia-China friendship that has reached the top,” government spokesperson Bona told VOA via WhatsApp. “And both countries strive well for the good relationship as Cambodia gets much benefits.”

Bunly said that the many China-funded infrastructure projects in Cambodia are fruits of Beijing’s continued commitment to Phnom Penh. However, he added, it remains to be seen if Wang’s high-profile background can bring back much-needed Chinese tourism and investment in Cambodia’s struggling post-COVID-19 economy.

Even if Wang is very capable, Bunly said, bringing back Chinese investment is not necessarily within his control and partly depends on China’s own economic conditions. So far China’s slow post-COVID recovery has prevented the return of significant Chinese investment and tourists to Cambodia after COVID.
…

New Delhi — As tensions between India and China persist with tens of thousands of soldiers confronting each other along their disputed Himalayan borders for a fifth year, analysts say they see few signs of a reduction in military tensions between the Asian rivals despite calls from both sides to stabilize ties. But trade between the two countries has surged.

“The ground reality is that the Chinese are focusing on building infrastructure in the Himalayas to enhance their conventional deterrence capabilities. They are building roads, bridges and other military-related construction. That is a huge concern for India,” Srikanth Kondapalli, dean of the School of International Studies at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University told VOA.

Ties between the Asian rivals nosedived sharply following a clash in June 2020 between their soldiers. Backed by heavy artillery and fighter jets, an estimated 50,000 troops from each side still remain amassed at hotspots in the Himalayas, where they share a long, poorly demarcated border.

“I have to be honest, our relations with China are not doing very well,” Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyan Jaishankar told reporters at a news conference in Tokyo on Monday where he was attending a Quad meeting. “They are not good; they are not normal right now.”

Jaishankar’s remarks came days after he met his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on the sidelines of a summit meeting of the ASEAN bloc in Laos last week where both sides emphasized the need to normalize ties.

In a statement after the meeting, Wang said that “it is in the interests of both sides to get China-India relations back on track.” Jaishankar spoke of the need to address their bilateral issues “with a sense of purpose and urgency.”

But analysts point out there are no signs of de-escalation along the borders. Although soldiers withdrew from several conflict areas between 2020 and 2022, there has been little progress in resolving their disputes at other friction points that are claimed by both sides.

“We have had 21 meetings between military commanders from the two countries since the clash four years ago to resolve the issue, but progress has been marginal,” Kondapalli pointed out.

Even as the Indian and Chinese Himalayan border continues to be volatile, India’s imports from China have grown steadily despite strict curbs that New Delhi imposed on economic ties with China following the 2020 clash.

India had stepped up scrutiny of Chinese investments, blocked virtually all Chinese visitors, halted major Chinese projects in the country and blocked Chinese apps like TikTok.

Despite those restrictions, Beijing emerged as New Delhi’s top trading partner last year. India’s imports from China stood at more than $100 billion last year. India’s exports to China on the other hand were only $16 billion.

“When India put these curbs in 2020, the government strategy was that we should reduce our import dependence on China,” said Biswajit Dhar, trade analyst and Distinguished Professor at the Council for Social Development in New Delhi. “But that has not happened, so that strategy has come to grief and now there is a realization that there is no running away from the fact that it is difficult to decouple from China, which remains the world’s largest manufacturer.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has led a push to make India an alternative manufacturing hub to China and companies like Apple have set up production facilities in the country in recent years. But several industries, including new factories coming up in the country remain reliant on imports from China, including machinery needed in manufacturing.

Industry groups have called on the government to relax strict visa curbs on Chinese nationals as they say they need Chinese engineers and technicians to install equipment and train Indian workers. New Delhi is considering speeding up visas for Chinese workers, according to media reports.

However, the government said it will not relax its curbs on Chinese investments after its Economic Survey, which highlights policy initiatives, argued in favor of attracting Chinese funds to address India’s growing trade deficit.

“To boost Indian manufacturing and plug India into the global supply chain, it is inevitable that India plugs itself into China’s supply chain. Whether we do so by relying solely on imports or partially through Chinese investments is a choice that India has to make,” the Economic Survey, released last week, stated.

India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal however told reporters that there will be no rethink on Chinese investments.

While China says the two countries should resume normal exchanges even as they continue discussions on their territorial disputes, India maintains that putting ties back on track will be contingent on resolving the border standoff.

Analysts say New Delhi faces a dilemma. “The question is will India stick to its stand of not normalizing ties until the border issues are settled or whether they will modify their strict economic policy toward China,” according to Manoj Joshi, Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research foundation in New Delhi told VOA. “But there is a growing feeling that we are boxed into a situation which is not comfortable for us.”
…

…

Seoul, South Korea — Inter-Korean relations may be at their worst point in years, but that did not stop athletes from North and South Korea from congratulating each other on their medal wins, and smiling for a selfie, at the Paris Olympic Games.

In an unexpectedly strong performance, North Korea on Tuesday won silver in mixed doubles ping pong, marking the country’s first Olympic medal since 2016. South Korea took the bronze in the competition, while China won gold.

After the medal ceremony, South Korean athlete Lim Jong-hoon whipped out a South Korea-made Samsung flip-phone to take a selfie, as all six medalists gathered close behind.

The North and South Korean athletes also shook hands and briefly exchanged congratulations during the ceremony, though according to Lim the two sides did not have any further conversation.

Asked at a news conference whether the North Korean team felt any sense of rivalry with their South Korean counterparts, one of the North Korean athletes, Kim Kum-yong, said, “No, we did not.”

Though brief, it was a rare moment of public interaction between the two Koreas, whose citizens have almost no means of direct contact due to North Korea’s stringent restrictions on communicating with the outside world.

In South Korea, some commentators hailed the encounter as a welcome moment of harmony, even as both governments are entrenched in escalating tensions that many fear could soon intensify.

Since May, North Korea has sent thousands of balloons filled with trash and other items, including feces or manure, into South Korea, disrupting flights and prompting massive clean-up efforts by South Korea’s military.

North Korea says the trash balloons are a response to South Korean human rights activists who float anti-Pyongyang leaflets and other propaganda into the North. Such material is viewed as an existential threat to North Korea’s third-generation heredity dictatorship.

In retaliation for the trash balloon launches, South Korea’s military has resumed loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts across the border.

The propaganda exchanges have raised fears of potential clashes, since North Korea has in the past fired weapons toward South Korean loudspeakers.

The two Koreas are in a technical state of war since their 1950s conflict ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty. The two sides have periodically engaged in cross-border clashes, though such hostilities have been rare in recent decades.

In the past, the Olympics have served as a way to foster warmer inter-Korean ties. The two Koreas marched together as a joint team during the opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

The 2018 Olympics coincided with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s short-lived outreach to the United States and South Korea. However, since late 2019, Kim has rejected any dialogue with Washington and Seoul.

Earlier this year, the nuclear-armed North declared South Korea to be its “principal enemy,” vowing to annihilate it if provoked.
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BEIJING — China will adjust drone export controls from Sept. 1, including abolishing temporary export control measures of certain consumer drones, the commerce ministry said on Wednesday.

In a statement, the ministry said it would also adjust the control standards for some important components of unmanned aircraft, such as infrared imaging equipment and lasers for target indication.

The adjustment would help safeguard the security and stability of global industrial and supply chains, a ministry spokesperson said.

Last year, China announced export controls on some drones and drone-related equipment, saying it wanted to safeguard “national security and interests” amid escalating tension with the United States over access to the technology.

The measures last year included a two-year temporary export control on some consumer drones, and no civilian drones were allowed to be exported for military purposes.

The ministry then said it decided to “appropriately” expand the drone export control, without targeting any specific country and region.
…

NEW DELHI — Hundreds of rescue workers searched through mud and debris Wednesday from multiple landslides that have killed at least 151 people in southern India, police said.

The landslides occurred after torrential rains triggered torrents of mud and water that swept through tea estates and villages.

Another 186 people were injured by the landslides that hit hilly areas in Kerala state’s Wayanad district early Tuesday, flattening houses, uprooting trees and destroying bridges, said police officer Aijaz, who uses one name.

P.M Manoj, a spokesman for the state’s top elected official, said 187 people were unaccounted for. Seventy-seven bodies have been identified so far and mostly handed to their relatives, he added,

More than a dozen bodies were found overnight, Aijaz said, as over 300 rescuers worked to pull out people stuck under mud and debris, but blocked roads and unstable terrain hampered their efforts.

The first landslide occurred at 2 a.m. on Tuesday, followed by another two hours later. Several areas, including Meppadi, Mundakkai and Chooralmala, were isolated, and roads were washed away causing immense damage to homes, said Kerala’s top elected official, Pinarayi Vijayan.

“Efforts to locate missing persons continue with all available resources,” their statement said.

Mundakka is in an area highly prone to disasters. However, the gushing soil, gravel, and rock reached the town of Chooralmala, 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) away.

Manoj said more than 8,300 people have been moved to 82 government-run relief camps. The government is ensuring food delivery and essential items to the relief camps.

Authorities sent vehicles carrying 20,000 liters of drinking water to the disaster area. Temporary hospitals are being set up.

The Press Trust of India news agency said more than 300 houses were destroyed in Mundakkai and Chooralmala areas.

Local media reported that most of the victims were tea estate workers. Television footage showed rescue workers making their way through mud and uprooted trees to reach those who had been stranded. Vehicles swept off the roads were seen stuck in a swollen river. Local TV news channels also aired phone calls from stranded people asking for help.

Authorities mobilized helicopters to help with rescue efforts and the Indian army was roped in to build a temporary bridge.

“We are trying every way to rescue our people,” state Health Minister Veena George said.

In a post on social media platform X, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was “distressed by the landslides in parts of Wayanad,” a hilly district that is part of the Western Ghats mountain range.

“My thoughts are with all those who have lost their loved ones and prayers with those injured,” Modi wrote. He announced compensation of $2,388 to the victims’ families.

India’s weather department has put Kerala on alert as the state has been lashed by incessant rains. Downpours have disrupted life for many, and authorities closed schools in some parts Tuesday.

Kerala, one of India’s most popular tourist destinations, is prone to heavy rains, flooding and landslides. Nearly 500 people were killed in the state in 2018 in one of the worst floods.

The Indian Meteorological Department said the state has had heavy rainfall over its northern and central regions, with Wayanad district recording up to 28 centimeters (11 inches) of rain on Monday and Tuesday.

“Monsoon patterns are increasingly erratic and the quantum of rainfall that we receive in a short spell of time has increased. As a result, we see frequent instances of landslides and floods along the Western Ghats,” said Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology.

Koll also said authorities must check on rapid construction activities happening over landslide areas.
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…

washington — U.S. State Department Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell says that whether it is exploring for rare earth minerals, establishing military bases in Africa, or building more ships and submarines, the United States needs to do more to compete with China.

Speaking at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Tuesday, Campbell called China the “defining geopolitical challenge confronting modern American diplomacy.”

“We need to do more, and we have to contest Chinese actions, not only in terms of their forward basing strategy, but their desire to go after Africa’s rare earths that will be critical for our industrial and technological capabilities,” he said.

Campbell added that China has presented U.S. diplomats with a global challenge that extends from economics and defense to information and human rights.

Bipartisan desire to compete

Lawmakers from across the political divide who attended the hearing agreed with that assessment and the need to compete with China’s influence.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio from Florida expressed concern about China being the “world’s leading shipbuilder” and “undisputed king of basic industrial inputs.”

Campbell agreed with the senator, noting that the difference between the two countries was “deeply concerning,” and that the U.S. “has to do better” in shipbuilding.

He also said the United States submarine program needs more attention.

In his opening remarks, Ben Cardin, a Democratic senator and chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the United States needs to offer the Global South an alternative to China.

“In order to address these challenges, the United States should not only be investing in our military, but also our diplomatic and economic development tools,” Cardin said.

Technology and critical rare earth minerals used to make everything from semiconductor chips to batteries in electric vehicles was an area of particular focus during the hearing, given China’s dominance.

In 2022, China was the largest source of rare earth mineral imports for the United States at 70%, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It is also the world’s biggest supplier of rare earth minerals.

“If you look at a balance sheet of the top 40 trace elements and minerals that are necessary for batteries or for semiconductors, the vast lion’s share of those supplies are now controlled by China,” Campbell said. He noted that while the U.S. was initially in an unfavorable position, it has stepped up signing critical mineral agreements with Japan and Australia.

Campbell also said the Lobito corridor project in Africa — a railway that will run through mineral-rich Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo to an Atlantic port in Angola — would help meet U.S. demand for the minerals.

Hearing looks at relations with Africa

Increasing diplomatic relations with Africa was a key focus of the hearing.

Campbell said he has traveled to Africa twice since his appointment in February and has plans for a third trip. He also noted that there are 14 ambassador nominations for posts on the continent yet to be approved by the Senate.

Several senators at the hearing stressed the need to increase the U.S. diplomatic footprint and fill empty ambassadorial posts, particularly within the Global South.

Campbell said the lack of U.S. ambassadors in key posts is “embarrassing” and “antithetical to U.S. strategic interests.”

During the hearing, lawmakers also discussed the need for U.S. involvement in international infrastructure development projects, continued support of Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, and the need for more efforts to combat Chinese misinformation and press manipulation in third countries.
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ISLAMABAD — Pakistani engineers have developed and successfully tested a government messaging app for secure communication among officials, authorities said Tuesday, even as Islamabad restricts social media use and regularly shuts down internet and mobile phone networks to prevent dissent. 

Should the government approve it, the messaging platform could eventually also be available to millions of citizens, said Baber Majid, chief executive officer at the country’s National Information Technology Board. 

Enter “beep,” a chat application that Pakistani authorities say is exclusively homegrown. 

“Beep has already successfully undergone trial runs since 2023 and is now ready for launch,” Majid said. 

Meanwhile, ordinary Pakistanis have been struggling to access the social networking platform X, which authorities blocked ahead of the February 8 parliamentary elections earlier this year, a vote overshadowed by violence, an unprecedented national shutdown of all mobile phone services and allegations of vote rigging. 

Authorities later insisted that the phone service suspension was necessary for security reasons, but critics and Pakistan’s imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan have said the real intention was to disable communication to allow for vote rigging — a charge the government denies. 

There have also been frequent internet restrictions in southwestern Baluchistan province and elsewhere. Pakistan every year suspends phone services during the Ashoura, an Islamic commemoration when minority Shiite Muslims hold processions. 

Pakistan imposed five separate internet restrictions during and after the elections, according to research by the Netherlands-based cybersecurity company Surfshark B.V., which offers VPN services and data leak detection. It also tracks cases of government-imposed internet and social media disruptions. 

“Such actions taken by the government undermine the very aspect of democracy and make it impossible for fair elections to take place,” it said. 

Pakistan’s phone and internet suspensions have also affected communication between officials and security forces. Hence “beep,” which Majid said would ensure uninterrupted communication among officials. 

He said the app has been designed to share text, audio, and videos and hold conference calls. It requires an internet connection but Majid did not elaborate on measures that would restrict internet availability to just Pakistani officials — or possibly whoever else gets approval to use the app. 

“Beep is safer than other messaging apps,” he said.
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Taipei, Taiwan — Forty-nine lawmakers from 24 countries gathered in Taiwan on Tuesday to discuss how China is raising tensions with the democratically ruled island and to assess the economic impact a potential conflict could have on the international community.  

The two-day summit was organized by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, or IPAC, a group that includes hundreds of lawmakers from 35 countries who are concerned about how democracies deal with China. The conference brought the largest-ever foreign parliamentary delegation to Taiwan.  

In a keynote speech Tuesday, Taiwan President Lai Ching-te said China’s threat to any country is a threat to the world.  

“Taiwan will do everything in its power to support the ‘democracy umbrella’ with its democratic partners, so as to protect them from the threat of authoritarian expansion,” he told attending lawmakers.  

The rare meeting that has brought so many lawmakers from across the globe to Taiwan is part of a trend of foreign visits that has surged since former U.S. House speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island in August almost two years ago.  

Despite having its own army, currency and democratic political system of government, Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations and has few formal diplomatic allies. China opposes any international engagement with Taiwan, which it regards as a part of its territory, and has been whittling away at the number of countries that have official ties with the island. Taiwan currently has 12 diplomatic allies.  

In response to the surge in international attention and visits, China has carried out a series of major military exercises around the island over the past two years and almost daily military harassment that has included a mix of fighter jets, naval and coast guard vessels and drones. It has also amped up its rhetoric that unification is inevitable. 

UN Resolution 2758 

At Tuesday’s conference, attending lawmakers adopted a model motion they say will pave the way for them to pass similar resolutions in their parliaments at home. The aim of the motion is to counter China’s interpretation of United Nations Resolution 2758 in their legislatures.  

U.N. Resolution 2758 was passed on Oct. 25, 1971 and is a key international agreement that Beijing uses to isolate Taiwan. Experts note, however, that the resolution only decided that the People’s Republic of China would replace the Republic of China, Taiwan’s official name, as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. It did not, however, determine Taiwan’s sovereign status.  

While some countries, such as the United States, have rejected China’s claim that the U.N. resolution supports its sovereignty claim over Taiwan, some foreign lawmakers attending the summit say the model resolution adopted by IPAC members could inform governments about the possibility of China using its interpretation of the U.N. resolution as a pretext to launch a potential military attack against Taiwan.

“We see the danger of China’s false interpretation of [the U.N. resolution] as bolstering the pretext for legality of any future attack or coercion against Taiwan, so we think talking about this issue will help bring the potential danger onto the radar of different governments,” Reinhard Butikofer, former chairman of the European Parliament’s delegation for relations with the People’s Republic of China, told VOA on the sideline of the summit.  

Cost of conflict 

On Tuesday, the summit also focused on the impact a potential conflict over Taiwan could have on countries around the world. Building on a campaign called “Operation Mist” that IPAC launched last September, the alliance hopes to push more governments to conduct assessments of the economic impact of a potential Taiwan Strait crisis on their countries. The Taiwan Strait is the body of water that separates Taiwan and China.  

“There is a strong desire among IPAC members to continue this operation because they believe people in their countries need to know the economic impact of a potential Taiwan Strait crisis,” Luke de Pulford, the executive director of IPAC, told VOA in Taipei.  

Ahead of Taiwan’s presidential and legislative elections earlier this year, Bloomberg Economics estimated that a conflict between China and Taiwan would decimate the global economy, costing as much as $10 trillion, which is equal to about 10% of the world’s GDP. 

Pressuring IPAC 

While the IPAC summit sought to raise international awareness of Taiwan’s plight, at least eight lawmakers from six countries, including Bolivia, Slovakia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, said they had received calls or texts from Chinese diplomats urging them not to attend the conference.  

According to an Associated Press report, some lawmakers received texts from Chinese diplomats asking whether they planned to attend IPAC’s annual summit in Taiwan while one lawmaker said Chinese diplomats asked the head of her political party to stop her from participating in the conference.  

Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry condemned Beijing’s “despicable act” in a statement while de Pulford of IPAC said the Chinese government’s pressure campaign is simply “illegitimate.”

“The communications were not through formal diplomatic channels, but rather, they were harassing text messages and phone calls from junior Chinese attaches who felt that they could tell these lawmakers where they couldn’t travel to,” he told VOA.   

IPAC has faced repeated pressure from the Chinese government since its founding in 2020. Some members of the group have been sanctioned by the Chinese government while an indictment from the U.S. Justice Department showed that other IPAC members have been targeted by Chinese state-sponsored hackers.

In response to questions from VOA, the Chinese Embassy in Washington urged foreign lawmakers attending the summit to “stop exploiting the Taiwan question to interfere in China’s internal affairs and political manipulation for selfish gains.”  

“The Taiwan question is one hundred percent China’s internal affair, which no foreign forces have the right to interfere in,” the Chinese Embassy’s spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA in a written statement.  

Opportunity for international engagement 

Some experts say that while Taiwan’s attempts to engage with other countries usually face strong opposition from China, the summit is an important diplomatic channel for Taipei. 

“The significance of this meeting is that these are elected lawmakers who are intended to meet, talk, and discuss Taiwan and bring what they learn [in Taipei] back to their parliaments, with the hope of having concrete proposals of what can be done to help mitigate the odds of conflict happening in the Taiwan Strait and the odds of diminishing China’s aggression in this part of the world,” said Lev Nachman, a political scientist at National Taiwan University.  

Taiwan should use the summit to highlight the challenges it faces and how the threat from China affects Taiwan’s domestic politics, he added. 

“Taiwan needs to make sure that lawmakers at the summit are aware of what it means for Taiwan to exist in today’s world and what it means to be contested by China,” Nachman told VOA by phone.  

De Pulford from IPAC said he believes the summit in Taiwan could have an impact on how some countries engage with Taiwan.  

“A lot of the people attending the summit have strong relationships with their own governments, so they are able to leverage their own positions to pave the way for precedents such as ministerial meetings between Taiwan and other countries,” he told VOA.  
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ISLAMABAD — The Taliban on Tuesday disavowed many Afghan diplomatic missions overseas, saying it will not honor passports, visas and other documents issued by diplomats associated with Afghanistan’s former Western-backed administration.

It’s the Taliban’s latest attempt to seize control of diplomatic missions since returning to power in 2021. Many Taliban leaders are under sanctions, and no country recognizes them as Afghanistan’s legitimate rulers.

The country’s seat at the United Nations is still held by the former government that was led by Ashraf Ghani, but the Taliban wants it.

In a statement posted to social media platform X, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that documents issued by missions in London, Berlin, Belgium, Bonn, Switzerland, Austria, France, Italy, Greece, Poland, Australia, Sweden, Canada and Norway are no longer accepted and that the ministry “bears no responsibility” for those documents.

The documents affected include passports, visa stickers, deeds and endorsements.

The ministry wrote that people in those countries will need to approach embassies and consulates controlled by the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan government instead. “All Afghan nationals living abroad and foreigners can visit the IEA political and consular missions in other countries, other than the above-mentioned missions, to access consular services,” it said.

The Taliban did not immediately respond to questions.

One Afghan national living in London, Asad Mobariz, expressed disappointment and frustration with the decision. The master’s student called it unfair and impractical to expect Afghans in affected countries to travel abroad for consular services.

“This decision disregards our needs and places an undue burden on us,” he told The Associated Press. “These services are crucial for my ability to travel, work and maintain my legal status in the U.K.”

The decision would create immense hardship for the Afghan population in Europe and lead to increased financial strain and potential legal issues for those unable to access consular services locally, he said.

Another Afghan national, Adnan Najibi, who lives in Germany, said discrediting embassies was unlikely to benefit the Taliban.

“I live in a small town with a relatively low population; however, I still see that there are hundreds of Afghans living here,” Najibi said. “If someone previously obtained an Afghan passport, marriage certificate or any other document in a day, it may now take weeks or even longer.”

In March 2023, the Taliban said they were trying to take charge of more Afghan embassies abroad. Their chief spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the administration had sent diplomats to at least 14 countries.

The new developments mean the closest available Afghan embassies for people in Europe are likely to be in Spain and the Netherlands. In October, those two countries said they were working with Taliban authorities in Kabul after the Taliban suspended consular services at the embassies in London and Vienna over their “lack of transparency and cooperation.”

Some countries retain an active diplomatic mission in Afghanistan, including Pakistan and China.

Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute, said the Taliban were confident and emboldened, buoyed by the informal recognition they have received from many countries.

They appeared to be working to force Afghans to engage with the Taliban instead of with diplomats loyal to the former administration, he said.

“It’s about giving the Taliban more diplomatic clout abroad and consigning the pre-Taliban holdouts to irrelevance. The fact that many of these missions aren’t very active anyway makes Taliban efforts easier to pull off. It’s like pushing on a door that’s already open,” Kugelman said.

The Taliban have received informal recognition through bilateral ties with countries such as Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan, including high-level meetings with those countries. This past month, the Taliban were the Afghan representatives at United Nations-hosted talks on Afghanistan in Doha, although the U.N. stressed that this did not amount to official recognition.

UN mission closed

Also on Tuesday, the U.N. mission in Afghanistan said local intelligence officials in May forcibly closed the office of a women-led nongovernmental group for allowing some of its female employees to physically report to work.

The NGO was allowed to reopen days later after signing a letter saying it would not allow women employees to come to the office, according to the mission’s latest report on human rights in Afghanistan. The report did not disclose the location for “protection reasons.”

Restrictions on women and girls are a major obstacle to the Taliban gaining official recognition as the country’s legitimate government. They have stopped female education beyond grade six and banned women from many jobs and most public spaces.

The Taliban were not immediately available for comment on the report.
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BANGKOK — China’s powerful Politburo has endorsed the ruling Communist Party’s long-term strategy for growing the economy by encouraging more consumer spending and weeding out unproductive companies to promote “survival of the fittest.”

A statement issued after the meeting of the 24 highest leaders of the party warned that coming months would be tough, perhaps alluding to mounting global uncertainties ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.

“There are still many risks and hidden dangers in key areas,” it said, adding that the tasks for reform and stability in the second half of the year were “very heavy.”

The Politburo promised unspecified measures to restore confidence in financial markets and boost government spending, echoing priorities laid out by a wider meeting of senior party members earlier in July. After that gathering, China’s central bank reduced several key interest rates and the government doubled subsidies for electric vehicles bought to replace older cars as part of the effort to spur growth.

The Politburo’s calls to look after low- and middle-income groups reflect pledges to build a stronger social safety net to enable families to spend more instead of socking money away to provide for health care, education and elder care. But it provided no specifics on how it will do that.

“This sounds promising on paper. But the lack of any specifics means it is unclear what it will entail in practice,” Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics said in a commentary.

The party’s plans for how to improve China’s fiscal policies at a time of burgeoning local government debt were “short on new ideas,” he said.

Instead, the emphasis is on moving faster to implement policies such as the government’s campaign to convince families to trade in old cars and appliances and redecorate their homes that includes tax incentives and subsidies for purchases that align with improved efficiency and reducing use of polluting fossil fuels.

China’s economy grew at a 4.7% annual rate in the last quarter after expanding 5.3% in the first three months of the year. Some economists say the official data overstate the rate of growth, masking long-term weaknesses that require broad reforms to rebalance the economy away from a heavy reliance on construction and export manufacturing.

Under leader Xi Jinping, China has prioritized developing industries using advanced technologies such as electric vehicles and renewable energy, a strategy that has made the country a leader in some areas but also led to oversupplies that are now squeezing some manufacturers, such as makers of solar panels.

The Politburo’s statement vowed support for “gazelle enterprises and unicorn enterprises,” referring to new, fast-growing companies and high-tech start-ups. It warned against “vicious competition” but also said China should improve mechanisms to ensure “survival of the fittest” and eliminate “backward and inefficient production capacity.”

The party has promised to help resolve a crisis in the property sector, in part by encouraging purchases of apartments to provide affordable housing and to adapt monetary policy to help spur spending and investment.

But the document issued Tuesday also highlighted longstanding concerns. The countryside and farmers need more support to “ensure that the rural population does not return to poverty on a large scale,” it said.

It also condemned what analysts have said is widespread resistance to fresh initiatives, saying that “formalism and bureaucracy are stubborn diseases and must be corrected” and warning that economic disputes should not be resolved by “administrative and criminal means.”

Chinese markets have not shown much enthusiasm for the policies outlined in recent weeks.

On Tuesday, the Hong Kong benchmark Hang Seng index sank 1.4%, while the Shanghai Composite index lost 0.4%. The Hang Seng has fallen 4.3% in the past three months while Shanghai’s index is down 7.3%.
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BEIJING — Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni came to China to boost co-operation with the world’s second-largest economy and reset trade ties, she said on Tuesday, during a visit to burnish relations after leaving the Belt and Road scheme.

Meloni, making her first visit to China as prime minister, which comes after Italy left Chinese President Xi Jinping’s flagship initiative last year, said the euro zone’s third-largest economy wanted to rebalance ties with Beijing.

“Today, Italian investment in China is about three times as much as Chinese investment in Italy,” Meloni told reporters. “We clearly want to work to remove obstacles for our products to access the Chinese market.”

Asked what the right-wing government she has led since 2022 hoped to gain from her visit, Meloni said Italy sought to “strengthen our co-operation with a view to … clearly rebalancing trade.”

Italy is of strategic importance to China as it has struck out on its own with Beijing before.

It could prove to be a moderating voice within the European Union, as the bloc’s 27 members weigh up backing the Commission over tariffs on Chinese electric cars.

EU members will vote in October whether to impose more tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. Italy is one of the countries to have indicated it will back the motion.

In 2019, Italy became the only member of the Group of Seven industrialized democracies to join Xi’s Belt and Road infrastructure investment scheme that aims to resurrect the ancient Silk Road trade route, in a diplomatic coup for China.

Although Rome eventually exited the program under U.S. pressure last year, it signaled that it still desired to develop its trade ties with the $18.6 trillion economy.

Balanced trade and investment

Asked whether she had specifically discussed with Xi Chinese automakers opening factories in Italy during her Monday meeting, Meloni said “no” but added: “The issue of electric mobility is one of the topics included in our memorandum of industrial cooperation.”

Meloni on Monday told Xi that Italy plays an important role in China’s relations with the EU, which are currently dominated by talk of tariffs, but continued to say that she hoped for trade relations that are “as balanced as possible.”

“As I have said many times, we were the only nation among the great nations of Western Europe to be part of the Silk Road. But we were not the nation that had the best trade with China? Far from it,” Meloni told reporters on Tuesday, referring to the Belt and Road Initiative.

“There are other nations in Europe that have had a much higher volume of Chinese investment.”

 
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