Manila, Philippines — The Philippines is not currently looking to extradite a Filipino pastor wanted for child sex trafficking in the United States, President Ferdinand Marcos said Monday after the suspect’s arrest.

Apollo Quiboloy, a self-proclaimed “Appointed Son of God” and ally of former president Rodrigo Duterte, surrendered in the southern city of Davao on Sunday amid a massive two-week police search of his sect’s sprawling compound.

The U.S. charged the Kingdom of Jesus Christ preacher in 2021 with sex trafficking of girls and women aged 12-25 to work as personal assistants, who were allegedly required to have sex with him.

“For the moment, we are not looking at extradition. We are focusing on the cases filed in the Philippines,” Marcos told reporters on the sidelines of a Manila conference.

It is not known if the United States has formally sought the extradition of Quiboloy, aged at least 74, according to the FBI.

Quiboloy, whose sect claims millions of followers, is facing charges in Manila of child abuse, sexual abuse and human trafficking.

Marcos also congratulated the police for arresting the pastor.

“We will demonstrate once again to the world that our judicial system in the Philippines is active, is vibrant, and is working well,” the president said.

Quiboloy is also sought by U.S. authorities for bulk cash smuggling and a scheme that brought church members to the United States using fraudulently obtained visas.

They were then forced to solicit donations for a bogus charity, raising funds that were instead used to finance church operations and the lavish lifestyles of its leaders, according to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
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SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — South Korea convened an international summit on Monday seeking to establish a blueprint for the responsible use of artificial intelligence in the military, though any agreement is not expected to have binding powers to enforce it.

More than 90 countries including the United States and China have sent government representatives to the two-day summit in Seoul, which is the second such gathering.

At the first summit, held in Amsterdam last year, the United States, China and other nations endorsed a modest “call to action” without legal commitment.

“Recently, in the Russia-Ukraine war, an AI-applied Ukrainian drone functioned as David’s slingshot,” South Korean Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun said in an opening address.

He was referring to Ukraine’s efforts for a technological edge against Russia by rolling out AI-enabled drones, hoping they will help overcome signal jamming as well as enable unmanned aerial vehicles to work in larger groups.

“As AI is applied to the military domain, the military’s operational capabilities are dramatically improved. However it is like a double-edged sword, as it can cause damage from abuse,” Kim said.

South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul said discussions would cover areas such as a legal review to ensure compliance with international law and mechanisms to prevent autonomous weapons from making life-and-death decisions without appropriate human oversight.

The Seoul summit hoped to agree to a blueprint for action, establishing a minimum level of guard-rails for AI in the military and suggesting principles on responsible use by reflecting principles laid out by NATO, by the U.S. or a number of other countries, according to a senior South Korean official.

It was unclear how many nations attending the summit would endorse the document on Tuesday, which is aiming to be a more detailed attempt to set boundaries on AI use in the military, but likely will still lack legal commitments.

The summit is not the only international set of discussions on AI use in the military.

U.N. countries that belong to the 1983 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons are discussing potential restrictions on lethal autonomous weapons systems for compliance with international humanitarian law.

The U.S. government last year also launched a declaration on responsible use of AI in the military, which covers broader military application of AI, beyond weapons. As of August, 55 countries have endorsed the declaration.

The Seoul summit, co-hosted by the Netherlands, Singapore, Kenya and the United Kingdom, aims to ensure ongoing multi-stakeholder discussions in a field where technological developments are primarily driven by the private sector, but governments are the main decision makers.

About 2,000 people globally have registered to take part in the summit, including representatives from international organizations, academia and the private sector, to attend discussions on topics such as civilian protection and AI use in the control of nuclear weapons.
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WASHINGTON — Republicans on a U.S. House of Representatives committee issued a report Sunday criticizing the Biden administration for the chaotic August 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The report faulted Biden for failing to “mitigate the likely consequences of the decision” to withdraw, while also ignoring warnings as Taliban fighters seized key cities in Afghanistan faster than U.S. officials expected.

Former President Donald Trump initiated the withdrawal process in February 2020 by signing an agreement with the Taliban.

The report from Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee followed a three-year investigation and includes accusations that the Biden administration did not have adequate plans or security in place to safely carry out the withdrawal.

Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said the administration “had the information and opportunity to take necessary steps to plan for the inevitable collapse of the Afghan government, so we could safely evacuate U.S. personnel, American citizens, green card holders, and our brave Afghan allies.”

Previous investigations have faulted multiple U.S. administrations, including a 2023 report by the U.S. government watchdog for the U.S. in Afghanistan which cited both Trump’s and Biden’s determination to go forward with the withdrawal despite the Taliban breaking key commitments the militants made in the 2020 agreement.

Congressman Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the committee, said in a letter to colleagues that Republicans “cherry-picked witness testimony to exclude anything unhelpful to a predetermined, partisan narrative about the Afghanistan withdrawal.”

Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters
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Seoul, South Korea — Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin sent greetings to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on the occasion of North Korea’s founding anniversary, state media KCNA said on Monday.

“I am sure that the comprehensive strategic partnership between Russia and the DPRK will be strengthened in a planned way thanks to our joint efforts,” Putin said, according to KCNA.

DPRK is short for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North’s official name.

Xi called for deeper strategic communication and cooperation with North Korea in his message, KCNA said.

Last year, Kim marked the country’s founding day on Sept. 9 with a parade of paramilitary groups and diplomatic exchanges in which he vowed to deepen ties with China and Russia.
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Havana, Cuba — Socialist Cuba, the birthplace of salsa and other rhythms that have conquered the world, is now surrendering to the invasion of South Korean pop music.

Thirteen thousand kilometers of distance separate the Asian nation and the communist-run island, as well as a different language and cultural traditions. However, all of these barriers would seem to vanish in a split second thanks to K-pop’s infectious beat and elaborate choreography.

Korean popular music, or K-pop, has spread far and wide from its Asian roots as boy bands like BTS and NCT and their female counterpart Blackpink rival Taylor Swift for downloads and album sales globally.

But it was slow to catch on in Cuba, where salsa is king and internet speeds were glacial until recently.

On Saturday, far from Seoul, dozens of teenagers clad in plaid, prep school skirts, baggy bomber pants and heavy black eyeliner busted their best moves as images of the genre’s idols were projected on a large screen of a Havana dance club.

“K-pop has opened a new world to me,” said 24-year-old Fransico Piedra, who when not working with his father as a blacksmith dreams up meticulous dance steps. Known by his artistic name Ken he one day aspires to be a professional K-pop choreographer. “It’s a place where I can be myself, and share with friends the joy of laughter, song and dance.”

Many of the teenagers hope to follow in the footsteps of two Cuban groups — Limitless and LTX — that before the pandemic traveled to South Korea to partake in the K-POP World Festival, an annual talent competition.

K-pop — a catch all for musical styles ranging from R&B to rock — first penetrated the island when Cubans fell in love with South Korean soap operas about a decade ago. As internet speeds improved, and government controls eased, more young Cubans got online and started streaming videos like teenagers everywhere.

While Cuban kids may be mesmerized by K-pop, an older generation of leaders have had frostier ties to South Korea. The two countries only restored diplomatic relations that were severed following the 1959 Cuban revolution this year and have yet to exchange ambassadors.

Meanwhile, Cuba remains a staunch ally of North Korea, which views K-pop as a dangerous form of propaganda from a capitalist enemy with whom is has been locked in a military standoff since the 1950s.
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New Delhi — India reported Sunday that it had put a “suspected mpox case” into isolation, assuring that the world’s most populous nation had “robust measures” in place, the health ministry said in a statement.

There have been no confirmed cases of mpox in India, a country of 1.4 billion people.

“A young male patient, who recently traveled from a country currently experiencing mpox transmission, has been identified as a suspect case of mpox,” the health ministry said in a statement.

“The patient has been isolated in a designated hospital and is currently stable,” it said, adding the samples “are being tested to confirm the presence of mpox.”

It gave no further details of where he may have contracted the disease.

“There is no cause of any undue concern,” the statement added.

“The country is fully prepared to deal with such (an) isolated travel related case and has robust measures in place to manage and mitigate any potential risk.”

Mpox’s resurgence and the detection in the Democratic Republic of Congo of a new strain, dubbed Clade 1b, prompted the World Health Organization to declare its highest international alert level on August 14.  

Mpox has also been detected in Asia and Europe.
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Islamabad — Thousands of supporters of Pakistan’s imprisoned former prime minister, Imran Khan, rallied on the outskirts of Islamabad Sunday to denounce his “illegal” incarceration and demand his immediate release.

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, party organized the public gathering, one of the largest in the Pakistani capital’s history. 

The strong turnout came despite the police blocking the officially designated route for rally participants with shipping containers in an apparent bid to restrict convoys from other cities from reaching the venue. The administration also deployed riot police to prevent possible unrest.

Social media videos and images showed PTI workers and leaders from elsewhere in Pakistan marching toward Islamabad. PTI activists were seen successfully removing containers to clear the way at several entry points.

Police briefly clashed with and fired tear gas shells on PTI workers en route to the rally. Authorities later reported injuries to several police personnel due to stone pelting allegedly from Khan supporters, charges party leaders rejected. 

“We will continue our efforts until Khan is freed from prison,” Hammad Azhar, a central PTI leader, told the rally. 

Critics observed that Sunday’s rally demonstrated once again that the 71-year-old former cricket star-turned-prime minister remains Pakistan’s most popular politician despite facing a series of state-backed criminal prosecutions and lawsuits. 

“Strong turnout for PTI rally despite the state’s tactics to limit numbers through roadblocks and containers, and despite the risk of violent crackdowns and arrests,” Michael Kugelman, the director of the South Asia Institute at Washington’s Wilson Center, said on X.

“Its size and popularity ensure its mobilization capabilities remain intact despite relentless attempts to curb it,” Kugelman wrote.

Khan completed 400 days in prison on Sunday. The charges against him range from corruption to sedition to stoking violent anti-army protests. He rejects all the allegations as politically motivated and asserts that the powerful Pakistani military is behind them to block his return to power. 

Subsequently, appeals courts have overturned or suspended all his convictions for lack of evidence, but authorities quickly launched new charges to prevent him from leaving prison. The United Nations in July declared Khan’s detention arbitrary, saying there was no legal basis for keeping him in prison.

Mushahid Hussain, who recently retired from Pakistan’s Senate, the upper house of parliament, criticized Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government for “barricading Islamabad” through containers and coercion and for creating an “atmosphere of fear & force” in its attempt to block Sunday’s political rally.

Hussain warned through a post on X that such efforts would impede political stability and economic recovery. “’Common Sense’ can be quite Uncommon!” he wrote.

Sunday’s rally by the PTI in Islamabad was its first since parliamentary elections on February 8. Khan’s convictions at the time barred him from running, but his party candidates emerged winners of most seats in the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, but not enough to form the government. 

The PTI alleged the vote was massively rigged to prevent its candidates from sweeping the polls. This allowed military-backed rival political parties to form a coalition administration with Sharif as prime minister.

Hundreds of PTI workers and leaders, including women, have been jailed or under trial on charges defense attorneys reject as baseless and part of the state crackdown on the party.

Khan served as Pakistan’s prime minister from 2018 until April 2022, when he was ousted through an opposition parliamentary no-confidence vote he alleges was planned by the military. Successive Pakistani governments and military officials have denied the allegations.

Last month, his party announced that Khan had formally applied to run for chancellor of the University of Oxford in Britain from his prison cell. The election university website states that the new chancellor will be elected through an unprecedented online ballot process beginning on October 28.  

Khan, an Oxford graduate, served as the chancellor of University of Bradford from 2005 to 2014.
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Beijing — China said Sunday it would allow the establishment of wholly foreign-owned hospitals in nine areas of the country including the capital, as Beijing tries to attract more foreign investment to boost its flagging economy.

In a document on the official website of China’s commerce ministry, it said the new policy was a pilot project designed to implement a pledge the ruling Communist Party’s Central Committee led by President Xi Jinping made at its July plenum meeting held roughly every five years.

“In order to … introduce foreign investment to promote the high-quality development of China’s medical-related fields, and better meet the medical and health needs of the people, it is planned to carry out pilot work of expanding opening-up in the medical field,” according to the document.

The project will allow the establishment of such hospitals in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hainan — all relatively wealthy cities or provinces in eastern or southern China.

The new policy excludes hospitals practicing traditional Chinese medicine and “mergers and acquisitions of public hospitals,” the document read, adding that the specific conditions, requirements and procedures for setting up such foreign-owned hospitals would be detailed soon.

The policy also allows companies with foreign investors to engage in the development and application of gene and human stem cell technologies for treatment and diagnosis in the pilot free-trade zones of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, and Hainan.

This includes registration, marketing and production of products that can be bought nationwide, according to the document.

The removal of restrictions on foreign investment in these fields comes as the world’s second-largest economy faces growing headwinds with flagging foreign business sentiment, one of the issues threatening growth.
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ISLAMABAD — Millions of people in Pakistan continue to live along the path of floodwaters, showing neither people nor the government have learned lessons from the 2022 devastating floods that killed 1,737 people, experts said Thursday, as an aid group said half of the 300 victims killed by rains since July are children.

Heavy rainfall is drenching those areas that were badly hit by the deluges two years ago.

The charity Save the Children said in a statement that floods and heavy rains have killed more than 150 children in Pakistan since the start of the monsoon season, making up more than half of all deaths in rain-affected areas.

The group said that 200 children have also been injured in Pakistan because of rains, which have also displaced thousands of people. Save the Children also said that people affected by floods were living in a relief camp in Sanghar, a district in the southern Sindh province, which was massively hit by floods two years ago.

“The rains and floods have destroyed 80% of cotton crops in Sanghar, the primary source of income for farmers, and killed hundreds of livestock,” the charity said, and added that it’s supporting the affected people with help from a local partner.

Khuram Gondal, the country director for Save the Children in Pakistan, said that children were always the most affected in a disaster.

“We need to ensure that the immediate impacts of the floods and heavy rains do not become long-term problems. In Sindh province alone, more than 72,000 children have seen their education disrupted,” he said.

Another charity, U.K.-based Islamic Relief, also said weeks of torrential rains in Pakistan have again triggered displacement and suffering among communities that were already devastated by the 2022 floods and are still in the process of rebuilding their lives and livelihoods.

Asif Sherazi, the group’s country director, said his organization is reaching out to flood-affected people.

There was no immediate response from the country’s ministry of climate change and national disaster management authority.

Pakistan has yet to undertake major reconstruction work because the government didn’t receive most of the funds out of the $9 billion that were pledged by the international community at last year’s donors’ conference in Geneva.

“We learned no lessons from that 2022 floods. Millions of people have built mud-brick homes on the paths of rivers, which usually remain dry,” said Mohsin Leghari, who served as irrigation minister years ago.

Leghari said that less rain is predicted for Pakistan for monsoon season compared with 2022, when climate-induced floods caused $30 billion in damage to the country’s economy.

“But the floodwater has inundated several villages in my own Dera Ghazi Khan district in the Punjab province,” Leghari said. “Floods have affected farmers, and my own land has once again come under the floodwater.”

Wasim Ehsan, an architect, said Pakistan was still not prepared to handle any 2022-like situation mainly because people ignore construction laws while building homes and even hotels in urban and rural areas.

He said the floods in 2022 caused damage in the northwest because people had built homes and hotels after slightly diverting a river. “This is reason that a hotel was destroyed by the Swat River in 2022,” he said.
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HANOI, Vietnam — At least 14 people have died and 176 others injured in Vietnam after Typhoon Yagi slammed the country’s north, state media said Sunday, as officials warned of heavy downpours despite its waning power.

Described by Vietnamese officials as one of the most powerful typhoons to hit the region over the last decade, Yagi left more than 3 million people without electricity in northern Vietnam. It also damaged vital agricultural land, nearly 116,192 hectares where rice and fruits are mostly grown. Hundreds of flights were canceled after four airports were closed.

The typhoon made landfall in Vietnam’s northern coastal provinces of Quang Ninh and Haiphong with wind speeds of up to 149 kilometers per hour on Saturday afternoon. It raged for roughly 15 hours before gradually weakening into a tropical depression early Sunday morning. Vietnam’s meteorological department predicted heavy rain in northern and central provinces and warned of floods in low-lying areas, flash floods in streams and landslides on steep slopes.

Municipal workers along with army and police forces were busy in the capital, Hanoi, clearing uprooted trees, fallen billboards, toppled electricity poles and rooftops that were swept away, while assessing damaged buildings.

Yagi was still a storm when it blew out of the northwestern Philippines into the South China Sea on Wednesday, leaving at least 20 people dead and 26 others missing mostly in landslides and widespread flooding in the acrchipelago nation. It then made its way to China, killing three people and injuring nearly a hundred others, before landing in Vietnam.

Storms like Typhoon Yagi were “getting stronger due to climate change, primarily because warmer ocean waters provide more energy to fuel the storms, leading to increased wind speeds and heavier rainfall,” said Benjamin Horton, director of the Earth Observatory of Singapore.
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VANIMO, Papua New Guinea — Pope Francis flew deep into the jungle of the Southwestern Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea on Sunday to visit Catholics living in one of the most remote areas of the world and deliver medical supplies and other aid.

Traveling 1,000 kilometers in a C-130 cargo aircraft provided by the Royal Australian Air Force, Francis arrived with a small entourage in Vanimo, a township of some 12,000 people in the northwestern corner of country’s main island, with no running water and scarce electricity.

The 87-year-old pope brought hundreds of kilograms of items to help support the local population, said Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni. They included various medicines and clothing, as well said toys and musical instruments for school children, Bruni said.

The pope is visiting the nation of 600 islands as part of his ambitious 12-day, four-country tour of Southeast Asia and Oceania, the longest of his 11-year-old papacy.

He came to Vanimo at the invitation of local missionaries with the Catholic Institute of the Incarnate Word. They, like Francis, the first pope from the Americas, are from Argentina.

“You are doing something beautiful, and it is important that you are not left alone,” Francis told the crowd, which the Vatican estimated at 20,000, of missionaries and Catholic faithful from Vanimo in a meeting outside the town’s one-story, wood-paneled cathedral parish.

“You live in a magnificent land, enriched by a great variety of plants and birds,” said the pope. “The beauty of the landscape is matched by the beauty of a community where people love one another.”

The Rev. Tomas Ravaioli, one of the missionaries, said he could not believe the pope had actually come to Vanimo. “He is keeping his promise to come,” said the priest. “We cannot believe it. At his age he is making an enormous effort.”

A sprawling country of mountains, jungle and rivers, Papua New Guinea is home to more than 800 languages and hundreds of tribes, including dozens of uncontacted peoples.

As with other events throughout his stay in the country, Francis was greeted in a field outside the cathedral with a traditional dance from a group wearing feathered headdresses and straw skirts. Some of the men wore koteka, a traditional gourd covering over the penis.

The pope also heard four testimonies from local Catholics. Steven Abala, a lay teacher, described how some rural communities, cut off from roads, must wait weeks or months between visits by priests.

Abala presented Francis with a headdress with yellow and brown feathers, which the pope tried on.

The Vatican says there are around 2.5 million Catholics in Papua New Guinea, which has a population estimated at anywhere from 9 million to 17 million.

The country has become a major target of international companies for its gas, gold and other reserves. In a speech to its political authorities on Saturday, Francis called for better treatment of its workers and appealed for an end to a spate of ethnic violence that has killed dozens in recent months.

In Vanimo, the pope asked local Catholics to work “to put an end to destructive behaviors such as violence, infidelity, exploitation, alcohol and drug abuse, evils which imprison and take away the happiness of so many of our brothers and sisters.”

Before heading to Vanimo, Francis celebrated a Mass on Sunday with about 35,000 people at a sports venue in Port Moresby, the nation’s capital. He told the local populace that while they may think they live in “a far away and distant land,” God is near to them.

The pope will return to Port Moresby on Sunday evening after spending 2½ hours in Vanimo. Round trip, the pontiff will fly some 2,000 kilometers over about four hours.

Francis is visiting Papua New Guinea until Monday as part of a tour that first included a stop in Indonesia. He travels next to East Timor, then Singapore before heading back to Rome on Sept. 13.
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PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea — Pope Francis honored the Catholic Church of the peripheries on Sunday as he celebrated Mass in Papua New Guinea before heading to a remote part of the South Pacific nation with a ton of humanitarian aid to deliver to the missionaries and faithful who live there.

An estimated 35,000 people filled the stadium in the capital, Port Moresby, for the morning Mass. It began with dancers in grass skirts and feathered headdresses performing to traditional drum beats as priests in green vestments processed up onto the altar.

In his homily, Francis told the crowd that they may well feel themselves distant from both their faith and the institutional church, but that God was near to them.

“You who live on this large island in the Pacific Ocean may sometimes have thought of yourselves as a far away and distant land, situated at the edge of the world,” Francis said. “Yet … today the Lord wants to draw near to you, to break down distances, to let you know that you are at the center of his heart and that each one of you is important to him.”

Francis was himself traveling to a distant land on Sunday, flying into remote Vanimo, on Papua New Guinea’s northwest coast, to meet with the small Catholic community there served by missionaries from his native Argentina.

Francis was being transported by an Australian military aircraft and was bringing with him one ton of humanitarian aid, including medicine, clothes and toys for children, according to Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni.

Eight suitcases of medicine and other necessities had been prepared by one of the Argentine missionaries, the Rev. Alejandro Diaz, during a recent trip to Rome and left with the Vatican to bring in on the cargo plane, the ANSA news agency reported.

Francis has prioritized the church on the “peripheries,” saying it is more important than the center of the institutional church. In keeping with that philosophy, Francis has largely shunned foreign trips to European capitals, preferring instead far-flung communities where Catholics are often a minority.

Vanimo, population 11,000, certainly fits the bill. Located near Papua New Guinea’s border with Indonesia, the coastal city is perhaps best known as a surfing destination.

Francis, history’s first Latin American pope, has also had a special affinity for the work of Catholic missionaries. As a young Argentine Jesuit, he had hoped to serve as a missionary in Japan but was prevented from going because of his poor health.

Now as pope, he has often held up missionaries as models for the church, especially those who have sacrificed to bring the faith to far-away places.

There are about 2.5 million Catholics in Papua New Guinea, according to Vatican statistics, out of a population in the Commonwealth nation believed to be around 10 million. The Catholics practice the faith along with traditional Indigenous beliefs, including animism and sorcery.

On Saturday, Francis heard first-hand about how often women are falsely accused of witchcraft, then shunned by their families. In remarks to priests, bishops and nuns, Francis urged the church leaders in Papua New Guinea to be particularly close to these people on the margins who had been wounded by “prejudice and superstition.”

“I think too of the marginalized and wounded, both morally and physically, by prejudice and superstition sometimes to the point of having to risk their lives,” Francis said. He urged the church to be particularly close to such people on the peripheries, with “closeness, compassion and tenderness.”

Francis heads on Monday to East Timor and then wraps up his visit in Singapore later in the week.
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SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un underscored the importance of strengthening naval power as he toured a naval base construction site, state media KCNA reported on Sunday.

“Now that we are soon to possess large surface warships and submarines which cannot be anchored by the existing facilities for mooring warships, the construction of a naval base for running the latest large warships has become a pressing task,” Kim was quoted saying.

During the tour, Kim stressed the need to build a naval port capable of operating weapons systems of the warships and revealed military measures to deploy anti-aircraft and coastal-defense systems for defending the port, according to the report.

Kim cited geopolitical advantages of the site for the country, bordered by the sea on both the east and west sides. The location of the site was not specified in the report.

A recent satellite imagery analysis by 38 North indicated that North Korea’s newest ballistic missile class submarine, the Sinpo-C class, was undergoing an extensive fitting-out period at the Sinpo South Shipyard.

In a separate visit to a shipyard, Kim ordered the increase of national investments in shipbuilding projects so that immediate tasks and long-term plans for laying the foundation for the development of the shipbuilding industry are pushed forward as scheduled.

KCNA also reported on Sunday Kim’s visit to a defense industrial enterprise, where he stressed the need to make munitions production more scientific and modernized to guarantee the performance of newly developed military hardware, and an inspection of an artillery academy.

Separately, North Korea condemned a recent consultation meeting and simulation drill on extended deterrence conducted by the United States and South Korea, according to a Sunday statement carried by KCNA.

The foreign ministry described the activities as “reckless moves of the hostile forces disturbing the regional strategic stability and increasing the possibility of a nuclear clash.”

“The DPRK will continue to take practical measures to cope with the long-term nuclear confrontation with the U.S.,” the ministry said, using the abbreviation of North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Meanwhile, North Korea continued its campaign of launching trash balloons toward South Korea for the fifth consecutive day on Sunday, the Yonhap news agency reported, citing the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.
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Islamabad — Border security forces of Pakistan and Afghanistan were engaged in intense clashes Saturday, reportedly resulting in several casualties on both sides. 

The war zone is located between the southeastern Afghan border province of Khost and the adjoining Pakistani district of Kurram, as reported by security officials and residents on both sides. 

The conflict reportedly broke out when Taliban forces attempted to construct a security outpost on the Afghan side, prompting Pakistani troops to open fire to force the other side to stop the activity.  

Pakistani officials maintain neither side can construct new posts unilaterally under mutual agreements regarding the nearly 2,600-kilometer border between the two countries.  

Multiple sources reported that ongoing heavy clashes had injured at least five Pakistani soldiers, including an officer, and more than four Afghan border guards. 

Pakistan and Afghanistan authorities have not commented immediately on the fighting. This is the second time in as many days that the two countries have clashed over the construction of the disputed Afghan border outpost. 

The military tensions come amid Pakistan’s persistent allegations that militants linked to the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, have taken shelter on Afghan soil and are being facilitated by the country’s Taliban leaders in orchestrating cross-border terrorist attacks.  

“We have, on numerous occasions, presented evidence of the activities of these terror groups, which have hideouts and sanctuaries inside Afghanistan,” Mumtaz Baloch, the Pakistani foreign ministry spokesperson, reiterated Thursday.  

“We urge the government of Afghanistan to take action against these terror groups and to ensure that these terror groups do not stage terror attacks against Pakistan,” she told a weekly news conference in Islamabad.  

Taliban authorities deny foreign militant groups, including TTP, are present in Afghanistan, saying no one is being allowed to threaten neighboring countries from their territory.  

However, recent United Nations assessments disputed the Taliban claims and backed Pakistan’s concerns that TTP operatives had intensified cross-border violence with the help of the de facto Afghan government in Kabul, which no country has officially recognized. 

Since the Taliban regained power three years ago, bilateral ties have been strained due to increasing TTP attacks inside Pakistan and occasional border skirmishes, significantly undermining trade and transit ties between Pakistan and landlocked Afghanistan. 
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Six years after Jifeng Bookstore was forced to close its doors in Shanghai, the shop has reopened in Washington to bring debate and literature to a new audience. Liam Scott has the story for VOA News. Videographer: Yi Ruokun
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STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN — Chinese dissident Liu Dongling is at risk of deportation back to China after Denmark rejected her asylum application in June, a situation some rights advocates say reflects challenges Chinese dissidents face when seeking refuge abroad, especially in Europe.

Liu has been leading the “Ban the Great Firewall” online campaign against China’s internet censorship regime since August 2023, when founder Qiao Xinxin was deported back to China from Laos and detained on subversion charges.

Danish immigration authorities informed Liu in June they rejected her asylum application following a two-year review and would repatriate her back to China in seven days. Fearing similar charges if deported to China, Liu fled to Sweden with her teenage son the next day.

“I’ve been in Sweden for more than two months, and I still can’t work here since I don’t have a proper legal status,” she told VOA in an interview in Stockholm.

Lui cannot apply for asylum in Sweden due to the Dublin Regulation, an agreement between European Union countries that establishes that a single country is responsible for examining an applicant’s request for asylum.

Contacted by VOA, the Danish Immigration Service and Danish Return Agency said they could not comment on individual cases, citing confidentiality required by law.

Human rights advocates contacted by VOA said that based on Qiao’s detention, Liu will likely face imprisonment if the Danish authorities deport her.

“Apart from leading the online free speech campaign, Liu has also been collecting information about human rights violations for the China Human Rights Accountability Database, so she would definitely be given prison sentences if she were sent back to China,” Lin Shengliang, a Chinese activist based in the Netherlands and the founder of the human rights database, told VOA by phone.

Seeking asylum in Denmark

Liu has been an activist since 2014, when she helped forced eviction victims seek compensation through legal channels. She said she started being followed and her son started being banned by teachers from participating in activities he enjoyed.

“My son began to refuse to go to school so I decided to move to Thailand and let him go to school there,” Liu told VOA.

In June 2019, she began documenting human rights violations for the Chinese news website Boxun, which covers activism and human rights violations in China.

But soon, Chinese prosecutors in China’s Henan province started repeatedly contacting her, increasing her concern over her safety. She nevertheless returned to China twice in 2019 to renew her Thai visa. At the time, she wasn’t arrested or detained by local authorities.

In June 2022, fearing deportation back to China considering the Thai detention and repatriation of Chinese dissidents, Liu applied for a Danish tourist visa and flew there with her son, applying for asylum when they arrived.

As Danish authorities began to review her asylum application in March 2023, she also became involved with the online free speech campaign. She tried to spread information about how to bypass China’s internet censorship through virtual private networks to Chinese people while informing Chinese people working in the cybersecurity sector that they might be assisting the Chinese government with violating Chinese people’s basic human rights.

Two months after she joined the campaign, movement co-founder Qiao Xinxin went missing in Laos. In August 2023, his family confirmed he had been detained in a Chinese prison under subversion charges.

Despite Qiao’s and her extensive history of activism, Liu said Danish authorities repeatedly questioned whether she was at risk of arrest if she returned to China, citing her successful returns to China in 2019 as proof that she could freely leave the country.

“The Refugee Appeals Board finds that the applicant left China legally for Thailand in 2018 and later, she traveled back and forth between China and Thailand legally twice without experiencing issues,” the Danish Refugee Appeals Board wrote in an official case document seen by VOA.

The Danish immigration authorities ultimately determined that Liu had not provided “credible evidence” to prove that she had faced persecution in China and that if she returned to China, she would be persecuted by Chinese authorities.

Some analysts say while Liu has a long track record of criticizing the Chinese government and engaging in human rights issues, some missing pieces of evidence made it difficult for her to prove the authenticity of her claims to the Danish authorities.

However, several human rights organizations, including Madrid-based Safeguard Defenders, are trying to push the Danish immigration authorities to reassess her case.

“We have prepared all the paperwork to support the reassessment of her case,” said Peter Dahlin, the director of Safeguard Defenders.

He told VOA that Denmark’s rejection of Liu’s asylum application shows the need for Chinese dissidents to be well-prepared before applying for asylum in a foreign country.

“If Chinese dissidents are going to seek asylum abroad, they need to prepare all necessary paperwork and evidence to back up their claims,” he said in a phone interview.

Dahlin said if the Danish authorities decided to follow through on deporting Liu to China, human rights organizations will consider filing an interim measure requesting the European Court of Human Rights to weigh in on the decision.

“I don’t think Denmark wants the embarrassment of having been told by the European Court of Human Rights to stop their action,” he told VOA.

While human rights organizations are pushing Danish authorities to reassess Liu’s initial asylum application, she and her son may need to wait months before the Danish government finishes reassessment of her case.

“They will live in Sweden with no legal rights, and that’s not an easy situation to be in especially when Sweden and Denmark are hardening their stance on asylum and immigration,” Dahlin said.

Since it remains unclear whether Danish authorities would reassess her case, Liu said she is still haunted by her possible deportation back to China. “I have no clue what my next step is, and the only thing I could do now is to lay low and wait to see if Danish authorities reassess my asylum application,” she told VOA.
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washington — Shunned by the West for over three years, Afghanistan’s Taliban scored a diplomatic victory of sorts this week when the small Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan quietly removed the group from its list of banned terrorist organizations.

The move underscores warming ties between the Taliban, in power since August 2021, and the countries of Central Asia. While the United States has led an international campaign to deny the Taliban government legitimacy, over a dozen regional countries, led by China and Russia, have embraced the self-styled “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.”

“It fits with the broader trend of governments in the region and internationally warming up to the idea of having to work with the Taliban,” said Lucas Webber, a senior threat intelligence analyst at Tech Against Terrorism and a research fellow at the Soufan Center. “Generally, there is a recognition that the Taliban is not going anywhere, so you have to work with whoever is ruling Afghanistan for economic and security reasons.”

Taliban reaction

The government of Kyrgyzstan, once considered a close U.S. ally in the region, did not publicize its decision to delist the Taliban, but the Taliban’s Foreign Ministry quickly seized on it as the latest breakthrough in its regional diplomacy.

“Aligning with actions of other countries, the step taken by Kyrgyzstan signifies a growing political recognition of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan on both regional and international levels, and removes a barrier to strengthening bilateral relations between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan & other countries,” it said Thursday in a statement.

The Taliban, which first ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 before waging a 20-year insurgency, has appeared on various international terrorist lists over the years. While the U.S. has not officially labeled them a “foreign terrorist organization,” it considers members “specially designated global terrorists.”

Kyrgyzstan is the second Central Asian country to delist the Taliban in recent months. In December, Kazakhstan took the group off its own terrorist list as part of its growing economic engagement with the Taliban. In May, Russia said it, too, was considering such a move as it decides whether to recognize the Taliban’s government.

Although no country has extended official recognition to the Taliban, more than a dozen, including all six of Afghanistan’s neighbors, have allowed Taliban diplomats to take charge of Afghan embassies or consulates. Among them, three have accepted accredited Taliban envoys: China in January, followed by Kazakhstan and the United Arab Emirates last month.

In pursuing ties with the Taliban, Central Asian countries are taking their cues from Russia and China, both of which have deepened their engagement with Afghanistan’s de facto government in recent years.

“They’re pursuing practical policies, and they’re also given a kind of umbrella by two of the major great powers — Russia and China — who are working with the Taliban quite closely,” Webber said.

A ‘necessary evil’

In a report on the Taliban’s regional diplomacy, analysts at the International Crisis Group noted how various countries pursue disparate agendas.

Afghanistan neighbors such as Iran, Pakistan and Uzbekistan view dealing with the Taliban as a “necessary evil if they are to address core concerns,” the analysts wrote. Those concerns include extremist threats as well as trade. For Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, a planned project designed to carry surplus power to Afghanistan and Pakistan is a priority.

Regional powers China, India and Russia use engagement to contain “any spillover” from Afghanistan, the analysts said. Russia regards the Taliban as a bulwark against the Islamic State’s local branch. And while China has signed lucrative investment deals with Afghanistan, it, too, is motivated by fear of terrorism.

Countries farther afield, such as the UAE and Qatar, aim “to challenge the Taliban’s Islamic exceptionalism but [are] also spurred by the need to balance their own regional rivalries,” they wrote.

Strategic interests vs. human rights

Significantly, none of the countries that have established diplomatic ties with the Taliban were classified as “free” by Freedom House, the freedom and democracy advocacy group. All but two are labeled “not free,” according to a VOA review. Only Pakistan and Turkey are designated as “partly free.”

This suggests that the Taliban can ward off international isolation if enough countries prioritize strategic interests over human rights and democracy, according to experts.

While human rights haven’t always been a U.S. foreign policy priority, the Biden administration, along with its Western allies, have made Taliban recognition contingent on respect for human rights, women’s rights and an inclusive government.

“Given the issues related to the treatment of women and other human rights issues, it’s more difficult for liberal democratic governments to recognize and work with the Taliban than it is for less democratic governments or nondemocratic governments, where they can be more practical in terms of pursuing their national interests solely and then working with the Taliban on this basis,” Webber said.

The implications for Afghanistan’s future and U.S. diplomacy are immense. Increased political and economic engagement could embolden the Taliban to keep their harsh policies, such as their ban on girls’ education after sixth grade, experts say.

It could also force Washington to reassess its dual policy of engaging and isolating the Taliban. Since the Taliban takeover, U.S. and European diplomats have held ongoing talks with Taliban officials in Qatar, where they maintain their Afghanistan embassy operations.

Biden administration officials have also reportedly weighed working with the Taliban to combat the Afghan-based Islamic State Khorasan terror group, even while refusing to establish diplomatic ties.

“There is going to be pressure as more governments recognize that this kind of resistance to working more closely with the Taliban doesn’t hold up,” Webber said. “But it will be hard to do so publicly and officially, given the humanitarian violations and problems that we see with the Taliban government.”

The Biden administration defends its Afghanistan policy. Asked about the Taliban’s growing diplomatic footprint, a State Department spokesperson noted that no country has said that it recognizes the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan.

“The Taliban seek recognition as Afghanistan’s government,” the spokesperson said in a statement to VOA. “The United States and the international community have been clear with the Taliban that our ability to take meaningful steps toward normalization will be based on the Taliban’s own actions.”

These include respecting the rights of women and minorities, fulfilling anti-terror obligations and starting a political process for inclusive governance, the spokesperson said.
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NAIROBI, KENYA/BEIJING — China stopped short of providing the debt relief sought by many African countries this week, but pledged $50.7 billion over three years in credit lines and investments.

The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, or FOCAC, launched in 2000 took on an enhanced role after the 2013 inception of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative, which aims to recreate the ancient Silk Road for the world’s second-largest economy and biggest bilateral lender to Africa.

“China is moving back on to the front foot in terms of overseas deployment of capital in the emerging markets,” said Tellimer’s Hasnain Malik, while adding it was not yet at pre-COVID levels.

China has also sought to use FOCAC to counter growing competition in Africa from the United States, the European Union, Japan and others.

In Beijing, diplomats and delegates from around the world mingled in the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square as leaders from more than 50 African countries and Chinese officials led by Xi gathered for a group photo. The new financial pledge is more than what Beijing promised at the last FOCAC, in 2021, but below the $60 billion of 2015 and 2018, which marked the peak of lending to Africa under the Belt and Road Initiative.

During those peak years, Beijing bankrolled the construction of roads, railways and bridges. But a drying up of funds since 2019 has left Africa with stalled construction projects. The new funds will go toward 30 infrastructure projects to improve trade links, China said, without giving details.

The 54-nation continent of more than 1 billion people has an annual infrastructure funding deficit estimated at $100 billion and needs transport links to make a new giant pan-African trade bloc a reality.

Beijing has in recent years cut funding for such projects as it shifted focus to “small and beautiful” projects, mainly due to its own domestic economic pressures and an increase in debt risks among African countries.

Asked how the new commitments fit into China’s current cautious overseas lending strategy, a foreign ministry spokesperson said there was no contradiction.

“The cooperation between China and African countries, including the specific implementation of projects, is discussed and determined by both sides,” Mao Ning, a foreign ministry spokesperson, told a news conference on Friday.

China also said it will launch 30 clean-energy projects in Africa, offer cooperation on nuclear technology and tackle a power deficit that has delayed industrialization efforts. “The outcomes of the FOCAC summit signal an impetus for green projects and especially for renewable energy installations,” said Goolam Ballim, head of research at South Africa’s Standard Bank.

China has become a global leader in wind and solar energy, Ballim said, controlling significant supply chains and reducing production costs.

Others were skeptical.

“The issue is not so much about the size of the investments, it’s been about the lack of transparency around the terms of the debt,” said Trang Nguyen, global head of emerging markets credit strategy at French bank BNP Paribas.

Success was less clear-cut for countries owing a large share of their debt to China, which made no express offer of assistance to those struggling with repayments.

Beijing instead urged other creditors “to participate in the handling and restructuring of African countries’ debts under the principle of joint actions and fair burden-sharing.”

African leaders hoping to bask in large deals for their countries had to settle for less splashy announcements. Ethiopia and Mauritius announced new currency swap lines with China’s central bank. Kenya said it made progress on talks to reopen the lending taps for key projects such as its modern railway to link the region.

Still, there was optimism from some, as they welcomed China’s increased commitments to Africa’s security, humanitarian challenges and other nonfinancial affairs.

“After nearly 70 years of hard work, China-Africa relations are at their best in history,” Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu said on her X account.
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Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea — Pope Francis visited Papua New Guinea Saturday, where he called for vast natural resources to benefit the “entire community” — a politically charged demand in a nation where many believe their riches are being stolen or squandered.

Addressing political and business leaders, the 87-year-old pontiff hailed his hosts as being rich in culture and in natural resources — a nod to vast reserves of gold, copper, nickel, gas and timber.

But, he suggested, the tens of billions of dollars made from digging, dredging and drilling the earth needed to benefit more than a fraction of the country’s 12 million people.

“These goods are destined by God for the entire community,” Pope Francis said.

Despite its resource wealth, Papua New Guinea is one of the poorest countries in the Pacific.

Between a quarter and half the population lives in extreme poverty. Scarcely more than 10% of homes have electricity.

Even if “outside experts and large international companies must be involved in the harnessing of these resources,” they should not be the only ones to benefit, the pope said.

“It is only right that the needs of local people are given due consideration when distributing the proceeds and employing workers, to improve their living conditions,” he added.

It is a message likely to resonate with millions of Catholics in Papua New Guinea — and with millions more in resource-rich regions of Africa, Latin America and elsewhere.

Twenty-two-year-old pilgrim Jonathan Kais, from Manus Island, welcomed the pope’s remarks and said he hoped they would spur the government to provide better services.

“The service we receive in our villages by our leaders at the parliament, it’s not much (compared to) what they are getting from the resources of the country,” he told AFP.

‘Poverty hardly changed’

For decades, Papua New Guinea has been dotted with vast American, Australian, Canadian, European and Chinese-run mines.

A $19 billion project led by ExxonMobil has produced tens of millions of tons of liquified natural gas since operations began in 2014.

But economists have found little evidence that any of the projects have helped poor Papua New Guineans.

A recent World Bank study showed that between 2009 and 2018, the country’s gross domestic product per person grew by more than a third on the back of the resource boom.

“Poverty hardly changed over that time,” the report’s authors said.

‘Spiral of violence’

Pope Francis is on a marathon 12-day visit to the Asia-Pacific, visiting Indonesia, East Timor and Singapore as he promotes interfaith dialogue and embraces regions on the periphery of world affairs.

On Saturday he also made a plea for Papua New Guineans to “stop the spiral” of tribal violence that has killed untold numbers of people and displaced tens of thousands more.

“It is my particular hope that tribal violence will come to an end,” he said.

“It causes many victims, prevents people from living in peace and hinders development.”

There are few reliable estimates as to how many people have died during decades of tribal unrest between dozens of clans in the country’s Highlands.

But UN agencies estimate that about 100,000 people have been displaced by the cycle of retaliatory attacks, which have intensified in recent years.

The murders are often extremely violent, with victims hacked by machetes, burned, mutilated or tortured. Civilians, including pregnant women and children, have been targeted in the past.

An influx of mercenaries and automatic weapons has made clashes much more deadly. Where bows, spears and clubs were once the weapons of choice, now tribesmen have a veritable armory of SLR, AK-47, and M16 rifles.

Papua New Guinea’s stretched government has tried suppression, mediation, gun amnesties and a range of other strategies to control the situation, with little success.

But experts say the violence has little to do with ancient customs and is more about the modern problems of a surging population, a breakdown in traditional rules of war, joblessness and the rising cost of living.

And there is growing concern that violence is spreading to other parts of the country.

In July, at least 27 people, among them 11 children, were massacred in Angoram District, not far from the northern coast.
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new york — A Pakistani man was arrested in Canada this week for plotting a mass shooting at a Jewish center in Brooklyn on the one-year anniversary of the October 7 attack by Hamas that sparked the latest conflict in the Middle East, federal authorities announced Friday. 

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Muhammad Shahzeb Khan had attempted to travel from Canada, where he lives, to New York City with the “stated goal of slaughtering, in the name of ISIS, as many Jewish people as possible.” 

The 20-year-old, who is also known as Shahzeb Jadoon, was apprehended on September 4 and charged with attempting to provide material support and resources to the terror group, which stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham. 

“As I said to Canada’s minister of public safety yesterday, we are deeply grateful to our Canadian partners for their critical law enforcement actions in this matter,” Garland said in a statement. “Jewish communities — like all communities in this country — should not have to fear that they will be targeted by a hate-fueled terrorist attack.” 

It was unclear if Khan has a lawyer. There was no listing for the case in the online federal court system. Edward Kim, a spokesperson for the Manhattan federal prosecutor’s office, which is handling the case, declined to respond to follow-up questions, including where Khan was being held and when he would be brought to the U.S. to face the charges. He deferred to Canadian authorities, who didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment. 

U.S. authorities said Khan began sharing ISIS propaganda videos and expressing his support for the terror group in social media posts and communications with others on an encrypted messaging app last November. 

In conversations with two undercover law enforcement officers, he confirmed that he and another ISIS supporter based in the U.S. had been planning to carry out attacks against Jewish centers in America and needed to obtain AR-style assault rifles, ammunition and other materials, according to the Justice Department. 

Khan also provided details about how he would cross the border from Canada into the U.S. and that he was considering conducting the attacks on either the October 7 anniversary or on October 11, which is the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, authorities said. 

Then on August 20, he told the undercover officers that he had settled on targeting New York City because of its sizable Jewish population and sent a photograph of the specific area inside a Jewish center where he planned to carry out the attack, according to the Justice Department. 

Using three separate vehicles, Khan began traveling to the U.S. but was stopped around Ormstown, a town in the Canadian province of Quebec that is about 12 miles (19 kilometers) from the U.S. border, federal authorities said.
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Washington — The death of a former journalist who experienced beatings and inhumane treatment in prison shows the harassment that media workers and their families endure in Turkmenistan, analysts said.

Khudayberdy Allashov was 35 years old when he died in August, after what watchdogs said was eight years of persecution and physical assault by Turkmen authorities. No cause of death was listed on his death certificate.

“The beatings and torture that Allashov was subjected to and the impossibility of providing him with rehabilitation and medical care led to the death of a brave and honest man,” Farid Tuhbatullin, the head of the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights, told VOA via email.

Known as one of the most closed-off countries, Turkmenistan has little space for independent reporting. Nearly all media outlets are state-owned, and ministries monitor content, according to watchdogs. Journalists such as Allashov who try to report independently — and their families — are subject to arrest and harassment, according to Reporters Without Borders, or RSF.

Azatlyk, which is run by VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Turkmen Service, provides a rare source of news.

When Allashov was initially detained in 2016, he had been working for Azatlyk for about three months.

That reporting was critical of the government, focusing on social problems such as food shortages, salary delays and forced labor, according to an Amnesty International report published at the time of Allashov’s first arrest.

“All of this is forbidden to be mentioned in the local media,” Tuhbatullin told VOA in an email. “The very word ‘problem’ is taboo.” He, too, had been arrested and exiled from Turkmenistan.

Allashov, his mother and his wife were all arrested under charges of possessing chewing tobacco, a commonly used substance in Turkmenistan. There are no other known criminal charges of possessing chewing tobacco; the maximum punishment is typically a fine, Farruh Yusupov, director of Azatlyk, told VOA.

In captivity, Allashov was tortured with electric shock. The severity of the torture during Allashov’s 74-day arrest caused him to declare he would no longer work as a journalist.

But even after his release and quitting the profession, authorities continually detained and harassed him up until his death, journalists and experts who spoke with VOA said. He faced violent interrogations in 2019, 2020 and 2023.

“Authorities never left him or his family alone,” Yusupov told VOA. “They told him they would not relent until they chased him to his grave. They were true to their promise.”

The Turkmenistan Embassy in Washington did not respond to VOA’s email requesting comment.

Despite having ceased his reporting, Allashov was denied any medical treatment due to his status as a target of the authorities, according to RSF. He leaves a wife and two children.

RSF condemned the targeted harassment of independent journalists.

“Allashov should never have lived through this nightmare,” Jeanne Cavelier of RSF said in a statement. “Under the Turkmen dictatorship, the lives of journalists and former journalists — and the lives of their families — continue to be at risk because of their work.”

Turkmenistan ranks 175 out of 180 countries on the RSF World Press Freedom Index, where 1 shows the best media environment.

“This is a country where the authorities can do anything to any citizen who expresses any form of dissent,” Gulnoza Said, a program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, told VOA.

Yusupov told VOA that while there are no “concrete numbers” available for how many journalists have been attacked by authorities, there are many well-documented instances.

In 2006, reporter Ogulsapar Muradova died in prison after being denied legal representation. The United Nations recognized the Turkmen government as the responsible party in her death. In 2013, authorities detained journalist Rovshen Yazmuhamedov without cause, according to RSF.

Most recently, in 2023, journalist Soltan Achilova was beaten by police officers and banned from leaving the country. Only a small number of independent journalists still operate in the country, and those who do all work under pseudonyms, said Tuhbatullin of the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights.

Turkmen authorities also harass the families of journalists.

Allashov’s wife and mother were arrested with him in 2016, and his mother was detained for three months and beaten. She was taken in for questioning again in 2019, when she was beaten and passed away two days later from heart failure, according to Yusupov.

Authorities also harassed the mother of journalist Yazmuhamedov, banning her from leaving the country to see her other children.

“This is one of the tools authoritarian governments use to silence independent reporting,” Said told VOA.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has reached out to Turkmen authorities after every government attack on a journalist. The government has never responded, Said told VOA.

Yusupov told VOA that government repression “makes the work of journalists like Allashov even more important.”

“It’s important to tell the truth in the face of an oppressive regime and provide independent reporting to society,” he said.
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New York — A dozen U.N. Security Council ambassadors strongly condemned on Friday the Afghan Taliban’s recent “morality law” which further erodes the rights of women and girls in that country and called for its reversal. 

“On top of the existing edicts, this new directive confirms and extends wide-ranging and far-reaching restrictions on personal conduct and provides inspectors with broad powers of enforcement, thus deepening the already unacceptable restrictions on the enjoyment by all Afghans of human rights and fundamental freedoms,” said Japan’s U.N. ambassador, Yamazaki Kazuyuki. 

“Day by day, Afghan women and girls lose their opportunities and hope for their future,” he added. “This is unacceptable.” 

Envoys from Ecuador, France, Guyana, Malta, Mozambique, Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States joined him as he read the statement before reporters. 

The only Security Council members not to lend their support to the statement were Algeria, China and Russia. 

On August 21, the Taliban announced the ratification of a detailed “Law on the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice,” which includes among its restrictions a prohibition on Afghan women using their voices in public and orders them to completely cover their bodies and faces outdoors. Women are also forbidden from interacting with non-Muslims, using public transport alone, and looking at men who are not their husband or blood relative.

The Taliban government, which is officially not recognized by any country, has dismissed U.N.-led foreign criticism of the law as offensive.  

Zabihullah Mujahid, the chief Taliban spokesperson, asserted this week that “non-Muslims should first educate themselves about Islamic laws and respect Islamic values” before expressing concerns or rejecting the law. “We find it blasphemous to our Islamic Sharia when objections are raised without understanding it,” he said.  

The United States, European Union, United Nations and others have condemned the edict, the latest in a series that have eroded the rights of Afghan women and girls. 

“Today, we once again urge the Taliban to swiftly reverse all the policies and practices that restrict the enjoyment by women and girls of their human rights and fundamental freedoms,” Ambassador Kazuyuki said. 

“The Taliban need to listen and respond to the voices of Afghan women and girls by respecting their rights to education and for women to work, as well as the freedoms of expression and movement. It is a prerequisite for a stable, peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan.” 

The Japanese envoy noted that the 15-nation Security Council has repeatedly discussed the worsening human rights situation in Afghanistan since the Taliban took over in August 2021 and have “raised a united voice on multiple occasions.” 

Last year, the council unanimously adopted Resolution 2681 which calls for the full, equal, meaningful and safe participation of women and girls in Afghanistan. 

The 12 Security Council members also called on those countries with influence over the Taliban to promote the “urgent reversal” of the policy, which violates Afghanistan’s obligations under international human rights treaties to which it is a signatory. 

They also urged the Taliban to allow the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan to visit the country. The Taliban have publicly said they will not allow Richard Bennett entry. 

The U.N.’s agency for gender equality and women’s empowerment, U.N. Women, warned in a statement on August 28 that the new law is “effectively erasing women from public life and granting broad enforcement powers to the morality police.” 

U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo warned last month that the law would only impede Afghanistan’s return to the international fold. 

The Security Council plans to next discuss Afghanistan in a meeting on September 18. 

Ayaz Gul in Islamabad contributed to this report. 

 
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HONG KONG — A powerful typhoon made landfall on the Chinese tropical vacation island of Hainan Friday after it swept south of Hong Kong, bringing many aspects of life in the region to a halt and forcing about a million people in the country’s south to leave their homes.

The Hainan province’s meteorological service said Yagi — earlier packing winds of up to about 245 kph (152 mph) near its center — made landfall in the province’s Wenchang city at around 4:20 p.m. It is expected to sweep toward other parts of the island before moving to the Beibu Gulf, it said.

China’s national meteorological authorities said Yagi was the strongest autumn typhoon to have landed in China. They predicted it would make a second landfall in Xuwen County in neighboring Guangdong province by Friday night.

Ahead of the afternoon landfall, nearly 420,000 residents were relocated in Hainan, and so were more than half a million people in Guangdong, state media said.

The storm brought heavy rain across most of Hainan and some areas faced power outages. Strong winds buffeted the province’s iconic coconut trees. People built sandbag barriers outside buildings to guard against possible floods and reinforced their windows with tape, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported.

State media said classes, work, transportation and businesses had been suspended in parts of the province as early as Wednesday evening. Some tourist attractions were closed and all flights at three airports on the island were expected to be grounded Friday.

State broadcaster CCTV said Qinzhou city in Guangxi region also issued a top emergency response alert to guard against the typhoon. It said Yagi is expected to make another landfall somewhere between the region’s Fangchenggang city and the coastal area of northern Vietnam on Saturday afternoon. Beihai city suspended work, classes, businesses and transportation services Friday, local media said.

Earlier, trading on the stock market, bank services and schools were halted in Hong Kong on Friday after the city’s weather authority raised a No. 8 typhoon signal for Yagi, the third-highest warning under the city’s weather system.

Yagi forced more than 270 people to seek refuge at temporary government shelters and led to cancellations of more than 100 flights in the city. Nine people were injured and treated at hospitals. Heavy rain and strong winds felled dozens of trees.

Yagi was a tropical storm when it blew out of the northwestern Philippines into the South China Sea on Wednesday, leaving at least 16 people dead and 17 others missing, mostly in landslides and widespread flooding, and affecting more than 2 million people in northern and central provinces.

More than 47,600 people were displaced from their homes in Philippine provinces, and classes, work, inter-island ferry services and domestic flights were disrupted for days, including in the densely populated capital region, metropolitan Manila. .
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