KYIV, Ukraine — India’s Narendra Modi arrived in wartime Kyiv on Friday to hold talks with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the first trip by an Indian prime minister to Ukraine since Kyiv gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

The visit comes at a volatile juncture in the war in Ukraine, with Ukrainian forces still in Russia’s western Kursk region following their incursion on August 6 and Russian troops grinding out slow but steady advances in Ukraine’s east.

The visit, which follows a trip by Modi to Moscow in July, is important for Western-backed Kyiv, which has been trying to nurture diplomatic relations in the Global South in its efforts to secure a fair settlement to end the war.

“Reached Kyiv earlier this morning. The Indian community accorded a very warm welcome,” Modi wrote on X. The Ukrainian railways company showed footage of him stepping off a train carriage and being received by Ukrainian officials.

In the run-up to the trip, he said he was looking forward to sharing “perspectives on peaceful resolution of the ongoing Ukraine conflict.”

Modi’s visit to Moscow last month coincided with a heavy Russian missile strike on Ukraine that hit a children’s hospital. The attack prompted Modi to use emotive language to deliver an implicit rebuke to Putin at their summit.

But the trip elicited fierce criticism from Zelenskyy who said it was a “huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world’s largest democracy hug the world’s most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day.”

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser in the Ukrainian president’s office, told Reuters Modi’s visit to Kyiv was significant because New Delhi “really has a certain influence” over Moscow.

“It’s extremely important for us to effectively build relations with such countries, to explain to them what the correct end to the war is — and that it is also in their interests,” he said.

India, which has traditionally had close economic and defense ties with Moscow, has publicly criticized the deaths of innocent people in the war.

But it has also strengthened its economic ties with Moscow after Western nations imposed sanctions on Russia and cut trade relations with it over the invasion.

Indian refiners which rarely bought Russian oil in the past have emerged as Moscow’s top clients for sea-borne oil since Russia poured troops into Ukraine in February 2022. Russian oil accounts for over two-fifths of India’s oil imports.

Peace vision

Ukraine has said it hopes to bring together a second international summit later this year to advance its vision of peace and involve representatives from Russia.

The first summit in Switzerland that pointedly excluded Russia in June attracted scores of delegations, including one from India, but not from China, the world’s second largest economy.

“Lasting peace can only be achieved through options that are acceptable to both parties. And it can only be a negotiated settlement,” Tanmaya Lal of the Indian foreign ministry told reporters.

“This is an important visit that is expected to catalyze our ties in a whole range of sectors,” Lal said, listing economic and business links, agriculture, infrastructure, health and education, pharmaceuticals, defense and culture.

Volodymyr Fesenko, a Kyiv-based political analyst, said he expected no breakthrough proposals to be made to end the war during the trip by Modi, who visited Poland on Thursday.

For there to be an attempt to negotiate, the military situation has to stabilize and the presidential election must be held in the United States, a close ally of Ukraine, he said.

He said the visit was important for India to demonstrate it was “not on Russia’s side” and that Kyiv wanted to normalize relations after Modi’s Moscow trip.
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washington / oakland, california — A trial got underway this week in Oakland, California, to decide the ownership of diaries written by Li Rui, a former secretary to communist China’s founder Mao Zedong, who became a vocal critic of the Chinese Communist Party. 

The trial will decide if Stanford University gets to keep the diaries donated by Li’s daughter or if they should go to Li’s widow, Zhang Yuzhen, his second wife, who is suing for the documents to be returned.  

The university’s legal team and U.S.-based China scholars suspect Zhang’s lawsuit is bankrolled by Chinese authorities who aim to control the sensitive historic narrative on Mao and the Communist party.  

“Li Rui is a living encyclopedia of the 80-year history of the Chinese Communist Party,” Cai Xia, a former professor at Beijing’s Central Party School who lives in the U.S., said in emailed replies to VOA Mandarin. “The Chinese Communist Party knows that the diaries contain history that cannot be exposed to the sunlight. Beijing will fight [to get] the diaries back at all costs.”  

10 million words

Li wrote about 10 million words in scores of diaries, letters and notes during his lifetime, including criticism of Mao, the party and the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre.  

On June 4, 1989, when Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping ordered the military to clear pro-democracy protesters from Tiananmen Square, killing hundreds if not thousands, Li wrote, “I am restless all day long, and I always want to cry.” 

On January 9, 2010, he wrote, “Mao’s actions are totally contrary to the universal values of freedom, democracy, scientific progress, and the rule of law.”  

Li also criticized China’s current leader, President Xi Jinping.  

In 2018, when China began removing term limits for Xi, he quoted in his diary a foreign media report, “Democracy Is Dead.”  

In an interview with VOA Mandarin from his hospital bed that year, Li expressed disappointment with what he called Xi’s “low education.” 

Li’s daughter Li Nanyang, a U.S. citizen, says before he died in 2019, she gave about 40 boxes of his documents to Stanford’s Hoover Institution, citing his wishes that they be preserved there, and she became a visiting fellow.

Zhang, Li’s widow, claims Li Nanyang exercised “undue influence” over her father and has denied any plan to suppress information in the documents other than “personal” information. She has also said Stanford can make copies of the documents. But Hoover Institute scholars argue that copies would lack the authenticity of the originals.

Zhang sued Stanford and Li Nanyang in 2019 in Beijing’s Xicheng District Court, which awarded the ownership of the documents to Zhang and ordered the university to return them within 30 days. Li Nanyang did not attend that trial.  

Stanford that same year brought a “quiet title claim” against Zhang in the U.S., asking a federal court to step in and affirm its right to Li Rui’s archive.

Zhang hired an American lawyer and filed a counterclaim against Stanford and Li Nanyang in 2020, saying Li Nanyang “stole” personal information and “national treasures.” She accused Li Rui’s daughter and the university of “copyright infringement,” “public disclosure of private facts” and “intentional infliction of emotional distress.” 

Zhang’s lawyer in 2021 denied any involvement by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in supporting Zhang, despite lingering suspicions.

“I believed that from the beginning,” said Perry Link, a well-known sinologist and distinguished professor at the University of California, Riverside, to reporters outside the court Tuesday, a day before giving his testimony. “I am also prepared to present this argument in my testimony [that] the CCP is behind it.” 

Link added that the party’s role is “so clear now that I don’t think I’d have to make that argument. I mean [Zhang] herself said that she doesn’t have the money or the will” to pursue a lawsuit. 

Suspicions

On the second day of trial, Li Nanyang reiterated that her father had handed the diaries to Stanford University of his own free will. 

Li Nanyang expressed her own suspicions about the case, first in a group email to friends, but her comments were then picked up by several Chinese media in May. She said she believes the CCP and the Chinese government are interested only in “covering up the truth” in order to “ensure that the image of the Communist Party will always be ‘great, glorious, and correct,’ and that it will always be able to govern.”  

VOA Mandarin contacted the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco for a response but didn’t receive one by the time of publication. 

Kicked out of party

Born in 1917, Li Rui enthusiastically threw himself into the revolution that saw China’s Communist Party seize power in 1949. In the mid-1950s, he briefly served as Mao’s secretary before a falling out that led to his being kicked out of the party and sentenced to eight years in prison.  

When Li Rui was released in 1979, three years after Mao’s death, he was rehabilitated back into the party and promoted to executive deputy director of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee, responsible for selecting senior CCP officials.  

In his later years, he became an outspoken critic of the CCP, calling for political reform and democratic constitutionalism, and was recognized as a liberal figure within the CCP, despite his often sharp criticism. 

The Oakland trial will run through the end of the month. 

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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islamabad — The United Arab Emirates on Wednesday accepted the credentials of the Taliban’s ambassador to the oil-rich Gulf Arab state, the biggest diplomatic coup for Afghanistan’s rulers, who are not officially recognized as the country’s legitimate government. 

The development, the first Taliban ambassador since one was appointed to China last December, underscored the international divide over how to deal with the government now in Kabul. 

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kabul confirmed the news about Badruddin Haqqani in a post on the social media platform X. The ministry did not respond to requests for information about Haqqani, who was previously the Taliban’s envoy to the UAE. 

Haqqani is not related to the Acting Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, who in June met the UAE leader, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, but he is from his team. 

Sirajuddin Haqqani is the current leader of the powerful Haqqani network, a militant movement allied with the Taliban, and a designated global terrorist. He is wanted by the United States for his involvement in deadly attacks and is also on several sanctions lists. 

Even though the Taliban remain isolated from the West, they have pursued bilateral ties with major regional powers. Last week, Uzbek Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov arrived in Afghanistan in the highest-level visit by a foreign official since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan three years ago. 

The United Nations says that official recognition of the Taliban-run Afghanistan is “nearly impossible” while restrictions on women and girls are in place. 

In a separate development Wednesday, a U.N.-appointed rights expert decried the Taliban’s decision to bar him from Afghanistan. The special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, has frequently criticized the Taliban’s treatment of women and girls. 

Bennett said the Taliban’s announcement that they would no longer grant him access to Afghanistan was “a step backwards and sends a concerning signal” about their engagement with the U.N. and the international community on human rights. 

“I urge the Taliban to reverse their decision and reiterate my willingness and availability to travel to Afghanistan,” Bennett said. 

A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Kabul warned that Bennett’s activities were detrimental to the interests of Afghanistan and the Afghan people. 

“It was deemed appropriate that Bennett continue his unprofessional conduct from the comfort of his office instead of tiring himself with needless travels,” the spokesperson, Abdul Qahar Balkhi, told The Associated Press in a message.
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washington — South Koreans are keeping a close eye on the upcoming U.S. presidential election, scrambling to determine the implications its outcome would have for the security of their country.

A recent poll by South Korea’s Institute of National Unification showed that about 66% of respondents supported the country having its own nuclear weapons. This has spurred heated debate among the South Korean public.

Earlier this month, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the delivery of 250 new tactical ballistic missile launchers to frontline troops, according to the country’s official Korean Central News Agency.

The missile launchers appear to be transporter erector launcher vehicles for a type of short-range ballistic missile that North Korea claimed could be fitted with nuclear warheads. If confirmed, analysts say, the deployment would overwhelm South Korea’s missile defenses.

Growing concern

“In order to cope with the threat from the North, South Korea needs to be nuclear-armed,” Kim Tae-woo, head researcher of nuclear security at the Korea Institute for Military Affairs (KIMA), told VOA Korean on Tuesday. “There is no other way to guarantee the survival of the country.”

Cheong Seong-chang, director of the Department of Reunification Strategy Studies at the Seoul-based Sejong Institute, said the North Korean threat is too close to home for South Koreans.

“There is no other country in the world that makes frequent nuclear threats against a neighboring country in the way North Korea does against South Korea,” Cheong told VOA Korean on Wednesday.

Kim of the KIMA said that a strengthening of the U.S. nuclear deterrent through the bilateral Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) would not be sufficient to protect South Korea against a North Korean nuclear attack.

“First, it won’t be able to keep up with North Korea’s nuclear threat in terms of the pace and the extent of evolution and growth,” Kim said. “Second, there is a growing risk that political changes in South Korea and the United States may halt the arrangement or make it less binding.”

Extended deterrence

In April 2023, U.S. President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol adopted the Washington Declaration, which outlines a series of measures, including the establishment of the NCG, to deter North Korea’s nuclear weapons use. At its core, the declaration expanded Washington’s promise to defend South Korea with nuclear weapons if necessary — a policy known as “extended deterrence.”

The Biden administration appears firmly opposed to South Korea building its own nuclear weapons.

“We believe that the only effective way to reduce nuclear threats on the peninsula is by curbing the proliferation of nuclear weapons,” a State Department spokesperson said in an emailed statement on July 10 in response to a VOA Korean inquiry.

“President Yoon has reaffirmed the ROK’s long-standing commitment to its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as the cornerstone of the global nonproliferation regime,” the email continued.

ROK stands for Republic of Korea, the official name of South Korea.

“The Yoon administration has made clear that it is not pursuing a nuclear weapons program and that it is working closely with the United States through existing extended deterrence mechanisms,” the spokesperson said.

Vipin Narang, who recently served as the U.S. acting assistant secretary of defense for space policy, said that the NCG would play an important role in strengthening the U.S.-South Korea extended nuclear deterrence relationship.

“We have signed a guidelines document charting a path ahead, begun work to facilitate integration across the alliance, and now stand as equal partners strengthening deterrence against nuclear and other forms of strategic attack from North Korea,” Narang said August 1 in a seminar at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Narang added that the United States “may reach a point where a change in the size or posture of our current deployed forces is necessary” if there is no change in the nuclear trajectories of North Korea.

In an interview with VOA Korean in July, Narang emphasized that the NCG would “evolve in accordance with the threats faced by the U.S.-South Korea alliance.”

Seoul’s nuclear desire

Some experts say the possible reelection in November of former U.S. President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, could reshape Washington’s alliance with Seoul and open the possibility of South Korea having its own nuclear weapons.

John Bolton, former White House national security adviser during the Trump administration, told VOA Korean in an August 16 interview that “Trump doesn’t understand collective defense alliances.”

“He looks at alliances as America defending South Korea and not getting paid for it,” said Bolton, who also served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006.

“He didn’t, in his first four years, grasp what the meaning of the alliance, the benefits it had for the United States as well as for South Korea,” he said. “I don’t think he’s learned in the four years he’s been out of the office either.”

Cheong of the Sejong Institute said, “President Trump had previously held that South Korea and Japan should now be nuclear armed rather than relying on foreign countries to respond to the threat of North Korea and China.”

Separate from Seoul’s desire for its own nuclear weapons, Trump might consider redeploying U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea, said Robert Peters, research fellow for nuclear deterrence and missile defense at the Heritage Foundation.

“I think it is possible that a Trump administration could see the current environment as one where they would return American nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula, to be stored in nuclear weapons vaults on joint U.S.-ROK bases,” Peters told VOA Korean via email on Wednesday.

In 1991, the U.S. withdrew all its nuclear weapons from South Korea. The weapons had been stationed there since the late 1950s.

Victor Cha, senior vice president for Asia and Korea chair at CSIS, told VOA Korean on Wednesday via email that it was too early to determine what position Trump would take on South Korea’s nuclear armament.

“I think it’s way too premature to talk about whether Trump would support or oppose a nuclear South Korea,” said Cha, who was the U.S. National Security Council’s director for Asian affairs in the George W. Bush White House.

“The nonproliferation community, both Democrats and Republicans, would be strongly against adding more nuclear weapons states in either a Harris or Trump administration,” said Cha.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, is widely expected to inherit Biden’s Asia policies should she win the election.

VOA Korean contacted both the Trump campaign and the Harris campaign and asked each whether its candidate would allow South Korea to have its own nuclear weapons, but did not receive a reply from either side.

Kim Hyungjin contributed to this report.
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lahore, pakistan — Mystery surrounds the abduction and release three days later of a popular YouTuber who created a satirical song making fun of high electricity bills in Pakistan.

Family members say Aun Ali Khosa was abducted August 14 after his song went viral. Based on a famous patriotic song “Dil Dil Pakistan,” which means “Heart Heart Pakistan,” the satirical version changed the lyric to “Bill Bill Pakistan.”

According to Aun Ali Khosa’s wife, Benish Iqbal, eight or nine masked men arrived at their home in a large car and a pickup truck. She said they entered the house by breaking a window and door and took Khosa with them.

He returned home at midnight three days later and is in fine health, according to the family, but his face shows signs of fatigue, and he is not speaking to anyone.

In a conversation with VOA, Khosa said, “I’m absolutely fine. I do not want to talk about where I was, who took me, or why.”

When VOA asked Khosa if he was fed during his disappearance, he replied, “I don’t want to talk about that.”

Iqbal filed a petition in the Lahore High Court, alleging Khosa was unlawfully detained by law enforcement officers. Authorities so far have not responded to the accusation.

This is not the first incident of apparent disappearance over satirical writing. Earlier this year, Ahmed Farhad, a poet and journalist from Pakistan-administered Kashmir, also went missing. After several days, the police announced his arrest.

Enforced disappearance rising

According to human rights activists, cases of short-term allegedly enforced disappearances across the country have increased in recent years, with a spike since May 9. Most of the “disappeared” do not speak openly about their experiences.

Human rights activist and lawyer Imaan Zainab Mazari observes that while enforced disappearances used to be for longer durations, since 2022, there has been an uptick in cases where people are taken for just a few days and then released — marking a troubling new pattern.

“The purpose of making someone disappear for a short period of time is to silence them by intimidation,” Mazari told VOA.

“For example, a journalist could be arrested for a week so he is intimidated and does not publish a story. Or an officer can be kidnapped for allegedly disobeying an ‘illegal’ order,” Mazari added.

Legal expert Khadija Siddiqui believes that Pakistan’s law is clear that if a person commits a crime, he or she is arrested and brought to court within 24 hours. But, she says, some people are picked up even if there is no case against them.

“There is no law in the country for forced disappearance or abduction of people by force,” Siddiqui told VOA.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a nongovernmental human rights organization in Pakistan, has expressed its concern about enforced disappearances and demanded that such persons be recovered as soon as possible.

While talking to VOA, HRCP Chairman Asad Butt said, “Incidents like Aun Ali Khosa show the weakness of the state.”

Legal expert Siddiqui suggests that stricter judicial measures against enforced disappearances could significantly cut down on future incidents.

This story originated in VOA’s Urdu Service.
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A green revolution is sweeping Pakistan as consumers switch to generating their own solar electricity. But as VOA Pakistan bureau chief Sarah Zaman reports, the move to the increasingly affordable, green option may also cause a crisis for the national grid. Videographer: Wajid Asad
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JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia’s parliament postponed ratifying changes to an elections law on Thursday as protesters attempted to tear down the gates of parliament in the capital, following outcry over legislation seen to strengthen the political influence of outgoing President Joko Widodo.

The plenary session to pass the changes was delayed due to a lack of a quorum, legislator Habiburokhman told reporters outside the parliament building.

It is unclear if parliament will reconvene to pass the law before the registration for regional elections opens next Tuesday.

The parliament planned to ratify changes that would have reversed a ruling by the constitutional court earlier this week. The legislative changes would have blocked a vocal government critic in the race for the influential post of Jakarta governor, and also paved the way for Widodo’s youngest son to run in elections in Java this November.

The power struggle between the parliament and the judiciary comes amid a week of dramatic political developments in the world’s third-largest democracy, and in the final stretch of the president’s second term.

Widodo downplayed the concerns, saying on Wednesday the court ruling and parliamentary deliberations were part of standard “checks and balances.”

The home affairs minister said the changes were intended to provide legal certainty.

Thousands of demonstrators gathered outside the parliament building in Jakarta, some breaching part of a fence, but few daring to cross it. Others draped banners accusing Jokowi of destroying democracy, and carried colorful banners and props, including a mock guillotine featuring the president’s face.

Indonesian presidential spokesperson Hasan Nasbi called for calm, and urged protestors to avoid violence, as some scenes showed demonstrators also throwing rocks at parliament in Bandung.

Protests were held in multiple cities across the country, with tear gas fired at demonstrators in Semarang, TV footage showed.

“This is the peak of my disdain,” said Afif Sidik, a 29-year-old teacher who joined the protest outside parliament.

“This is a republic. It’s a democracy, but if its leadership is decided by one person, or an oligarch, we can’t accept that.”

Legal experts and political analysts have described the power struggle as bordering on a constitutional crisis.

Elections analyst Titi Anggraini characterized the maneuver as “constitutional insubordination.”

The street protests follow a wave of criticism online, with blue posters featuring the words “Emergency Warning” above Indonesia’s national eagle proliferating on social media.

The rupiah and Jakarta’s main stock index slumped by midday Thursday, hit by concerns of protests as well as the country’s widening current account deficit.

‘This is a power struggle’

The Constitutional Court on Tuesday revoked a minimum threshold requirement to nominate candidates in regional elections and kept the minimum age limit of 30 years for candidates.

That ruling effectively blocks the candidacy of the president’s 29-year-old son from contesting the race for deputy governor in Central Java, and would allow Anies Baswedan, the current favorite, to run in Jakarta.

But within 24 hours the parliament had tabled an emergency revision to annul the changes.

All parties except one agreed to the revision.

“Indonesian democracy is once again at a crucial crossroads,” Anies posted on social media platform X, urging legislators to remember its fate rested in their hands.

The parliament is dominated by a big-tent coalition aligned to the outgoing president, popularly known as Jokowi, and president-elect Prabowo Subianto.

Prabowo, who won a landslide victory in February’s elections, will be inaugurated on October 20, with Jokowi’s eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, as his vice president.

Jokowi is facing mounting criticism for the increasingly bold ways his government is consolidating power, and his nascent political dynasty.

“The ruling of the constitutional court is final and binding,” said Bivitri Susanti, from the Jentera School of Law. “It is not possible for the legislative body to violate the judiciary’s ruling. This is a power struggle.”
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TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan’s defense spending will rise 7.7% next year, outpacing expected economic growth, the Cabinet said on Thursday, as the island adds more fighter jets and missiles to strengthen deterrence against a rising threat from Beijing.

China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has ramped up military and political pressure over the past five years to assert those claims, which Taipei strongly rejects.

Taiwan’s Cabinet said following a regular weekly meeting that 2025 defense spending would rise 7.7% year-on-year to $20.25 billion, accounting for 2.45% of gross domestic product and exceeding the government’s expectation for economic growth of 3.26% for the year.

The spending includes a special budget worth $2.8 billion to buy new fighter jets and ramp up missile production. That was part of the military’s extra spending worth $7.5 billion announced in 2021 over five years.

Taiwan’s government has made military modernization a key policy platform and has repeatedly pledged to spend more on its defenses given the rising threat from China, including developing made-in-Taiwan submarines.

China’s air force flies almost daily missions into the skies near Taiwan, and in May staged war games around the island shortly after President Lai Ching-te took office, a man Beijing brands a “separatist.” Lai rejects China’s sovereignty claims, saying only Taiwan’s people can decide their future.

The budget will still need to be passed by parliament, where the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lost its majority in January elections.

Taiwan’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang, has repeatedly expressed its support for firming up the island’s defenses, though it is currently involved in a standoff with the DPP about contested reforms to give parliament greater oversight powers the government says is unconstitutional.

China is also rapidly modernizing its armed forces, with new aircraft carriers, stealth fighter jets and missiles.

China in March announced a 7.2% rise in defense spending for this year to $234.10 billion outpacing the economic growth target of around 5% for 2024, though accounting for only some 1.3% of GDP according to analysts. 
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Washington  — At least 55 governments in the past decade have restricted the freedom of movement for people they deem as threats, including journalists, according to a Freedom House report published Thursday. 

Governments control freedom of movement via travel bans, revoking citizenship, document control and denial of consular services, the report found. All the tactics are designed to coerce and punish government critics, according to Jessica White, the report’s London-based co-author.

“This is a type of tactic that really shows the vindictive and punitive nature of some countries,” White said. This form of repression “is an attempt to really stifle peoples’ ability to speak out freely from wherever they are.”

Belarus, China, India, Nicaragua, Russia, Rwanda and Saudi Arabia are among the countries that engage in this form of repression, the report found. Freedom House based its findings in part on interviews with more than 30 people affected by mobility controls.

Travel bans are the most common tactic, according to White, with Freedom House identifying at least 40 governments who prevent citizens leaving or returning to the country.

Revoking citizenship is another strategy, despite being prohibited by international law. The Nicaraguan government in 2023 stripped more than 200 political prisoners of their citizenship shortly after deporting them to the United States.

Among them were Juan Lorenzo Holmann, head of Nicaragua’s oldest newspaper, La Prensa.

“It is as if I do not exist anymore. It is another attack on my human rights,” he told VOA after being freed. “But you cannot do away with the person’s personality. In the Nicaraguan constitution, it says that you cannot wipe out a person’s personal records or take away their nationality. I feel Nicaraguan, and they cannot take that away from me.”

Before being expelled from his own country, Lorenzo had spent 545 days in prison, in what was widely viewed as a politically motivated case.

Blocking access to passports and other travel documents is another tactic. In one example, Hong Kong in June canceled the passports of six pro-democracy activists who were living in exile in Britain.

In some cases, governments refuse to issue people passports to trap them in the country. And in cases where the individual is already abroad, embassies deny passport renewals to block the individual from traveling anywhere, including back home.

Myanmar’s embassy in Berlin, for instance, has refused to renew the passport of Ma Thida, a Burmese writer in exile in Germany. Ma Thida told VOA earlier this year she believes the refusal is in retaliation for her writing.

White said Ma Thida’s case was a classic example of mobility restrictions. For now, the German government has issued a passport reserved for people who are unable to obtain a passport from their home country — which White applauded but said is still rare.

“Our ability to freely leave and return to our home country is something that in democratic societies, people often take for granted. It’s one of our fundamental human rights, but it’s one that is being undermined and violated across many parts of the world,” White said.

Mobility restrictions can have devastating consequences, including making it difficult to work, travel and visit family. What makes matters even worse is the emotional toll, according to White.

“There is a huge psychological impact,” White said. “A lot of our interviewees mention especially the pain of being separated from family members and not being able to return to their country.” 

In the report, Freedom House called on democratic governments to impose sanctions on actors that engage in mobility controls.

White said that democratic governments should do more to help dissidents, including by providing them with alternative travel documents if they can’t obtain them from their home countries. 
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washington — Senior U.S. officials met with the Dalai Lama in New York on Wednesday, according to a State Department statement, a rare high-level direct meeting between Washington and the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.

The Dalai Lama, who is denounced by Beijing as a separatist, met with senior U.S. State Department official Uzra Zeya and White House National Security Council official Kelly Razzouk in New York, where he is visiting to receive medical treatment.

During the meeting, Zeya “reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to advancing the human rights of Tibetans and supporting efforts to preserve their distinct historical, linguistic, cultural, and religious heritage.”

Beijing imposes strict controls on Tibet, which it considers an inalienable part of its territory, and denounces the Dalai Lama, who advocates for greater autonomy for Tibet, as a rebel.

During the meeting on Wednesday, Zeya also discussed U.S. “support for resuming dialogue between the PRC and His Holiness and his representatives,” the statement said, using the abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China.

Talks between Beijing and Tibetan leaders have been frozen since 2010.

The Dalai Lama, 89, received knee surgery in New York this year, saying he was recovering well in a statement released in July.

He stepped down as his people’s political head in 2011, passing the baton of secular power to a government chosen democratically by some 130,000 Tibetans around the world.

In July, China sanctioned a U.S. lawmaker for “interference” over his support for Tibetans, a month after the U.S. Congress passed a law strengthening support for Tibet and senior U.S. lawmakers met with the Dalai Lama in India.

China took control of Tibet in 1951 before the Dalai Lama fled into exile in 1959.

Tibet had previously been largely autonomous, following the fall of the Qing dynasty, which lasted three centuries.
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Japan is set to have a new prime minister after incumbent Fumio Kishida announced last week he would not seek re-election in the Liberal Democratic Party leadership vote next month. Kishida sought to transform Japan’s security capabilities amid growing regional threats. Will his successor seek to build on that legacy? Henry Ridgwell has more from Tokyo.
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ISLAMABAD — Afghanistan’s de facto Taliban leaders have barred the United Nations-appointed special rapporteur on human rights, Richard Bennett, from entering the country for allegedly “spreading propaganda.”

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid disclosed the decision to Afghan broadcaster TOLO News late Tuesday. He accused the U.N. envoy of misrepresenting “the ground realities” in the country and providing “misleading” information to the global community.

Bennett reports to the U.N. Human Rights Council based in Geneva and has conducted several trips to Kabul to investigate the Afghan human rights situation since assuming duties in 2022 — a year after the radical Taliban returned to power.

“Mr. Bennett’s travel to Afghanistan has been prohibited because he was assigned to spread propaganda in Afghanistan. He is not someone we trust … He used to exaggerate minor issues and propagate them,” Mujahid stated.

Neither the U.N. Human Rights Council nor Bennett has immediately commented on the reported travel ban facing him.

The U.N. human rights rapporteur, in one of his recently published assessments, highlighted the Taliban’s sweeping curbs on Afghan women’s access to education, employment, and public life at large, demanding they be immediately reversed.

Bennett alleged that women and girls under Taliban rule “are being persecuted based on gender, calling it a crime against humanity. He went on to assert that the institutionalized, systematic, and widespread nature justifies it being framed as “gender apartheid.”

Mujahid dismissed the U.N. findings and subsequent statements by Bennett as propaganda, saying the Taliban respect women’s rights in line with their interpretation of Islamic law and Afghan customs.

The Agence France-Presse news agency quoted a diplomatic source as confirming the ban on the U.N. rapporteur and saying that Bennett “was informed of the decision that he would not be welcome to return to Afghanistan several months ago.”

“Even after repeatedly requesting Mr. Bennett to adhere to professionalism during work … it was decided that … his reports are based on prejudices and anecdotes detrimental to interests of Afghanistan and the Afghan people,” Taliban foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi told the Reuters news agency.

Taliban officials do not respond to VOA queries because they have imposed a ban on the media outlet.

De facto fundamentalist Afghan authorities have barred girls ages 12 and older from attending school and women from many public and private sector workplaces, including the U.N.

In addition, women are not allowed to undertake road trips beyond 78 kilometers without a male guardian, and they are barred from visiting parks, gyms, and public baths.

“The Taliban barring Bennett from entering the country is one of many signs that their crackdown on human rights, especially the rights of women and girls, is ongoing and continuing to deepen,” Heather Barr, the associate women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch, told VOA.

“The international community — and the U.N.—should respond to this provocation by the Taliban by committing to never discussing the future of Afghanistan without women on the agenda and at the table,” she said in her comments shared via email.

The Taliban attended a U.N.-organized meeting in Doha last month for the first time, where they interacted with envoys from more than two dozen countries on matters related to Afghanistan’s economic and humanitarian challenges.

The U.N. did not invite Afghan women or human rights representatives, however, citing the Taliban’s opposition, a move that drew strong criticism of the world body.

No country has officially recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government since they seized control of Afghanistan in 2021, mainly citing the harsh treatment of women and girls.

Many top Taliban leaders remain under international terrorism sanctions, and the Afghan banking sector is largely isolated from the rest of the world, with about $9 billion in central bank assets being frozen in the U.S. and European banks.
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New Delhi — Ahead of a visit to Ukraine, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for an early return to peace and stability and said he will “share perspectives” on a peaceful resolution of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Modi will travel to Kyiv on Friday after visiting Poland. He will hold talks with Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy weeks after a visit by the Indian prime minister to its longstanding partner Moscow drew sharp criticism from the Ukrainian leader.

Modi met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in July on a day when Russian missiles struck multiple targets including a children’s hospital in Kyiv killing many civilians.

The Indian leader had called the death of children heart-wrenching, but images of Modi hugging Putin were embarrassing, according to analysts.

“The optics of the Russia visit were not good. So, the effort by going to Ukraine is to show that India is not just taking a passive position on the conflict but wants to actively help in a settlement,” said Manoj Joshi, distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.

Zelenskyy had said that it was a “huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts” to see Modi hug “the world’s most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day.”

Modi will be the first Indian prime minister to visit Ukraine since the two countries established diplomatic ties.

“As a friend and partner, we hope for an early return of peace and stability in the region,” Modi said in a statement on Wednesday before leaving New Delhi. He said his trip will be a “natural continuation of extensive contacts” between India and Ukraine.

Modi met Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit held in Italy in June. In March this year, Ukraine’s foreign minister visited the Indian capital in a bid to give momentum to their political and economic ties.

India has not joined its Western allies in directly holding the Kremlin responsible for the war, but it has been urging the two nations to resolve their conflict through dialogue and diplomacy.

The Indian foreign ministry said on Monday that India has “substantive and independent ties” with both Russia and Ukraine and was ready to support the negotiation of a peace settlement.

“India has high credibility with Russia,’’ analyst Joshi told VOA. ‘’So the hope is that it can play some kind of a mediatory role and can raise issues with Moscow directly.’’

The visit is also seen as an effort by India to balance its growing ties with Western countries with its refusal to join them in isolating its decades-long partner Russia.

Following the Modi-Putin summit, the United States State Department said it had raised concerns with India about its relationship with Russia and hoped it would use its ties with Moscow to firmly encourage the Kremlin to adhere to the United Nations charter.

Since the conflict began more than two years ago, India has abstained from all U.N. votes against Russia and become one of the biggest buyers of Russian oil as it continues to trade with Moscow.

Analysts say New Delhi’s big challenge is to convince the West and Kyiv that its friendship with Russia is not an endorsement of Putin’s Ukraine policy.

“India is walking the tightrope,’’ Joshi said. ‘’As the war continues and even becomes more intense, it brings more pressure on New Delhi and the Indian position stands out starkly, especially as the Western position on Russia hardens.”

Modi’s visit to Poland, the first by an Indian Prime Minister to the country in 40 years, is expected to focus on strengthening economic and political cooperation. He will meet both Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and President Andrzej Duda, according to the foreign ministry.

Analysts say Modi’s visit to the two countries – Poland and Ukraine – is also part of India’s efforts to increase its engagement with countries in central and eastern Europe as it tries to raise its global profile.
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