ISLAMABAD — The United States urged Pakistan Wednesday to protect the rights of all citizens, including freedom of expression and assembly, as a military-backed crackdown on the opposition party of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan continues. 

Donald Blome, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, stressed during a seminar in Islamabad that upholding constitutionally guaranteed rights is crucial to the country’s economic progress. 

“Protecting human rights for all is not just a fundamental pillar of a democracy; it’s a critical component of a vibrant and stable society drawing on the talents and contributions of all its citizens for the country’s benefits,” Blome said.  

“Without such stability, the prospects for investment and economic growth appear far less certain,” he noted, without directly naming Pakistani political stakeholders.

The U.S. ambassador’s remarks came as Pakistan faces prolonged political turmoil stemming from Khan’s removal from power in 2022 through a parliamentary no-confidence vote and his subsequent imprisonment last August, which the United Nations described as having no legal basis. 

The ongoing crackdown has led to the arrest of hundreds of supporters of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, party, including women.  

This week, police raided the PTI’s headquarters in the Pakistani capital, detaining its chief spokesman and several other media team professionals, accusing them of running an “anti-state campaign.”  

Khan’s aides have denounced the arrests as part of a campaign of suppression and intimidation.  

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s coalition government, struggling to address Pakistan’s deep economic problems, has publicly stated its intention to ban the party over charges of anti-state activities and maligning the military.  

“We will, under no circumstances, tolerate such actions against our motherland, innocent people, or the armed forces of Pakistan,” Sharif reiterated Wednesday, while presiding over a cabinet meeting.  

The threat of banning the country’s most popular and the single largest party in parliament has further fueled political tensions.  

On Tuesday, during a congressional hearing in Washington, the crackdown and potential banning of the Pakistani opposition party also came under discussion when Donald Lu, the U.S. assistant secretary of state, was responding to questions from lawmakers.

Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman, a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, raised the issue of Pakistan banning Khan from holding public office and preventing his party from using its iconic cricket bat symbol on the ballots in the February 8 vote.  

“The information minister and two other ministers have said that they want to ban the PTI. And we see in the latest development that the PTI office has been sealed, their national information security and many women have been arrested,” Sherman said.  

“The best thing you can do is ask Ambassador Blome to go visit Imran Khan in prison, and I wonder if you would consider that,” the congressmen told Lu. “We’ll definitely discuss it with Ambassador Blome,” responded the assistant secretary of state. 

“Pakistan’s future must be decided by its people. It’s clear that the PTI is Pakistan’s most popular party. I disagree with Imran Khan on many things, but it’s the right of Pakistan’s people to choose their leader,” Sherman wrote on his social media X platform after the hearing.

Khan’s arrest last year sparked violent street protests in Pakistan, with some of his supporters attacking facilities linked to the country’s powerful military.  

The Sharif government and the military used the riots to defend the crackdown on the PTI and as a reason to keep Khan in prison after several of his convictions in other cases were recently overturned by appeals courts for lack of evidence.  

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court ruled that the PTI was eligible for around two dozen extra reserved seats in parliament, saying the Election Commission of Pakistan deprived the party of them in breach of the constitution.  

Once implemented, the verdict will further strengthen the PTI in the parliament and weaken the ruling coalition. It has also given credence to the opposition and independent monitors’ allegations that the February 8 elections were rigged in favor of pro-military parties and prevented the PTI from sweeping the polls.  

Khan, 71, rejects all charges against him — ranging from corruption to sedition and a fraudulent marriage — as politically motivated and part of a larger effort by the military to keep him and his party from returning to power.  

The former cricket hero turned politician insists on the return of his party’s “stolen mandate” or new elections overseen by an impartial election commission. 

Sharif, who has the backing of the military, denies his government is unfairly targeting Khan and his party, saying it was determined to bring to justice those responsible for the May 2023 attacks on military facilities.  

Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted 368-7 to approve a resolution urging “the full and independent investigation of claims of interference or irregularities” in Pakistan’s election, a move Islamabad rejected.
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DHAKA — Rush-hour traffic returned to the streets of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka on Wednesday, as a curfew was eased after four days of nationwide shutdown that followed deadly protests led by university students against quotas in government jobs.

Offices reopened and broadband internet was largely restored, although social media continued to be suspended, days after the clashes between protesters and security forces killed almost 150 people.

The country has been relatively calm since Sunday, when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of an appeal from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government and directed that 93% of jobs should be open to candidates on merit.

Bangladesh’s mainstay garment and textiles industries, which supply to major Western brands, also began reopening some factories after a pause in production during the curfew.

“All our factories are open today. Everything is going smoothly,” said S.M. Mannan, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

The stock exchange opened too, as well as banks, after remaining shut the past two days.

Residents of Dhaka were out on the streets, some making their way to offices as public buses also began running in some places.

“It was a hassle to reach the office on time,” said Shamima Akhter, who works at a private firm in the capital. “Some roads are still blocked for security reasons. Don’t know when everything will get normal.”

Local news websites, which had stopped updating since Friday, were back online too.

Bangladesh authorities had shut mobile internet and deployed the army on the streets during the curfew that was imposed from midnight on Saturday.

The government said curfew restrictions would be relaxed for seven hours on Wednesday and Thursday, and offices would also be open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Student demands

Analysts say the student action has given fresh impetus to Hasina’s critics, months after she won a fourth-straight term in power in January in a national election boycotted by the main opposition party.

“The informal federation of government critics appears deeper and wider than before the election, which presents a serious challenge to the ruling party,” said Geoffrey Macdonald at the United States Institute of Peace.

Hasina, 76, is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh, who led the country’s movement for independence from Pakistan.

The earlier 56% job quotas included a 30% reservation for families of veterans of the 1971 independence war, which critics said favored supporters of Hasina’s Awami League.

Hasina’s government had scrapped the quotas in 2018, but a high court ruling reinstated the them last month.

Students were furious because quotas left fewer than half of state jobs open on merit amid an unemployment crisis, particularly in the private sector, making government sector jobs with their regular wage hikes and perks especially prized.

Hasina has blamed her political opponents for the violence and her government said on Tuesday that it would heed the Supreme Court ruling.

The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party has denied any involvement in the violence and accused Hasina of authoritarianism and a crackdown on her critics, charges denied by her government.

Protesting students have given the government a fresh 48-hour ultimatum to fulfill four other conditions of an eight-point list of demands, and said they would announce their next steps on Thursday.

“We want the government to meet our four-point demand, including restoration of internet, withdrawal of police from campuses, and opening universities (which have been closed for a week),” protest coordinator Nahid Islam said.
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As Taiwan hosts annual military exercises this week, it is also holding air raid drills to raise public awareness about how to respond to an attack from China and where to seek shelter. Officials want this year’s exercises to be as realistic as possible. VOA’s William Yang has more from Taipei. (Camera: William Yang)
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SYDNEY — The trilateral AUKUS alliance and the growing strategic importance of the Indian Ocean are the focus of a multinational defense conference starting in Australia on Wednesday.

The United States, Britain and Australia are developing military capabilities under the 2021 AUKUS partnership, while tensions in the Indo-Pacific region are bringing focus to the Quad diplomatic partnership, between Australia, India, Japan and the United States.

The Indian Ocean Defense and Security 2024 conference in Perth, Western Australia, is bringing together senior Australian and international government, military and industry leaders.

The event is hosted by the Western Australian government.  It will examine how the the AUKUS pact between the United States, Britain and Australia affects the four-nation Quad diplomatic partnership between Australia, India, Japan and the U.S.

The origins of the Quad alliance date back to Australia’s response to the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

Analysts say the AUKUS and Quad groupings share concerns over China’s increasing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region.  Beijing has maritime disputes with several countries and a land boundary conflict with India.

Vice Admiral Mark Hammond, chief of the Australian navy, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Wednesday that, China is one of several areas of discussion at the Perth defense summit.

“This is an opportunity to bring defense, political senior leadership and industry leadership into one room to discuss the role of the state of Western Australia and the importance of the Indian Ocean to the security, prosperity (and) economic wellbeing of the great nation of Australia,” he said. “So, it is much broader than the issue of China, which tends to overshadow many things in our region.”

Western Australia covers a third of the Australian continent.  Its coastline is vast, stretching for more than 20,000 kilometers, including islands. The state has several key naval and air force bases.

The trilateral AUKUS accord is widely seen as a counter to China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region. Beijing has been strident in its criticism of the pact, insisting that Australia and its allies had “gone down a dangerous road for their own selfish political gains.”  

Officials in Beijing have said previously that the Quad grouping was formed “to contain China.”

Australia’s left-leaning government is seeking to stabilize ties with China, the country’s major trading partner, after years of diplomatic friction over various geopolitical and trade disputes.
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand’s wide-ranging independent inquiry into the abuse of children and vulnerable adults in care over the span of five decades released a blistering final report Wednesday that the country’s state agencies and churches failed to prevent, stop or admit the abuse of those they were supposed to look after — even when they knew about it.

The scale of the abuse was “unimaginable,” and scrutiny of state and faith-run institutions lax and predators rarely faced repercussions, the report said.

In response, New Zealand’s government agreed for the first time that historical treatment of some children in a notorious state-run hospital amounted to torture and pledged an apology to all those abused in state, foster and religious care since 1950.

But Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said it was too soon to divulge how much the government expected to pay in compensation — a bill the inquiry said would run to the billions of dollars — or to promise that officials involved in denying and covering up the abuse would lose their jobs.

The publication of findings by the Royal Commission — the highest level of inquiry that can be undertaken in New Zealand — capped a six-year investigation that followed two decades of similar probes around the world, echoing other nations’ struggles to reckon with authorities’ transgressions against children removed from their families and placed in state and religious care.

The results were a “national disgrace,” the inquiry’s report said. Of 650,000 children and vulnerable adults in state, foster, and church care between 1950 and 1999 — in a country which today has a population of just 5 million — nearly a third endured physical, sexual, verbal or psychological abuse. Many more were exploited or neglected, the report said.

The figures were likely higher and accurate numbers would never be known because complaints in the past were disregarded and records were lost or destroyed. Luxon said the government would formally apologize to survivors on Nov. 12.
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New Delhi — When Kamala Harris was sworn in as vice president in the U.S., residents in her maternal family’s ancestral village in southern India watched in real time, setting off fireworks, holding up portraits of her and wishing her a long life.

But, four years later, as she works to become the Democratic nominee for president after President Joe Biden ended his campaign, reaction across the country has been more muted. While some residents in the capital, New Delhi, expressed pride when asked about her this week, a handful wondered who she was.

At least partially, that could reflect how Harris — who is also Black, with a father born in Jamaica — has treated her origins.

“Harris doesn’t wear her Indian roots on her sleeve, choosing instead to emphasize her Jamaican heritage,” Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center, said.

As vice president, she has deployed stories of her ties to India at key moments — at times light-heartedly — but her policy portfolio has been more domestic and did not focus on relations with India, he said.

In June last year, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a state visit to Washington, Harris spoke emotionally about her ties to her late mother Shyamala Gopalan’s country of birth. She credited her grandfather P.V. Gopalan, who was a civil servant, with teaching her about what democracy means as they walked hand-in-hand on a beach in his home state of Tamil Nadu.

These lessons, she said, “first inspired my interest in public service … and have guided me ever since.”

She also talked about her mother’s influence — and how she discovered her “love of good idli,” eliciting laughter from the crowd with her reference to a dish of steamed rice dumplings, a staple in southern India.

Sumanth Raman, a political commentator in Tamil Nadu, said there was excitement when she was named the VP nominee, “but after that, there’s not been a great deal of enthusiasm.”

Since Sunday, when Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris, she has hardly featured in media reports in the state, he said.

“The coverage has been more about Joe Biden dropping out, that’s what has grabbed headlines here,” Raman said.

Beyond a smattering of references, analysts say Harris hasn’t tapped her Indian identity heavily.

Today, few members of her extended family remain in India. Other than the trips during her childhood, Harris hasn’t visited the country much — and not since she became vice president, another reason that could explain why her candidacy hasn’t resonated widely in the country yet.

Still, if Harris becomes the Democratic nominee, it would be a first for a South Asian American — and a sign of just how far the diaspora has come in the U.S., Kugelman said.

Harris and a slew of other political personalities with roots in India — from Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy to Usha Vance — have become household names in the U.S. and their rise has put a spotlight on the country, beyond the cliches of Bollywood and Indian cuisine, he added.

But the impact of a potential Harris presidency would be much greater for American politics and the Indian American community than for India-U.S. ties, experts say.

“When Indians look at Kamala Harris, they’re looking at an American official more than someone of Indian origin,” said Happymon Jacob, a professor of diplomacy and disarmament studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.

That she was vice president did not have a substantive impact on India-U.S. ties, which are expected to grow over shared concerns about China regardless of who wins the November election, he said.

Modi, for instance, was feted with a glitzy state visit last year hosted by Biden, where both leaders affirmed that ties between the two countries were thriving. But the Indian leader was also close to former President Donald Trump, who received an adulatory reception when he visited India in 2020 as more than 100,000 people packed into a cricket stadium to see him.

“So I think there is a reality check in India, that these things don’t really matter at the end of the day,” Jacob added.

Even if a Harris presidency is unlikely to affect policy toward India or carry geopolitical implications, for Hindi literature professor Shivaji Shinde, it would still be a historic and meaningful moment for the nation.

The “United States is the most powerful country in the world. If they choose an Indian-origin person as their president, then it will be a huge moment for India and every Indian would be immensely proud,” Shinde said in New Delhi on Tuesday.

The news has also made its way to Thulasendrapuram, the village where Harris’ mother’s family once lived.

“We’re overjoyed to know that someone who traces her ancestry to our village might become the president of the United States,” said resident Sudhakar Jayaraman.

He said villagers performed prayers at the local temple, which Harris and her grandfather once donated to, after they heard the news.

“For a person of Indian descent with Tamil roots to reach such a high office makes us all proud,” Jayaraman added.
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Islamabad, Pakistan — Afghanistan’s Taliban claimed Tuesday that their crackdown on illegal drug production in the country has helped address a major global challenge but expressed frustration at the ongoing lack of international support in response.

Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi told a national labor conference in Kabul that his country used to be the world’s largest opium-poppy producer. It was detrimental and smuggled to the entire world and resulted in more than four million Afghans becoming drug addicts in the past two decades, he said.

“The illegal production of drugs has ceased. The addicts are now in need of medical treatment while the farmers need livelihoods and employment,” Muttaqi said in his televised speech.

He noted that their counternarcotics campaign has led to immense economic pressures and severe hardships for Afghans reeling from the effects of years of war and natural disasters in the impoverished country.

“Regrettably, the international community has failed to fulfill its responsibility in this matter. Instead, they have imposed sanctions on Afghan trade, travel, and banking sectors in breach of the universal fundamental human rights,” the chief Taliban diplomat said.

The Taliban banned opium poppy cultivation and production in Afghanistan in April 2022, eight months after the fundamentalist group reclaimed power. The South Asian nation supplied about 80% of the global illegal opiate demand and 95% of Europe’s heroin in 2022, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

The UNODC noted in its 2024 World Drug Report that the drug ban has reduced opium production in Afghanistan by 95%, severely impacting the livelihoods of farmers and necessitating urgent humanitarian aid.

Muttaqi complained Tuesday that Afghanistan had been ignored in international conferences aimed at discussing solutions and steps to tackle calamities stemming from climate change.

Afghanistan is listed among the top 10 countries most vulnerable to climate change, even though it accounts for less than 1% of global carbon emissions. It has lately experienced unusually heavy rains, flash flooding, and worsening droughts, killing hundreds of Afghans, destroying livelihoods, and fueling hunger in a country where U.N. agencies say millions of people need urgent humanitarian aid.

However, the country remains largely a global pariah because of the Taliban’s curbs on women’s access to education and work. No country has formally recognized the de facto Afghan government.

The isolation has deterred foreign governments from engaging in formal financial dealings with Kabul and excluded Afghanistan from global climate change meetings, depriving it of much-needed foreign funding to battle climate change.

Muttaqi recounted the Taliban’s security gains, saying they have effectively countered the Islamic State-orchestrated threat of terrorism in the country, established nationwide peace, and ended corruption.

‘Absurd’ demands

“It’s absurd that the world demands action on drug control, security, and preventing Afghan territory misuse but offers zero cooperation,” Muttaqi said. He argued that international collaboration would help his administration create employment opportunities in Afghanistan that would deter its citizens from seeking to migrate to other countries and causing problems for them.

In early July, the United Nations hosted an international conference in Doha, where delegates discussed Afghan private-sector investment possibilities, how to build on the progress made in curbing illegal drug production, and women’s human rights.

“Running through all the discussions was the deep international concern about the ongoing and serious restrictions on women and girls,” Rosemary DiCarlo, the U.N. under-secretary-general who presided over the two-day sessions in Qatar’s capital, told a post-meeting news conference.

“Afghanistan cannot return to the international fold or fully develop economically and socially if it is deprived of the contributions and potential of half its population,” she said.

The Taliban has rejected criticism of their governance as an interference in internal Afghan matters. They maintain their regulations are aligned with Islamic law and local culture.

Girls ages 12 and older are not allowed to attend school beyond the sixth grade, and many women are barred from Afghan public and private sector jobs.

According to a recent U.N. Development Program report, the Afghan economy has contracted by 27%, leading to economic stagnation since the Taliban takeover. The report noted that sectors such as finance have “basically collapsed,” and there are no major sources of economic activity such as exports or public expenditure, leaving small and medium enterprises and farmers “as the lifeblood of the faltering economy.”
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New Delhi — The government in India will spend $24 billion on boosting employment opportunities for young people, as job creation emerges as the biggest challenge confronting Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his third term. 

The government also announced financial support for development projects in two states ruled by its regional allies.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party failed to win a clear majority in recent elections and has formed a coalition government. Although the country’s economy is growing briskly, high unemployment and distress in its vast rural areas were cited as the key reasons for the party’s loss of support.

Presenting the annual budget in parliament on Tuesday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the government will “facilitate employment, skilling and other opportunities” for more than 40 million young people over the next five years.

She said the government will provide paid internships in the country’s 500 top companies to improve opportunities for job seekers.

India posted 8.2% growth last year, the fastest among major economies in the world. But critics say only some have benefitted from the boom, while millions struggle to earn a livelihood.

The government’s announcement that it will raise spending on loans for small and medium-sized businesses to boost job creation was welcomed by several economists. Opposition parties have long criticized the Modi government for giving billions of dollars in subsidies to big business and not extending enough assistance to smaller ones.

“The support to smaller businesses is critical because these are the enterprises which create jobs. Big corporations on the other hand use capital intensive technologies, which don’t result in any significant employment generation,” economist Santosh Mehrotra told VOA. “The government appears to have taken serious note of the jobless crisis we face for the first time in 10 years since it has been in power.”

He said providing internships could be a crucial step in tackling the unemployment problem. Mehrotra said it remains to be seen how the proposals are implemented.

Economists say jobs have failed to grow because India’s manufacturing sector is relatively small, accounting for only 17% of gross domestic product.

According to official figures, the unemployment rate is close to 6%, but an economic research group, the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy, estimates that it is about 9%. The biggest challenge confronts young graduates, among whom the unemployment rate is about 29%. In the world’s youngest country, an estimated 10 million people enter the workforce every year.

A World Bank report released in April, “Jobs for Resilience,” said that while growth in South Asian countries like India is strong, the region is not creating enough jobs to keep pace with its rapidly increasing working-age population. According to the report, the employment ratio for South Asia was 59%, compared to 70% in other emerging market and developing economy regions.

India’s economy will continue expanding at a brisk pace, according to government estimates, which have pegged growth this year at 6.5% to 7% – lower than that posted last year but still high among major economies.

“The global economy, while performing better than expected, is still in the grip of policy uncertainties,” she said. “In this context, India’s economic growth continues to be the shining exception and will remain so in the years ahead,” Finance Minister Sitharaman said.

Modi said the budget will lead India toward “better growth and a bright future.”

With an eye on keeping its coalition allies on board, the government also announced financial assistance for two states — Andhra Pradesh and Bihar. The two regional parties that govern these states have pledged support to Modi and are crucial for his BJP to stay in power. 
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WASHINGTON — U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris has not yet won the Democratic Party’s support for her presidential candidacy, but she has the endorsement of U.S. President Joe Biden, along with several senior Democrats, after his withdrawal from the race on Sunday.

If chosen by the party, and elected president, analysts agree Harris would likely continue the Biden administration’s foreign policy, including the management of one of the most tense and consequential relationships — that with China. 

When she first became vice president, Harris, a former U.S. senator and attorney general for California, was considered by many analysts to be somewhat of a novice in foreign policy. Over the past 3 ½ years as vice president, she has visited more than 19 countries and met with more than 150 foreign leaders, according to the White House website.

VOA compiled some of Harris’s remarks on China policy during her tenure as vice president and earlier as a U.S. senator.

US-China economic relations

In September 2023, Harris traveled to attend the ASEAN summit in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta. After the meeting, she spoke about U.S.-China relations and Indo-Pacific policy on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“We, as the United States, in our policy, it is not about decoupling, it is about de-risking. It is about understanding,” she said.

“It’s not about pulling out, but it is about ensuring that we are protecting American interests, and that we are a leader in terms of the rules of the road, as opposed to following others’ rules,” Harris said.

China’s economic downturn

“It’s no secret that China is experiencing economic problems,” she said during the “Face the Nation” interview.

“And what you will find — certainly in my conversations with American business leaders — is that they are looking at the future in terms of their capital investments and taking into account which countries are engaged in practices that are about abiding by the rule of law and international rules and norms in a way that they can be guaranteed that there will be some stability so they can make long-term investments.”

“There is increasingly an understanding that China may not be the best bet when you are looking for stability, when you are looking for an investment in a place where there is an adherence to and respect for international rules and norms,” Harris added.

International aid

During her visit to Africa in March 2023, at a news conference with Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema, Harris reiterated her call for “all bilateral official creditors to provide a meaningful debt reduction for Zambia” — an oblique reference to China, Zambia’s top foreign creditor. However, she stressed that “our presence here is not about China.”

US-China relations

Harris’ first meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping was at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Bangkok in 2022, when she held brief talks with Xi and stressed the importance of maintaining “open lines of communication to responsibly manage the competition between our countries.”

Taiwan

In a September 2022 meeting with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, Harris reaffirmed that the U.S. would continue to support Taiwan and oppose any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo.

The White House said Harris underscored that the effort to preserve peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is an essential element of a free and open Indo-Pacific region. 

During a visit to Japan that same month, she said aboard the destroyer USS Howard at Yokosuka Naval Base, “We have witnessed disturbing behavior in the East China Sea and in the South China Sea, and most recently, provocations across the Taiwan Strait.”

China considers Taiwan to be a breakaway province that must one day reunite with the mainland, by force if necessary, and often sends military air and watercraft nearby to assert its claim to the self-governing island. 

South China Sea

During her visit to Japan, Harris commented on China’s aggression in the South China Sea.

“China is undermining key elements of the international rules-based order. China has challenged the freedom of the seas. China has flexed its military and economic might to coerce and intimidate its neighbors,” she said.

“We will continue to fly, sail, and operate undaunted and unafraid wherever and whenever international law allows,” Harris added.

Beijing claims most of the South China Sea as its own, putting it in conflict with Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. Chinese ships on several occasions this year used water cannons and blocked its rivals’ ships in the disputed territories. 

Last year on “Face the Nation,” Harris said, “What is happening in terms of unprovoked actions against the Philippine interests in the South China Sea is significant and we have been very clear that we stand with the Philippines.”

Beijing and Manila on Sunday announced a deal they say aims to stop the clashes.

China’s human rights, Hong Kong

During her tenure as a U.S. senator for California, Harris actively pushed for legislation to uphold human rights in Hong Kong, which analysts say has seen its autonomy gradually stripped away by Beijing.  

In 2019, she co-sponsored the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act introduced by Republican Senator Marco Rubio, which aims to promote human rights in Hong Kong and sanction officials involved in “undermining Hong Kong’s fundamental freedoms and autonomy.” The bill was later signed into law by then-President Donald Trump.

Xinjiang

Harris also co-sponsored and facilitated the passage of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2019, which became law in 2020. The bill authorizes the United States to impose sanctions on “foreign individuals and entities responsible for human rights violations in Xinjiang,” China’s westernmost province that is home to the ethnic Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim minority.        

China denies there are any rights violations in Xinjiang.

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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washington — The United States is looking to boost intelligence collection in the Arctic and enhance cooperation with allies in the region, to prevent Russia and China from exploiting the cold and icy northern region at America’s expense.

The mandate, part of the Pentagon’s just-released 2024 Arctic Strategy, comes as U.S. defense officials warn climate change is melting Arctic ice that used to keep adversaries at bay, and there are indications of growing Russian-Chinese cooperation in the region.

“In the Arctic, the strategic can quickly become tactical,” said Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, briefing reporters at the Pentagon.

“Ensuring that our troops have the training, the gear and the operating procedures for the unique Arctic environment [may] be the difference between mission success and failure,” she added.

The newly unveiled strategy calls for expanding the types of surveillance and intelligence capabilities that the U.S. military employs elsewhere in the world to the far north, where frigid temperatures can interfere with their operation.

Specifically, the strategy outlines the need for more ground-based sensors, space-based sensors and long-range radar to better pick up on activity by U.S. adversaries.

The U.S. is also looking to increase its unmanned aerial reconnaissance capabilities and its communication capabilities.

Hicks said the U.S. has already invested tens of millions of dollars in such capabilities, but that more is needed.

“The Arctic’s vast distances, especially in North America, make supporting infrastructure vital for Arctic operations and presence,” according to the new strategy. “However, much of the legacy Cold War-era infrastructure has declined over time due to the harsh environment, lack of investment, and climate change-driven permafrost thawing and coastal erosion.”

One bonus for the new Arctic strategy, according to U.S. defense officials, is the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO, which means every Arctic nation except for Russia is now part of the Western alliance.

U.S. officials have repeatedly praised Swedish and Finnish capabilities in the Arctic, and the strategy envisions additional joint exercises and cooperation, which could be required to counter an uptick in Russian and Chinese activities in the region.

“It’s very noticeable and concerning,” Hicks said.

“The Russians, of course, have, even as they’ve continued their operation, their war in in Ukraine, they’ve been continuing to invest in their infrastructure throughout the Arctic region that they can access,” she said. “And then we’ve seen much more PRC [People’s Republic of China] activity, both in terms of so-called research, but because of their civil fusion, we always have concern that there’s a military aspect to that.”

There have also been signs of increased cooperation between Russia and China.

The two countries conducted a joint naval patrol near Alaska’s Aleutian Islands last August, prompting the U.S. to deploy four naval destroyers and patrol aircraft as a precaution.

But Iris Ferguson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Arctic, told reporters Monday that those types of Russian and Chinese efforts are just the tip of the iceberg.

“We’ve seen an uptick, an uptick in their cooperation over the last couple of years,” Ferguson said. “We see China investing in a lot of Russian energy in order to not only have them supply that energy to the PRC, but also that is helping embolden some of Russia’s activity in Ukraine.”

Ferguson sought not to overplay the threat, saying Russian-Chinese cooperation in the Arctic is “somewhat superficial in nature still, especially from a military perspective.”

However, Pentagon officials expect the Russian-Chinese military relationship to evolve, noting the growing level of Chinese military research in the Arctic and Beijing’s attempts to “internationalize” and influence the region as a whole.

“We see them operating more regularly in the last several years from a military perspective. Even just a couple of weeks ago, there were several Chinese warships off of the coast of Alaska,” Ferguson said. “They are our long-term pacing challenge and I think that that includes in the Arctic.”

The Russian and Chinese embassies in Washington have yet to respond to requests for comment.
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washington — U.S. President Joe Biden’s announcement that he was dropping his reelection bid sparked reactions from former U.S. officials who said Washington’s relations with Seoul are at a crossroads and will either continue on the same path or make a sharp turn.

These officials, who dealt extensively with South Korea, said Biden’s exit would have no immediate impact on Washington-Seoul ties.

“The U.S.-ROK alliance has never been stronger and more capable than it is today, and that alliance will remain so until the end of President Biden’s term next year,” said Evans Revere, who served as the principal deputy assistant secretary and acting assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs.

The Republic of Korea (ROK) is the official name for South Korea.

“Given that Biden will remain president for the next six months, I see little change in U.S. foreign and national security policy and posture over that time with either allies or adversaries, regardless of whatever contingencies or provocations might arise, including on the Korean Peninsula,” Robert Rapson, who served as deputy chief of mission and charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul from 2018 to 2021, said in written comments.

Biden called off his bid for reelection Sunday amid mounting pressure from top Democrats who cited his declining polling numbers since his poor debate performance against former President Donald Trump last month.

Biden said in a letter posted on his social media account X, formerly Twitter, that he would focus the remainder of his term on presidential duties and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for president. He said he would speak more about his decision later this week.

The South Korean Foreign Ministry sent a statement via email to VOA’s Korean Service on Sunday that said Seoul “will continue to work closely with the United States to maintain and develop the ROK-U.S. alliance, which has been upgraded to a global comprehensive strategic alliance.”

The office of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said in a statement Sunday that it “would not comment on domestic political situations of any other countries.”

The statement continued, “Bipartisan support for the ROK-U.S. alliance is rock solid. We will closely collaborate with the United States to continuously strengthen the global comprehensive strategic alliance between the Republic of Korea and the United States.”

Harris, if nominated by her party at the Democratic National Convention next month, will face Trump, who secured the presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention last week.

“If Trump wins, then yes, there could be big changes to the Nuclear Consultative Group and U.S. attitudes toward North Korea and the ROK nuclear program,” said Gary Samore, former White House coordinator for arms control and WMD during the Obama administration.

“If Harris wins, I don’t think there’ll be big changes. I think there’ll be continuity,” he said.

Dennis Wilder, senior director for East Asia at the White House’s National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration, said some changes are to be expected if the Republicans win. But “in the Democratic Party, the views are quite set, and the views are very positive on South Korea.”

Unlike Trump, who preferred personal engagement with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Biden and Yoon have preferred strengthening their defense against North Korea through mechanisms such as the Nuclear Consultative Group.

The NCG is a bilateral body aimed at discussing joint nuclear planning to strengthen deterrence against North Korea. The U.S. and South Korean heads of the NCG signed nuclear deterrence and operations guidelines on July 11 in Washington.

During their meeting on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Washington the same day, Biden and Yoon referred to the guidelines as “the advancement of U.S.-ROK security cooperation” since they announced the Washington Declaration in April.

The Washington Declaration affirmed the U.S. use of nuclear weapons to defend South Korea and Seoul’s commitment toward nonproliferation.

Yoon touted Seoul-Washington ties as a “nuclear-based alliance” on July 16 after returning home from Washington.

But a possible reelection of Trump, who had not discounted a U.S. troop reduction in South Korea, has fueled already growing calls among the South Korean public and some lawmakers for Seoul to develop its own nuclear weapons as they became increasingly uncertain of the U.S. defense commitment.

Harry Harris, former U.S. ambassador to South Korea during the Trump administration, said, however, “Alliance[s] transcend individual leaders.”

“I foresee no reduction in cooperation and coordination between the U.S. and South Korea, in all aspects of our relationship and especially in the combined military relationship,” he added.

Joon Ho Ahn contributed to this report.
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State Department — A top State Department official says the United States supports non-political representation by Myanmar, also known as Burma, at this week’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ foreign ministers’ meetings in Vientiane, Laos.  

This Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will head to Asia to hold talks with ASEAN officials, including discussions on the ongoing crisis in Burma. Officials say Washington also continues to engage with the Burmese democratic opposition groups.

In a phone briefing on Monday, Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told VOA that it is his understanding that there will be a representative from Burma at the meetings.

“It will be at the permanent secretary, non-political level,” Kritenbrink said. “We believe that any Burmese representation in the ASEAN meeting should be at a downgraded, non-political level, and that is what you will see in this coming week.”

In January, Myanmar’s military junta sent a senior official to attend an ASEAN foreign ministers’ retreat in Laos. Since it launched a coup in 2021 that ousted Myanmar’s democratically elected government, the junta has been barred from sending political appointees to high-level meetings of the Southeast Asian bloc.

Marlar Than Htaik, the permanent secretary of the foreign ministry under the control of Myanmar’s junta, attended meetings earlier this year on January 29.

Last week, more than 300 Burmese civil society organizations and revolutionary forces endorsed a letter sent to ASEAN’s secretary-general, Kao Kim Hourn, and other bloc officials.

The letter urged ASEAN to exclude Myanmar’s military junta members from all meetings and events and to ensure Myanmar is represented by its democratically elected leaders.

“We’ve spent probably even more time and effort in engaging the democratic opposition, various Burmese related groups inside and outside of Burma, and our commitment to those groups will continue going forward,” Kritenbrink told VOA.

He added the U.S. will continue to implement “unprecedented sanctions and other measures” to cut off the junta leaders’ ability to “acquire the funds necessary to continue to prosecute the atrocities.”   

The U.S. also “strongly supports” the ASEAN five-point consensus on ending the Myanmar crisis.

Shortly after the military coup began, the leaders of nine ASEAN member states and the Myanmar junta chief, General Min Aung Hlaing, agreed to an immediate end to violence in the country. They also agreed to the appointment of a special envoy to visit Myanmar and to meet with all parties and promote dialogue and humanitarian assistance from ASEAN.

Despite those promises, the Southeast Asian bloc, has largely been divided over the conflict in Myanmar, analysts say.  

“The most authoritarian members of ASEAN, which would be Laos and Cambodia, to an extent, are still sticking with the junta,” Priscilla Clapp, a senior adviser at the United States Institute of Peace, told VOA.

Other members, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, have had some level of interaction with the Myanmar resistance.  

“I would say that none of the ASEAN countries really understands fully what’s happening on the ground in Burma,” Clapp said in a recent interview.  

She added that since ASEAN operates by consensus, achieving unanimity when dealing with the junta is difficult, given the differences among individual governments.
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Islamabad — Pakistan’s police raided the imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s political party office in Islamabad on Monday and arrested its spokesman for carrying out anti-state propaganda, the Interior Ministry said.

In a statement, the ministry said officers also arrested Ahmad Janjua, a media coordinator for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf or PTI party. Janjua was arrested over the weekend in a separate raid.

The arrests have drawn criticism from Gohar Ali Khan, the chairman of PTI, who said authorities also arrested some other workers of the party’s media wing, in a series of police raids in recent weeks.

Pakistani authorities often accuse the PTI of running a campaign against the country’s institutions, a reference to the military, a charge the party denies.

Khan has been embroiled in more than 150 cases since 2022 when he was ousted through a vote of no-confidence in the parliament.

He has been held at a prison in the garrison city of Rawalpindi since last year after his arrest. 
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Bangkok — Relatives of 85 people who died 20 years ago at a protest in Thailand’s Muslim-majority south are in a race against time to take former military and police officers to trial before the statute of limitations for their alleged crimes runs out.

A court in southern Thailand is holding hearings that continue this week to decide whether to indict nine former officers for the so-called Tak Bai Massacre of Oct. 25, 2004, which is still the deadliest single event in Thailand since a Muslim insurgency began earlier that same year.

On that day two decades ago in Tak Bai district, Narathiwat province, soldiers and police responding to a protest for the release of detained rebel suspects shot seven people dead. The officers forced many more protesters into police trucks destined for a military camp some 140 kilometers away, leaving them packed inside and forced to lie on top of one another for hours.

Seventy-eight of them died. A state inquest later determined that they had suffocated. Many others were injured, some for life.

No one has ever been charged over the deaths or injuries, let alone convicted.

Hoping to change that, 48 survivors and relatives of the dead filed a lawsuit with the Narathiwat provincial court in April against nine officers, all since retired, for unlawful detention, malfeasance and murder.

The court began hearings on whether to indict any of the accused last month. It held a third day of hearings last Friday and is due to hold another on July 26.

With the statute of limitations due to expire in October, exactly 20 years from the event, it is a race against time for the plaintiffs, including Latipah Mudo, whose 62-year-old father, Sama-ae Mudo, was among those who died in the trucks.

“I was very sad when it happened, and the feeling is the same today,” Mudo, who is now 45, told VOA.

“I want the perpetrators to be punished for what they did to us. Tak Bai should be an example that this kind of thing will never happen again,” she said.

Pornpen Khongkachonkiet, a human rights activist and lawyer representing a survivor of the trucks whose arm and leg were permanently paralyzed, says the plaintiffs want to hear the accused account for their actions on the record.

“This incident has been haunting … the communities,” she said. “They want the perpetrators to [stand] up in the court and tell them what happened, why did they do this, why did they do [or act] as a not human.” 

The plaintiffs hope their case can help prevent similar alleged abuses in Thailand’s insurgency-racked south from recurring, she added.

Once the seat of a Muslim sultanate, the southern provinces of modern-day Thailand were deeded to the then-kingdom of Siam by the British in 1909. Rejecting the transfer, several armed ethnic Malay Muslim groups have waged a guerrilla war against the Thai state to win independence for the provinces.

More than 7,000 people have died in related violence since fighting intensified in January 2004.

Since the deaths at Tak Bai, locals and rights groups say Thai authorities have repeatedly abused the martial and emergency laws imposed on much of the south in the years that followed in a bid to put the insurgency down. They cite several cases of alleged torture and extrajudicial killings of suspected rebels in custody. Thai courts and prior governments have rejected claims of the state’s responsibility in a number of those cases.

“As I learned from the locals since I’ve been working on other documentation of torture, enforced disappearances, the violence still continues, from then until now. And most of the time there [was] no power enough to bring perpetrators to justice,” Pornpen said. “We wanted to bring the [Tak Bai] case … to prove that something like this should not happen again.”

In December 2004, a fact-finding committee appointed by the government concluded that security forces used inappropriate measures to disperse the Tak Bai protesters and that commanding officers failed to adequately supervise the transport of the detainees. But authorities did not pursue charges, and the police claimed force majeure, a legal term referring to events beyond the parties’ control.

The plaintiffs reject the claim.

“It’s not true. It happened because of somebody’s actions; that’s why they died. Their excuse is not reasonable,” said Mudo.

According to local media reports, the Narathiwat court said Friday it would announce its decision whether to take any of the accused to trial on August 23. The court could not be reached to confirm or comment on the date.

Pornpen said the plaintiffs had not filed a case sooner for many reasons, including the compensation the government paid out to relatives of the dead and fear of reprisal from authorities, especially during the intervening years of military-led and -backed governments.

After nearly two decades, though, the events of Oct. 25, 2004, continue to loom large over the country’s deep south, says Rungrawee Chalermsripinyorat, a lecturer at the Peace Studies Institute of southern Thailand’s Prince of Songkla University.

She says the deaths remain a prime recruiting tool for the insurgent groups, and an enduring example of what many Thais believe to be a two-tier justice system.

“It is a testament of the culture of impunity that [is] happening in southern Thailand, so people want to see that those responsible are being punished, brought to [the] justice system, and that has never happened in the past nearly 20 years,” she said.

Insurgent groups often draw on generations-old grievances to entice and inspire new recruits.

“But when they use the Tak Bai incident, this is something that they don’t really have to tell people so much [about] because it’s still vivid in their memory, so it’s easy … to encourage people to join the movement,” Rungrawee said.

While bombings, assassinations and shootouts across the south continue to occur alongside police raids and arrests, the pace of the violence has waned over the years. The government has gradually scaled back some of its emergency powers over the region as well and is in talks with some of the rebel groups over the terms of a possible cease-fire.

Should the Narathiwat court decide to indict the retired officers and ultimately be seen to have held them accountable, Rungrawee said the Tak Bai case could also help ease tensions and even move the peace talks forward.

“It would help to create a better atmosphere,” she said, “to show … that the state does not endure this culture of impunity, [that] the rule of law will be strictly respected.” 
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TOKYO — Foreign and defense ministers from Japan and the United States will hold security talks in Japan on July 28 in an effort to push forward what U.S. President Joe Biden called a historic upgrade in the alliance.

The so-called “2+2” talks will cover extended deterrence, a term used to describe the U.S. commitment to use its nuclear and conventional forces to deter attacks on allies, Japan’s foreign ministry said on Monday.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will also hold a bilateral meeting with his Japanese counterpart Yoko Kamikawa during the visit, while U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will hold three-way talks with his counterparts from Japan and South Korea.

Tokyo and Washington in April announced a series of initiatives to strengthen their ties in what Biden called the most significant upgrade since the U.S.-Japan alliance, which was first signed in 1951, began.

These include efforts to deepen cooperation between defense industries and upgrade military command structures to improve coordination, as both countries look to deter regional threats they see emanating from China, North Korea and Russia.

“These historic 2+2 talks will cement our shift from a focus on Alliance protection to one of Alliance projection,” U.S. ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said.

“Through a transformation of the command structure of the United States forces in Japan, aligned with Japan’s own groundbreaking launch of its joint command next March, the Alliance will be ready and equipped to respond to the security challenges of the Indo-Pacific for decades to come.”
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DHAKA, Bangladesh — Bangladesh remained without internet for a fifth day and the government declared a public holiday Monday, as authorities maintained tight control despite apparent calm following a court order that scaled back a controversial system for allocating government jobs that sparked violent protests.

This comes after a curfew with a shoot-on-sight order was installed days earlier and military personnel could be seen patrolling the capital and other areas.

The South Asian country witnessed clashes between the police and mainly student protesters demanding an end to a quota that reserved 30% of government jobs for relatives of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971. The violence has killed more than a hundred people, according to at least four local newspapers. Authorities have not so far shared official figures for deaths.

There was no immediate violence reported on Monday morning after the Supreme Court ordered, the day before, the veterans’ quota to be cut to 5%. Thus, 93% of civil service jobs will be merit-based while the remaining 2% reserved for members of ethnic minorities as well as transgender and disabled people.

On Sunday night, some student protesters urged the government to restore internet services. Hasnat Abdullah, a coordinator of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, told the Associated Press that they were withdrawing their calls for a complete shutdown, which they attempted to impose last week.

“But we are issuing an ultimatum for 48 hours to stop the digital crackdown and restore internet connectivity,” he said, adding that security officials deployed at various universities should be withdrawn, student dormitories reopened and steps taken so students can return to their campuses safely. Abdullah also said they wanted the government to end the curfew and ensure the country was back to normal within two days.

Students have also demanded some university officials to step down after failing to protect campuses. Sarjis Alam, another coordinator of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, said that they would continue with their protests if all their demands weren’t met. “We cannot step back from our movement like a coward,” he added.

Another key organizer of the student protests, Nahid Islam, told reporters that the internet shutdown had disrupted their ability to communicate and alleged that authorities were trying to create divisions among protesters. “I am mentally traumatized … our unity is being destroyed,” he said.

The U.S. Embassy in the capital Dhaka described Sunday the situation as “extremely volatile” and “unpredictable,” adding that guns, tear gas and other weapons have been used in the vicinity of the embassy. They said the Bangladeshi army had been deployed and urged Americans to be vigilant, avoid large crowds and reconsider travel plans.

The protests have posed the most serious challenge to Bangladesh’s government since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina won a fourth consecutive term in January elections that the main opposition groups boycotted. Universities have been closed, the internet has been shut off and the government has ordered people to stay at home.

Protesters had argued the quota system was discriminatory and benefited supporters of Hasina, whose Awami League party led the independence movement, and wanted it replaced by a merit-based system. Hasina has defended the quota system, saying that veterans deserve the highest respect regardless of political affiliation.

The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party has backed the protests, vowing to organize its own demonstrations as many of its supporters joined the student-led protests.

The Awami League and the BNP have often accused each other of fueling political chaos and violence, most recently ahead of the country’s national election, which was marred by a crackdown on several opposition figures.
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PRAYAGARAJ, India/MUMBAI, India — Sunil Kumar, a 30-year-old, has spent the last nine years of his life chasing a job in the Indian government.

Packed with scores of others in makeshift classrooms under tin roofs with barely enough light and air, Kumar has spent years cramming for a variety of tests, including the prestigious civil services exam needed to get a job as a federal government bureaucrat. He has also tried for a provincial civil services post and two other tests for lower-level government positions.

He has been unsuccessful in 13 attempts to get a job.

A resident of Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous state, Kumar says he will continue to try for a government job until he turns 32, three years short of the cut-off for him to appear in a civil services exam.

“There is more security in government jobs,” said Kumar. “If it happens in 2-3 years, the struggle of 10 years will be worth it.”

According to government figures, 220 million people applied for federal jobs between 2014-2022, of whom 722,000 were selected. Many of those would have been repeat attempts, but still, tens of millions of young Indians chase government jobs every year even though the economy is booming and the private sector is expanding.

The trend underscores cultural and economic anxieties facing many Indians. Despite living in the world’s fastest-growing major economy, many are grappling with an uncertain employment market where job opportunities, let alone job security, are hard to come by. Many see government employment as more secure than private-sector jobs in the world’s most populous nation.

“If one person in the family gets a government job, the family believes they are settled for life,” said Zafar Baksh, who runs a training institute for those appearing in tests for such jobs.

In neighboring Bangladesh, student protests against reserved quotas in government jobs killed more than 100 people last week.

Since 2014, India’s GDP has grown from $2 trillion to near $3.5 trillion in fiscal 2023-24 (April-March) and is expected to expand 7.2% in the current year.

The aspirants say the government offers lifelong security, health benefits, pensions and housing, which they may not get in private employment. Few will admit to it, but many of the government jobs also offer the prospect of money under the table.

Growing demand for the cram school classes has attracted large players and lessons have moved online too, said Baksh, who sees it as a lucrative and perennial business.

“There will always be demand.”

Not enough good jobs

Discontent over employment opportunities was cited by analysts as a key reason for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party failing to win a majority on its own in the April-May general election, and returning to power only with the support of allies.

Government data released this month showed 20 million new employment opportunities were generated in India each year since 2017/18 but private economists said much of this was self-employment and temporary farm hiring rather than formal positions with regular wages.

The government, which presents the first budget since the election next week, is likely to push job creation by giving tax incentives for new manufacturing facilities as well as by encouraging local procurement across sectors like defense, Nomura said in a note this month. But these will take time to yield jobs.

“It’s not just that there aren’t enough jobs out there, it’s also that there are not enough jobs that pay well and give you security of tenure and other benefits,” said Rosa Abraham, assistant professor at the Centre for Sustainable Employment at Azim Premji University in Bengaluru city.

For 22-year-old Pradeep Gupta, who hopes to land a government job, working in the private sector is the “last option.”

“There is honor, job security and less pressure” in a government job, he said, speaking in the Uttar Pradesh city of Prayagraj.

Nearly 5 million students applied for 60,000 vacancies in the Uttar Pradesh police force earlier this year and an exam for the post of constable in central government security agencies saw 4.7 million applicants for 26,000 posts.

Another giving applicants a shot at positions such as office boys and drivers in government departments, drew close to 2.6 million applicants in 2023 for about 7,500 jobs.

Across all levels of government, including armed forces, schools, health services and the military, nearly 6 million jobs remain unfilled, India’s main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, has estimated.

An email to the federal government seeking data on government employment and vacancies was not answered.
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Hanoi, Vietnam — A former Vietnamese property and aviation tycoon charged with $146 million in fraud and stock market manipulation went on trial in Hanoi on Monday, the latest corruption case targeting the communist country’s business elite.

Trinh Van Quyet, who owned the FLC empire of luxury resorts, golf courses, and the budget Bamboo Airways, had nearly $2 billion in stock market wealth before his arrest, according to state media estimates.

But on Monday the 48-year-old, handcuffed and dressed in a white shirt, was led into court by police officers.

The trial comes just days after the death of former Communist Party of Vietnam leader Nguyen Phu Trong, who is credited with spearheading a crackdown on graft at the highest levels.

Trong, 80, died on Friday at a military hospital in Hanoi “due to old age and serious illness,” the party said, a day after announcing he was standing down to seek medical care.

Tycoon Quyet is accused of illegally pocketing more than $146 million between 2017 and 2022.

Following his arrest in March 2022, 49 other alleged accomplices were picked up, including his two sisters and the former chairman of the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange and its chief executive officer.

According to the prosecution indictment, Quyet set up several stock market brokerages and registered dozens of family members to, ostensibly, trade shares.

But police said while orders to buy shares were placed in hundreds of trading sessions, pushing up the value of the stock, they were cancelled before being matched.

The case is part of a national corruption crackdown that has swept up numerous officials and members of Vietnam’s business elite in recent years.

In April, a top Vietnamese property tycoon sentenced to death in a $27 billion fraud case, launched an appeal against her conviction.

The head of one of Vietnam’s top soft drinks companies, meanwhile, was jailed for eight years in April in a $40 million fraud case.
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Manila, Philippines — Manila insisted Monday it will continue to “assert our rights” over a hotspot South China Sea reef, after reaching a deal with Beijing for resupplying Filipino troops stationed on a grounded warship. 

The Philippine foreign ministry also rejected suggestions by China that the “provisional arrangement” announced Sunday required Manila to give Beijing “prior notification” and verification of deliveries to the BRP Sierra Madre on Second Thomas Shoal. 

China claims almost the entire South China Sea, including Second Thomas Shoal, which lies about 200 kilometers from the western Philippine island of Palawan and more than 1,000 kilometers from China’s nearest major landmass, Hainan island. 

“The principles and approaches laid out in the agreement were reached through a series of careful and meticulous consultations between both sides that paved the way for a convergence of ideas without compromising national positions,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Teresita Daza said in a statement. 

“The (Chinese foreign ministry) spokesperson’s statement therefore regarding prior notification and on-site confirmation is inaccurate,” Daza said. 

Daza said the Philippines “will continue to assert our rights and jurisdiction in our maritime zones,” which included Second Thomas Shoal. 

The fish-rich shoal has been a focus of violent clashes between Chinese and Philippine ships in recent months as Beijing steps up efforts to push its claims to almost the entire South China Sea. 

A Filipino sailor lost a thumb in the latest June 17 confrontation when Chinese coast guard members wielding knives, sticks and an axe foiled a Philippine Navy attempt to resupply its troops. 

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said Monday Beijing had agreed to an arrangement with the Philippines over Filipino resupply missions “based on our principled position” that the shoal was part of Chinese territory. 

“Should the Philippines need to send living necessities to the personnel living on the warship, China is willing to allow it in a humanitarian spirit if the Philippines informs China in advance and after on-site verification is conducted,” the spokesperson said. 

But it would “absolutely not accept” the delivery of large amounts of construction materials to the ship and attempts to “build fixed facilities or permanent outpost.” 

The resupply arrangement followed talks with Beijing this month when the countries agreed to “de-escalate tensions” and increase the number of communication channels to resolve maritime disagreements between them. 

A handful of Filipino troops are stationed on the decrepit BRP Sierra Madre that was deliberately grounded on Second Thomas Shoal in 1999 to assert Manila’s claims to the area. 

They require frequent resupplies for food, water and other necessities as well as transport for personnel rotations. 
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NEW DELHI — Byju Raveendran, an Indian mathematics whiz who soared from teacher to startup billionaire before his education-technology company imploded this year, now faces his biggest test.

The future of Raveendran’s eponymous Byju’s online coaching firm rests with India’s courts after the country’s biggest startup, once loved by global investors who valued it at $22 billion, crashed below $2 billion in valuation.

The 44-year-old founder last week lost control of the company as a tribunal kick-started an insolvency process.

Accused of “financial mismanagement and compliance issues,” the son of a family of teachers from a small village in south India faces a reckoning that will test the ingenuity that made him a poster child for India’s startups.

His formerly high-flying company was eventually brought low when it could not pay $19 million in sponsorship dues to India’s cricket federation, prompting a tribunal to suspend Byju’s board and make Raveendran report to a court-appointed restructuring expert.

An appeals tribunal is expected to hold a hearing on Monday on whether Byju’s insolvency process should be quashed after the former billionaire argued in court his company is solvent and that insolvency could shut it down and cost the jobs of 27,000 staff, including teachers. Insolvency also would not bode well for Byju’s backers, such as Dutch technology investor Prosus.

Raveendran denies the allegations of mismanagement and wrongdoing at his firm, which has in recent months faced lawsuits over unpaid loans and boardroom battles with foreign investors that went public.

Potential insolvency is a dramatic turn of events for an entrepreneur described by one person who has worked with him as an extremely passionate and goal-oriented person who might adopt “an abrasive approach” in a crisis.

Raveendran presented a “suave, nice and polished” image, appearing to heed advice, but “eventually there was a trust deficit,” said another executive who quit last year as a Byju’s senior vice president.

“He said things are improving, don’t worry, we have the money,” the former executive said.

Raveendran and a Byju’s spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.

Byju’s downfall: ‘Our fair share of mistakes’

An engineer by training, he started Byju’s in 2011 with physical classes after friends urged him to go into teaching.

Raveendran, who aced a premier Indian management exam “with a score of 100 percentile, not once but twice,” according to the company website, started what would become his empire with his wife Divya Gokulnath, 38, a former student of his.

In education-obsessed India, Raveendran hit gold by offering online teaching programs priced from $100 to $300. He got a mammoth boost when the COVID-19 pandemic sent students indoors. At the height of his fame in 2021, he and his wife had a net worth of $4 billion, Forbes reckoned.

Now all that is in tatters.

Behind the reversal of Byju’s meteoric success, say executives and advisers who worked with Raveendran, is that he overruled associates and expanded the business through expensive acquisitions, splurging on marketing and being slow to address problems such as sales agents adopting aggressive tactics to mis-sell courses that damaged the company’s reputation.

With the backing of investors like General Atlantic, Prosus and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropy venture, Raveendran spent millions on acquisitions, and the company says it has 150 million students in over 100 countries.

“While growing fast, as I’ve accepted multiple times, we’ve made our fair share of mistakes,” Raveendran told an interviewer last year at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

As he battled crises, the CEO also said decisions to lay off some of its then-50,000 employees and slash branding expenses would help strengthen loss-making Byju’s and turn its cashflow positive.

“Every country needs a Byju’s,” he said.
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SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea said Sunday it was bolstering its anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts across the tense border with rival North Korea, after the North launched more trash-carrying balloons toward South Korea.

The Cold War-style psychological battle between the two Koreas is adding to already-high tensions on the Korean Peninsula, with the rivals threatening stronger steps against each other and warning of devastating consequences.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the North Korean balloons were flying Sunday morning north of Seoul, the South Korean capital, after crossing the border. It said later Sunday that the South Korean military was responding by expanding loudspeaker broadcasts at all major sections of the Koreas’ 248-kilometer (154-mile)- long border.

“The North Korean military’s tension-escalating acts can result in causing critical consequences for it,” the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. “The responsibility for this situation is entirely on North Korea’s government.”

Details of the expansion of South Korea’s loudspeaker operations were not immediately available. On Thursday, it resumed blasting front-line propaganda broadcasts for the first time in about 40 days in response to the North’s previous balloon activities. But observers say South Korea hadn’t been conducting the broadcasts around the clock and it also hadn’t yet mobilized all its loudspeakers.

The latest South Korean broadcasts included K-pop songs and news on BTS member Jin’s torch-bearing ahead of the Paris Olympics and the recent defection of a senior North Korean diplomat. The broadcasts also called the mine-planting works by North Korean soldiers at the border “hellish, slave-like lives,” according to South Korean media.

Experts say South Korean propaganda broadcasts can demoralize front-line North Korean troops and residents, posing a blow to the North’s efforts to limit access to outside news for its 26 million people. South Korean officials have previously said broadcasts from their loudspeakers can travel about 10 kilometers (6 miles) during the day and 24 kilometers (15 miles) at night.

North Korea hasn’t made an official response to the ongoing South Korean broadcasts. But in 2015, North Korea fired artillery rounds across the border in response to South Korea’s first loudspeaker broadcasts in 11 years, prompting the South to return fire, according to South Korean officials. No casualties were reported.

The North’s latest balloon-flying episode Sunday is the ninth of its kind since late May. North Korea has floated more than 2,000 balloons to drop wastepaper, scraps of cloth, cigarette butts, waste batteries and even manure on South Korea, though they have so far caused no major damage in South Korea. North Korea has said the initial balloons were launched in response to South Korean activists sending political leaflets to the North via their own balloons.

Like South Korean front-line broadcasts, North Korea views the South’s civilian leafleting activities as a major threat to its authoritarian government led by Kim Jong Un. In furious responses to past South Korean leafletting, North Korea destroyed an empty South Korean-built liaison office in its territory in 2020 and fired at incoming balloons in 2014.

In a statement last week, Kim’s powerful younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, threatened new countermeasures against South Korean civilian leafleting as she warned that South Korean “scum” must be ready to pay “a gruesome and dear price” over their actions. She said more South Korean leaflets had been found in North Korea.

That raised concerns North Korea could stage physical provocations, rather than balloon launches. South Korea’s military said North Korea may fire at balloons or scatter mines downriver.

In early June, South Korea suspended a 2018 tension-reduction deal with North Korea, a step required for it to restart propaganda broadcasts and conduct live-fire military drills at border areas in response to the North’s balloon campaigns.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have already been running high because of North Korea’s provocative run of missile tests and the expansion of U.S.-South Korean military drills that North Korea calls invasion rehearsals. Experts say North Korea’s expanding ties with Russia could embolden Kim Jong Un to stage bigger provocations.
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SHUSHA, Azerbaijan — Azerbaijan is proposing to sign a document with Armenia on the basic principles of a future peace treaty as an interim measure as they wrangle over a broader deal, a senior Azerbaijani official said Sunday.

Both Armenia and Azerbaijan have repeatedly said they want to sign a peace treaty to end the conflict over the former breakaway Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said Saturday a text of a treaty was 80%-90% ready but repeated it was impossible to sign it before Armenia amended its constitution to remove an indirect reference to Karabakh independence, which Armenia has rejected.

Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian inhabitants enjoyed de facto independence from Azerbaijan for more than three decades until September 2023, when a lightning Azerbaijani offensive retook the territory and prompted around 100,000 Armenians to flee.

Both countries have in recent months sought to make progress on the peace treaty, including the demarcation of borders, with Armenia agreeing to hand over to Azerbaijan four contested border villages.

A document on the basic principles could be considered as a temporary measure and form the basis of the bilateral ties and ensure neighborly relations between the two countries, Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to the president, told Reuters.

It can be signed until Azerbaijan holds COP29 climate summit in November, Hajiyev added.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in June that a peace treaty with Azerbaijan was close to completion but that his country would not accept its demands that it change its constitution.

After he made those comments, clashes broke out between police and demonstrators, the latest in a series of protests denouncing his policies, including the handing back of ruined villages to Azerbaijan, and demanding his resignation.

On July 5, Constitution Day in Armenia, Pashinyan said the country needed a new constitution “which the people will consider to be what they created, what they accepted, what is written in it is their idea of the state they created and the relations between people and citizens in that state.”
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