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BEIJING — Chinese police have detained a suspect in a stabbing attack on four instructors from Iowa’s Cornell College who were teaching at a Chinese university in the northeast city of Jilin, officials said Tuesday.

Jilin city police said a 55-year-old man surnamed Cui was walking in a public park on Monday when he bumped into a foreigner. He stabbed the foreigner and three other foreigners who were with him, and also stabbed a Chinese person who approached in an attempt to intervene, police said.

The instructors from Cornell College were teaching at Beihua University, officials at the U.S. school said.

The injured were rushed to a hospital for treatment and none was in critical condition, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a daily briefing Tuesday. He said police believe the attack in Jilin city’s Beishan Park was an isolated incident, based on a preliminary assessment, and the investigation is ongoing.

Cornell College President Jonathan Brand said in a statement that the instructors were attacked while at the park with a faculty member from Beihua, which is in an outlying part of Jilin, an industrial city about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) northeast of Beijing. Monday was a public holiday in China.

The State Department said in a statement it was aware of reports of a stabbing and was monitoring the situation. The attack happened as both Beijing and Washington are seeking to expand people-to-people exchanges to help bolster relations amid tensions over trade and such international issues as Taiwan, the South China Sea and the war in Ukraine.

An Iowa state lawmaker posted a statement on Instagram saying his brother, David Zabner, had been wounded during a stabbing attack in Jilin. Rep. Adam Zabner described his brother as a doctoral student at Tufts University who was in China under the Cornell-Beihua relationship.

“I spoke to David a few minutes ago, he is recovering from his injuries and doing well,” Adam Zabner wrote, adding that his brother was grateful for the care he received at a hospital.

News of the incident was suppressed in China, where the government maintains control on information about anything considered sensitive. News media outlets had not reported it. Some social media accounts posted foreign media reports about the attack, but a hashtag about it was blocked on a popular portal and photos and video of the incident were quickly taken down.

Cornell spokesperson Jen Visser said in an email that the college was still gathering information about what happened.

Visser said the private college in Mount Vernon, Iowa, partners with Beihua University. A college news release from 2018, when the program started, says Beihua provides funding for Cornell professors to travel to China to teach a portion of courses in computer science, mathematics and physics over a two-week period.

According to a 2020 post on Beihua’s website, the Chinese university uses American teaching methods and resources to give engineering students an international perspective and English-language ability.

About one-third of the core courses in the program use U.S. textbooks and are taught by American professors, according to the post. Students can apply to study for two years of their four-year education at Cornell College and receive degrees from both institutions.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has unveiled a plan to invite 50,000 young Americans to China in the next five years, though Chinese diplomats say a travel advisory by the U.S. State Department has discouraged Americans from visiting China.

Citing arbitrary detentions as well as exit bans that could prevent Americans from leaving the country, the State Department has issued a Level 3 travel advisory — the second-highest warning level — for mainland China. It urges Americans to “reconsider travel” to China.

Some American universities have suspended their China programs due to the travel advisory.

Lin, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said China has taken effective measures to protect the safety of foreigners. “We believe that the isolated incident will not disrupt normal cultural and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries,” he said.
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Sydney — Bird flu continues to spread in the Australian state of Victoria, where more than 500,000 chickens have been euthanized.  Strict quarantine zones restricting the movement of birds and equipment have also been put in place.  Australian health authorities say bird flu spreads mainly among wild water birds.

The highly pathogenic H7N3 strain of avian influenza has been found on four farms, while another virus, H7N9, has been detected at a fifth property over the past seven weeks in Victoria state.  The Australian farms have been put into lockdown.  At least 580,000 birds have been destroyed as part of sweeping biosecurity controls.

Japan and the United States have temporarily banned imports of poultry from Victoria as a precaution.

In Australia, some supermarkets are restricting the number of eggs that consumers can buy because of disruptions to the supply chain.

Avian influenza is a viral disease found across the world. It spreads between birds or when contaminated animal feed and equipment is moved between areas.

Danyel Cucinotta is the vice president of the Victorian Farmers Federation, an industry group.  She told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.  Tuesday that the virus can spread quickly.

“There is very little we can do and no matter how good your biosecurity is you cannot stop wild fowl coming in. This is a particular flight path for migratory birds.  There is housing orders at the moment, which means all birds get locked up.  This is about protecting our birds and protecting the food supply chain,” she said.

The strains of bird flu identified in the states of Victoria and Western Australia can infect people, but experts insist that cases are rare.

The virus can also infect cows.  The United States’ Department of Agriculture has said that avian flu has infected dairy cows in more than 80 herds across several states since late March.

At least three U.S. dairy workers have tested positive for bird flu after exposure to infected cattle.  All three patients are recovering.  

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the infections do not change its assessment that bird flu is a low risk to the general community and that it has not seen evidence of human-to-human transmission.

Last month, health authorities in Mexico confirmed a fatal case of human infection with an avian flu virus that had been reported in poultry.
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Taipei, Taiwan — Taiwanese photographer Lin Jai-hang never thought a seemingly routine business trip to China would turn into a 12-hour detention at a Chinese police station.

Lin, who has published several books documenting the lives of gay men, said he was supposed to promote his works at a book fair in China’s Nanjing City on May 31. But less than half an hour after he began to set up his booth, seven or eight strangers came up to start taking photos of his books and soon they called the police to take Lin away.  

“The police first went back to my hotel room for another round of search and took me and a staff from the book fair to the police station,” Lin told VOA in a phone interview, adding that the police told him he would be detained for 24 hours for “spreading obscene images.”

“They took away my phone, put me in handcuffs, performed a strip search on me, and collected my fingerprints and blood samples,” he said. 

During the questioning, the police asked Lin a series of personal questions, including his sexual orientation, details about his family, why he photographed gay men, and why he decided to join the book fair. “The police then sent me back to a room and I was detained for several hours with other people,” Lin recalled.

He was eventually released around midnight, but the police confiscated most of his works. “They told me that I was detained because the subjects of my works aren’t appropriate for public display,” he told VOA, adding that the police took away anything related to LGBTQ topics.  

Lin isn’t the only Taiwanese briefly detained in China in recent weeks. Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, which oversees cross-strait relations, revealed on June 6 that a Taiwanese citizen was taken away by Chinese police and detained for several days while traveling with a tour group in the southern province of Fujian.

The council’s spokesperson Liang Wen-jie said this is the first time a member of a Taiwanese tour group was detained in China and the individual, whose identity remains undisclosed, was released a few days after his tour group returned to Taiwan.

Chiu Chui-cheng, the head of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, urged Taiwanese people to be aware of their safety and carefully assess the potential risks if they plan to travel to China, Hong Kong, or Macau.  

The Chinese government hasn’t publicly commented on the two cases and VOA has reached out to China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, which manages cross-strait relations, for comment.

Increased security risks

The detentions come as China passed a series of laws aimed at safeguarding national security since last year. Last July, China revised its anti-espionage law that gives authorities more power to punish what they view as threats to national security. In March, China’s rubber-stamp parliament vowed to adopt several security-related laws in 2024. 

Some analysts say the detention of the two Taiwanese reflects China’s growing concern about Taiwan potentially pursuing independence under President Lai Ching-te’s leadership and Beijing’s attempt to stop this trend.

“Beijing’s efforts to enact a series of new laws related to national security show that they believe it’s necessary to roll out more forceful measures to safeguard their core interests,” said Hung Chin-fu, a political scientist at National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan.   

Against this backdrop, other experts say Taiwanese people will face greater risks when traveling to China. “With the counter-espionage law and the national security law, there has been an expansion in the range of activities that could bring in law enforcement action in [China,]” Ja Ian Chong, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore, told VOA in a written response.

In his view, citizens from countries or places that have higher tension with China may face higher risks of being targeted by Chinese law enforcement. “See the earlier detentions of Australians [and] Canadians,” Chong said, adding that this means Taiwanese people will also face greater risks in China as tensions between Beijing and Taipei continue to rise.

Hung in Taiwan thinks this trend will create a chilling effect in Taiwan and deter some Taiwanese from traveling to China. “Since there is almost no guarantee of personal safety, any Taiwanese person thinking about traveling to China needs to carefully assess whether it’s worth taking the risks or not,” Hung said.

Some Taiwanese activists say the two recent cases reflect the lack of transparency to know where the red lines are,” said Lee Ming-che, a Taiwanese activist sentenced to five years in prison on subversion charges in 2017 by a Chinese court.

Taiwanese photographer Lin said the experience has convinced him that the risks of traveling to China are simply too high for artists like him, who focus on subjects considered inappropriate by the Chinese authorities.

“I don’t think I will consider traveling to China anytime soon because I’m worried I could be targeted if they arrest me under a different crime,” he told VOA, adding that his experience makes him believe that China is an unfriendly place to LGBTQ artists like him.

As China prepares to hold the annual Straits Forum in the coastal city of Xiamen on June 15, Hung thinks both sides of the Taiwan Strait are unlikely to reduce the increasingly heightened tension through the meeting.

“While China will try to continue influencing some Taiwanese people who favor deepening cross-strait exchanges, the effect of their influence campaign will be limited because the overall trend of cross-strait relations is still deteriorating,” he told VOA.

“A new Cold War is forming between the Chinese government and the Taiwanese government under the leadership of the pro-sovereignty Democratic Progressive Party,” Hung said.
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MANILA, Philippines — Hundreds of American and Philippine troops concluded Monday a new combat exercise in the northern Philippines that tested their endurance in more than a week of brutal heat and volatile weather, and braced them to respond to any threat in tropical jungles and on scattered islands, two U.S. and Philippine generals said. 

The Biden administration has been strengthening an arc of military alliances in the Indo-Pacific to better counter China, including in any possible confrontation over Taiwan and other Asian flash points. The move has dovetailed with Philippine efforts to shore up its territorial defenses amid escalating disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea. 

The large-scale battle drills, which have been held in Hawaii in recent years under the U.S. Army’s Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center, have been introduced in the Philippines this year. There is also a version in Alaska. The exercises allow the U.S. Army, its allies and friendly forces to train in extreme conditions “where they are most likely to operate from archipelagos, jungles and heat in the tropics to high-altitude and extreme cold in the Arctic,” said Major Adan Cazarez, a public affairs officer of the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division. 

The June 1-10 warfighting exercise began with an air assault on mock enemy forces to allow the deployment of U.S. and Philippine soldiers who secured an area, which served as a staging ground before a major offensive. When their communication lines for supplies were threatened, top commanders decided to shift to a defensive assault and repelled the enemy attempt and successfully launched the offensive. 

Key aspects of the mock battle, including the planning, deployments, logistical preparations and contingency readiness, were reviewed by military assessors for combat efficiency. 

The combat exercises, Cazarez said, were integrated in annual U.S.-Philippine army joint exercises called Salaknib for the first time this year. About 1,500 U.S. and Filipino soldiers participated in the new battle drills staged in a hinterland in Fort Magsaysay, a sprawling Philippine army camp in an agricultural region known for its scorching weather. The temperature this year has been exacerbated by El Nino, an occasional warming of the Pacific that shifts global weather patterns. 

“The terrain is without question some of the most difficult that our soldiers have ever had the experience to move into. The heat on a daily basis was well over 95 degrees (Fahrenheit; 35 degrees Celsius) and it challenged us from a sustainable perspective,” Major General Marcus Evans, commander of the U.S. Army’s Hawaii-based 25th Infantry Division, told The Associated Press in an online interview from the battle training site. 

Coordinating artillery and aerial fire and maneuvers “on a very challenging piece of terrain and, really, unforgiving temperatures, were all things that added to the overall training value,” Evans said. He added that American pilots also had to adjust to the region’s unpredictable weather. 

Philippine army Major General Andrew de Lara Costelo said the combat drills were designed to allow U.S. and Philippine forces and potentially other allies to operate seamlessly in future contingencies. 

“This fosters interoperability and shared tactics, techniques and procedures,” Costelo told the AP. 

“By working together, we harness our combined strengths, knowledge and capabilities, ensuring that we are prepared to face any challenges that may arise,” he said. 

The war exercises were staged after the conclusion of two larger back-to-back exercises earlier this year between U.S. and Philippine forces, the Salaknib and the Balikatan — Tagalog for shoulder-to-shoulder — which involved more than 16,000 U.S. and Philippine military personnel in their largest combat maneuvers that involved live-fire drills in and near the disputed South China Sea. Several countries sent military observers. 

China has vehemently opposed the combat exercises and increased deployments of American forces to Asia, including in the Philippines, saying such military presence was endangering regional stability and was designed to contain Beijing. The Philippine military says the military drills didn’t target any country and served to deter aggression. 

Last year, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. defended his decision to allow a U.S. military presence in more Philippine military camps under a 2014 defense pact, saying it was vital to his country’s territorial defense. 

China had warned that the increased U.S. military presence would “drag the Philippines into the abyss of geopolitical strife.”
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Baramulla, Indian-administered Kashmir  — On June 4, 2024, the Langate neighborhood in Kupwara district on the Indian side of Kashmir reverberated with chants of “Cooker, cooker, pressure cooker,” after the local election commission office declared election results for the three constituencies in the region. 

The results were part of the Indian general elections that ended June 1. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) failed to secure an absolute majority in the voting but he retained office for a rare third term with the support of the Telugu Desam Party, or TDP, and Janata Dal United, or JDU. 

Kashmir Valley exit polls normally favor the oldest regional political party, the National Conference, or NC. In the recent election, however, imprisoned firebrand politician Sheikh Abdul Rashid, popularly known as “Engineer Rashid,” won a landslide victory.  

He defeated Omar Abdullah, former chief minister and vice president of the NC, and Sajad Ghani Lone, a separatist-turned-mainstream politician and founder of the People’s Conference, or PC, by over 200,000 votes. 

Rashid was arrested days before the government of India revoked the disputed Himalayan region’s semiautonomous status in August 2019. He was later charged in a terror-funding case and is currently imprisoned in New Delhi’s Tihar jail.  

He is also the founder of the Awami Ittehad Party, or AIP. 

“My father showed interest after being approached by his party members. He said that he would contest the election from the Baramulla parliamentary constituency if the AIP members thought he was a good fit for the position,” Abrar Rashid, son of Engineer Rashid, told VOA. “AIP had decided to contest the election in October last year,” he added. 

AIP started its campaign late after filing the party chief’s nomination papers on April 30. Despite low resources to cover his campaign expenses, the junior Rashid attracted a massive crowd in support of his father. 

“Initially, the response was moderate. But soon people, especially youth, began showing great interest in our campaigns. They [youth] spent their own money to support the election campaign. We faced a minor issue, as we couldn’t use our traditional party symbol, a cooking gas cylinder, because our party is not registered with the election commission,” Rashid said, adding that a pressure cooker was chosen as a new symbol, and it became popular among the masses in the region. 

Political analysts attribute Engineer Rashid’s landslide victory as an outcome of sympathy and resistance politics. 

“It was altogether a sympathy vote where people thought Engineer Rashid would be released soon after being elected as a member of parliament from north Kashmir,” Muzamil Maqbool, a political analyst and host of the podcast “Plain Talk,” told VOA. 

“Secondly, people, especially the youth, are sick and tired of the same old dynasty politicking. They didn’t see Omar Abdullah or Sajad Lone as suitable candidates to represent them in the Indian parliament,” Maqbool added. 

AIP disagreed, saying Rashid did not win because of sympathy votes but because of the party agenda, which includes the “unconditional release of all prisoners, the preservation of the culture and identity of Jammu and Kashmir, and ensuring full respect for human rights and freedom of expression of the local population.” 

“Engineer Rashid has already proven himself as an honest, humble, pro-poor and fearless leader. Despite being imprisoned in Tihar since 4 August 2019 for speaking up for the people of Kashmir he remains calm and committed to his duty,” AIP spokesperson Firdous Baba said. “Engineer Rashid left his office to represent the nation, inventing a style of politics that brought him suffering but gave hope to the people. His arrest was due to his true interpretation of Kashmir, and he has remained steadfast in his position despite the challenges.”

Sheikh Showkat Hussain, a Kashmiri political analyst and a prominent scholar of human rights and international law, also believes that sympathy worked for AIP and its founder. 

“I would say sympathy, as well as his continued identification with resistance politics, played a crucial part in his victory,” Hussain said. “People had a third option — a former chief minister, a proxy candidate and a person in jail,” he said, referring to Lone, who was covertly supported by Modi’s BJP, without mentioning his name. 

Rashid’s charisma was not confined to the north, as people from south and central Kashmir voluntarily campaigned for him — igniting the flame that led to his victory. 

“Engineer Rashid is the voice of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, and I felt the need to support him,” Mudasir Thoker, a resident of south Kashmir’s Shopian district, told VOA. “I traveled from south to north continuously for 18 hours to extend my support. My message was clear that the youth of Jammu and Kashmir will support a leader who understands the struggles of the local population.” 

Kashmir is a disputed territory between India and Pakistan. The two nuclear-armed South Asian neighboring countries control different parts of the Himalayan territory since their independence from British rule in 1947. A small portion is also under Chinese control.
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ISLAMABAD — Pakistani government officials are hailing as a success a recent five-day visit to China by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. Observers, however, say that despite the usual display of warm relations from both sides, hurdles remain in improving the economic partnership between Beijing and Islamabad, largely because of Pakistan’s poor policies.

Prime Minister Sharif’s visit to China late last week comes as Pakistan is seeking more foreign investment and looking to boost exports to help with its economic crisis amid security concerns.

At a press conference Monday, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar called the visit “extremely successful and historic.”

“The fruits of the historic visit to China will reach the people of Pakistan,” Tarar said.

Sharif visited China at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart, Premier Li Qiang, with whom he held delegation-level talks in Beijing. Sharif also visited Shenzhen and Xi’an to help build business-to-business ties and to observe China’s advancements in agriculture, technology, and business facilitation.

China-Pakistan economic corridor

In China, both sides committed to “forging an upgraded version” of the multi-billion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, by boosting construction, mining and exploration, and industrial cooperation.

Some critics say in its bid to ramp up CPEC, Pakistan is ignoring some harsh lessons from the first decade of the energy and infrastructure project.

“The corridor’s original sin was that Pakistan signed up for a large number of projects that added obligations in foreign currencies and this conflicted with Pakistan’s domestic-oriented exchange rate and industrial policies,” said economist Ali Hasanain. “Those obligations have gradually and predictably narrowed Pakistan’s fiscal space,” added Hasanain, an associate professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences.

Pakistan owes more than $7.5 billion in project debt to power plants set up under CPEC. The country also owes nearly $2 billion in circular debt, or unpaid bills, to Chinese power producers.

Unable to boost exports on the back of new roads and added power generation capacity acquired through CPEC, Pakistan now faces a debt crisis where it is seeking new loans to pay past debt.

Many Pakistani economists blame Islamabad for the crisis.

Hasanain pointed to the Sharif government’s push to upgrade a crumbling cross-country railway line as an example of CPEC projects that will add to the country’s debt burden. The scope of the much-delayed Mainline-1 or ML-1 project has been reduced to bring down the cost, but the roughly $6.8 billion project is struggling to attract Chinese investment.

“While this upgradation will eventually be needed, there has been little consideration of the financial stress it will cause, and how the country will honor resultant obligations in the future,” Hasanain told VOA.

Economic cooperation

According to a joint statement issued at the end of the visit, China and Pakistan signed 23 agreements and Memoranda of Understanding, or MOUs, in a myriad of fields including cooperation on agriculture, infrastructure, industrial cooperation, inter-governmental development assistance, market regulation, surveying and mapping, media, and film.

Ammar Habib Khan, a Karachi-based business affairs expert, says Chinese firms are interested in investing in Pakistan because it is a strategic partner.

“Economic impact extends much longer into the future, maybe 30, 40, even 50 years. With a 30-year horizon or a 20-year horizon it makes sense to continue to invest in Pakistan,” Khan said, adding that the first phase of CPEC has been successful given the infrastructure development it brought.

More than 100 Pakistani business leaders accompanied Sharif on the trip that included a convention with Chinese businesses.

“There is an opportunity here to bring lots of Chinese energy-intensive industry to Pakistan where a lot of surplus power can essentially be used,” Khan said. “CPEC 2.0 will actually be more about utilizing the infrastructure that is in the country and how it can be optimized.”

Khan acknowledged that the renewed focus on CPEC would require Pakistan to first fix its finances.

The joint statement noted Beijing will encourage companies to invest in Pakistan in accordance with the market and commercial principles, signaling that it will not push firms to take unwanted risks or to give any concession to Pakistani companies.

Debt relief

Pakistan’s nearly $375 billion economy is facing a debt burden of almost $290 billion. According to data compiled by CEIC, an online economic database, Pakistan’s foreign debt is close to $130 billion.

Chinese officials say around 13 percent of Pakistan’s external debt is owed to China, but the International Monetary Fund put the figure at almost 30 percent in a 2022 report.

Experts believe China will have to restructure the debt Pakistan owes. During Sharif’s visit, however, no public statement was issued on the topic.

“The Pakistani side entered these meetings with realistically low expectations about winning concessions in the form of restructuring Pakistan’s outstanding debt to China. Some form of relief may yet come, but is unlikely to be significant,” said Hasanain.

Khan believes, even if China agrees to much-needed debt restructuring with Pakistan, it will do so quietly.

“They [the Chinese] are dealing with around 50 countries, all needing some kind of debt relief. If they [Chinese] give public statements, that basically becomes a precedence,” he said.

Security

During the visit, the Pakistani leader, along with the country’s powerful army chief, Gen. Asim Munir, held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping for more than three hours.

The security of Chinese nationals in Pakistan is a key concern for Beijing. Five Chinese workers died in a suicide attack in northwest Pakistan in March, while at least a dozen more have died in targeted attacks in recent years.

“The fact that the army chief accompanied the prime minister shows that we are taking security issues seriously,” Tarar told the press Monday. “We did not spare any effort in satisfying China’s security concerns.”

Naghmana Hashmi, a former Pakistani ambassador to China, told VOA that Beijing is talking tough with Islamabad on the security of Chinese nationals to avoid a backlash from its own people.

“Their people ask questions, their journalists ask questions that here is our best friend and we don’t have people dying anywhere except when they go to Pakistan,” Hashmi said. “Now, everybody does not understand the politics of it so the optics of it are very bad,” the former diplomat said, reiterating Pakistani officials’ stance that adversaries want to derail CPEC.

In the joint statement at the end of the visit, Beijing appreciated Pakistan’s probe of the March 26 attack.

“[The Chinese side] … hoped that the Pakistani side would continue to make every effort to hunt down any perpetrators and make sure they receive deserved severe punishment.”

“The Pakistani side was committed to enhancing security forces deployment,” the statement continued.

Pakistan has blamed the attack on militants based in Afghanistan. In the joint statement, both sides called on Afghanistan to “firmly combat terrorism, including not allowing its territory to be used for terrorist acts.”

The ruling Afghan Taliban have rejected Pakistan’s assertion that militants based in Afghanistan attacked Chinese nationals, saying Islamabad is attempting to poison Kabul’s relations with Beijing.
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A Chinese aircraft manufacturer is actively marketing its commercial jet to the international market, eventually hoping to compete with giants like Boeing and Airbus. But VOA’s Ahadian Utama reports that Beijing faces an uphill battle for Asian skies. Indra Yoga contributed to this report.
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is heading a coalition government as he begins a third term in office. His dependence on regional allies has raised questions about how effectively he will be able to pursue the transformational changes he promised ahead of the elections. From New Delhi, Anjana Pasricha has a report.
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Tokyo — Japanese laws making it easier for the country to deport failed asylum seekers took effect Monday, with campaigners warning that the new system will put lives at risk.

The world’s fourth-largest economy has long been criticized for the low number of asylum applications it accepts. Last year refugee status was granted to a record 303 people, mostly from Afghanistan.

Now the government can deport asylum seekers rejected three times, under immigration law changes enacted last year.

Previously, those seeking refugee status had been able to stay in the country while they appealed decisions, regardless of the number of attempts made.

The revised law is “meant to swiftly deport those without permission to stay and help reduce long-term detentions,” justice minister Ryuji Koizumi said in May.

“Those who need protection will be protected, while those who violate the rules will be dealt with sternly,” he said.

Critics have raised concerns over the transparency of Japan’s screening process, warning that the new rules could heighten the risk of applicants facing persecution after repatriation.

“We’re strongly concerned that the enforcement of this law will allow refugees who have fled to Japan to be deported, and endanger their lives and safety,” the Japan Association for Refugees said on social media platform X.

The group called for a “fair” system to be established instead that “protects asylum seekers in Japan according to the international standards.”

As of May, more than 2,000 Ukrainians were living in Japan under a special framework that recognizes them as “evacuees.”
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Rawalpindi, Pakistan — Pakistan fans were dejected Monday after a loss to arch-rivals India compounded their cricket T20 World Cup misery, with some declaring their campaign a lost cause after only two matches. 

“Cricket is finished for Pakistan,” one spectator told his companions in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, among fans who abandoned a big-screen viewing event before the final ball was bowled. 

As night fell on Sunday, crowds had surged into the 15,000-seat Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium hoping to see a victory for captain Babar Azam’s beleaguered side in a match halfway around the globe in New York. 

However, a low-scoring thriller saw India beat Pakistan by six runs on a tricky batting surface, and in the moments after midnight supporters hurled plastic bottles at the screens in frustration. 

“Fate had something else in mind,” 26-year-old Ahsan Ullah told AFP, as resigned fans streamed out of the stadium. “Right now, our hearts are a little broken.”

The loss follows the major humiliation of Pakistan’s defeat to USA on Thursday, with the co-host debutants beating the 2022 finalists and 2009 champions in a Super Over thriller in Texas.

‘Used to embarrassment’

Pakistan and India’s cricket rivalry is one of the world’s great international sporting feuds.

The game is by far the most popular sport in both countries, which have a combined population of more than 1.6 billion. 

Matches attract staggering numbers of viewers — though the sides face each other only in larger tournaments and in third countries because of long-standing political tensions. 

Sunday’s match was the 13th time the nuclear-armed neighbors have clashed in cricket’s shortest format, with India now dominant as the victors of 10 of those face-offs. 

The rivalry runs so deep that India’s national anthem was muted on the big screens at Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium, where queues snaked outside ahead of a rain-delayed coin toss. 

Green spotlights raked the skies as the match began and Pakistan flags whipped back and forth in stands named after storied players like Imran Khan and Shoaib Akhtar.

Whistles, chants and cheers blared in the early overs, before midnight passed and a sober mood took hold as Pakistan struggled to chase down India’s 119 runs. 

Asked for his diagnosis of the team’s ills, Mohammad Hisham Raja — seeking solace at a nearby restaurant after the match — responded with one word: “batting.” 

“Maybe we got too much in our heads,” the 24-year-old said. “It’s not an embarrassment because we’re used to it now.” 

“Cricket is an escape for us — from our daily routine, from our daily lives, from things that cause us problems,” he added. “But there are more problems in this.” 

“I think once they come back, they’ll see how dissatisfied the population is, so they will obviously make some big changes,” he added, predicting Azam would be ousted from his post.

‘Choked’

“Pakistan choked in the final sequence of their World Cup 2024 clash with India to somehow surrender a tie they dominated for large parts of the game,” said the website of the English-language Dawn newspaper.  ]

“For the first time, it seems Pakistanis are struggling to find comfort in the hopes of a ‘next time.’ ” 

Pakistan next face Canada in New York on Thursday and then take on Ireland in Florida on Sunday. 

They may still advance to the Super Eight in the tournament co-hosted by the USA and West Indies, with a final slated for Barbados on 29 June.  ]

But 32-year-old Abdul Rasheed, among the final straggling fans in the stadium, predicted “a comeback is going to be very difficult.” 

“Previously, things were great but now I don’t know what’s going on,” chimed in 17-year-old Adan Mustafa. “The future doesn’t seem bright.”
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Washington — U.S. officials expect the Group of Seven (G7) wealthy democracies to send a tough new warning next week to smaller Chinese banks to stop assisting Russia in evading Western sanctions, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Leaders gathering at the June 13-15 summit in Italy hosted by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni are expected to focus heavily during their private meetings on the threat posed by burgeoning Chinese-Russian trade to the fight in Ukraine, and what to do about it.

Those conversations are likely to result in public statements on the issue involving Chinese banks, according to a U.S. official involved in planning the event and another person briefed on the issue.

The United States and its G7 partners — Britain, Canada France, Germany, Italy and Japan — are not expected to take any immediate punitive action against any banks during the summit, such as restricting their access to the SWIFT messaging system or cutting off access to the dollar. Their focus is said to be on smaller institutions, not the largest Chinese banks, one of the people said.

Negotiations were still ongoing about the exact format and content of the warning, according to the people, who declined to be named discussing ongoing diplomatic engagements. The plans to address the topic at the G7 were not previously reported.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment. The U.S. Treasury Department had no immediate comment, but Treasury officials have repeatedly warned financial institutions in Europe and China and elsewhere that they face sanctions for helping Russia skirt Western sanctions.

Daleep Singh, deputy national security adviser for international economics, told the Center for a New American Security this week that he expected G7 leaders to target China’s support for a Russian economy now reoriented around the war.

“Our concern is that China is increasingly the factory of the Russian war machine. You can call it the arsenal of autocracy when you consider Russia’s military ambitions threaten obviously the existence of Ukraine, but increasingly European security, NATO and transatlantic security,” he said.

Singh and other top Biden administration officials say Washington and its partners are prepared to use sanctions and tighter export controls to reduce Russia’s ability to circumvent Western sanctions, including with secondary sanctions that could be used against banks and other financial institutions.

Washington is poised to announce significant new sanctions next week on financial and nonfinancial targets, a source familiar with the plans said.

This year’s G7 summit is also expected to focus on leveraging profits generated by Russian assets frozen in the West for Ukraine’s benefit.

Russia business moves to China’s small banks

Washington has so far been reluctant to implement sanctions on major Chinese banks – long deemed by analysts as a “nuclear” option – because of the huge ripple effects it could inflict on the global economy and U.S.-China relations.

Concern over the possibility of sanctions has already caused China’s big banks to throttle payments for cross-border transactions involving Russians, or pull back from any involvement altogether, Reuters has reported.

That has pushed Chinese companies to small banks on the border and stoked the use of underground financing channels or banned cryptocurrency. Western officials are concerned that some Chinese financial institutions are still facilitating trade in goods with dual civilian and military applications.

Beijing has accused Washington of making baseless claims about what it says are normal trade exchanges with Moscow.

The Biden administration this year began probing which sanctions tools might be available to it to thwart Chinese banks, a U.S. official previously told Reuters, but had no imminent plans to take such steps. In December, President Joe Biden signed an executive order threatening sanctions on financial institutions that help Moscow skirt Western sanctions.

The U.S. has sanctioned smaller Chinese banks in the past, such as the Bank of Kunlun, over various issues, including working with Iranian institutions.

China and Russia have fostered more trade in yuan instead of the dollar in the wake of the Ukraine war, potentially shielding their economies from possible U.S. sanctions.
…

New Delhi  — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was sworn in for a rare third term on Sunday at a glittering ceremony at the presidential palace in New Delhi. But he returns to office with a diminished mandate as head of a coalition government.  

All eyes are now on how Modi, an assertive leader, will navigate his new term after ruling India with an absolute majority for a decade. With his Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, failing to cross the halfway mark in parliament, he is now dependent on regional allies. 

“A majority is essential to run the country, that’s the essence of democracy. But to run a country, consensus is also essential,” Modi said at a meeting with his alliance partners on Friday. 

Analysts say achieving that consensus with a new governance style will be a test for the Indian leader. While India is no stranger to coalition governments which ruled the country for a quarter century until 2014, the pulls and pressures of managing partners outside his party is uncharted territory for Modi.   

“His style of functioning has been to take quick decisions, go into an issue, give a timeline for it to be implemented; it’s not into consulting scores of people, taking them along in that decision-making approach,” political analyst Neerja Chowdhury pointed out. “So that will require a new approach.”  

At rallies and in interviews in the run-up to the recent election, Modi said he had prepared a 100-day plan to pursue big targets. But questions are being raised about whether he will find it harder to achieve his goals. 

Analysts say he will be able to bring his allies along in pursuing reforms to spur manufacturing and attracting foreign investment needed to grow India’s economy. Modi has ambitions to turn India into a manufacturing powerhouse and a developed country by 2047. The country’s push to build closer ties with neighboring countries and the United States while retaining relations with Russia also has broad consensus.   

“Big decisions on the economic front, opening up certain sectors to FDI, [foreign direct investment], he may not confront much of a resistance there,” according to Chowdhury. “Whether it is on the foreign policy he may take the allies along, and he may well take the opposition along also.” 

But his party’s Hindu nationalist agenda could take a back seat. While he has a diverse set of coalition partners, two of the most crucial allies, the Telugu Desam Party of Andhra Pradesh state and Janata Dal (United) of Bihar belong to secular parties and do not share the BJP’s Hindu first agenda.  

Analysts also point out that the inauguration of a grand temple in Ayodhya for Hindu god Rama in January – a centerpiece of his party’s Hindu agenda, failed to yield dividends. His party was defeated in the seat that is home to the temple and lost nearly half the seats in Uttar Pradesh state, where the temple is located. The politically crucial state, which sends most lawmakers to parliament, has been a BJP stronghold.    

“The verdict of 2024 is in fact a kind of rejection of extreme Hindu nationalistic policies,” said political analyst Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay. “People did not actually vote for the BJP because they had got the temple constructed.”  

Modi is also likely to focus more on pressing issues. Unemployment and inflation were the two biggest reasons nationally for people to go against Modi’s alliance, according to a post-poll survey by the CSDS-Lokniti polling agency.  

While the economy has expanded on his watch, it has failed to generate enough jobs for its huge population and the opposition has flagged widening wealth inequality in a country where millions are still poor. It had also raised concerns of democratic backsliding under Modi. 

Analysts said besides his allies, the Indian leader will need to build a broader consensus with a reenergized opposition alliance that won a total of 232 seats out of 543, doubling its strength from the last election. Although many of its two dozen partners have ideological differences and compete for the same political space, the perceived threat from the BJP has kept them united.   

“This verdict has pumped oxygen in the democratic system,” says Chowdhury. 

Other analysts agree. “We have seen in the past 10 years, key decision-making involved power being cantered in the prime minister’s office. This will have to change,” said political analyst Sandeep Shastri. 

It remains to be seen how the Indian leader, whom critics have called authoritarian and dictatorial, adapts to a new political reality. 

“Mr. Modi will have to reinvent himself if he wants this government to continue and last its full term without any major political upheavals,” according to Mukhopadhyay, who has authored a biography on the prime minister. “Whether his instinct will allow him to make way for others’ opinions, that remains to be seen.” 

Modi is only the second Indian prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru to retain power for a straight third tenure. 

Among the thousands of guests who witnessed the Indian leader take office were leaders of seven neighboring countries, including Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka as well as Bollywood stars and industrialists.  

In an outreach to the Maldives, with which ties have deteriorated, its president, Mohammed Muizzu, was also present for the swearing-in ceremony. His presence underscored India’s priority in forging strong ties in its neighborhood, where China’s influence is growing. 
…

Islamabad — Pakistani authorities said Sunday that a bomb blast targeted a military convoy in a militancy-hit northwestern region, killing at least seven soldiers.

The bombing in Lucky Marwat district was followed by a militant gunfire attack, and an army captain was among the slain soldiers, a security official told VOA on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The Pakistani military’s media wing later released a formal statement confirming the deadly ambush, saying an improvised explosive device exploded near one of the convoy vehicles.

“Sanitization of the area is being carried out to eliminate any terrorists present in the area, and perpetrators of this heinous act will be brought to justice,” the military stated.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Lucky Marwat and surrounding districts of the country’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, bordering Afghanistan, have routinely witnessed insurgent bomb attacks and guerrilla raids against military and police forces in recent years.

The violence is claimed by Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, a globally designated terrorist organization, which Pakistani officials say is headquartered in Afghanistan. The group has waged terrorist attacks in the country for years, killing thousands of Pakistani civilians and security forces.

In its mid-year report, issued Saturday, the provincial counterterrorism department confirmed that at least 65 police officers had died and 85 others wounded in TTP-led attacks since the beginning of the year.

It stated that Pakistani security forces had killed nearly 120 “terrorists” and arrested 300 others in military-led counterinsurgency operations during the same period. The military has separately reported the fatalities of dozens of its personnel in bomb attacks and militant ambushes.

Pakistani leaders maintain that terrorism in the country has surged dramatically since the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan nearly three years ago.

Sunday’s insurgent attack came a day after China and Pakistan, through a joint statement, called on Afghanistan’s Taliban to “firmly combat terrorism, including not allowing its territory to be used for terrorist acts.”

Islamabad claims that Taliban leaders in Kabul have sheltered TTP leaders as well as combatants and facilitated them to direct cross-border terrorist attacks, ignoring calls for reining in the anti-Pakistan militant activity.

Taliban authorities deny they are allowing anyone to use Afghanistan to threaten neighboring countries, including Pakistan, although independent critics question those claims.

A United Nations report published earlier this year said the Taliban continued to be “sympathetic” to the TTP and supplied it with weapons and equipment, and some Afghan Taliban members joined the TTP in conducting cross-border raids against Pakistan.
…

Seoul, South Korea — South Korea on Sunday resumed anti-North Korean propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts in border areas in retaliation for the North sending over 1,000 balloons filled with trash and manure over the last couple of weeks.

The move is certain to anger Pyongyang and could trigger retaliatory military steps as tensions between the war-divided rivals rise while negotiations over the North’s nuclear ambitions remain stalemated.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed that the military conducted a loudspeaker broadcast Sunday afternoon. It didn’t specify the border area where it took place or what was played over the speakers.

“Whether our military conducts an additional loudspeaker broadcast is entirely dependent on North Korea’s behavior,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

Hours earlier, South Korean national security director Chang Ho-jin presided over an emergency meeting where officials decided to install and begin the broadcasts from loudspeakers. The South had withdrawn such equipment from border areas in 2018, during a brief period of engagement with the North under Seoul’s previous liberal government.

Chang and other South Korean security officials berated Pyongyang for attempting to cause “anxiety and disruption” in South Korea with the balloons and stressed that North Korea would be “solely responsible” for any future escalation of tensions.

The North said its balloon campaign came after South Korean activists sent over balloons filled with anti-North Korean leaflets, as well as USB sticks filled with popular South Korean songs and dramas. Pyongyang is extremely sensitive to such material and fears it could demoralize front-line troops and residents and eventually weaken leader Kim Jong Un’s grip on power, analysts say.

South Korea has in the past used loudspeakers to blare anti-Pyongyang broadcasts, K-pop songs and international news across the rivals’ heavily armed border.

In 2015, when South Korea restarted loudspeaker broadcasts for the first time in 11 years, North Korea fired artillery rounds across the border, prompting South Korea to return fire, according to South Korean officials. No casualties were reported.

Last week, as tensions spiked over the trash-carrying balloons, South Korea also suspended a 2018 agreement to reduce hostile acts along the border, allowing it to resume propaganda campaigns and possibly restart live-fire military exercises in border areas.

South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik in a meeting with top military commanders called for thorough preparation against the possibility that the North responds to the loudspeaker broadcasts with direct military action, the South Korean Defense Ministry said in a statement.

North Korea continued to fly hundreds of balloons into South Korea over the weekend, a third such campaign since late May, the South’s military said.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected the North launching around 330 balloons toward the South since Saturday night and about 80 were found in South Korean territory as of Sunday morning. The military said winds were blowing eastward on Saturday night, which possibly caused many balloons to float away from South Korean territory.

The South’s military said the balloons that did land dropped trash, including plastic and paper waste, but no hazardous substances were discovered.

The military, which has mobilized chemical rapid response and explosive clearance units to retrieve the North Korean balloons and materials, alerted the public to beware of falling objects and not to touch balloons found on the ground but report them to police or military authorities.

In North Korea’s previous two rounds of balloon activities, South Korean authorities discovered about 1,000 balloons that were tied to vinyl bags containing manure, cigarette butts, scraps of cloth, waste batteries and waste paper. Some were popped and scattered on roads, residential areas and schools. No highly dangerous materials were found and no major damage has been reported.

The North’s vice defense minister, Kim Kang Il, later said his country would stop the balloon campaign but threatened to resume it if South Korean activists sent leaflets again.

In defiance of the warning, a South Korean civilian group led by North Korean defector Park Sang-hak, said it launched 10 balloons from a border town on Thursday carrying 200,000 anti-North Korean leaflets, USB sticks with K-pop songs and K-dramas, and $1 U.S. bills. South Korean media reported another activist group also flew balloons with 200,000 propaganda leaflets toward North Korea on Friday.

Kim in recent years has waged an intensifying campaign to eliminate South Korean cultural and language influences. In January, Kim declared the North would abandon its longstanding goal of a peaceful unification with the South and rewrite its constitution to cement the South as a permanent enemy. Experts say Kim’s efforts to reinforce the North’s separate identity may be aimed at strengthening the Kim family’s dynastic rule.

North Korea’s balloon campaign is also possibly meant to cause a divide in South Korea over its conservative government’s hard-line approach to North Korea.

Liberal lawmakers, some civic groups and front-line residents in South Korea have called on the government to urge leafleting activists to stop flying balloons to avoid unnecessary clashes with North Korea. But government officials haven’t made such an appeal in line with last year’s constitutional court ruling that struck down a law criminalizing an anti-North Korea leafletting as a violation of free speech.
…

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea says it will restart anti-North Korean propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts in border areas in response to continuing North Korean campaigns to drop trash on the South with balloons.

Following an emergency security meeting led by South Korean national security director Chang Ho-jin, the officials decided to install and begin the loudspeaker broadcasts in border areas on Sunday, Seoul’s presidential office said in a statement. The move is certain to anger North Korea and potentially prompt it to take its own retaliatory military steps.

Chang and other South Korean security officials berated Pyongyang for attempting to cause “anxiety and disruption” in South Korea and stressed that North Korea will be “solely responsible” for any future escalation of tensions between the Koreas.

North Korea over the weekend flew hundreds of trash-carrying balloons to South Korea in its third such campaign since late May, the South’s military said, just days after South Korean activists floated their own balloons to scatter propaganda leaflets in the North.

North Korea has so far sent more than 1,000 balloons to drop tons of trash and manure in the South in retaliation against South Korean civilian leafletting campaigns, adding to tensions between the war-divided rivals amid a diplomatic stalemate over the North’s nuclear ambitions.

The resumption of South Korea’s loudspeaker broadcasts has been widely anticipated since last week, when South Korea suspended a 2018 tension-easing agreement with North Korea. The move allowed for the South to resume propaganda campaigns and possibly restart live-fire military exercises in border areas.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected the North launching around 330 balloons toward the South since Saturday night and about 80 were found in South Korean territory as of Sunday morning. The military said winds were blowing eastward on Saturday night, which possibly caused many balloons to float away from South Korean territory.

The South’s military said the balloons that did land dropped trash, including plastic and paper waste, but no hazardous substances were discovered.

The military, which has mobilized chemical rapid response and explosive clearance units to retrieve the North Korean balloons and materials, alerted the public to beware of falling objects and not to touch balloons found on the ground but report them to police or military authorities.

Saturday’s balloon launches by North Korea were the third of their kind since May 28. In North Korea’s previous two rounds of balloon activities, South Korean authorities discovered about 1,000 balloons that were tied to vinyl bags containing manure, cigarette butts, scraps of cloth, waste batteries and waste paper. Some were popped and scattered on roads, residential areas and schools. No highly dangerous materials were found and no major damage has been reported.

The North’s vice defense minister, Kim Kang Il, later said his country would stop the balloon campaign but threatened to resume it if South Korean activists sent leaflets again.

In defiance of the warning, a South Korean civilian group led by North Korean defector Park Sang-hak, said it launched 10 balloons from a border town on Thursday carrying 200,000 anti-North Korean leaflets, USB sticks with K-pop songs and South Korean dramas, and U.S. $1 bills. South Korean media reported another activist group also flew balloons with 200,000 propaganda leaflets toward North Korea on Friday.

South Korean officials called the North Korean trash balloon launches and other recent provocations “absurd” and “irrational” and vowed strong retaliation.

With the loudspeakers, South Korea may blare anti-Pyongyang broadcasts, K-pop songs and outside news across the rivals’ heavily armed border. North Korea is extremely sensitive to such broadcasts because it fears it could demoralize front-line troops and residents and eventually weaken leader Kim Jong Un’s grip on power, analysts say.

In 2015, when South Korea restarted loudspeaker broadcasts for the first time in 11 years, North Korea fired artillery rounds across the border, prompting South Korea to return fire, according to South Korean officials. No casualties were reported.

Kim in recent years has waged an intensifying campaign to eliminate South Korean cultural and language influences. In January, Kim declared the North will abandon its longstanding goal of a peaceful unification with the South and rewrite its constitution to cement the South as a permanent enemy. Experts say Kim’s efforts to reinforce the North’s separate identity may be aimed at strengthening the Kim family’s dynastic rule.

North Korea’s balloon campaign is also possibly meant to cause a divide in South Korea over its conservative government’s hard-line approach on North Korea.

Liberal lawmakers, some civic groups and front-line residents in South Korea have called on the government to urge leafleting activists to stop flying balloons to avoid unnecessary clashes with North Korea. But government officials haven’t made such an appeal in line with last year’s constitutional court ruling that struck down a law criminalizing an anti-North Korea leafletting as a violation of free speech.
…

ISLAMABAD — Police in central Pakistan said Saturday that unknown assailants had separately shot and killed two members of the minority Ahmadi community.

Both shootings took place in the Mandi Bahauddin district in Punjab, the country’s most populous province. Police and community leaders stated that the victims were 62 and 30 years old.

Punjab has seen the bulk of recent violence against what critics describe as Pakistan’s long-persecuted minority community.

The district police chief told local media they had opened an investigation into Saturday’s killings, and one of the suspected assailants had been apprehended.

No group immediately took responsibility for the shootings. Ahmadi community representatives blame Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan, or TLP, a far-right religious political party, for inciting followers to attack their members and places of worship.

TLP leaders routinely use offensive anti-Ahmadi language in rallies and gatherings and call for the killing of blasphemers.

Ahmadis consider themselves Muslim, but the Pakistani parliament declared them to be non-Muslim in 1974 and further amended its laws in 1984 to prohibit community members from “indirectly or directly posing as Muslims.” The minority sect is also barred from declaring or propagating its faith publicly and building places of worship in Pakistan.

The South Asian nation is often criticized for not doing enough to prevent crimes against members of its religious minorities, including Christians.

Last month, a mob of hundreds of people gathered in a Christian settlement in Sargodha, another Punjab district, and violently attacked a Christian man, identified as Nazir Masih, who was in his yearly 70s, after he was accused of desecrating Islam’s holy book, the Quran.

The violence resulted in severe injuries, including multiple fractures to Masih’s skull, and he died in a hospital a few days later. His relatives rejected blasphemy charges against him as baseless.

The Sargodha incident revived memories of one of the worst attacks on Christians in August 2023, in Jaranwala city in Punjab. It involved thousands of Muslim protesters attacking a Christian settlement and burning 21 churches, as well as damaging more than 90 properties over allegations two Christian brothers had desecrated the Quran.

Blasphemy is a highly sensitive issue in Pakistan, and mere allegations have led to mobs lynching dozens of suspects — even some in police custody. Insulting the Quran or Islamic beliefs is punishable by death under the country’s blasphemy laws, though no one has ever been executed. 
…

Bangkok — Authorities in Vietnam have arrested a leading independent journalist for “abusing democratic freedoms” to undermine the state by posting articles on Facebook, police announced on Saturday.

Huy Duc was detained for investigation for posts that “violate the interests of the State, the legitimate rights and interests of organizations and individuals,” the Ministry of Public Security said.

The 62-year-old former senior lieutenant worked for several influential newspapers in Vietnam before being fired in 2009 for criticizing the country’s former communist ally the Soviet Union.

Shortly before his arrest, Duc took aim at Vietnam’s new president, To Lam, as well as Nguyen Phu Trong, the communist party general secretary and most powerful individual in the country’s political system.

Lawyer Tran Dinh Trien was held along with Duc on the same charges.

Communist one-party Vietnam has strict curbs on freedom of expression, and Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, ranks it 174th out of 180 countries for press freedom, describing it as one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists.

Duc’s blog, one of the most popular in authoritarian Vietnam, was highly critical of government responses on issues including control of the media, relations with China and corruption.

Duc, whose real name is Truong Huy San, spent a year at Harvard University on a Nieman Fellowship in 2012. During his time abroad, his account of life in Vietnam after the end of the war with the United States, “The Winning Side,” was published.

RSF called for his release.

“The articles of independent journalist Huy Duc are an invaluable source of information enabling the Vietnamese public to access censored information by the Hanoi regime,” RSF Asia-Pacific Bureau Director Cedric Alviani said in a statement.

Rights campaigners say the government has in recent years stepped up a crackdown on civil society, while thousands of people, including several senior government and business leaders, have been caught up in a massive anti-graft campaign.

“No country can develop sustainably based on fear,” Duc wrote on Facebook in May.
…

tokyo — Called “Tokyo Futari Story,” the City Hall’s new initiative is just that: an effort to create couples, “futari,” in a country where it is increasingly common to be “hitori,” or alone. 

While a site offering counsel and general information for potential lovebirds is online, a dating app is also in development. City Hall hopes to offer it later this year, accessible through phone or web, a city official said Thursday. 

Details were still undecided. City Hall declined to comment on Japanese media reports that said the app would require a confirmation of identity, such as a driver’s license, your tax records to prove income and a signed form that says you are ready to get married. 

Marriage is on the decline in Japan as the country’s birth rate fell to an all-time low, according to health ministry data Wednesday. Last year there were 474,717 marriages, down from 504,930 in 2022, while births totaled 727,277, down from 770,759. 

The reports also said the app may ask for your height, job and education, but the official denied anything was decided. 

On the national level, the government has been trying to solve a serious labor shortage by promising cash payments for families with children and supporting child-care facilities. It’s also relaxed immigration policy over the years to encourage an influx of foreign workers. 

During the so-called “baby boom” era of the 1970s, Japan recorded more than 2 million births a year. Like many young adults around the world today, fewer Japanese are interested in traditional marriage or having children. 

There are concerns that Japanese workplace norms tend to lead to extremely long hours and rarely meeting people outside work. Some say raising children is expensive. 

Tokyo City Hall is also sponsoring events where singles can meet, couples can get counseling on marriage and lovers can have their stories of how they first met turned into comics or songs.
…

LUSAKA, Zambia — A Zambian court on Friday sentenced 22 Chinese nationals to long prison terms for cybercrimes that included internet fraud and online scams targeting Zambians and other people from Singapore, Peru and the United Arab Emirates.

The Magistrates Court in the capital, Lusaka, sentenced them for terms ranging from seven to 11 years. The court also fined them between $1,500 and $3,000 after they pleaded guilty to charges of computer-related misrepresentation, identity fraud and illegally operating a network or service on Wednesday. A man from Cameroon also was sentenced and fined on the same changes.

They were part of a group of 77 people, the majority of them Zambians, arrested in April over what police described as a “sophisticated internet fraud syndicate.”

Director-general of the drug enforcement commission, Nason Banda, said investigations began after authorities noticed a spike in the number of cyber-related fraud cases and many people complained about inexplicably losing money from their mobile phones or bank accounts.

Officers from the commission, police, the immigration department and the anti-terrorism unit in April swooped on a Chinese-run business in an upmarket suburb of Lusaka, arresting the 77, including those sentenced Friday. Authorities recovered over 13,000 local and foreign mobile phone SIM cards, two firearms and 78 rounds of ammunition during the raid.

The business, named Golden Top Support Services, had employed “unsuspecting” Zambians aged between 20 and 25 to use the SIM cards to engage “in deceptive conversations with unsuspecting mobile users across various platforms such as WhatsApp, Telegram, chat rooms and others, using scripted dialogues,” Banda said in April after the raid. The locals were freed on bail.
…

karachi, pakistan — British author George Orwell once said, “Sports is war minus the shooting.” In modern sport, when we speak about the greatest rivalries, a cricket match between archrivals India and Pakistan truly lives up to the saying.

One such battle will occur Sunday in the T20 Cricket World Cup at the newly built Nassau Stadium in New York.

Unfortunately, there is space for just 34,000 spectators.

With armies of Indian and Pakistani fans ready to descend on the Big Apple, ticket prices are soaring. The tickets are reportedly selling for thousands of dollars each, but die-hard fans still go after them.

After all, both are former champions, India having won the title in 2007 and Pakistan two years later.

Legendary Pakistan fast bowler Wasim Akram believes India versus Pakistan is an ideal match for expats living in the United States.

“The interest and passion involved in this match – and of course, the matches in the USA – will also give Americans an idea of what cricket is all about, and they will get a hang of it,”  Akram told VOA.

“India versus Pakistan is the ultimate rivalry in cricket,” Pakistan’s former captain and batter Javed Miandad told VOA. “I always enjoyed the rivalry to the hilt, and even now, when I sit in front of the television to watch a current match, I feel amped and animated as if I am still playing.”

Such a game is fire versus fire, riveting to the last ball, as proved by the legendary batter Miandad’s six to seal a match in Sharjah nearly four decades ago and India’s sensational win inspired by Indian maestro Virat Kohli against Pakistan in Melbourne in the 2022 T20 World Cup.

And with long gaps due to political tension and play restricted to multinational events, the India-Pakistan contest keeps fans’ hunger unsated.

“A contest between India and Pakistan motivates players from both sides to give their best, because if you do well, you become an instant hero. It will be a unique experience for the fans in the USA,” Miandad said.

But the not-so-positive aspect is that since such matches are few and far between, many believe the sheen is coming off them. Indian batting supremo-turned-popular commentator Sunil Gavaskar believes other rivalries are taking over.

“The India-Pakistan contests used to be iconic some time back, but as far as India is concerned there is hardly any contest between India and Pakistan. The new iconic rivalry is India versus Australia,” Gavaskar, himself involved in some iconic Indo-Pak contests, told VOA.

His views may perturb some loyal fans in both countries, but Gavaskar always plays with a straight bat. Pakistan’s recent one-sided losses against India may become a bane in this rivalry.

India has won all eight ODI World Cup matches against Pakistan and has lost only one of seven T20 World Cup face-offs.

Meanwhile, after the upset defeat against the U.S., the match against India is a must win for Pakistan to qualify for the next round of the World Cup.

But results aside, the two uncompromising sets of players are never ready to give an inch to their rivals, for they know a defeat is unacceptable to their fans.

Those involved try to play it down by terming it “just another game,” but it is the opposite. A contest evoking such strong emotions that losing players get death threats cannot be “just another game.”

Ask Pakistan’s former captain, Akram, who could not return to his hometown, Lahore, after Pakistan lost to India in the quarterfinal of the 1996 World Cup — a match the left-arm pacer missed with a shoulder injury.

The bitter Pakistani fans accused him of faking the injury.

With so much sentiment involved, former Pakistan pacer Aqib Javed reckons an Indo-Pak game is special. “It’s more than a game,” he said. “Whichever side loses doesn’t swallow a defeat easily,” said the fast bowler whose seven-wicket haul in Sharjah in 1991 left Indian players and fans fuming.

Pakistan’s defeats against India in the 1999, 2003, 2011, 2019 and 2023 World Cups prompted inquiries to ascertain reasons for the losses and ended in major upheavals.

“No one accepts defeat in an India-Pakistan match,” former Pakistani fast bowler Wahab Riaz, who took five wickets in the 2011 semifinal defeat against India at Mohali, told VOA.

“It is not war, but it is very sentimental. Allegations were hurled at us after the defeat, but after all, it was a cricket match, and we lost by playing badly.”

India-Pakistan matches draw hundreds of millions of viewers in the two countries and among expats living around the world.

They comfortably surpass every other cricket event in terms of eyeballs and broadcast revenue. The International Cricket Council, the sport’s governing body, has repeatedly acknowledged wanting a schedule in which Pakistan and India play a match in the first round of a tournament.

Fans and organizers wish to see these archrivals in action again in the tournament’s knockout stage.

The big game in the Big Apple will create a big splash. 

This story originated in VOA’s South Central Asia Division. 
…

ISLAMABAD — The United Nations informed Taliban leaders Friday that it is working to finalize the agenda for a crucial two-day international conference on Afghanistan, and it is aiming for it to be accepted by all sides.

Roza Otunbayeva, the head of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, met with Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Kabul and discussed the matter, Muttaqi’s office said in a post-meeting statement.

The two sides “exchanged views on the detailed outlook and necessary coordination” for the June 30 U.N.-convened conference, which Doha, Qatar, will host.

The gathering, referred to as “Doha III,” will be the third in Qatar’s capital on the subject since U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres initiated the process with special envoys on Afghanistan to promote an effective world approach to the Taliban-governed country, which is facing dire humanitarian, economic, and human rights crises.

“At the outset, Mrs. Roza Otunbayeva said that her team is working on the agenda of the 3rd Doha meeting and trying to arrange an agenda that could be recognized by all sides,” the Taliban foreign ministry stated.

While emphasizing the importance of a conference agenda “that may be acceptable to all sides,” Muttaqi was quoted as pledging “to work closely with the concerned sides regarding the matter.”

The U.N. did not immediately comment on its envoy’s meeting with the chief Taliban diplomat.

Otunbayeva’s contact with de facto authorities came amid growing calls for the U.N. to ensure Afghan women’s representation at the table in the Doha meeting, with the rights of women and girls at the center of discussions.

Rights activists have criticized the U.N. for inviting the Taliban to the Doha meeting and allegedly working hard to persuade them to attend the event. De facto Afghan authorities did not participate in the first two Doha gatherings, saying the U.N. had failed to meet their conditions for doing so.

The Taliban informally stated late last month their intention to join the June 30 discussions in Doha, however, promising to make a formal announcement after receiving from the U.N. the final agenda of the event.

On Thursday, about a dozen rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, jointly sent a letter to the U.N., the Security Council and member states, sharing concerns the Taliban’s participation in Doha is being sought at the cost of the rights of Afghan women and girls.

“While members of the international community are moving perilously close to accepting the legitimacy of Taliban rule, Afghanistan’s women, who are bravely fighting back and paying a devastating price as a result, are not,” the letter reads.

Heather Barr, women’s rights associate director at Human Rights Watch, told VOA the letter highlighted several concerns, including reports that women’s rights would neither be on the agenda nor fully represented at the conference.

“The situation in Afghanistan right now is already the most serious women’s rights crisis on the planet, and it is steadily worsening,” Barr stated. She criticized stepped-up U.N. contacts with the Taliban ahead of the Doha meeting.

“The context for this seems to be the U.N. twisting themselves into a pretzel to try to placate the Taliban and convince them to attend. That effort is in direct conflict with the U.N.’s core obligation to uphold human rights, including the rights of Afghan women and girls.”

U.N. officials have defended their invitation and engagement with the Taliban, saying that “they are the de facto authorities in Afghanistan” and underscoring that the world body is persistently urging Kabul to uphold the rights of women and girls.

The Taliban had asked the U.N. in the run-up to the second Doha meeting, in February, that their delegates would be accepted as the sole official representatives of the country, meaning that Afghan civil society representatives, women’s rights activists and members of opposition groups would not be present.

De facto Afghan authorities also sought a meeting between their delegation and the U.N. at “a very senior level,” saying it “would be beneficial” for both sides. The Taliban also opposed the planned appointment of a U.N. special envoy to coordinate international engagement with Kabul in line with the latest U.N. Security Council resolution on Afghanistan.

However, Guterres rejected the Taliban conditions, saying they would have “denied us the right to talk to other representatives of the Afghan society and demanded a treatment that would to a large extent be similar to recognition.”

No foreign country has recognized the Taliban as legitimate rulers of Afghanistan since they stormed back to power in August 2021 as all the U.S.-led NATO troops withdrew from the country after their two-decade-long presence.

The Taliban have imposed sweeping curbs on women’s right to education and public life at large in line with their strict interpretation of Islam. Afghan girls ages 12 and older are banned from attending secondary school, while women are prohibited from public and private workplaces, barring health care and a few other sectors.

Women are not allowed to undertake road trips unless accompanied by a close male relative and are banned from visiting parks, gyms and other public places.

The elusive Taliban supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, insists he is governing the country in line with local culture and Islamic teachings, rejecting international criticism of his policies as an interference in Afghanistan’s internal affairs.

The Taliban, who are ethnically Pashtun, have also dismissed international calls for giving representation to other Afghan ethnicities in the government, saying all groups are represented in it.
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WASHINGTON — The Biden administration this week warned North Korea against providing Russian President Vladimir Putin “a platform to promote his war of aggression” against Ukraine ahead of his possible trip to Pyongyang.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un invited Putin to Pyongyang when he visited Russia in September, and preparations are being made for his trip, the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry said without providing a specific date, Russian news agency Tass reported May 30.

Tass quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko as saying preparations for Putin’s visit to North Korea as well as to Vietnam are at “an advanced stage.”

VOA contacted the Russian Embassy in Seoul, asking if dates are set for Putin’s visit to Pyongyang, but did not receive a reply.

There was speculation that Putin would visit North Korea after he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in May.

In response to Rudenko’s remarks about Putin’s trip to Pyongyang, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said in an email to VOA’s Korean Service Tuesday, “As Russia continues to seek international support to sustain its illegal and brutal war against Ukraine, we reiterate that no country should give Putin a platform to promote his war of aggression and otherwise allow him to normalize his atrocities.”

The spokesperson continued, using the abbreviation for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, that “deepening cooperation between Russia and the DPRK should be of great concern to anyone interested in maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.”

The spokesperson added, “The DPRK has and continues to provide material support to the Russian Federation for their aggression in Ukraine.”

Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister, denied on May 17 that North Korea was engaged in arms dealings with Russia.

North Korean missiles have been turning up in Ukraine, indicating growing cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow, according to a report released by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency on May 29.

The report shows the pictures of what it says is debris from a North Korean short-range ballistic missile found in Kharkiv in January that Russia used against Ukraine. Pyongyang has been providing ballistic missiles to Moscow since November in addition to shipping hundreds of containers full of ammunition to Russia in August, the report said.

About seven months after its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia sought to purchase millions of artillery shells and rockets from North Korea, the report said.

Experts said Putin’s trip to Pyongyang will allow him to boost military cooperation with North Korea that began when Kim visited Russia in September.

“Putin, who in the past has openly broached the prospect of bolstering military collaboration with Pyongyang, could use his time in the North to move — or at least discuss moving — arms and military technology agreements toward the finish line,” Daniel DePetris, a fellow at Washington-based think tank Defense Priorities, said in an email.

“North Korean munitions have given him critical time to reconstitute Russia’s own domestic military production so Putin will attempt to keep the North Korean arms spigot flowing,” he continued.

Putin reportedly said Russia will continue to “develop” its relations with North Korea regardless of what others think when he met with the heads of international news agencies on the sidelines of theInternational Economic Forum held in St. Petersburg on Wednesday.

He also said North Korea’s nuclear issue will “gradually be resolved” if Pyongyang does not feel threatened and thanked South Korea for not directly providing weapons to Ukraine, according to Tass.

The same day, Putin warned that Moscow could provide long-range weapons to the West’s adversaries so they could strike Western countries in response to NATO allies, including the United States, allowing Ukraine to use their arms to attack inside Russia.

David Maxwell, vice president of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy, said during a phone interview that Pyongyang is more likely to “act on its own interest” than to heed Moscow if asked to cause provocations on the Korean Peninsula or elsewhere.

Maxwell also said Putin’s possible visit to North Korea could be used as “a propaganda vehicle” for Moscow and Pyongyang.

They will try to “reinforce the reputation of both, especially in terms of alliances” and portray their causes — Russia’s war in Ukraine and North Korea’s threats against South Korea — as somewhat “legitimate” despite causing massive human rights abuses, Maxwell said.

Pyongyang described Putin’s war in Ukraine as “the sacred war of justice” by “the valiant Russian army” engaged in “the special military operation to annihilate neo-Nazis” in a statement released on May 16 by its state-run KCNA.
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