DRULAP

All Bodies Recovered From Nepal Plane Crash; Autopsies Begin

Rescuers have recovered all 22 bodies from the site where a plane crashed on a mountainside in Nepal, the airline said Tuesday.

All the bodies were flown to Kathmandu and taken to the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital where doctors are performing autopsies, Tara Air said in a statement.

The bodies will be handed over to relatives once the autopsies are completed, it said.

While 10 bodies were flown to Kathmandu on Monday, the rest were brought by army helicopter on Tuesday. Relatives of the crash victims waited outside the hospital building for authorities to release the bodies.

The Tara Air Turboprop Twin Otter aircraft lost contact with the airport tower Sunday while flying on a scheduled 20-minute flight in an area of deep river gorges and mountaintops.

Four Indians and two Germans were on the plane, Tara Air said. The three crew members and other passengers were Nepali nationals, it said.

Local news reports said the passengers included two Nepali families, one with four members and the other with seven.

The plane crashed Sunday in Sanosware in Mustang district close to the mountain town of Jomsom, where it was heading after taking off from the resort town of Pokhara, 200 kilometers west of the capital Kathmandu.

The plane’s destination is popular with foreign hikers who trek on its mountain trails, and with Indian and Nepalese pilgrims who visit the revered Muktinath temple.

The Twin Otter, a rugged plane originally built by Canadian aircraft manufacturer De Havilland, has been in service in Nepal for about 50 years, during which it has been involved in about 21 accidents, according to aviationnepal.com.

The plane, with its top-mounted wing and fixed landing gear, is prized for its durability and its ability to take off and land on short runways.
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In Commonwealth, Queen’s Jubilee Draws Protests, Apathy

After seven decades on the throne, Queen Elizabeth II is widely viewed in the U.K. as a rock in turbulent times. But in Britain’s former colonies, many see her as an anchor to an imperial past whose damage still lingers.

So while the U.K. is celebrating the queen’s Platinum Jubilee — 70 years on the throne — with pageantry and parties, some in the Commonwealth are using the occasion to push for a formal break with the monarchy and the colonial history it represents.

“When I think about the queen, I think about a sweet old lady,” said Jamaican academic Rosalea Hamilton, who campaigns for her country to become a republic. “It’s not about her. It’s about her family’s wealth, built on the backs of our ancestors. We’re grappling with the legacies of a past that has been very painful.”

The empire that Elizabeth was born into is long gone, but she still reigns far beyond Britain’s shores. She is head of state in 14 other nations, including Canada, Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Bahamas. Until recently it was 15 — Barbados cut ties with the monarchy in November, and several other Caribbean countries, including Jamaica, say they plan to follow suit.

Britain’s jubilee celebrations, which climax over a four-day holiday weekend starting Thursday, aim to recognize the diversity of the U.K. and the Commonwealth. A huge jubilee pageant through central London on Sunday will feature Caribbean Carnival performers and Bollywood dancers.

But Britain’s image of itself as a welcoming and diverse society has been battered by the revelation that hundreds, and maybe thousands, of people from the Caribbean who had lived legally in the U.K. for decades were denied housing, jobs or medical treatment — and in some cases deported — because they didn’t have the paperwork to prove their status.

The British government has apologized and agreed to pay compensation, but the Windrush scandal has caused deep anger, both in the U.K. and in the Caribbean.

A jubilee-year trip to Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas in March by the queen’s grandson Prince William and his wife Kate, which was intended to strengthen ties, appears to have had the opposite effect. Images of the couple shaking hands with children through a chain-link fence and riding in an open-topped Land Rover in a military parade stirred echoes of colonialism for many.

Cynthia Barrow-Giles, professor of political science at the University of the West Indies, said the British “seem to be very blind to the visceral sort of reactions” that royal visits elicit in the Caribbean.

Protesters in Jamaica demanded Britain pay reparations for slavery, and Prime Minister Andrew Holness politely told William that the country was “moving on,” a signal that it planned to become a republic. The next month, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne told the queen’s son Prince Edward that his country, too, would one day remove the queen as head of state.

William acknowledged the strength of feeling and said the future “is for the people to decide upon.”

“We support with pride and respect your decisions about your future,” he said in the Bahamas. “Relationships evolve. Friendship endures.”

When then Princess Elizabeth became queen on the death of her father King George VI 1952, she was in Kenya. The East African country became independent in 1963 after years of violent struggle between a liberation movement and colonial troops. In 2013, the British government apologized for the torture of thousands of Kenyans during the 1950s “Mau Mau” uprising and paid millions in an out-of-court settlement.

Memories of the empire are still raw for many Kenyans.

“From the start, her reign would be indelibly stained by the brutality of the empire she presided over and that accompanied its demise,” said Patrick Gathara, a Kenyan cartoonist, writer and commentator.

“To this day, she has never publicly admitted, let alone apologized, for the oppression, torture, dehumanization and dispossession visited upon people in the colony of Kenya before and after she acceded to the throne.”

U.K. officials hope countries that become republics will remain in the Commonwealth, the 54-nation organization made up largely of former British colonies, which has the queen as its ceremonial head.

The queen’s strong personal commitment to the Commonwealth has played a big role in uniting a diverse group whose members range from vast India to tiny Tuvalu. But the organization, which aims to champion democracy, good governance and human rights, faces an uncertain future.

As Commonwealth heads of government prepare to meet in Kigali, Rwanda, this month for a summit delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, some question whether the organization can continue once the queen’s eldest son, Prince Charles, succeeds her.

“Many of the more uncomfortable histories of the British Empire and the British Commonwealth are sort of waiting in the wings for as soon as Elizabeth II is gone,” royal historian Ed Owens said. “So it’s a difficult legacy that she is handing over to the next generation.”

The crisis in the Commonwealth reflects Britain’s declining global clout.

Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth under its authoritarian late President Robert Mugabe, and is currently seeking readmission. But many in its capital of Harare have expressed indifference to the queen’s jubilee, as Britain’s once-strong influence wanes and countries such as China and Russia enjoy closer relations with the former British colony.

“She is becoming irrelevant here,” social activist Peter Nyapedwa said. “We know about [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping] or [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, not the queen.”

Sue Onslow, director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London, said the queen has been the “invisible glue” holding the Commonwealth together.

But she says the organization has proven remarkably resilient and and shouldn’t be written off. The Commonwealth played a major role in galvanizing opposition to apartheid in the 1980s, and could do the same over climate change, which poses an existential threat to its low-lying island members.

“The Commonwealth has shown a remarkable ability to reinvent itself and contrive solutions at times of crisis, almost as if it’s jumping into a telephone box and coming out under different guise,” she said. “Whether it will do it now is an open question.”
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Global Monitors Decry Disappearance of 2 Journalists in Afghanistan

International media monitors demanded Tuesday that Taliban rulers in Afghanistan urgently investigate the alleged disappearance of two journalists and bring the perpetrators to justice.

The whereabouts of Ali Akbar Khairkhwa and Jamaluddin Deldar were unknown since May 24, when they both went missing from the Afghan capital, Kabul, according to relatives and co-workers.

Khairkhwa, a photojournalist and reporter with local Subh-e-Kabul newspaper, had departed for the capital’s Kote Sangi area in the morning to report and attend his university classes. Since then, his mother and brother told local media they could not find any information about him. They said they had contacted Taliban authorities, suspecting their role in the journalist’s abduction, but they denied involvement.

Deldar headed the Voice of Gardiz Radio in the southeastern Afghan province of Paktia. His family and his senior colleagues directly accused the Taliban of arresting him but did not know the reason for his arrest.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) urged the Taliban to immediately investigate the disappearance of the two journalists, stressing the need for increased efforts to ensure protection journalists and media workers in Afghanistan.

“Contrary to the Taliban’s public commitment to protect freedom of the press and freedom of expression, incidents of harassment, attack, detainment and abduction of journalists have risen significantly following the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021,” the watchdog lamented.

The Islamist group seized power nine months ago from the then-Western-backed Afghan government days before the U.S.-led international forces withdrew from the conflict-torn country.

An estimated 1,000 journalists have fled Afghanistan since August, with threats, harsh restrictions and economic collapse leading to mass closures of local media outlets, according to IFJ. The monitor in its latest report has documented 75 media rights violations, including 12 killings and 30 arrests, across the country from May 2021 to April 2022.

Last week, the Committee to Protect Journalist (CPJ) in a statement decried the disappearance and other incidents of harassment, saying they were fueling concerns about the dangers and abuse journalists face in Afghanistan under Taliban rule.

“It’s beyond time for the Taliban to take responsibility for the safety of reporters and to allow all members of the press — men and women — to report the news without interference, including abolishing the decree that women TV journalists cannot appear with uncovered faces,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Steven Butler.

The Taliban’s Ministry of Vice and Virtue, charged with interpreting and enforcing the Taliban’s version of Islamic Sharia law, has recently bound female presenters to cover their faces while on air.

Afghan TV channels have already been barred from broadcasting dramas and soap operas featuring women.
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Russia Sanctions Seen Loosening Moscow’s Grip on Central Asia

Russia’s influence in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia is expected to decline as its overstretched military struggles in Ukraine and its economy suffers shocks from the sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies, according to experts.

Russia has long enjoyed leverage over the region’s five countries – Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan – because of their reliance on remittances from migrant laborers employed in Russia, says Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, head of the Center for Governance and Markets at the University of Pittsburgh.

World Bank data published in March laid out the importance of the remittances, which it said in some cases “were comparable to or even larger than the countries’ exports of goods and services.”

“In the past, Central Asian states were wary of Russia because they understood that (their economic relationship) changes if they offended Moscow,” Murtazashvili told VOA. But, she said, the balance has shifted because of the war in Ukraine and the five countries “now understand that Russia needs labor from Central Asia very badly.”

“These countries now understand that they have agency and leverage and are beginning to understand how they can use it,” she said. “Right now, we are seeing a stronger Central Asia that will have more freedom to pick and choose among great powers.”

Russia’s weakness opens the door for China to play a larger role in the region, but it also increases opportunities for other countries that wish to do business there, according to Murtazshvili.

On Tuesday, exactly three months after Russia launched its invasion, China pledged $37.5 million of “free financial assistance” to Uzbekistan “for the implementation of joint socially significant projects,” according to the Uzbek government.

The agreement was signed by Uzbekistan’s deputy minister of investment and foreign trade, Aziz Voitov, and the Chinese ambassador in Tashkent, Jiang Yan, according to a statement on the website of Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Investment and Foreign Trade.

One day earlier, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu led a U.S. delegation to the region on a five-day trip to the Kyrgyz Republic, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan.

According to the State Department, the purpose of the trip is “to strengthen U.S. relations with the region and advance collaborative efforts to create a more connected, prosperous, and secure Central Asia.”

Last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met in Washington with Mukhtar Tileuberdi, the foreign minister of Kazakhstan.

In the meeting, according to the State Department, Blinken confirmed the U.S. “commitment to minimizing the impact on allies and partners, including Kazakhstan, from the sanctions imposed on Russia.”

Raffaello Pantucci, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and author of “Sinostan: China’s Inadvertent Empire,” said that while Russia’s influence is expected to decline it will remain an important player in the region.

Leaders of the Central Asian nations “have always had some concern and skepticism towards Russia and now it will be worse,” he told VOA. “The natural connections and public opinion mean it will be hard to entirely sever, but it is clear that the regional governments are not ecstatic about President [Vladimir] Putin’s actions” in Ukraine.

Early in the war, Putin called the heads of the Central Asian states to seek support for his planned occupation of Ukraine. But the five leaders responded cautiously, neither endorsing nor condemning the invasion.

China, meanwhile, has been expanding its footprint in the region for a while, Pantucci said. “But increasingly the region will find itself frustrated as — unlike Russia — China is not very interested in stepping in to try to fix things, but is single-mindedly focused on its own interests.”

Temur Umarov, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, also predicted Russia will remain influential in the region despite the problems created by the war.

“Russia understands what is going on here in Central Asia and it does it better than any other foreign actor in the region,” Umarov told VOA from Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan, “So this is something that is really difficult to change.”

According to Umarov, the five Central Asian states have been seeking to diversify their ties with the rest of the world since they gained their independence from Moscow in the early 1990s.

“Russia’s actions toward Ukraine will add speed to the process of replacing Russia in those countries,” Umarov said. “Of course, China is the number one country that has the capacity to do that in many spheres, especially in terms of logistics because of geographic location and its economy, because of China’s economic muscle which other countries do not possess.”

But, according to Murtazashvili, China is not very popular in Central Asia. “People understand what has happened with the Uyghurs and are wary of getting too close to China,” she said.

Three of the five Central Asian countries border China’s western Xinjiang region, where Beijing is accused by the U.S. and other countries of a genocidal crackdown on its Uyghur minority. Beijing rejects the accusation as lies and says that China is fighting against the “forces of three evil,” namely separatism, extremism and terrorism in the region.

The majority-Turkic countries of Central Asia are culturally, religiously and ethnically close to the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
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Pakistan, Militants Pause Afghan-Hosted Peace Talks for Internal Discourse Amid Cautious Optimism

Pakistan’s direct peace talks with an outlawed alliance of insurgent groups, being mediated and hosted by Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers, have reportedly made progress, with both sides agreeing to pause the process for internal deliberations and return to the negotiating table by mid-June.

The several days of discussions between Pakistani security officials and commanders of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or the Pakistani Taliban, concluded over the weekend in the Afghan capital, Kabul, with both sides pressing their set of demands and promising to adhere to an ongoing temporary cease-fire to preserve the progress, officials and militant sources said Monday.

The meeting marked the second round of talks between the two rivals since early this month when they first came to the negotiating table at the request of the Afghan Taliban, a Pakistani official told VOA on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk with the news media.

The peace process has led to the temporary cease-fire, release of dozens of militants from Pakistani jails and a significant reduction in TTP attacks in Pakistan.

The nearly month-long truce was due to expire Monday but would likely be extended to help prevent derailment of the fragile process, the Pakistani official said. He noted that even if there were no formal militant announcement about an extension in the cease-fire, there would be no “major” counter-militancy operations” by Pakistani security forces, nor would the TTP carry out attacks against them.

“The situation [around the talks] has been very hopeful so far,” the Pakistani official said. “Both sides have decided to pause the process to review the progress they have achieved and seek clarity from their respective leaderships on how to move forward,” he said.

The Pakistani official hailed the host Taliban government for making “utmost efforts” to ensure relevant TTP commanders were present at the table to productively carry the dialogue forward. He noted that acting Afghan Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani “is playing the key role” in mediating the talks.

The official said Haqqani was “personally available in some sessions” of the just concluded talks and “effectively intervened to remove deadlocks or impediments” to help push the process.

While Pakistani officials have not yet formally commented on the peace process, the Afghan Taliban publicly confirmed on May 18 at the end of the two-day inaugural meeting that Kabul hosted it and acted as intermediary. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said at the time his government “in good faith to promote peace, strives for the negotiating process to succeed and expects both sides to be tolerant and flexible.”

Islamabad is asking TTP negotiators to terminate their insurgency against Pakistan and dissolve the group in favor of a peaceful resettlement to their native country, according to sources close to the process.

For their part, TTP negotiators have been consistently insisting that Pakistan restore the traditional semi-autonomous status of several of its northwestern districts bordering Afghanistan, formerly known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA.

The militants also demand both the removal of Pakistani troops from the rugged mountainous region and implementation of their brand of Islamic justice system in erstwhile FATA, citing their rejection of the Pakistani constitution as un-Islamic.

Speaking to VOA, senior Pakistani security officials Monday again rejected these demands as unacceptable.

For decades, FATA had served as a haven for local and foreign militant outfits, including al-Qaida and the Afghan Taliban. Pakistani troops in recent years carried out major ground and air offensives, dismantling the terror infrastructure and forcing thousands of TTP militants to flee to the Afghan side of the border.

The Afghan Taliban and their al-Qaida partners used the Pakistani tribal region for regrouping and directing cross-border attacks against U.S.-led international troops in Afghanistan. TTP had sheltered, facilitated and provided them with recruits.

TTP-led suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks have killed tens of thousands of Pakistanis, including security forces, since its inception in 2007. Sustained Pakistani security operations significantly degraded TTP abilities to conduct extremist actions.

The group has intensified attacks on Pakistani forces from Afghan bases since the return of the Taliban to power in the neighboring country, killing scores of Pakistani security forces and prompting Islamabad to reportedly conduct cross-border airstrikes against TTP hideouts.

A new United Nations report earlier in May also noted the role Haqqani is playing in facilitating Pakistan’s talks with the TTP, although it cautioned that prospects of success of the peace process were bleak.

“Haqqani mediations have not led to a sustainable cease-fire but are a further indication of Mr. Sirajuddin’s central role within the Taliban as a mediator and figure of authority among rank-and-file of TTP and other mainly Pashtun groups in eastern Afghanistan,” said the U.N. annual report of the 1988 Taliban sanctions committee monitoring team.

U.S. officials have long maintained that Haqqani runs his own group of militants independent of the Taliban, known as the Haqqani Network. His areas of influence or operation have been or are largely the eastern and southeastern Afghan border provinces, where TTP has set up its sanctuaries after fleeing Pakistani security operations.

Haqqani allegedly is also closely aligned with al-Qaida. Washington has offered $10 million for information that will lead to his arrest.

The Taliban took over Afghanistan last August, days before the U.S.-led foreign troops withdrew from the country after nearly 20 years of war with the-then insurgent group. The Islamist rulers have assured neighboring countries and the world at large that they would combat terrorism on Afghan soil to prevent it from becoming a haven for transnational groups.

The U.N. report, however, suggested that TTP has gained from the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul. It has around 4,000 fighters in Afghan areas bordering Pakistan, making up the largest group of foreign fighters based there.
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Afghan Woman Raises Silkworms After Losing Job Following Taliban Takeover

Many Afghan women who lost jobs after the Taliban seized power in the country are now trying to support their families by running home businesses. That’s what Shataba Jalal is doing, and her business requires a very special skill. Safiullah Ahmadzai has the story, narrated by Anne Ball. 
Videographer: Safiullah Ahmadzai
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Popular Punjabi Rapper Sidhu Moose Wala Shot Dead at 28

Indian police are investigating the murder of a popular Punjabi rapper who blended hip-hop, rap and folk music, a day after he was fatally shot, officials said Monday.

Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu, also known around the world by his stage name Sidhu Moose Wala, was killed Sunday evening while driving his car in Mansa, a district in northern India’s Punjab state. Moose Wala, 28, was rushed to the hospital where he was declared dead.

Punjab state’s top police official VK Bhawra said the initial investigation has revealed the killing to be an inter-gang rivalry.

A day before the attack, the Punjab government had pulled security cover for over 400 individuals, including Moose Wala, in a bid to clamp down on VIP culture, local media reports said.

Moose Wala started off as a songwriter before a hit song in 2017 catapulted his singing career, making him well known among the Indian and Punjabi diaspora in countries like the United Kingdom and Canada.

Most of his singles have an English title even though the songs were mainly sung in Punjabi. His glossy music videos were most famous for his rap lyrics and often focused on macho culture. His debut album in 2018 made it to Canada’s Billboard Albums chart.

Moose Wala was a controversial figure, in part due to his lyrical style. In 2020, police charged him under India’s Arms Act for allegedly promoting gun culture in one of his songs.

His latest track, “The Last Ride,” was released earlier this month.

The rapper joined India’s Congress Party last year and unsuccessfully ran in the state’s assembly elections.

Punjab’s chief minister Bhagwant Mann said, “no culprit will be spared” and that he was deeply shocked and saddened by the murder.

Rahul Gandhi, a senior Congress leader, took to Twitter to express his condolences over the killing.

“Deeply shocked and saddened by the murder of promising Congress leader and talented artist,” he said.
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Twenty Victims Found after Nepal Air Crash

Hopes were fading in Nepal on Monday of finding any survivors among the 22 people aboard a small plane that crashed into a Himalayan mountainside a day earlier, officials said, with just two people still to be accounted for.

Two Germans, four Indians and 16 Nepalis were aboard the De Havilland Canada DHC-6-300 Twin Otter aircraft which crashed 15 minutes after taking off from the tourist town of Pokhara, 125 km (80 miles) west of Kathmandu, on Sunday morning.

“There is very little chance to find survivors,” Deo Chandra Lal Karna, a spokesman for Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, said.

Nepali soldiers and rescue workers had retrieved 20 bodies from the wreckage, strewn across a steep slope at an altitude of around 14,500 feet.

The difficult terrain and poor weather had hampered the search parties. An image published in Nepali media showed uniformed rescue workers moving a body from the wreckage and using ropes to haul it on a stretcher up a steep, grassy ridge.

“There is very thick cloud in the area,” Netra Prasad Sharma, the most senior bureaucrat in the Mustang district, where the crash took place, he told Reuters by phone. “The search for bodies is going on.”

In Kathmandu, relatives of victims waited for the bodies to be brought back from the crash site, and aviation authority said in a tweet that formal identification of victims had yet to take place.

“I am waiting for my son’s body,” Maniram Pokhrel told Reuters, his voice choking. His son Utsav Pokhrel, 25, was the copilot.

Operated by privately owned Tara Air, the aircraft crashed in cloudy weather on Sunday morning and the wreckage wasn’t spotted until Monday morning by Nepal’s army.

The destination was Jomsom, a popular tourist and pilgrimage site that lies about 80 km (50 miles) northwest of Pokhara – usually a 20-minute flight.

But the aircraft lost contact with the Pokhara control tower five minutes before it was due to land, airline officials said.

The crash site is close to Nepal’s border with China, in region where Mount Dhaulagiri, the world’s seventh highest peak at 8,167 meters (26,795 feet), is located.

Flight-tracking website Flightradar24 said the aircraft, with registration number 9N-AET, made its first flight 43 years ago.

Air accidents are not uncommon in Nepal, home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Everest, as weather can change suddenly, making airstrips in the mountains hazardous.

In early 2018, a US-Bangla Airlines flight from Dhaka to Kathmandu crashed on landing and caught fire, killing 51 of the 71 people on board.
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2021 Another Record Year for Meth Seizures in Southeast Asia

Methamphetamine seizures across East and Southeast Asia hit yet another record high in 2021, proof of the “staggering” scale and reach the region’s drug gangs have gained after a decade of steady growth that looks set to continue, the United Nations says in a new report.

In Synthetic Drugs in East and Southeast Asia: Latest Development and Challenges, issued Monday in Bangkok, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime says seizures of meth tablets topped 1 billion for the first time last year. While crystal meth, or ice, seizures dipped slightly to 79 metric tons, it says, total meth seizures by weight were a record 171.5 metric tons in 2021, nearly eight times the total seizures a decade ago.

Combined with stable or falling street and wholesale prices across the region, the UNODC says the spiraling drug hauls are evidence of soaring production more than stepped-up law enforcement.

“It is fair to say the region is struggling badly to address meth, and frankly to deal with other synthetic drugs as well,” Jeremy Douglas, the UNODC’s representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, told VOA.

“There needs to be a radical policy shift and rebalancing if the region wants to get to a point of managing the meth problem or making some headway,” he added.

Border battle

With fewer and fewer busts of meth labs across the region, the UNODC says production continues to concentrate in the notorious Golden Triangle, a rugged and remote domain of warlords, drug gangs and gunrunners where the corners of eastern Myanmar, western Laos and northern Thailand meet.

Within that triangle, it says meth production is concentrating further still in eastern Myanmar, where militias backed by the country’s brutal military and rebel armies set against it vie for territory — and a cut of the drug trade.

Most of the meth made there continues to pour into northern Thailand, from where it cascades across the rest of the country, Southeast Asia and as far away as Australia and Japan.

However, beefed-up security by Thai police along the country’s northern border has been pushing a growing share of the traffic through Laos instead. From there, drug gangs can bypass the north of Thailand and push their product into the country across its less-guarded border in the northeast Isaan region, most of which tracks the Mekong River.

Of all the ice and meth tablets interdicted in Thailand’s top 10 provinces for seizures last year, northeast provinces accounted for 49% and 39%, respectively.

Lt. Gen. Pornchai Charoenwong, an assistant to the Thai police force’s narcotics suppression division, confirmed the trend.

“We can point to a couple of factors,” he told VOA. “First is the increased suppression by the government, police and the military in the northern region. With that increased suppression, we’ve seen a change in trafficking routes from the northern part of Thailand to the Isaan region along the Mekong River.”

He said COVID-driven border controls have played a part as well.

To help Thai authorities plug the gaps, the U.S. State Department’s International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Office has donated some $670,000 worth of equipment to local police in the northeast this year.

Mark Snyder, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s acting head of mission in Thailand, said that represents an increase in U.S. crime-fighting aid to that part of the country, reflecting its growing role in the region’s drug trade.

“Thai law enforcement has been doing a lot of work on the northern border,” he said, and “when you have increased law enforcement presence in one area, the criminal organizations will adapt to that.”

He declined to say what the equipment consists of. Pornchai said the U.S. donations typically include vehicles, communications gear and drones.

From Thailand, much of the meth flows south to, and through, Malaysia, which the UNODC report highlights as an increasingly important springboard to the rest of Southeast Asia and beyond for Golden Triangle drug gangs.

Laos, Thailand and Malaysia all saw record seizures of meth tablets in 2021.

Growth potential

The UNODC says the trade is also getting harder to stop, for a few reasons.

Most producers “brand” their packages with distinct codes that help the gangs keep track of them down the line. Variations on “999” and “Y1” are the most common, for reasons that are not entirely clear. Last year, though, the share of meth seized from a host of smaller producers using other codes shot up from 2.8% to 13%.

Douglas said the “unprecedented” surge in smaller producers, who buy meth powder from larger groups but press the tablets themselves, is likely adding to the overall rise in supply. He said more producers also means more trafficking networks, which means more players for the authorities to try and uncover, infiltrate and stop.

Blocking the flow of the chemicals the larger groups use to make their meth is getting tougher too, the U.N. agency says.

Seizures of the most common meth precursors, burdened by import and export controls that force drug gangs to get their hands on much of what they need on the black market, have crashed across Southeast Asia in recent years. The UNODC suspects that means the groups have switched to making those precursors themselves from other chemicals, or pre-precursors, that are not controlled.

The new report says authorities in the region seized a number of these other chemicals last year and into 2022 either at or on the way to suspected lab sites.

Douglas said pre-precursors “make an already complex situation more difficult.”

The U.N. and others are working with local authorities to highlight the problem and help them share intelligence on where and when those chemicals are moving, he added, while talks at the global level on controlling their shipment are also underway.

The report also notes the spread of meth from Myanmar westward into northern India, Middle Eastern drug gangs now using Malaysia as a steppingstone for amphetamine shipments, and illicit ketamine producers setting up shop in Cambodia.

Douglas said Southeast Asia’s drug gangs “have all the ingredients in place that they need to continue to grow,” and will do so unless local authorities themselves adapt.

“The scale and reach of the methamphetamine and synthetic drug trade in East and Southeast Asia is staggering,” he said, “and yet it can continue to expand if the region does not change approach and address the root causes that have allowed it to get to this point, including governance in the Golden Triangle and market demand.”
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05/29/2022 DruchinaChina

Plane with 22 People on Board Missing in Nepal’s Mountains

A small airplane with 22 people on board flying on a popular tourist route was missing in Nepal’s mountains on Sunday, an official said.

The Tara Airlines plane, which was on a 15-minute scheduled flight to the mountain town of Jomsom, took off from the resort town of Pokhara, 200 kilometers east of Kathmandu. It lost contact with the airport tower shortly after takeoff.

Police official Ramesh Thapa said there was no information on the turboprop Twin Otter aircraft and a search was underway.

There were six foreigners on board the plane, including four Indians and two Germans, a police official, who was not authorized to speak to the media, said on condition of anonymity.

It has been raining in the area for the past few days but flights have been operating normally. Planes on that route fly between mountains before landing in a valley.

It is a popular route with foreign hikers who trek on the mountain trails and also with Indian and Nepalese pilgrims who visit the revered Muktinath temple.

According to plane tracking data from flightradar24.com, the 43-year-old aircraft took off from Pokhara at 04:10 GMT and transmitted its last signal at 04:22 GMT at an altitude of 3,900 meters.

In 2016, a Tara Airlines Twin Otter flying the same route crashed after takeoff, killing all 23 people aboard. In 2012, an Agni Air plane also flying from Pokhara to Jomsom crashed, killing 15 people. Six people survived. In 2014, a Nepal Airlines plane flying from Pokhara to Jumla crashed, killing all 18 on board.

In 2018, a US-Bangla passenger plane from Bangladesh crashed on landing in Kathmandu, killing 49 of the 71 people aboard.
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05/28/2022 DruchinaChina

‘Princess of the Wall of Death’: Indonesian Daredevil Defies Gravity and Stereotypes

Karmila Purba revs her motorbike under the lights of an Indonesian night carnival and rides up horizontally inside a wooden cylinder called Satan’s Barrel, drawing gasps from spectators looking down into the drum.

With a smile on her face, Purba delights onlookers as she fearlessly pings around the bowl in Bogor, West Java, spreading her arms to collect tips waved by those above.

The gravity-defying daredevil is among a handful of women that perform the stunt in Indonesia, zipping around a structure more commonly known as the “Wall of Death.”

Women becoming “Wall of Death” riders is “extremely rare,” the 23-year-old told AFP before the show.

“When I started there was no one else … so I wanted to be something different, doing something that no one else was doing.”

For decades, the Satan’s Barrel — or “Tong Setan” — has been the main attraction at traveling funfairs in Indonesia, particularly in rural areas where there are few options for affordable entertainment.

Using centrifugal force, riders sling their bikes around the motordrome at high speeds without protective gear as the smell of rubber fills the air.

Purba came from humble beginnings, earning a meagre living as a street busker on the island of Sumatra in western Indonesia before switching jobs eight years ago for a better income of around 6 million rupiah ($410) a month.

She can also earn up to 400,000 rupiah ($27) in tips on a good day.

But at the beginning of her daredevil journey, she faced questions about her career choice.

“People were saying to me, ‘You are a woman, why do you do something like that? It’s not for females’,” she said.

“There was a lot of criticism.”

Fans eventually began to praise Purba, giving her the nickname “the Princess of the Wall of Death.”

Now she is one of the star acts of the carnival.

“(A) female wall of death rider is very interesting and has become the main attraction in this night market because people are curious,” spectator Sumarno told AFP while watching the show.

“They didn’t believe a woman could do something extreme like that.”
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05/27/2022 DruchinaChina

Taliban Rebuff UN Calls for Reversing Rules on Afghan Women

The Afghan Taliban have turned down renewed calls by the United Nations for the Islamist rulers to reverse restrictions on the human rights of women in Afghanistan, saying they are in line with local religious and cultural values.

The hard-line group’s foreign ministry issued a statement Friday rejecting U.N. concerns as “unfounded.” It urged the global community “not to pass verdicts based on malicious and antagonist reporting of some media outlets or propaganda” by Afghan opposition forces.

In consecutive statements this week, the U.N. Security Council and the world body’s special observer on the human rights situation in Afghanistan expressed “deep concern” and sharply criticized the latest Taliban order for women to cover up fully in pubic, including their faces.

The Taliban’s Ministry for Vice and Virtue, tasked with interpreting and enforcing the Taliban’s version of Islam, also bound female presenters on Afghan TV channels to cover their faces when on air.

The male-only interim Taliban government has also suspended girls’ secondary education, prevented most female employees from returning to government jobs, barred women from traveling alone and strongly advised them to stay at home.

Friday’s Taliban statement noted that the “government considers the observance of Islamic hijab to be in line with the religious and cultural practices of society and aspirations of majority of Afghan women.” It went on to stress that “nothing has been imposed on the Afghan people that runs counter to the religious and cultural beliefs of the Islamic society.”

The Taliban urged the international community to “show respect” for Afghan values, insisting it believed in resolving problems through dialogue.

Following meetings with Taliban leaders Thursday, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, said the group’s polices were “making women invisible” across the country.

“The de facto authorities have failed to acknowledge the magnitude and gravity of the abuses being committed, many of them in their name and their responsibility to address them and protect the entire population,” Bennett told reporters in the capital, Kabul, at the end of his 11-day trip to the country.

The U.N. expert cautioned that the Taliban “stands at a crossroads” and the Afghan society under their rule will either become more stable and “a place where Afghans enjoy freedom and human rights, or it will become increasingly restrictive.”

On Tuesday, the 15-member U.N. Security Council renewed its call on the Taliban to adhere to their commitments to reopen schools for all female students without further delay and “swiftly reverse” restrictions on Afghan women’s fundamental freedom and access to public life.

The international community has not recognized the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan, saying the issue would come under consideration only after the Islamist group adheres to its pledges to protect the human rights of all Afghans, especially those of women.

The Taliban seized power from the Western-backed former government in August when the last U.S.-led international forces withdrew from the country after almost 20 years of war with the Islamist group.
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05/27/2022 DruchinaChina

Indian Novel ‘Tomb of Sand’ Wins International Booker Prize

Indian writer Geetanjali Shree and American translator Daisy Rockwell won the International Booker Prize on Thursday for Tomb of Sand, a vibrant novel with a boundary-crossing 80-year-old heroine.

Originally written in Hindi, it’s the first book in any Indian language to win the high-profile award, which recognizes fiction from around the world that has been translated into English. The $63,000 prize money will be split between New Delhi-based Shree and Rockwell, who lives in Vermont.

Translator Frank Wynne, who chaired the judging panel, said the judges “overwhelmingly” chose Tomb of Sand after “a very passionate debate.”

The book tells the story of an octogenarian widow who dares to cast off convention and confront the ghosts of her experiences during the subcontinent’s tumultuous 1947 partition into India and Pakistan.

Wynne said that despite confronting traumatic events, “it is an extraordinarily exuberant and incredibly playful book.”

“It manages to take issues of great seriousness — bereavement, loss, death — and conjure up an extraordinary choir, almost a cacophony, of voices,” he said.

“It is extraordinarily fun, and it is extraordinarily funny.”

Shree’s book beat five other finalists including Polish Nobel literature laureate Olga Tokarczuk, Claudia Pineiro of Argentina and South Korean author Bora Chung to be awarded the prize at a ceremony in London.

The International Booker Prize is awarded every year to a translated work of fiction published in the U.K. or Ireland. It is run alongside the Booker Prize for English-language fiction.

The prize was set up to boost the profile of fiction in other languages — which accounts for only a small share of books published in Britain — and to salute the often-unacknowledged work of literary translators.

Wynne said the prize aimed to show that “literature in translation is not some form of cod liver oil that is supposed to be good for you.”

Tomb of Sand is published in Britain by small publisher Tilted Axis Press. It was founded by translator Deborah Smith — who won the 2016 International Booker for translating Han Kang’s The Vegetarian — to publish books from Asia.

The novel has not yet been published in the United States, but Wynne said he expected that to change with “a flurry of offers” after its Booker victory.

In Britain, “I would be gobsmacked [astonished] if it didn’t increase its sales by more than 1,000% in the next week,” Wynne said. “Possibly more.”
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UN Observer Says Taliban Policies Making Afghan Women Invisible

A senior United Nations observer Thursday expressed serious concern about the “erasure of women from public life” across Afghanistan since the Islamist Taliban seized power in August.

“Afghanistan is facing a plethora of critical human rights challenges that are having a severe impact on the population,” Richard Bennett, the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, told a news conference in Kabul at the end of his 11-day maiden trip to the country.

“I urge the authorities to acknowledge the human rights challenges that they are facing and to close the gap between their words and their deeds,” he stressed.

The insurgent-turned-ruling group’s male-only government has suspended Afghan girls’ secondary education, prevented most female employees from returning to government jobs, barred women from traveling alone, ordered them to cover up fully in public, including their faces, and strongly advised them to stay at home.

Bennett said the policies “fit the pattern of absolute gender segregation and are aimed at making women invisible in society.”

The U.N. expert met with Taliban leaders, members of Afghan civil society, including women human rights defenders, journalists, minorities and victims of human rights violations.

The U.N. expert spoke on a day when Taliban forces in Kabul reportedly disrupted a women’s protest that called for the reopening of girls’ schools.

“Civil society space and media freedom is critical for a peaceful society in which rights are respected,” Bennett said.

Bennett said he was able to visit a prison, hospitals, schools and mosques in several places in the Afghan capital, and northern Mazar-i-Sharif, as well as southern Kandahar cities.

Bennett noted the Taliban had extended their invitation for him to access the entire country and to visit sensitive locations “in a crucial commitment to ensure that transparent monitoring can be undertaken.”

“The Taliban stands at a crossroads. Either the society will become more stable and a place where every Afghan enjoys freedom and human rights, or it will become increasingly restrictive,” Bennett cautioned. He will present the findings of his first report to the September session of the U.N. Human Rights Council.
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India Defends Wheat Export Ban

India has defended its decision to ban exports of wheat after initially saying it would help ease a global supply crunch created by the war in Ukraine.

The Indian government imposed the ban two weeks ago amid concerns that an early heat wave has blighted harvests in the country and caused domestic prices to surge to a record high.

Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said Wednesday that officials were worried about the “price stability” of the staple grain.

“Today, 22 countries of Europe have regulations on exports to protect their food security. Different countries in different points in time had to take extraordinary measures in public interest,” Goyal told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The export ban aims to cool domestic prices as India, which like other countries, is battling inflation, which at 7.8 percent in April, was the highest in eight years.

The government on Wednesday also announced that it would restrict exports of sugar to 10 million tons – another move that aims at keeping domestic prices stable. India is the world’s biggest producer of sugar and second biggest exporter after Brazil.

Such restrictions are being seen as a part of “food protectionism” at a time when world supplies are tightening, and the United Nations has warned about the specter of a global food shortage in coming months.

But it is the ban on wheat that has raised most concerns and prompted calls to reconsider it.

In an interview to broadcaster NDTV, International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva urged India to reverse the ban, saying that the country could play a key role in international food security and global stability.

“I would beg India to reconsider as soon as possible because the more countries step into export restrictions, the more others would be tempted to do so and we would end up as a global community less equipped to deal with the crisis,” she said at Davos.

However, Minister Goyal has said that India’s export regulations on wheat will not impact global markets. “India’s wheat exports are less than one percent of global trade,” he said. “We continue to allow exports to vulnerable countries and neighbors.”

India, which is the world’s second biggest wheat producer, has not traditionally been a big supplier of wheat to global markets.

But the government had announced targets of increasing exports to about 10 to 15 million tons this year and had made upbeat statements about helping countries facing shortages.

“We already have enough food for our people, but our farmers seem to have made arrangements to feed the world,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in April.

Just two days before announcing the ban, the government had announced that it would send delegations to nine countries to promote wheat exports.

Several agricultural experts in India have called the abrupt reversal a “knee jerk reaction.”

“This kind of a flip-flop dents India’s credibility in the world. You announce a policy and then do just the opposite,” says Harish Damodaran, agriculture editor at the Indian Express newspaper. “While the reasons may be justified, I think they could have restricted exports in a gradual way. In the long term, this will hurt the country’s ability to build markets for its agricultural crops.”

The sudden decision came after the government, which purchases vast quantities of wheat for a massive food security program that reaches some 800 million people, procured lower quantities of the staple crop this year.

That was partly due to lesser crop output and partly because farmers sold more wheat this year to private traders, who were buying at higher prices as they looked ahead to buoyant exports.

While estimates vary, farmers say the heat wave that struck early in March shriveled their harvests by 15 to 20 percent.

The ban has also hurt farmers who had this year hoped to benefit from higher global prices. “It was a double whammy for them. They have been hit because their harvests were affected and now they also cannot benefit from higher global prices,” pointed out Damodaran.
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Pakistan’s Ex-PM Khan Gives Government 6 Days to Announce Election

Ousted Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan told thousands of supporters Thursday that if the government failed to announce snap elections in six days, he will return to Islamabad to stage a sit-in protest with hundreds of thousands of people.

Khan led a massive convoy of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party into the capital in early morning, where he delivered the ultimatum before peacefully disbanding the protest march.

The cricketer-turned-politician denounced Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government for a massive police crackdown on his supporters before and during the protest march since it set off Wednesday morning from the northwestern city of Swabi, about 100 kilometers from the capital.

Khan, 69, claimed the police action had killed five of his party workers while many more were wounded.

“I am giving you six days. You announce elections in six days and dissolve the Parliament. I will return to Islamabad with my entire nation if you don’t do that,” he warned from atop a truck after he and his convoy reached Islamabad just before dawn.

The former prime minister had originally planned to stage a sit-in protest in the capital and stay put until the government announced a date for snap elections.

“I had decided that I will sit here until the government dissolves assemblies and announces elections, but of what I have seen in the past 24 hours, (the government) are taking the nation toward anarchy,” he said.

Khan was ousted following a parliamentary no-confidence vote last month, toppling his nearly four-year coalition government headed by his PTI party. Sharif replaced him and formed a new multiparty unity government.

Khan has repeatedly alleged that the United States conspired with his political opponents to topple him and denounced the Sharif administration as an “imported government.” Khan has not offered evidence to substantiate his claims.

Washington has from the outset rejected Khan’s allegations as untrue. Sharif has also dismissed the so-called foreign conspiracy claims as a “pack of lies.”

Authorities had blocked entry routes into Islamabad with scores of shipping containers and deployed thousands of police as well as paramilitary forces to keep the rally from the city. The government also ordered the deployment of troops at key installations, including the Parliament, the Supreme Court and the diplomatic enclave housing foreign embassies.

The top court ordered the government Wednesday night to remove all the blockades and to arrange an open space for Khan’s supporters to hold their rally in line with their democratic rights and disperse peacefully.

The protesters defied the judicial orders, however, and reached the heart of the capital and police used heavy tear gas and batons for several hours to try to disperse the crowd before Khan’s convoy entered the city and joined them, forcing police to cease their operation.

Officials said protesters had set fire to trees, vehicles, shops, and a bus station. Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said at least 18 police and paramilitary troops were wounded in clashes with protesters.

Clashes between PTI supporters and police had also taken place elsewhere in Pakistan, including in central Punjab province and the largest southern port city, Karachi, since Khan’s convoy began its march on Wednesday.

Television footage showed police clashing with Khan’s supporters, beating them, and, in some areas, breaking their vehicles’ windshields and bundling them into police vans.

Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah confirmed at a news conference in Islamabad Wednesday that police had raided nearly 4,500 PTI homes, offices and protest rallies across the country, arresting around 1,700 people.

The political crisis has deepened Pakistan’s economic woes. The government was in weeklong talks with the International Monetary for Fund, which ended Wednesday, for the resumption of a $6 billion bailout package but failed to secure a deal, adding to the pressure on beleaguered Sharif.

In a statement, the IMF said its team had held “highly constructive” discussions with Pakistani authorities, aimed at reaching an agreement on policies and reforms.

“The team emphasized the urgency of concrete policy actions, including in the context of removing fuel and energy subsidies and the FY2023 budget, to achieve program objectives,” the statement said. Experts said the removal of subsidies would increase inflation and could fuel public anger.
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Planned Bangladesh Law Raises Freedom of Expression Fears

Bangladesh is planning to introduce legislation, almost certain to be enacted, that experts say would curtail freedom of expression and the press and result in an effective government seizure of digital media.

The government, led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League Party and in power since 2009, has already passed controversial laws, such as the Digital Security Act, in 2018, which has been used to put politicians, journalists and ordinary citizens in jail and, according to multiple human rights groups, to curtail freedom of expression.

The proposed Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission Regulation for Digital, Social Media and OTT Platforms legislation would establish an aggressive set of rules for digital platforms.

The draft has been published on the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission website for public comment before being considered within the government and then sent to Bangladesh’s parliament, the unicameral House of the Nation, where it is expected to pass.

Under the proposal, no social media, digital platform or OTT platform – “over-the-top” platforms stream content directly to customers over the web – could display content threatening the “unity, integrity, defense, security, or sovereignty of Bangladesh, and its friendly relations with foreign states.”

The law would also ban from digital platforms content that criticizes the 1971 Liberation War of Bangladesh that established the country, formerly East Pakistan, the spirit of the war, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the architect of independence, the national anthem or flag, or anything that threatens to reveal government secrets.

The draft regulation would allow the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission to direct social media and other digital service providers to remove or block content. Providers would have to comply within 72 hours or face fines and imprisonment.

These restrictions are identical or strikingly similar to some sections of the narrower Digital Security Act 2018.

The government claims the law is necessary to govern online content, prevent fraud and threats to public tranquility, and to discourage piracy and obscenity.

Posts and Telecommunication Minister Mostafa Jabbar told VOA the proposed legislation is needed and said it has been prepared for “better governance.”

“If you look at the provisions in the proposed legislation, you will find that we formulated it to make the global tech giants and social media companies more accountable. We have seen how hate speech and misinformation were spread through platforms like Facebook in Bangladesh,” he said, referring to past incidents of communal violence triggered by rumors spread over social media.

“These social media giants barely comply with our requests when we ask them to take down vicious content. Now we want to make them accountable through our own law,” he said.

Fears of a ‘surveillance-based’ nation

Some experts say that if the new legislation were passed in its current form in the parliament, it would, for all practical purposes, turn Bangladesh into a “surveillance-based” nation.

The organization Society for Media and Suitable Human-Communication Techniques, which analyzed some 250 cases filed under DSA, said only 18% were for what could be described as digital crimes. The rest were filed for expressing opinions online or sharing news content, the group said.

Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust, a public interest legal services organization, said that, like DSA, the proposed legislation’s provisions are broad in scope.

“If passed as currently drafted, it will have a chilling effect on freedom of expression. It sets out to prohibit the creation and dissemination of a wide range of online content on digital and social media. The language used in the draft Regulation also has the potential to impact marginalized communities and dissenting voices,” a spokesperson for the organization, who asked not to be named, said in an email to VOA.

The draft legislation, meanwhile, would require intermediaries, such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal, to enable traceability and identification of the first originator of any information.

Anti-graft watchdog Transparency International Bangladesh termed the proposed bill “anti-constitutional,” and said Bangladesh would become a “surveillance-based nation” if it were passed.

Iftekhar Zaman, executive director of TIB told VOA, “The draft regulation makes it mandatory to disclose the identity of message sender and receiver in encrypted platforms. It also enforces arbitrary and indiscriminate removal of content and repressive action. Both of these actions are against freedom of speech, the plurality of opinions and right to privacy.”

In an email to VOA, a spokesperson for Facebook owner Meta, who asked not to be named, said, “We cannot comment on the legislation since this is still not finalized. However, we hope that any new rules for the internet in Bangladesh will respect international best practices on safety, privacy, and freedom of expression, and create an environment conducive to innovation, investment and growth.”

Similar act draws flak in India

Journalist Shayan S. Khan compared the proposal to legislation in India that has been criticized by the United Nations and others.

“If you look at the relevant section of the draft regulation, that outlines what sort of content will be prohibited,” he said, “you will find it is literally a word-by-word copy of the Indian IT Rules 2021.”

“The similarities between the Indian law and the Bangladeshi draft make the Indian experience relevant to foreseeing how it might go for us. So in June 2021, a month after the law came into effect, three U.N. special rapporteurs wrote a joint letter to the Indian government saying that the law, in its current form, does not conform with international human rights norms,” Khan said.

The similarities between the Bangladesh Draft Regulation and the Indian IT Rules prompted the Global Network Initiative to write to the BTRC expressing alarm. The group’s members include Meta, Microsoft, Uber, Zoom, Telenor Group, Yahoo, Google, Nokia, Vodafone, Verizon, Human Rights Watch, Wikimedia, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and others.

“There are several areas of the draft regulation,” the group wrote, “where we saw clauses that were incomplete, important terms left undefined, or areas transposed from India’s Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, that seemingly failed to account for differences in the regulatory environment, adding to our concerns about the rushed deliberation processes.”

“We encourage the BTRC and the government more broadly to reconsider its approach to consultation on this bill, helping to build an evidence base for the draft regulation to address the regulation’s stated concerns in a rights-respecting fashion,” GNI said.

The Indian rules are currently facing multiple legal challenges before Indian courts, where at least three high courts have issued interim orders instructing the government to not enforce significant portions of the rules.
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Blasts in Kabul Mosque, Northern Afghanistan Kill at Least 14

A series of explosions shook Afghanistan on Wednesday, the Taliban said, including a blast inside a mosque in the capital of Kabul that killed at least five worshippers and three bombings of minivans in the country’s north that killed nine passengers.

The Kabul Emergency Hospital said it received 22 victims of the mosque bombing, including five dead. There were no further details on the blast that struck the Hazrat Zakaria Mosque in the city’s central Police District 4, according to Khalid Zadran, a Taliban police spokesman in Kabul.

“The blast took place while people were inside the mosque for the evening prayers,” Zadran said, adding that they were waiting for an update.

The minivans were targeted in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif after explosive devices were placed inside the vehicles, according to Mohammad Asif Waziri, a Taliban-appointed spokesman in Balkh province. He said the explosions killed nine and wounded 15.

All the victims in Mazar-e-Sharif were from the country’s minority Shiite Muslims, according to a police official who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to give details to the media.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the explosions, but they had the hallmarks of the regional affiliate of the Islamic State group, known as Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K.

ISIS-K, which has been operating in Afghanistan since 2014, is seen as the greatest security challenge facing the country’s new Taliban rulers. Since their takeover, when they seized power in Kabul and elsewhere in the country last August, the Taliban have launched a sweeping crackdown against the IS headquarters in eastern Afghanistan.

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Pakistan Police Fire Tear Gas at Imran Khan’s Anti-Government Rally

As former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan led an anti-government rally to Islamabad on Wednesday to press his demand for fresh elections, police used tear gas and batons and detained hundreds of his protesters in a bid to disrupt the march.

Khan said that tens of thousands of his supporters planned to stage a sit-in protest in the national capital and stay put until the government announced a date for snap elections.

The cricketer-turned-politician was ousted following a parliamentary no-confidence vote last month, ending his nearly four-year coalition government headed by his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. Khan’s chief political rival, Shahbaz Sharif, replaced him as prime minister of a new multiparty unity government.

The government late on Wednesday authorized the deployment of troops at key installations, including parliament, the Supreme Court and the diplomatic enclave housing foreign embassies.

The announcement came shortly after Khan entered Islamabad.

Authorities have deployed thousands of police and paramilitary forces in key areas, including parliament, and blocked all entry routes into the city to prevent protesters from converging on Islamabad.

Entry and exit points were also blocked to and from all major cities in the most populous province, Punjab. The political turmoil has brought life in the province and Islamabad to a standstill, with schools shuttered and examinations suspended.

Despite heavy shelling with tear gas, a few thousand defiant protesters reached the famous D Square in Islamabad by late evening, the venue where Khan promised to stage the sit-in.

“No amount of state oppression and fascism by this imported government can stop or deter our march,” Khan tweeted as his convoy moved closer to Islamabad. The convoy began its journey from the northwestern city of Swabi, about 100 kilometers from the capital.

“We will remain in Islamabad till announcement of dates for dissolution of assemblies & elections are given,” Khan later wrote on Twitter.

The Sharif government has denounced the protest march as illegal and accused Khan of seeking to bring protesters to Islamabad with “evil intentions.”

Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah confirmed at a news conference in Islamabad that police had raided nearly 4,500 PTI homes, offices and protest rallies, mostly in Punjab, arresting around 1,700 people.

“We haven’t stopped anyone from exercising their constitutional right to hold a rally or take part in democratic politics, but we can’t allow anyone to sow violence and chaos,” Sanaullah maintained.

Television footage showed police clashing with Khan’s supporters, beating them and in some areas breaking their vehicles’ windscreens and bundling them into police vans.

Eyewitnesses and officials confirmed that at least two people, including a policeman, were killed and dozens more were wounded since the police raids and anti-government protests erupted in Pakistan on Tuesday.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi, a senior PTI leader and former foreign minister, spoke to the local ARY channel late Wednesday, alleging that that the police action had killed at least five party workers.

There was no immediate reaction from the government to his allegations.

The political crisis has deepened Pakistan’s economic woes amid ongoing talks between the Sharif government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the resumption of a $6 billion bailout package that Khan’s ousted government had negotiated with the agency.

The weeklong talks in Qatar, which concluded Wednesday, failed to produce an immediate agreement, adding to the pressure on the beleaguered Sharif government.

In a statement, the IMF said its team had held “highly constructive” discussions with Pakistani authorities, aimed at reaching an agreement on policies and reforms.

Khan has rejected the no-confidence vote against him as illegal, alleging that the United States conspired with his political opponents to plot his ouster to punish him for pursuing an independent foreign policy for his country. Since his ouster, he has held massive protest rallies condemning the Sharif administration as an “imported government.” Khan has not offered evidence to substantiate his claims.

Washington has from the outset rejected Khan’s allegations as untrue. Sharif has also dismissed the so-called foreign conspiracy claims as a “pack of lies.”
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Indian Court Sentences Kashmiri Leader to Life in Prison

An Indian court sentenced a Kashmiri separatist leader to life in prison on Wednesday after declaring him guilty of terrorism and sedition, triggering a clash between protesters and police and a partial shutdown of businesses in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir.

Mohammed Yasin Malik, 56, led the banned Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, one of the first armed rebel groups in the Indian-held area, but later shifted to peaceful means in seeking the end of Indian rule.

Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since British colonialists granted it independence in 1947. Both countries claim the region in its entirety and have fought two wars over its control.

Malik was arrested in 2019 and was convicted last week on charges of committing terrorist acts, illegally raising funds, belonging to a terrorist organization and criminal conspiracy and sedition.

Before Wednesday’s sentencing, dozens of Kashmiris gathered at Malik’s home in Srinagar, the largest city in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Some marched through the streets, chanting “We want freedom” and “Go back India.” Government forces fired tear gas at the marchers, who threw stones.

No injuries were immediately reported.

Shops and businesses closed in the main centers of Srinagar.

Prosecutors said the judge rejected their request for a death sentence.

The government banned Malik’s organization in 2019, accusing it of funding terrorism and blaming it for the deaths of minority Hindus in the Himalayan region.

Malik protested the charges during the trial and said he was a freedom fighter.

“The terrorism-related charges leveled against me are concocted, fabricated and politically motivated,” he said.

“If seeking azadi (freedom) is a crime, then I am ready to accept this crime and its consequences,” he told the judge.

Pakistan Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif condemned Malik’s sentencing, and its Foreign Ministry said it summoned India’s top diplomat in Islamabad.

“Today is a black day for Indian democracy & its justice system,” Sharif tweeted. “India can imprison Yasin Malik physically but it can never imprison idea of freedom he symbolizes. Life imprisonment for valiant freedom fighter will provide fresh impetus to Kashmiris’ right to self-determination.”

In the late 1980s, Malik joined a group of young people who traveled to Pakistani-controlled Kashmir for arms training, seeking independence for all of Kashmir from India and Pakistan.

By 1989, Indian-controlled Kashmir was in the throes of a full-blown rebellion, with Malik and his comrades conducting attacks against the Indian security establishment and pro-India Kashmiri politicians.

India responded with a massive militarization of Kashmir, saying it was fighting a Pakistan-sponsored proxy war. It unleashed a brutal counterinsurgency campaign, and soldiers were given broad impunity and allowed to shoot suspects on sight or detain them indefinitely.

Malik was arrested during a raid by Indian troops in 1990 and was released in 1994. He took over control of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, shifting away from armed rebellion and seeking the end of Indian rule over the territory through peaceful political means.

In 2003, Malik and his associates began collecting signatures of Kashmiris seeking the right to self-determination. They traveled for two years to hundreds of villages and towns, gathering over 1.5 million signatures.

He helped lead an anti-India uprising in 2008 with large-scale protests that marked a shift from armed struggle to non-violent resistance. He continued to lead large public gatherings in subsequent years seeking an end of Indian rule.

Malik held several unsuccessful rounds of talks with the Indian government, including with two prime ministers. He is married to a Pakistani artist, Mushaal Hussein, and they have a 10-year-old daughter.

Most Muslim Kashmiris support the rebel goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict since 1989.

The All Parties Hurriyat Conference, a coalition of anti-Indian Kashmiri political groups, said Malik was “being punished for his political beliefs” and was “convicted in invented cases under draconian laws.”

The group urged the Indian government to release all Kashmiri political prisoners and resolve the Kashmir conflict through dialogue.
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