A powerful cyclone made landfall in eastern India and Bangladesh Wednesday, causing at least two deaths, flooding and damage to structures.Prior to coming ashore, Cyclone Yaas had caused at least 1.1 million people to evacuate the storm’s path.Yaas’ winds were reportedly 130-140 kilometers per hour when it came ashore, but were expected to subside.In Bangladesh, at least 200 villages were cut off due to flooding, and in the southern district of Patuakhali, 20 villages were reportedly under water.Indian television aired images of flooding in the West Bengal resort town of Digha as the wind bent palm trees. Several riverbanks were reportedly breached. Some 20,000 traditional mud homes were reportedly damaged.”I have not seen anything like this before,” said West Bengal official Bankim Hazra. “Successive high tides battered the coastline,” he added. “It is inundation all around and villages are cut off.”India’s massive coronavirus wave complicated storm preparedness, according to news reports. The storm also interfered with testing and vaccination.  
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WhatsApp has filed a lawsuit challenging the Indian government’s new rules that require the Facebook-owned messaging platform to make people’s messages traceable, a move it says would undermine the privacy of users.The lawsuit was filed as India brought sweeping new regulations into force on Wednesday to make social media and technology companies, that have tens of millions of users in the country, more accountable for content on their platform.One of the new rules would require messaging platforms to identify the “first originator of information” when authorities demand it. WhatsApp wants that regulation blocked saying that it undermines citizens’ fundamental right to privacy.In a statement issued after the lawsuit was filed, the government said it respects the right to privacy as a fundamental right but “no Fundamental Right, including the Right to Privacy, is absolute and it is subject to reasonable restrictions.”The statement by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said the requirement to disclose the origin of a particular message will only arise in the case of “prevention, investigation or punishment” of very serious offences.With over 40 million users, India is one of the biggest markets for the messaging platform. It has said that it is committed to protecting the privacy of people’s personal messages.“Technology and privacy experts have determined that traceability breaks end-to-end encryption and would severely undermine the privacy of billions of people who communicate digitally,” WhatsApp says in a blog post on its website. It said that a government “that chooses to mandate traceability is effectively mandating a new form of mass surveillance.”Technology experts in New Delhi called the lawsuit by WhatsApp significant.“This is one of the most significant lawsuits for privacy and it has implications not just for Indian users but globally. What will be debated in court is — can privacy of all users be compromised because there might be a legitimate demand from law enforcement agencies for information on one user or one message,” said Nikhil Pahwa, a digital rights activist and founder of technology publication Medianama. “Basically many governments around the world don’t want these kind of encrypted platforms because these platforms are blind to them and do not allow mass surveillance.”FILE – Rohitash Repswal, a digital marketer, shows a software tool that appears to automate the process of sending messages to WhatsApp users, on a screen inside his office in New Delhi, India, May 8, 2019.The sweeping new rules that were announced in February give the government more power to order social media companies, digital media and streaming platforms to remove content that it considers unlawful and require them to help with police investigations in identifying people who post “misinformation.” The employees of the companies in India can be held criminally liable for failing to comply with the government’s requests.Social media companies in India have been facing a tougher environment as the government seeks to regulate content posted online, which has become one of the most important spaces to express dissenting views.A spokesman for the opposition Congress Party, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, said the new rules were “extremely dangerous” for free speech and creativity, “unless extreme restraint is exercised” in implementing them.Critics accuse the government of trying to stifle online criticism and point to its requests to Twitter last month to remove several tweets including some that were critical of the government’s handling of the pandemic ravaging India. The government had said the messages could incite panic and were misinformation.Police also turned up at the local offices of Twitter in New Delhi on Monday to serve notice to the company concerning an investigation into the tagging of some government official’s tweets as “manipulated media.” 
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The U.N. Children’s Fund is calling for urgent action to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of children in South Asia who are missing out on routine life-saving vaccinations because of the COVID-19 pandemic. South Asia, home to nearly two billion people, and more than a quarter of the world’s children, is buckling under the strain of a deadly spike in coronavirus infections.  The U.N. Children’s Fund reports one person dies from COVID-19 every 17 seconds.  It warns the sheer scale and speed of this new surge is outstripping the ability of countries to provide life-saving treatment.  It says many fragile health systems are at the point of collapse.UNICEF regional director for South Asia, George Laryea-Adjei, says everything must be done to prevent this from happening.  Speaking on a video link from Katmandu in Nepal, he says children and mothers depend upon these care facilities for survival.   UN Appeals for Funds to Help Nepal Deal With COVID-19 Organization seeks nearly $84 million for assistance to address Nepal’s worst COVID-19 outbreak”During the first wave of COVID last year, an estimated 228,000 children and 11,000 mothers died because of disruptions to essential health services, like routine immunization, like care during childbirth, care during pregnancy and so on,” said Laryea-Adjei. He warns child and maternal deaths are likely to be much higher now because the present COVID-19 surge is four times the size of the first.   Laryea-Adjei says UNICEF has been on-the-ground working around the clock since the start of the pandemic.  But he adds his agency is short of the supplies and the money it needs to carry out its life-saving operation.  “UNICEF needs $164 million for urgent delivery of oxygen and testing supplies, for medical equipment, for PPE, personal protective equipment and infection prevention and control material,” said Laryea-Adjei.The UNICEF official blames vaccine inequity for fueling the virus’ rampage across the region.  He says most high-risk populations remain unvaccinated and unless this situation is rectified, the virus will continue to spread.  He says the international community must not ignore this reality.  He says wealthier countries that have excess vaccines should donate these doses to COVAX, the facility that provides vaccines to poorer countries.He warns the longer the virus is allowed to spread unchecked, the greater the risk that more deadly or contagious variants will emerge and circulate around the world.
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The Taliban called on Afghanistan’s neighbors Wednesday not to allow the United States to use their territory or air space for any future military operations against the war-torn nation. 
  
The Islamist insurgent group issued the warning as Washington plans to reposition some U.S. troops in the region to carry out Afghan counterterrorism missions once U.S. and NATO militaries exit from the landlocked South Asia nation.   
The Taliban cautioned in their statement that facilitating U.S. military operations by neighboring countries in the future will be a “grave historical mistake and a disgrace.” It denounced the presence of foreign forces as “the root cause” of insecurity and war in the region. 
  
“The people of Afghanistan will not remain idle in the face of such heinous and provocative acts,” the group warned without elaborating further.  
  
President Joe Biden announced last month that the remaining an estimated 2,500 American troops, along with thousands of NATO partners, will leave Afghanistan by September 11 to end what he said was the “forever war.”  
  
The drawdown stemmed from a peace-building agreement the United States signed with the Taliban in February 2020. But the insurgents have not reduced violence nor have their U.S.-brokered peace talks with the Afghan government achieved any breakthroughs, raising concerns the country would descend into more chaos and bloodshed once the foreign troop drawdown is complete.  
  
The pact binds the Taliban not to allow Afghan soil for terrorist attacks against the United States and its allies.  
  
However, continuing and intensified hostilities between the Afghan parties to the conflict have raised concerns that transnational terrorist groups, including al-Qaida and Islamic State, could turn Afghanistan again into a sanctuary. 
  
“As we have repeatedly assured others that our soil will not be used against security of others, we are similarly urging others not to use their soil and airspace against our country,” the Taliban reiterated Wednesday. 
  
“If such a step is taken, then the responsibility for all the misfortunes and difficulties lies upon those who commit such mistakes.” 
  
There are no U.S. bases in any of the six countries that border Afghanistan.  
  
Pakistan, which shares a 2,600-kilometer border with Afghanistan, on Tuesday ruled out the possibility of hosting a U.S. Base, or of allowing “kinetic drone” operations in Afghanistan from Pakistani soil.   FILE – In this photo released by Russian Foreign Ministry, Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation on Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov attends the talks in Islamabad, Pakistan, April 7, 2021.On Monday, Russia’s presidential envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, said Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have both assured Moscow that hosting military bases was “impossible” for them, narrowing options for Washington for its military posture once the withdrawal from Afghanistan is complete. 
  
Iran also shares a long border with Afghanistan, but Tehran’s persistent tensions and mistrust with Washington, experts say, leave that option out. 
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The Afghan Taliban have decided upon three conditions to attend an eagerly awaited U.S.-proposed conference in Turkey: The conference must be short, the agenda should not include decision-making on critical issues, and the Taliban delegation should be low level, a senior Taliban leader told VOA Tuesday.  “Our leadership has proposed that the Istanbul meeting should not be longer than three days,” said the leader who did not want to be identified as he is not allowed to speak on the record.
Another senior Taliban leader confirmed the news when approached by VOA.
The conference, to be hosted jointly by the United Nations, Turkey, and Qatar, was first proposed by the United States in April, days after President Joe Biden announced that foreign forces would leave Afghanistan by September of this year. No date has been announced. It was one of several proposed conferences involving the Taliban, the Afghan government, and regional countries designed to give momentum to the peace talks between the Taliban and an official Afghan government team in Doha.   A Taliban delegation attended one such conference in Moscow but refused to attend the conference in Turkey, saying they were deliberating on this and other key issues.   The head of the Qatar-based Taliban negotiation team, Sheikh Abdul Hakeem, and several key members of the Taliban’s Qatar office, traveled to the region to consult with the group’s chief, Sheikh Hibatullah Akhundzada, and some members of the Taliban leadership council. Hakeem was accompanied by Mullah Fazil, Mullah Shireen and Mullah Abdul Manan, all negotiation team members. They also are all members of the Rehbari Shura (leadership council).   Those consultations, according to the Taliban leader, went on for a month and concluded last week.   Afghan media reported the deliberations were being conducted in Pakistan, where according to the Afghan government, most of the Taliban leadership are living.   In a recent interview with German news website Der Spiegel, the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, confirmed this claim.   FILE – Zalmay Khalilzad, special envoy for Afghanistan Reconciliation, testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill, Apr. 27, 2021.“If this peace effort doesn’t succeed, and if there is no agreement between Pakistan and Afghanistan, Pakistan will suffer. Pakistan will be blamed because so much of the Taliban’s leadership lives in Pakistan,” Khalilzad said.    Pakistan says it is using its influence on the Afghan Taliban to help the peace efforts in Afghanistan. The militant group’s Istanbul decision is also a result of Pakistani and Qatari efforts, among other countries.   “The Taliban leaders were basically not in favor of participation in the Istanbul conference, but they said they will attend with conditions and on request of Pakistan and Qatar,” the Taliban leader said.   The leader, who was privy to internal consultations, did not give details as to who will represent the Taliban.   The spokesman for the Afghan team, Nader Nadery, said their side was unaware of this development.  “Nothing officially shared with us yet,” Nadery said in response to a query.  The United States, Turkey and Afghanistan had proposed that at least one or more senior leaders other than the representatives of the Taliban negotiation team in Doha lead the Taliban team in Istanbul. Officials from these countries have said in background briefings they do not believe the Qatar office envoys, including Mullah Baradar, have the authority to make decisions in the talks.     The U.S. had proposed a 10-day meeting so the Taliban and Afghan government team could hash out their differences and then either make some critical decisions toward peace-making or strive for a breakthrough in otherwise deadlocked talks.  The Taliban leader said their senior leadership did not want Istanbul to be a decision-making platform, and they did not want a specific agenda for the meeting.   When asked if the leadership had made a decision about the cease-fire, he said there is nothing about the cease-fire so far, the Taliban will not declare a cease-fire at the moment, and it will it not be decided during the intra-Afghan negotiations.  FILE – Mohammad Naeem, spokesman for the Taliban’s political office.Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem had earlier said they would not participate in any conference that would make decisions about Afghanistan.  Turkey, Qatar and the United Nations had planned to co-convene the conference in Istanbul, from April 24 to May 4, with the participation of the representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban to “add momentum to the negotiations that started in Doha last September to achieve a just and lasting peace in Afghanistan,” according to a joint statement issued by the Turkish Foreign Ministry.    The conference was earlier scheduled to begin on April 16 and last 10 days, but it was postponed because of the lack of Taliban participation.     At the time, the Taliban complained the organizers had not shared details of the meeting. This time, they say, Turkey has kept them in the loop.    Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and the High Council for National Reconciliation (HCNR) pressed for talks with the Taliban, and they have finalized their peace proposals expected to be announced during the conference.   A Pakistani delegation met the Taliban political representatives in Qatar in the last week of April and pressed them to attend the Istanbul conference with their own proposal.   “The Pakistani delegation insisted that the Taliban should participate in the Istanbul conference with their own future plan as leaders of the Kabul administration [President Ghani] and chairman of HCNR Dr. Abdullah Abdullah have prepared future plans and are scheduled to unveil them in the Istanbul meeting,” the Taliban leader said.    
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Tens of thousands of people were evacuated Tuesday in low-lying areas of two Indian states and moved to cyclone shelters to escape a powerful storm barreling toward the eastern coast. Cyclone Yaas is set to turn into a “very severe cyclonic storm” with sustained wind speeds of up to 177 kilometers per hour (110 miles per hour), the India Meteorological Department said. The cyclone is expected to make landfall early Wednesday in Odisha and West Bengal states. The cyclone coming amid a devastating coronavirus surge complicates India’s efforts to deal with both just 10 days after Cyclone Tauktae hit India’s west coast and killed more than 140 people. Thousands of emergency personnel have been deployed in coastal regions of the two states for evacuation and any possible rescue operations, said S.N. Pradhan, director of India’s National Disaster Response Force. India’s air force and navy were also on standby to carry out relief work. Fishing trawlers and boats have been told to take shelter until further notice as forecasters warned of high tidal waves. In West Bengal, authorities were scrambling to move tens of thousands of people to cyclone shelters. Officials said at least 20 districts in the state will feel the brunt of the storm. Last May, nearly 100 people died in Cyclone Amphan, the most powerful storm in more than a decade to hit eastern India, including West Bengal state. It flattened villages, destroyed farms and left millions without power in eastern India and Bangladesh. “We haven’t been able to fix the damage to our home from the last cyclone. Now another cyclone is coming, how will we stay here?” said Samitri, who uses only one name. In Odisha, a state already battered by coronavirus infections, authorities evacuated nearly 15,000 people living along the coast and moved them to cyclone shelters, senior officer Pradeep Jena said. In a televised address Monday, the state’s chief minister, Naveen Patnaik, appealed to people being moved to cyclone shelters to wear double masks and maintain social distancing. He asked authorities to distribute masks to the evacuated people. “We have to face both the challenges simultaneously,” Patnaik said. 
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Indian police officials say they visited Twitter’s Delhi and Gurgaon offices to serve notice to the company’s managing director concerning an investigation into the company tagging some government official’s tweets as “manipulated media.”Several leaders of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) shared parts of a document they said was created by their main political opposition, Congress, which allegedly showed how it planned to hinder the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.Some have been critical of the government’s handling of the pandemic. The BJP has blamed state governments for the slow response and ignoring warnings by Modi of a second wave.Congress said the documents were fake and complained to Twitter, which tagged the posts as manipulated.Twitter tags posts as “manipulated media” “that include media (videos, audio, and images) that have been deceptively altered or fabricated.”Twitter has not commented on this case.Modi’s administration has reportedly ordered Twitter to take down posts critical of its handling of the coronavirus in recent months. It has also complained when those orders were not followed.India has been hit hard by a second wave of the pandemic in recent months. The country has reported nearly 27 million cases and over 300,000 deaths.The latest dispute between the Indian government and U.S. social media giants Twitter and Facebook come as a deadline nears for the platforms to comply with new government takedown requests.Officials have warned both companies that failure to comply with the new rules “could lead to loss of status and protections as intermediaries.”
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For the family of the retired diplomat, the terror struck as they tried desperately to get him past the entrance doors of a private hospital. For the New Delhi family, it came when they had to create a hospital room in their ground-floor apartment. For the son of an illiterate woman who raised her three children by scavenging human hair, it came as his mother waited days for an ICU bed, insisting she’d be fine.
Three families in a nation of 1.3 billion. Seven cases of COVID-19 in a country facing an unparalleled surge, with more than 300,000 people testing positive every day.
When the pandemic exploded here in early April, each of these families found themselves struggling to keep relatives alive as the medical system neared collapse and the government was left unprepared.
Across India, families scour cities for coronavirus tests, medicine, ambulances, oxygen and hospital beds. When none of that works, some have to deal with loved ones zippered into body bags.
The desperation comes in waves. New Delhi was hit at the start of April, with the worst coming near the end of the month. The southern city of Bengaluru was hit about two weeks later. The surge is at its peak now in many small towns and villages, and just reaching others.
But when a pandemic wave hits, everyone is on their own. The poor. The rich. The well-connected bureaucrats who hold immense sway here, and the people who clean the sewers. Wealthy businessmen fight for hospital beds, and powerful government officials send tweets begging for oxygen. Middle-class families scrounge wood for funeral pyres, and in places where there is no wood to be found, hundreds of families have been forced to dump their relatives’ bodies into the Ganges River.
The rich and well-connected, of course, still have money and contacts to smooth the search for ICU beds and oxygen tanks. But rich and poor alike have been left gasping for breath outside overflowing hospitals.
“This has now become normal,” said Abhimanyu Chakravorty, 34, whose extended New Delhi family frantically tried to arrange his father’s medical care at home. “Everyone is running helter-skelter, doing whatever they can to save their loved ones.”
But every day, thousands more people die.Chakravorty family, New Delhi
COVID-19 tests. That is all the family wanted after a niggling cough had spread from relative to relative. But in a city where the virus had descended like a whirlwind, even that had become difficult.
First, they called the city’s top diagnostic labs. Then the smaller ones. They called for days.
The ground-floor apartment, in an affluent neighborhood with a tiny, well-tended garden and a spreading hibiscus tree in bloom, has been home to the Chakravorty family for more than 40 years. There’s 73-year-old Prabir, the family patriarch and widower, a construction executive who has long ignored his family’s pleas to stop working, and his two sons, Prateek and Abhimanyu.
Prateek, who runs an air-conditioning company, shares a room with his wife, Shweta, and their seven-year-old son Agastya. Rounding out the clan is Prabir’s sister, Taposhi, and her adult son, Protim.
They tried to isolate as best they could, seven of them retreating to various corners of the three-bedroom apartment, and kept calling testing centers.
It was not supposed to be like this.
In January, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared victory over COVID-19. In March, the health minister claimed the country was in the pandemic’s “endgame.”
By then, medical experts had been warning for weeks of an approaching viral wave. The government ignored the warnings, allowing the immense Kumbh Mela religious festival to go forward, with millions of Hindu devotees gathering shoulder-to-shoulder along the Ganges River. Hundreds of thousands also turned out for state election rallies.
The Chakravorty family, like most Indians, hadn’t expected things to grow so bad. Certainly not in the capital, which has much better medical care than most of the country, and where those with money have access to private hospitals.
Finally, Shweta found a lab to administer tests. A man arrived in head-to-toe in protective clothing to swab everyone. It seemed, he told them wearily, as if everyone in this city of 29 million people needed coronavirus tests.
The family had their first scare the next day, when a weakened Prabir nearly fell and his sons had to carry him to bed. Stomach problems and a raging fever kept him there.
“He was visibly shaking,” said Abhimanyu, a 34-year-old news editor.
They got the results three days later. Four members of the family tested positive, with a few losing their senses of taste and smell. But it was far worse for Prabir.
Prateek struggled to find a doctor for his father. One wouldn’t answer the phone, another had his own emergency. Finally, a relative in Thailand contacted a friend, a New Delhi doctor, who said the 73-year-old needed a chest CT scan.
Prateek ventured out on April 28 to find a lab in a scarred city, with roads empty except for ambulances and oxygen tankers. The scan confirmed their fears: Prabir had pneumonia. Doctors warned the family to be very watchful.
Their worries deepened every night, when Prabir coughed relentlessly and his blood oxygen levels dropped dangerously.
“It was an alarm bell,” said Abhimanyu.Padmavathi’s Family, Bengaluru
In a small community of homemade huts, a short walk from one of Bengaluru’s wealthiest neighborhoods, one woman’s sore throat was turning into breathing problems.
The people here are at the bottom of India’s caste ladder, “rag pickers” who support themselves by collecting the city’s waste and selling it to recyclers.
Shunned by most Indians, they are an informal – but pivotal – part of the urban infrastructure. India is among the world’s largest waste producers, and a city like Bengaluru, the Silicon Valley of India, would drown in its own trash if not for them. Yet when vaccines began to be distributed, with essential workers at the front of the line, they were left off that list.
Some people collect newspapers in the little community. Some pick through dumps. Some specialize in metal. Padmavathi, who uses one name, collected hair, taking it from women’s combs and hairbrushes to later be used for wigs. She earned about $50 a month.
It is a life along the fringes, but Padmavathi, who never went to school and whose name translates from Sanskrit as “She who emerged from the lotus,” made it work.
“She was very pushy about our education,” said her son, Gangaiah, a community health worker for a non-profit group.
But her oldest daughter had to drop out in sixth grade, when Padmavathi ran out of money. Gangaiah only made it to seventh. She succeeded with her youngest, a seventh-grade daughter who earned a scholarship and now lives in a private school dormitory across town.
Padmavathi shares a one-room hut made from bamboo and plastic sheeting with Gangaiah, his wife and their two children.
Gangaiah’s work meant he could quickly get Padmavathi tested when her symptoms started May 1. It meant he had access to an oximeter to test his mother’s blood oxygen level.
But when those levels began to drop, he could not get her into a hospital. Working with colleagues in the non-profit, he began calling. Again and again, he was told every bed was taken.
By the fifth day, with Padmavathi’s oxygen levels dangerously low and her breathing sometimes coming in gasps, Gangaiah’s colleagues finally found a bed.
She left the neighborhood unworried.
“I’ll be back soon. Don’t worry,” she told her neighbors.
The hospital had oxygen, but everyone said she needed to be in an ICU on a ventilator. That was impossible.
“It was sheer helplessness,” said Gangaiah.Amrohi Family, Gurgaon
Ashok Amrohi thought it was just a cold when he began coughing on April 21. After all, the retired diplomat and his wife had both been fully vaccinated against coronavirus.
A medical doctor before joining the diplomatic corps, Ashok had traveled the world. He had been ambassador to Algeria, Mozambique and Brunei, and had retired to Gurgaon, a city just outside the capital, and a life of golf and piano lessons. He was a respected, highly educated member of the upper-middle class.
He was someone who, in normal times, could easily get a bed in the best hospitals.
His fever soon disappeared. But his breathing became labored and his oxygen levels dropped. It appeared to be COVID-19. His wife, Yamini, reached out for help. A sister who lived nearby found an oxygen cylinder.
The situation seemed manageable at first, and they treated Ashok at home.
“I was always with him,” said Yamini.
But his oxygen levels kept dropping.
If things worsened even a little more, his family would have no idea how to respond.Chakravorty Family, New Delhi
Reluctantly, as Prabir’s condition also worsened, the Chakravorty family decided he needed to be hospitalized.
First, they tried a government-run mobile app showing the city’s available beds. It was not functioning. So Prateek went searching.
The first three hospitals he visited — private, costly hospitals, built for India’s growing population of new money — were full.
Then he went to the massive 1,200-bed public field hospital built last June in a leafy New Delhi neighborhood. The hospital had been closed in February when cases fell in north India, and frantically reopened in late April as cases surged.
Outside the hospital entrance, Prateek found dozens of people begging staff to admit sick family members. Some were openly offering bribes to cut the line, others slumped on the floor breathing from oxygen bottles.
Worried families were waiting under a nearby canopy for news – any news – about loved ones inside. Some hadn’t seen their relatives in weeks.
“You know nothing,” one person told him.
The army doctors running the facility, who were refusing the bribes, were working frantically. They had little time for patient comfort, let alone worried relatives.
Prateek was stunned at the scene: “My body trembled.”
Beneath the canopy, he met a sobbing young man whose father had died and been taken away for cremation. But in the chaos, ID numbers attached to some corpses had been mixed up, and the wrong body was carted off for cremation.
His father’s body was now lost inside the complex, where death had become mundane.
At that moment, Prateek decided: “We will do what we can at home, this wasn’t an option.”
Padmavathi’s Family, Bengaluru
Late on the night of May 5, an ICU bed finally opened up for Padmavathi, whose condition was clearly deteriorating.
“She kept telling other people that she’d soon be fine,” said Gangaih.
Padmavathi was a fighter and knew how hard India could be on the least fortunate. She had grown up in a family so poor they often did not have enough food and was a traveling laborer by the time she was seven. She married at 14 and raised three children alone after her husband abandoned her.
“She was a sad person, but she would hide her melancholy from us,” said Gangaiah. She buried her sadness in more work: “She sacrificed everything she had for us. Her struggle to feed us and raise us consumed all her time.”
Joy only came when her oldest daughter and Gangaiah had children.
“She was so happy. Perhaps the only time we saw her happy in a real sense,” he said.
She was also a force in the neighborhood, helping other women with their troubles, and fighting to ban the cheap and sometimes poisonous home-made liquor that kills hundreds of India’s poor every year.
But in the hospital that night, none of that mattered.
A few hours after being transferred to the ICU, amid the noise of medical machinery, Padmavathi died. She was 48 years old.
Gangaiah was waiting outside when it happened.
“I cried bitterly,” he said. “I had hardly seen my father’s love and care. She was both my parents.”
He is furious.
“We also knew from experience that the government is for rich people and the upper castes. But we always nurtured this belief that at least hospitals will cater to us in our time of need,” he said. “It turned out to be an utterly fake belief, a lie.”Amrohi Family, Gurgaon
At the Amrohi apartment, the former ambassador’s family was calling his medical school classmates for help. One eventually arranged a bed at a nearby hospital.
It was April 26. The brutal north Indian summer was coming on. Temperatures that day reached nearly 105 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius).
His wife, Yamini, and their adult son Anupam put him into the family’s compact SUV.
They arrived about 7:30 p.m. and parked in front of the main doors, thinking Ashok would be rushed inside. They were wrong. Admission paperwork had to be completed first, and the staff was swamped.
So, they waited.
Anupam stood in line while Yamini stayed in the car with Ashok, who was breathing bottled oxygen. She blasted the air-conditioning, trying to keep him cool.
An hour passed. Two hours. Someone came to swab Ashok for a coronavirus test. It came back positive. His breathing had grown difficult.
“I went thrice to the hospital reception for help. I begged, pleaded and shouted at the officials,” she said. “But nobody budged.”
At one point, their daughter called from London, where she lives with her family. With everyone on a video call, their four-year-old grandson asked to talk to Ashok.
“I love you, Poppy,” he said.
Ashok pulled off his oxygen mask: “Hello. Poppy loves you too.”
Three hours.
Four hours.
Anupam returned regularly to the car to check on his father.
“It’s almost done,” he would tell him each time. “Everything is going to be alright. Please stay with us!”
Five hours.
A little after midnight, Ashok grew agitated, pulling off the oxygen mask and gasping. His chest heaved. Then he went still.
“In a second he was no more,” Yamini said. “He was dead in my arms.”
Yamini went to the reception desk: “You are murderers,” she told them.Chakravorty Family, New Delhi
Prateek Chakravorty returned from the field hospital and told his family about the nightmare there. All agreed Prabir would be treated at home.
The brothers grew up in this pink three-story building. It is where they returned to after evenings playing soccer. It is where they spent India’s harsh, months-long lockdown last year, glad to be together.
Now it was where they had to help their father breathe.
For rich countries, oxygen is a basic medical need, like running water. Last year, Indian authorities ordered most of the country’s industrial oxygen production to switch to medical oxygen.
But it was nowhere near enough for the surge’s ferocity. Hospitals went on social media, begging the federal government for more oxygen. The government responded to social media criticism by ordering Twitter to take down dozens of tweets.
The Chakravorty family decided their best bet was an oxygen concentrator. Unaffordable to most Indians, with prices reaching $5,500, concentrators remove nitrogen from the air and deliver a stream of concentrated oxygen.
They reached out to friends, relatives, business colleagues – anyone they could think of – trying to find one.
It is how things work now in India. With the formal medical system barely functioning, tight networks of family, friends and colleagues, and sometimes the generosity of complete strangers, would save many. Informal volunteer networks have germinated to reuse medical equipment and look for hospital beds. The black market thrives, charging astronomical prices.
A friend responded to their SOS. Sougata Roy knew someone in Chandigarh, a city in the Himalayan foothills about a five-hour drive away, who had a machine and was not using it. He offered to get it.
Roy arrived April 27 with the machine and instructions.
On April 29, the family found someone to care for their father. He was not a trained nurse, but had experience treating COVID-19 patients at home.
Prabir’s signs of improvement were slow, but the family grasped at them, overjoyed when he could eat a little boiled chicken. They celebrated quietly each time his oxygen levels were good, knowing they were lucky to have the resources to treat him at home.
“It was hell,” said Prateek, remembering the worst two weeks. Slowly, though, their optimism grew.
May 7 was Prateek’s birthday. Prabir looked brighter, and the relieved family decided to celebrate. They ordered chocolate cake from a nearby bakery.
Prabir did not want any. But for the first time in weeks, he was craving something sweet.
He settled for a cookie.Amrohi Family, Gurgaon
The horror did not end with the ambassador’s death.
Ashok’s body, sealed in a plastic bag, was taken by ambulance the next morning to an outdoor cremation ground.
Cremations are deeply important in Hinduism, a way to free a person’s soul so it can be reborn elsewhere. A priest normally oversees the rites. Family and friends gather. The eldest son traditionally lights the funeral pyre.
But when the Amrohis got to the cremation ground, a long line of ambulances was in front of them. Beyond the gate, nine funeral pyres were blazing.
Finally, Anupam was called to light his father’s pyre.
Normally, families wait as the fire burns down, paying their respects and waiting for the ashes. But immense fires burned around the Amrohi family. The heat was crushing. Ashes filled the air.
“I have never seen a scene like that,” said Yamini. “We couldn’t stand it.”
They returned to their car, waited until they were told the body had been cremated, and drove away.
Anupam returned the next morning to collect his father’s ashes.
…

Once the winter residence of sultans from illustrious Islamic dynasties, the ruins of a thousand-year-old royal city in southern Afghanistan have become home to hundreds of people who have fled Taliban clashes. The astonishing ochre clay complex juts from the cliffs along the Helmand River, threatened by decay and encroaching urban sprawl as well as the makeshift constructions that have grown within it. Thousands of people have been displaced across Helmand since October following a surge in Taliban attacks, and while many have resettled in the capital Lashkar Gah — one of the few areas in the province still under government control — some have joined other refugees in the ruins. Qala-e-Kohna, as it is known locally, or Lashkari Bazar to archaeologists, has garnered international attention for its scale, remarkable architecture and murals. Spread over 10 kilometers (eight miles), the site is the only known winter residence of the Ghaznavid and Ghurid sultans — two dynasties that ruled a region covering present-day Afghanistan between the 10th and 13th centuries and responsible for spreading Islamic art as far as north India. “There is no place in the Islamic world where we have something like it — a site as coherent, elaborate, and despite everything still relatively well preserved,” said Philippe Marquis, the director of the French Archaeological Delegation in Afghanistan (DAFA). “It is important to preserve it because we are sure that it will teach us a lot about this period,” he told AFP.Afghan families leave their houses after fighting between the Afghan military and Taliban insurgents in Helmand province, southern of Afghanistan, Oct. 13, 2020.’A place for ghosts’Among the ancient towers, doors and windows have been added and crumbling walls coated with a clay and straw mixture to strengthen them and plug gaps. A blue wrought-iron door leads into Agha Mohammad’s cramped two-room quarters that house 11 people, a makeshift cradle for his infant son hanging from a bamboo roof. “I want the government to give me a place to live. Look at the cracks in the roof. I’m afraid one night it will fall,” said Mohammad, a 33-year-old policeman whose district fell to a resurgent Taliban. Southern Afghanistan has seen renewed fighting as talks between the Afghan government and Taliban leaders have stalled and the United States prepares to withdraw the last of its troops from the country by September. “I should have the support of the government, because I lost three sons serving it,” 48-year-old mother Bibi Halima told AFP from within the palace walls. “Every house is full of widows,” added a neighbor. Many of the residents are from police families who cannot afford to live elsewhere and have no access to electricity or running water. An official from the country’s archaeology department in Kabul said there have been reports of land-grabbing at the site, with some families forced to pay rent to local mafias. For residents, life within the ornate arches and adobe walls of the former royal city is a constant reminder of how the country has yet to emerge from a cycle of battles against invasion and civil war. “It is a place for ghosts, not humans,” said Khudai Nazar, 54. Preserving the site  First explored by DAFA in the 1950s, the site has seen no conservation work since then. At that time, archaeologists identified the palaces, mosque and other annexe buildings, such as the pottery and craft workshops, as well as ice boxes used for the preservation of fresh food. One of the most striking excavations was a series of paintings depicting court scenes, extremely rare for an era in which the realistic representation of living beings was already frowned upon in Islamic societies. Moved to the Kabul Museum, the paintings were destroyed or stolen during the Afghan civil war in the 1990s and only photographs remain. DAFA director Marquis is now concerned about the impact looters and displaced families will have at the site — as well as the effects of global warming, which could cause the river to flood. On the flip side, reinforcements made from clay and straw that have been added to the partly collapsed towers may have also resulted in their temporary preservation. “The paradox is that in their own way people are protecting the place, because it is their home,” Marquis said. He proposes building an “archaeological park” that involves displaced people in the conservation process so they can earn a living and settle outside the palace walls. But for author Shah Mahmud Haseat, who has written a book about the citadel, the future of the largely unexplored ruins remains bleak. “I tried to convince the government to protect the site, but they did nothing. We are really afraid that our history will be destroyed.” 
…

India is nearing 300,000 recorded deaths from the coronavirus, after adding more than 3,700 deaths in the last 24 hours.
 
The country reported more than 240,000 new infections Sunday – a number that many believe is an undercount because of limited testing resources.
 
The Indian government said Saturday that while COVID-19 infections remain high as they spread to overburdened rural areas, the infections are stabilizing in some parts of the country.
 
While a new variant of the virus first found in India has raised alarm around the world, a new study found Saturday that vaccines by Pfizer and AstraZeneca are effective against it after two doses.
 
The study by Public Health England found that Pfizer’s vaccine is 88% effective against B.1.617.2, or the Indian variant, and 93% effective against B.1.1.7, now known as the Kent variant. AstraZeneca’s vaccine is 60% effective against the Indian variant and 66% effective against the English variant.
 
In both cases, the effectiveness was measured two weeks after the second shot and against symptomatic disease. Both vaccines had limited effectiveness after just one dose.  
 
The Kent variant is the dominant strain in England, but health officials fear the Indian strain may outpace it.
 
On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal reported that three scientists from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, or WIV, in Wuhan, China were admitted to the hospital in November 2019 – a month before China confirmed its first coronavirus case.
 
The news, which cites a U.S. intelligence report, came a day before the decision-making body of the World Health Organization is scheduled to meet to discuss the pandemic and will likely add fuel to the theory that the virus may have escaped the laboratory.  
 
The report is not the first to cite the possibility that China had earlier knowledge of the virus. Near the end of the Trump administration, a fact sheet released by the State Department said that “the U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses.”
 
The World Health Assembly will begin Monday and last until June 1. 
 
…

Authorities in Afghanistan said Sunday that national security forces were locked in fierce battles with Taliban insurgents to keep them from overrunning an eastern provincial center as U.S.-led foreign troops continue to withdraw from the country.
 
The Taliban came close to , the capital of the embattled Laghman province, after capturing key security outposts around the city earlier in the day. The insurgents have made important territorial gains in the province recently, seizing control of the Dawlat Shah district on Friday, which paved the way for assault on Mehtarlam.
 
The Defense Ministry confirmed late Sunday that the Afghan army chief Mohammad Yasin Zia, who is also the country’s acting defense minister, had arrived in Laghman along with other top security officials and is leading the counter-Taliban operations.General Chief of Armed Forces, @GenYasinZia is in Laghman province now and leading operations against terrorists. Laghman will be cleared off from terrorists. pic.twitter.com/lEP2Nt2Hi9— Fawad Aman (@FawadAman2) May 23, 2021Residents and security sources reported heavy fighting raging near the main provincial prison and in parts of Mehtarlam. Both sides reportedly suffered casualties, but no details were available immediately.
 
Afghan media reported that intense fighting was also taking place in several districts of northern Baghlan province and around its capital, Pul-e-Khumri.  
 
Violence has escalated across many Afghan provinces after the United States along with NATO allies began withdrawing their last remaining troops from the country on May 1.
 
The Taliban has since made battlefield advances, threatened several provincial capitals, and captured four districts, with two of them in a province 70 kilometers from the Afghan capital, Kabul.  
 
Hundreds of combatants on both sides and Afghan civilians have reportedly been killed since the start of this month.
 
The Afghan government and the Taliban observed a temporary cease-fire during the three-day Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr earlier this month before resuming battlefield attacks.  
 
Around 2,500 American and roughly 7,000 allied troops are set to withdraw from the country by September 11 under a directive U.S. President Joe Biden announced last month to close nearly 20 years of the Afghan war, America’s longest.  
 
The military drawdown stems from a landmark deal Washington signed with the Taliban in February 2020. The insurgents declared a cease-fire with international forces after negotiating the deal, but they have ignored persistent U.S. calls for easing battlefield attacks.
 
U.S. officials have dismissed concerns that Afghan forces will not be able to resist the Taliban for long once all international forces leave the country and that the insurgents will regain power in Kabul.  
 
The Afghan army and its air force have heavily relied on the U.S. for maintenance, training and combat air support in battles against the Taliban.   
 
Washington has intensified diplomatic efforts to try to persuade the Afghan warring sides to urgently negotiate a peace arrangement that would end the country’s long war.
But the so-called intra-Afghan negotiations, which started in Qatar last September, have been slow and failed to deliver any breakthroughs. Both sides accuse each other of using delaying tactics to obstruct the peace process. 
…

Two-time Olympic medalist Sushil Kumar was arrested on Sunday in connection with the murder of a fellow Indian wrestler, Delhi police said.Both Kumar and a second man detained over the same offence later appeared in court, a Delhi Police spokesman added, without giving details of potential charges.Kumar denied any wrongdoing in a plea for anticipatory bail he sent to a Delhi court last week, which was dismissed.Delhi Police issued a look-out notice for Kumar after a May 4 brawl outside Delhi’s Chhatrasal Stadium.Three people were admitted to hospital after the incident and one of them, a former junior national champion, eventually succumbed to his injuries.Kumar is seen as the face of Indian wrestling even at the age of 37. He won a silver medal in the 2012 Olympics and a bronze in the 2008 Games.  
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A coronavirus outbreak on Mount Everest has infected at least 100 climbers and support staff, an expert mountaineering guide said, giving the first comprehensive estimate amid official Nepalese denials that the disease has spread to the world’s highest peak.Lukas Furtenbach of Austria, who last week became the only prominent outfitter to halt his Everest expedition due to virus fears, said Saturday one of his foreign guides and six Nepali Sherpa guides have tested positive.“I think with all the confirmed cases we know now — confirmed from (rescue) pilots, from insurance, from doctors, from expedition leaders — I have the positive tests so we can prove this,” Furtenbach told The Associated Press in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.“We have at least 100 people minimum positive for COVID in base camp, and then the numbers might be something like 150 or 200,” he said.He said it was obvious there were many cases at the Everest base camp because he could visibly see people were sick and could hear people coughing in their tents.A total of 408 foreign climbers were issued permits to climb Everest this season, aided by several hundred Sherpas and support staff who have been stationed at base camp since April.Nepalese mountaineering officials have denied there are any active cases this season among climbers and support staff at all base camps for the country’s Himalayan mountains. Mountaineering was closed last year due to the pandemic.Nepalese officials could not immediately be reached for comment Saturday. Other climbing teams have not announced any COVID-19 infections among their members or staff. Several climbers have reported testing positive after they were brought down from the Everest base camp.Furtenbach said most teams on the mountain were not carrying virus testing kits, and that before his team pulled out, they had helped conduct tests and had confirmed two cases.Most teams are still at base camp, hoping for clear weather next week so they can make a final push to the summit before the climbing season closes at the end of the month, Furtenbach said.In late April, a Norwegian climber became the first to test positive at the Everest base camp. He was flown by helicopter to Kathmandu, where he was treated and later returned home.Nepal is experiencing a virus surge, with record numbers of new infections and deaths. China last week canceled climbing from its side of Mount Everest due to fears the virus could be spread from the Nepalese side.Nepal reported 8,607 new infections and 177 deaths on Friday, bringing the nation’s totals since the pandemic began to more than 497,000 infections and 6,024 deaths.
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The Indian government said Saturday that COVID-19 infections remained high as they spread to overburdened rural areas, but it added that infections were stabilizing in some parts of the country.India’s health ministry reported more than 250,000 new COVID-19 cases and nearly 4,200 deaths in the previous 24-hour period.Health ministry official Lav Agarwal told reporters during a virtual briefing that infections were rising in the southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.But Agarwal also said infections had dropped in the last two weeks in the southwestern Indian states of Maharashtra and Karnataka and the coastal state of Kerala.“To break the chain of transmission, it is very important to follow COVID-appropriate behavior,” Agarwal said.As India struggles with a faltering health care system and vaccine shortages, experts have warned of a third wave of infections in the coming months.As of Saturday afternoon, India was second only to the U.S. in infections, with nearly 26.3 million, and in COVID-19 deaths, with more than 295,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.Reports of Taiwan infectionsIn other developments, Taiwan’s health minister urged the island’s residents to stay calm following a report of a crop of new coronavirus cases. Chen Shih-chung said Saturday that there were 321 new infections. The minister also said there were another 400 new cases over a six-day period whose positive results had not been included in previous reports.FILE – Medical personnel wearing protective gear guide people at a rapid coronavirus testing center after the infection alert rose to level 3 in Taipei, Taiwan, May 18, 2021.”There’s no explosion in the pandemic development,” he said. The new infections were reported to be concentrated in the northern part of the island in and around Taipei. The government urged people to stay home.Meanwhile, Taiwan’s deputy interior minister warned Saturday that China, which claims the island, was spreading misinformation about Taiwan’s COVID-19 outbreak. Chen Tsung-yen said, “The reason we are continuing to explain the contents of the fake information to everyone is to call attention to it. We must immediately intercept this and not let cognitive warfare affect Taiwan’s society.”Health summitU.S. and German vaccine partners Pfizer and BioNTech on Friday pledged to deliver 2 billion doses of their vaccine to low- and middle-income nations as part of a global effort to close the vaccine gap between rich and poor nations.Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, speaking in Rome at the Global Health Summit, said the first billion doses of their vaccine would be delivered this year and the second billion in 2022.U.S. pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Johnson & Johnson also pledged donations of 200,000 and 100,000 doses, respectively.The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said Saturday that there were more than 166.2 million global COVID-19 infections. The U.S. had nearly 33.1 million, while Brazil ranked third with nearly 16 million.
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The United Nations is appealing for nearly $84 million for assistance to 750,000 people in Nepal suffering from a devastating COVID-19 surge.In many ways, the outbreak in Nepal may be even worse than the destructive surge that has engulfed neighboring India.The United Nations said Friday that Nepal had roughly the same number of daily cases per capita as India, but with a much weaker health system incapable of dealing with the crisis.The World Health Organization said Nepal has had nearly 500,000 COVID-19 cases and more than 6,000 deaths. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the number of cases was escalating rapidly. It said cases had risen from 150 a day in early April to more than 8,000 cases a day since May 5.OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke said all sectors of Nepalese society were reaching a breaking point.“Millions of people are struggling with the direct health impact of the pandemic, but also hunger, malnutrition, devastating economic losses and other health needs that are being overlooked,” Laerke said. “The current outbreak is hitting the poorest and most marginalized people in Nepal the hardest.”OCHA said the dramatic spike in cases had spurred an unprecedented need for medical supplies, including oxygen, medicine, ventilators, diagnostic kits and vaccine. It warned that the lives of many people sickened by the coronavirus would be lost because Nepal lacked the supplies needed to save them.Laerke said a positive response to the U.N.’s $83.7 million Response Plan was crucial to avoiding that.“Our plan calls for swift action and international solidarity that is desperately needed to save lives and prevent unnecessary suffering today and in the difficult weeks to come,” he  said. “We have no time to lose.”The U.N. Response Plan aims to address both the health and humanitarian consequences of COVID-19, helping hundreds of thousands of vulnerable Nepalis with health, food, education, nutrition, shelter, protection, water and sanitation assistance.
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India’s health ministry reported Saturday more than 250,000 new COVID-19 cases and more than 4,100 deaths in the previous 24-hour period.   
 
An Associated Press report Saturday said “India always was expected to play a pivotal role in global efforts to immunize against COVID-19. But a mixture of overconfidence, poor planning and bad luck has prevented that from happening.”
 
In January, India seemed to “bask” in its early success when it initiated its domestic inoculation program, while reassuring the country that its vaccine exports “were calibrated according to the needs of the domestic immunization program,” according to AP.  
 
The South Asian nation, however, was caught off guard by “the speed at which vaccines were approved for use around the world, as well as the massive “eventual demand” for the vaccines at home and abroad, according to AP.
 
In addition, India’s two main vaccine manufacturers – the Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech, had trouble scaling up production of the vaccines.  
 
The Serum Institute had a fire in its facility earlier this year and a U.S. embargo on exporting raw materials needed for the shots forced the company to look elsewhere for supplies.  
 
In addition, Bharat Biotech had initially said its goal was to make 700 million doses of the vaccine this year, but Indian officials said recently that Bharat Biotech was making just 10 million shots a month.  
 
Taiwan’s health minister is urging the island’s residents to stay calm, following a report of a crop of new coronavirus cases.  Chen Shih-chung said Saturday there were 321 new infections.  In addition, the minister said there were another 400 new cases over a six-day period whose positive results had not been included in previous reports.
 
“There’s no explosion in the pandemic development,” he said.  The new infections are reported to be concentrated in the northern part of the island in and around Taipei. The government has urged people to stay home.  
 
Meanwhile, Taiwan’s deputy interior minister warned Saturday that China, which claims the island, is spreading misinformation about Taiwan’s COVID-19 outbreak.  Chen Tsung-yen said, ““The reason we are continuing to explain the contents of the fake information to everyone is to call attention to it. We must immediately intercept this, and not let cognitive warfare affect Taiwan’s society.”
 
U.S. and German vaccine partners Pfizer and BioNTech on Friday pledged to deliver 2 billion doses of their vaccine to low- and middle-income nations as part of a global effort to close the vaccine gap between rich and poor nations.  
 
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, speaking in Rome at the Global Health Summit, said the first billion doses of their vaccine will be delivered this year, and the second in 2022.  
 
U.S. pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Johnson & Johnson also pledged donations of 200,000 and 100,000 doses respectively.
 
The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said early Saturday there are 166.1 million global COVID-19 infections.  The U.S. had 33 million, while India has 26 million.  Brazil is in third place with 15 million. 
 
…

Nepal’s president dissolved Parliament and announced fresh elections on Saturday after the prime minister, who was heading a minority government and was unlikely to secure a vote of confidence in the chamber, recommended the move.A notice issued by President Bidya Devi Bhandari’s office set the elections for Nov. 12 and 19.Nepal has been grappling with a political crisis at the same time it is struggling with a coronavirus surge and record numbers of daily infections and deaths, amid acute shortages of hospital beds, medication and oxygen.Last year, Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli dissolved Parliament on his own due to feuds within his ruling Nepal Communist Party. However, several petitions were filed at the Supreme Court and the judges ordered Parliament to be reinstated.The latest decision also is likely to be challenged in court and a decision could take weeks.Oli had lost a vote of confidence earlier this month after a faction of his party refused to support him. He was again appointed to head a minority government but needed the support of half the lawmakers within a month to continue. It was, however, unlikely Oli could muster the vote.He became prime minister after his Nepal Communist Party won two-thirds of seats in the 2017 parliamentary election. The strong showing gave hope of a stable, long-lasting government, but his party split earlier this year over differences concerning party leadership.Oli has been criticized for giving too much attention to the party squabbles instead of the pandemic.
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In his first major international speech at the 2017 U.N. General Assembly, Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev promised systemic reforms in every sector.“We are deeply convinced that people must not serve government, but government must serve the people,” Mirziyoyev said.But four years later and as presidential elections loom, human rights defenders call those pledges a chimera.“The good news is that fundamental problems have been diagnosed,” said Abdurakhmon Tashanov, head of the Ezgulik Human Rights Society, speaks to VOA, March 2021, Tashkent, Uzbekistan. (Navbahor Imamova/VOA)Ezgulik, an independent grassroots organization with more than 200 rights advocates across Uzbekistan, is mainly funded by Swedish and other Western donors. For three decades, it has monitored prisons and spearheaded the fight to win the release of political prisoners.The state, suspicious of its foreign support, closely watched its activities. But Tashanov now sits in several councils, engaging governmental and nongovernmental actors alike, and the group’s activities are covered by the Uzbek media.Rights now discussed openlyDespite some changes since the death of Islam Karimov in 2016, Tashanov sees vestiges of the authoritarian leader’s system, including paranoia. The main advance, he says, is that the public openly discusses human rights.“You want solutions?” he asks rhetorically. “Well, take care of your people’s rights, and follow international and local recommendations. ‘Liberalization’ means trusting civil society. You need to create a human rights system that is not just governmental. We want to help.”Activists never expected a linear progression, adds Tashanov.“The government definitely fears losing control and is trying to find a balance. But it hasn’t so far, especially on media freedom, freedom of expression and political freedoms.”Tashanov observes that the government is closely watching upheavals in Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Ukraine and “worries that those could happen in Uzbekistan.”For Ezgulik, the defense of human rights in Uzbekistan should not just be about protesting, naming, shaming and decrying state policy. “For citizens to become a force for positive change, the system needs to foster strong civic institutions,” Tashanov says.Asking the state to respect rights does not mean that activists are in opposition, he argues. Organizing for the protection of freedom and advocating for justice are not, in themselves, against the interests of the country or government.“Uzbekistan must have space for pluralism. The government has international obligations to provide those freedoms guaranteed, too, by the constitution,” Tashanov told VOA.The Justice Ministry recently denied registration to a new group, the Truth and Development Social Democratic Party, stating that it faked thousands of signatures from supporters. The party pledges to reapply and complains that law enforcement and the security services have interfered in the process.Tashanov does not believe that the five official parties with seats in the Uzbek Parliament are credible. “They are puppets,” he says, “clearly lacking a strong commitment to justice.”Alisher Kadirov, Deputy Speaker of the Uzbek Legislative Chamber, leader of the _Milliy Tiklanish (National Revival) Democratic Party, speaks to VOA. (Navbahor Imamova/VOA)Party accused of suppression“We disagree,” says Alisher Kadirov, leader of the Milliy Tiklanish (National Revival) Democratic Party and deputy speaker of the Uzbek Legislative Chamber.Kadirov’s party and its allies have been heavily criticized by international human rights groups for changing the criminal and administrative codes to suppress public protests.“We expected this kind of response, especially from the West,” Kadirov said. “Our citizens are guaranteed the right to protest, criticize and petition government. All we did recently is enact laws that ensure freedom to protest doesn’t foment public unrest.”When reminded of Uzbekistan’s human rights record of the past three decades, which made it impossible for citizens to complain about policies, much less the leadership, he responded with a question.“So, because of that, we cannot now put any restrictions on anything that could lead to public unrest?”Why not expand instead of contract freedoms?“We don’t have to shed blood to become a free and democratic society,” Kadirov answers. “Citizens who protest should not commit violence. They should not threaten the peace.”Aren’t the necessary mechanisms already in place to prevent such things? Isn’t Uzbekistan ultimately a police state where public protests are almost never allowed?“We should not be such a system,” Kadirov said. “We want a system where citizens can express dissatisfaction with policies and the leadership without violating others’ rights and freedoms.”Tashanov said the legal changes could be used to punish anyone whom the system sees as threatening, even if he or she merely claims a right to free speech and peaceful assembly. Uzbek central and local administrations have long been accused of manipulating laws to silence critical voices.But to Kadirov, “there is no freedom without security.”He is widely expected to run for president and insists the elections won’t have puppet candidates.“My party will field a real competitor; we welcome competition. We will offer a choice,” Kadirov said.He urges the international community to support Uzbekistan rather than criticize it. “If you want us to succeed, then help us, work with us.”Anti-LGBT viewsMost recently, though, Kadirov’s signature issue has been to speak out against LGBT rights. “We … will not and should not tolerate these people,” he said.“Some of them,” he said, “are just sick, and we should treat them. Others are criminals, and we must punish them.”Like many anti-LGBT people in Uzbekistan, he flatly claims that the laws should not apply.But Uzbekistan this year joined the U.N. Human Rights Council, which has a long record of defending LGBT rights. Kadirov said Uzbekistan, like other countries, can opt out of some commitments.“Let’s not do business with those who make this a condition of engagement,” he said, urging Tashkent to say an absolute “no” to anyone who pushes for LGBT rights.In Uzbekistan, consensual same-sex sexual conduct is illegal. Gay men can be arrested at any time and face prosecution, imprisonment and homophobic threats. International human rights organizations have called for decriminalization, but Uzbekistan will have to face down Kadirov and his supporters if it chooses to do so.
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Authorities in Pakistan said Friday a bombing at a pro-Palestinian rally in southwestern Baluchistan province killed at least seven people and injured 14 others.
 
The attack in the town of Chaman targeted a vehicle carrying a local leader of a Pakistani Islamic party, but he escaped unhurt, said police and witnesses.
 
Initial police findings suggest unknown assailants detonated an improvised explosive device planted on a motorbike parked near the vehicle as rally participants began to disperse.
 
No one took responsibility for the bombing in the remote Pakistani town that borders Afghanistan.
 
Provincial government spokesman Liaquat Shahwani said security forces swiftly sealed the area and a police search was underway to find those behind the attack.
 
Thousands of Pakistanis took to the streets after attending Friday afternoon prayers in mosques across the country to protest Israel’s military air strikes on Gaza.
 
The rallies came hours after a cease-fire was announced between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist group that governs the Gaza Strip.
 
Pakistan is among a few countries that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel. The Pakistani passport is the only one in the world that explicitly states that its holder can travel anywhere using the document, except Israel.
 
…

Pakistani officials pushed back Friday against allegations the country’s foreign minister made antisemitic remarks in a Thursday television interview while discussing the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
 
The controversy erupted after Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told CNN anchor Bianna Golodryga that Israel is losing “the media war, despite their connections.” The anchor swiftly asked the Pakistani leader to explain those “connections.”
 
“They [Israel] are very influential people,” Qureshi responded. “I mean, they control media.”  
 
The CNN anchor shot back, saying “I would call that an antisemitic remark.”
 
Critics swiftly took to Twitter to denounce Qureshi’s comments.  
 
However, the Foreign Ministry dismissed those assertions in a statement Friday, saying the remarks could not be “construed as anti-Semitic by any stretch of the imagination.”  
 
”Any twist given to the foreign minister’s remarks would unfortunately prove the very point he was making,” the statement said, “The right to freedom of expression must be respected equally by everyone.”  
 
Pakistani government officials and social media commentators have defended Qureshi’s remarks.
 
“Ridicule Islam & our Prophet PBUH [Peace be upon him] & spread Islamophobia by claiming it as ‘freedom of speech’; when we highlight Israelis ‘deep pockets’ & influence over western media & govts, it gets labelled ‘anti Semitic’! Massacre Palestinians & claim it’s right of self defence,” Shireen Mazari, the Pakistani minister for human rights, tweeted Friday.
 
“Time to reject and counter this false narrative. Enough is enough. We cannot be bullied or blackmailed by such narratives bec[ause] we don’t bear the burden of the history the West is trying to shift on our shoulders,” she wrote.  
 
Pakistan’s national security adviser, Moeed Yusuf, hailed Mazari’s statement.  
 
“Very well said @ShireenMazari1. It is about time we unapologetically stand up for what is right by calling out hypocrisy,” Yusuf tweeted.  
 
Qureshi’s interview aired shortly after he spoke at the United Nations General Assembly meeting on Israel-Gaza in which he highlighted the plight of Palestinians, saying the responsibility lay with Israel to stop the weeklong violence.  
 
Hours later, a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas was announced, which returned an uneasy calm to Gaza and Israel Friday morning.  
 
“Let’s be clear: When Pakistan’s FM goes on CNN and deploys tired anti-Semitic tropes — slurs originally directed at Jews long before Israel’s independence — he doesn’t advance the cause of the Palestinians,” tweeted Michael Kugelman, South Asia senior associate at Washington’s Wilson Center research institute.
 
“Instead, he scores an own goal and risks alienating his target audience,” Kugelman wrote.  
 
“I see some people trying to defend the Pakistani foreign minister’s remarks as anti-Israeli & not anti-Semitic but let’s be clear: if you are accusing Israelis of having ‘deep pockets’ and ‘controlling’ the media, then yeah, you’re invoking some pretty anti-Semitic slurs. Sorry,” tweeted Mehdi Hasan, a U.S. television host.However, Rabia Akhtar, director of the Centre for Security, Strategy and Policy Research, a Pakistani research institute, defended the comments.
 
“Such a shame that Pakistan’s FM’s remarks  @SMQureshiPTI  are being termed as antisemitic when all he did was talk about Israel’s lobby and how it influences US foreign policy, which is a fact and not antisemitic slur! Israel has nukes and it has a lobby. Let’s not ghost these facts,” she said in response to Hassan’s tweet.  
 
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India’s health ministry reported 259,591 new COVID-19 cases Friday in the previous 24 hours. The South Asian nation also reported more than 4,000 deaths.The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center says India has 26 million of the world’s 165.5 million cases. Only the United States has more cases, with 33 million.Argentina starts a strict lockdown, beginning Saturday and ending on May 31.“We are seeing the highest numbers of cases and deaths. We must take this critical situation seriously and not naturalize so much tragedy,” President Alberto Fernández said Thursday in a televised speech.  Johns Hopkins reports that Argentina has 3.4 million COVID cases.The top U.S. infectious disease expert told The Washington Post that he thinks the United States can avoid another surge of COVID cases. Dr. Anthony Fauci said that if the country reaches President Joe Biden’s goal of having 70% of adults vaccinated with at least one dose of a vaccine by July 4 that he does not foresee a “risk of a surge provided we continue to get people vaccinated at the rate we have now.”Meanwhile, World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said earlier this week in the keynote address at the Commonwealth Health Ministers Meeting: “The shocking global disparity in access to vaccines remains one of the biggest risks to ending the pandemic.”“As President Ramaphosa [of South Africa] himself has said, we are now facing vaccine apartheid. High-income countries account for 15% of the world’s population, but have 45% of the world’s vaccines,” said Tedros.“Low- and lower-middle countries account for almost half of the world’s population, but have received just 17% of the world’s vaccines,” the WHO chief said.  “Even now, some high-income countries are moving to vaccinate children and adolescents, while health workers, older people and other at-risk groups around the world remain unvaccinated.”Tedros said WHO is “working hard to address this disparity.” 
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Rescuers recovered 12 more bodies on Thursday as hopes faded for 26 people still missing after a barge with 261 onboard sank off Mumbai when a powerful cyclone lashed the region this week, officials said.The last of 186 survivors were rescued Wednesday, and since then navy rescuers using five warships, a surveillance aircraft and three helicopters have found only floating bodies, navy spokesperson Cmdr. Mehul Karnik said.A total of 49 bodies have now been recovered since the search was launched Monday, he said. Most of the survivors and bodies have arrived in Mumbai, he said.Indrajeet Singh, a survivor, recalled that everyone on the large barge rushed to the deck sensing danger during the storm. Water gushed into the barge and it started tilting, The Hindustan Times newspaper quoted him as saying.”I had no other option except jumping into the sea to save my life,” he said.The survivors bobbed up and down in life jackets for up to eight hours before they were picked up by rescuers, he said.Cyclone Tauktae packed sustained winds of up to 210 kph, leaving more than 50 dead in Gujarat and Maharashtra states.Prime Minister Narendra Modi inspected the damage from the air on Wednesday, promising government assistance.Officials said more than 16,000 houses were damaged in Gujarat and thousands of trees and electric poles were uprooted.In another operation, a navy helicopter rescued 35 crew members on another barge which ran aground north of Mumbai, the government said.Both barges were working for Oil and Natural Gas Corp., the largest crude oil and natural gas company in India.The company said the vessels were carrying personnel deployed for offshore drilling. 
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As U.S. troops begin withdrawing from Afghanistan after two decades of war, U.S. lawmakers questioned top officials this week about the Biden administration’s strategy for the region following the end of military involvement. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill. Produced by: Katherine Gypson
 
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Key U.S. diplomats and defense officials are pushing back against concerns that the withdrawal of American and coalition troops from Afghanistan could backfire, telling lawmakers there is reason to believe that the country will never again become the launching pad for terrorist attacks against the United States. In testimony Thursday before lawmakers in Washington, the officials acknowledged that while some critical details of the U.S. military’s post-withdrawal posture remain uncertain, efforts behind the scenes appear to be paying off. FILE – Zalmay Khalilzad, special envoy for Afghanistan Reconciliation, testifies during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, April 27, 2021.”There is progress,” Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, told members of the House Oversight Committee’s national security subcommittee, declining to share details in an unclassified setting. At a separate hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, defense officials offered assurances of their own. “We’re working to reposition our counterterrorism capabilities, including by retaining assets in the region,” David Helvey, acting assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific affairs, told lawmakers. “We’re looking at options within the region,” Helvey added. “The planning for that is ongoing.” US CT for post-withdrawal FILE – Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, arrives at the Capitol, Feb. 10, 2021.”We’ve invested a huge amount in Afghanistan in terms of dollars, lives, tens of thousands of people wounded. And yet, here we are,” Senator Angus King, a registered independent, said Tuesday, describing the security situation as “debatable.” “We’ll know in a year or so,” King added, saying it is possible the U.S. would be “right back where we were in 2001.” The committee’s lead Republican, Senator Jim Inhofe, was more pointed in his criticism. FILE – Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla. speaks at the Republican watch party in Oklahoma City, Nov. 4, 2014.”The fact that the president chose this date, the 20th anniversary of the most horrific terrorist attacks in our nation’s history, indicates that this was a calendar-based political decision,” Inhofe said. “It was not based on conditions on the ground, which is the strong bipartisan recommendation Congress has given to both Republican and Democratic presidents over the last decade.” Fueling such concerns, recent defense and intelligence assessments point to a deteriorating situation on the ground in Afghanistan. According to U.S. Forces-Afghanistan, attacks on Afghan security forces jumped by 37% over the first three months of 2021 compared with the same period a year ago — an increase the Defense Department’s inspector general described as “historic” in a report released Tuesday. Assessments from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency further said that Taliban forces spent the early part of the year preparing for large-scale offensives against Afghan government forces, and as of February had surrounded five provincial capitals. From December 2020-February 2021 #Afghanistan gvt forces also “withdrew from more than 200 checkpoints in #Kandahar” per info from @DefenseIntel#ANDSF further “reduced the police presence from 6,000 checkpoints to 113 bases and 3,700 checkpoints” per the @DoD_IG report— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) May 20, 2021And what action Afghan security forces did take in response to Taliban attacks was ineffective.  “The DIA reported that these attacks did not accomplish anything of strategic value,” the newly released report said of the government offensives.  Just as worrisome for some lawmakers, the most recent intelligence suggests the Taliban have yet to make good on their commitment to cut ties with al-Qaida. #Taliban-#alQaida split uncertain, per @DoD_IG based on @DefenseIntel infoAQ “continues to rely on the #Taliban for protection, and the two groups have reinforced ties over the past decades, likely making it difficult for an organizational split to occur” per report— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) May 20, 2021On Thursday, Helvey admitted the Taliban’s compliance with the deal “has been uneven over time.” But Khalilzad, who helped negotiate the agreement, hinted that when it comes to the Taliban and al-Qaida, things may be changing. “There has been further progress by the Talibs,” he told lawmakers, echoing comments he made earlier in the week when he assured lawmakers that although more was needed, the Taliban “have delivered significantly, substantially on their commitments.” “But we are still not satisfied and are pressing [them for] more,” Khalilzad said. “We can’t be driven by wishful thinking that they will make the right choice that we would like. But at the same time, we shouldn’t close the door to that possibility.” 
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