Pakistan has offered to provide essential medical supplies to rival India, which is in the grip of a devastating nationwide coronavirus surge and struggling to meet critical hospital needs, including medical oxygen.The offer comes amid months of ongoing backchannel talks involving top intelligence officials of the nuclear-armed neighboring countries seeking to reduce tensions and normalize bilateral ties.“As a gesture of solidarity with the people of India in the wake of the current wave of COVID-19, Pakistan has offered to provide relief support to India,” said a Pakistani foreign ministry statement issued late on Saturday. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.The supplies include ventilators, personal protective equipment, digital X-ray machines and other related gear.There was no immediate response from India.Pakistan said that authorities of both countries can work out modalities for a quick delivery of the relief items and explore possible ways of further cooperation “to mitigate the challenges posed by the pandemic.”“This is a very generous and significant offer, not just because it’s offering to provide supplies to its enemy, but because Pakistan itself is facing a rapidly growing COVID surge,” tweeted Michael Kugelman, deputy Asia program director at the Wilson Center, a Washington-based research group.The offer came on the same day Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, in a tweet, prayed for the “speedy recovery” of Indians affected by the virus. “We must fight this global challenge confronting humanity together,” Khan said.I want to express our solidarity with the people of India as they battle a dangerous wave of COVID-19. Our prayers for a speedy recovery go to all those suffering from the pandemic in our neighbourhood & the world. We must fight this global challenge confronting humanity together
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) FILE – A Pakistan Army soldier stands guard at a hilltop post near the Line of Control (LoC) in Charikot Sector, Kashmir, July 22, 2020.Indian and Pakistani mainstream newspapers have written extensively about the secret negotiations in recent days but officials on both sides have declined to confirm the process.“It is an opportune time for us to take a strategic pause,” Pakistan’s daily Dawn newspaper quoted an official as saying on Saturday. “We need a break from the cycle of violence and focus on domestic issues,” said the official. Kashmir is said to be the focus of the discussions. The Himalayan region is split between the two countries. Both claim all of it and have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since India and Pakistan gained independence from Britain in 1947.“The path of dialogue will be bumpy, but if we stay the course we can reach our objectives,” the daily Dawn newspaper quoted a senior official as saying. Bilateral tensions have dangerously escalated since August 2019, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government revoked the semiautonomous status of India-administered majority-Muslim Kashmir and declared it a union territory.Pakistan denounced the move and quickly downgraded all ties with India, saying it would do so until the neighbor reversed its Kashmir-related actions. Islamabad said the Indian actions violated a longstanding United Nations resolution, which recognizes the region as a disputed territory.New Delhi rejected the objection as an interference in its internal affairs but the ensuing months witnessed intense deadly clashes between the Indian and Pakistani militaries along the de facto Kashmir border, known as the Line of Control (LOC).Sikh pilgrims return from Pakistan after celebrating the Baisakhi festival at India-Pakistan Wagah border, about 35 kms from Amritsar, April 22, 2021.Mutual tensions have gradually eased since February when Indian and Pakistani border commanders agreed to halt military skirmishes and reinstitute a 2002 LOC cease-fire, a move that reportedly stemmed from the backchannel negotiations.In back-to-back statements last month, Khan and Pakistan’s military chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, advocated a “stable” relationship with India. They both called for a peaceful settlement to the long-running Kashmir dispute.  Bajwa stressed that “it is time to bury the past and move forward,” saying the rivalry between the two South Asian countries “is dragging the region back to the swamp of poverty and underdevelopment.” 
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The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan says the process of completely removing American troops from the conflict-torn country has already begun.
 
Gen. Scott Miller told local reporters in the Afghan capital, Kabul, Sunday that all of his troops “are now preparing to retrograde” under orders he had received.  
 
Miller spoke nearly two weeks after U.S. President Joe Biden announced the last remaining 3,000 or so U.S. troops will be withdrawn by September 11 — the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon outside Washington. Biden said the military drawdown will start May 1 to close nearly 20 years of war, America’s longest.  
 
Miller commands both U.S. troops and NATO’s noncombatant Resolute Support military mission in the country.  
 
NATO allies have promised to match the action and withdraw around 7,000 of their forces, as well, in line with an agreement Washington negotiated with the Afghan Taliban insurgency a year ago.
 
“We will conduct an orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan, and that means transitioning bases and equipment to the Afghan security forces,” the general said.FILE – U.S. Army General Scott Miller, center, commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, is seen at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, Nov. 6, 2018.The United States and its allies launched a military invasion of the country days after the deadly September 11, 2001, terror strikes to punish the then-Taliban rulers for harboring and allowing al-Qaida leaders to plot the carnage.  
 
The military action swiftly ousted the Islamist group from power in Kabul before the Taliban regrouped and launched a deadly insurgency against Afghan and U.S.-led international forces, reestablishing control over wide swathes of Afghanistan.
 
The February 2020 U.S.-Taliban agreement had required all foreign forces to leave Afghanistan by May 1, a week from now, but Biden cited logistical reasons for pushing back the deadline.  
 
The insurgents, who halted attacks on foreign troops after signing the agreement, denounced the delay as a violation of the mutually agreed upon deadline, and threatened to resume hostilities against U.S. forces as they withdraw from Afghanistan.
 
Miller said his forces continue to retain “the military means and capability to fully protect themselves during the ongoing retrograde and will support the Afghan security forces.”
He rejected allegations the United States had violated the deal and warned of a forceful response if the Taliban attacked foreign forces. FILE – U.S. soldiers load onto a Chinook helicopter to head out on a mission in Afghanistan, Jan. 15, 2019. (1st Lt. Verniccia Ford/U.S. Army/Handout via Reuters)The American general, who was part of the U.S. team that negotiated the landmark pact with the insurgents, advised the Taliban to follow a political path to peace and desist from “senseless violence” to help bring an end to the years of hostilities.
“I’ve had the opportunity to talk to Taliban members with the Taliban Political Commission, and I’ve told them a return to violence, an effort to force a military decision, would be a tragedy for Afghanistan and the Afghan people,” said Miller, who spoke at the U.S. military headquarters in Kabul.  
 
There are fears Afghan security forces will collapse in battles against the Taliban in the absence of U.S. assistance that could lead to more conflict and bloodshed.  
 
The U.S. general reminded the Taliban they are bound under the agreement to break ties with al-Qaida militants to ensure Afghanistan will never be used as a haven for terrorism.  
 
The United Nations reported this past January that there were about 500 al-Qaida operatives in Afghanistan and that the Taliban maintained close contacts with them. The Taliban denied an al-Qaida presence in the country and rejected charges they were in close contact.
 
The Afghan war to date has claimed an estimated 241,000 lives, including civilians and both local as well as combatants from international forces, and cost the U.S. at least $2.4 trillion, according to a new U.S. study published last week.  
 
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Pakistan has offered to provide essential medical supplies to rival India, which is in the grip of a devastating nationwide coronavirus surge and struggling to meet critical hospital needs, including medical oxygen.The offer comes amid months of ongoing backchannel talks involving top intelligence officials of the nuclear-armed neighboring countries seeking to reduce tensions and normalize bilateral ties.“As a gesture of solidarity with the people of India in the wake of the current wave of COVID-19, Pakistan has offered to provide relief support to India,” said a Pakistani foreign ministry statement issued late on Saturday. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.The supplies include ventilators, personal protective equipment, digital X-ray machines and other related gear.There was no immediate response from India.Pakistan said that authorities of both countries can work out modalities for a quick delivery of the relief items and explore possible ways of further cooperation “to mitigate the challenges posed by the pandemic.”“This is a very generous and significant offer, not just because it’s offering to provide supplies to its enemy, but because Pakistan itself is facing a rapidly growing COVID surge,” tweeted Michael Kugelman, deputy Asia program director at the Wilson Center, a Washington-based research group.The offer came on the same day Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, in a tweet, prayed for the “speedy recovery” of Indians affected by the virus. “We must fight this global challenge confronting humanity together,” Khan said.I want to express our solidarity with the people of India as they battle a dangerous wave of COVID-19. Our prayers for a speedy recovery go to all those suffering from the pandemic in our neighbourhood & the world. We must fight this global challenge confronting humanity together
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) FILE – A Pakistan Army soldier stands guard at a hilltop post near the Line of Control (LoC) in Charikot Sector, Kashmir, July 22, 2020.Indian and Pakistani mainstream newspapers have written extensively about the secret negotiations in recent days but officials on both sides have declined to confirm the process.“It is an opportune time for us to take a strategic pause,” Pakistan’s daily Dawn newspaper quoted an official as saying on Saturday. “We need a break from the cycle of violence and focus on domestic issues,” said the official. Kashmir is said to be the focus of the discussions. The Himalayan region is split between the two countries. Both claim all of it and have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since India and Pakistan gained independence from Britain in 1947.“The path of dialogue will be bumpy, but if we stay the course we can reach our objectives,” the daily Dawn newspaper quoted a senior official as saying. Bilateral tensions have dangerously escalated since August 2019, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government revoked the semiautonomous status of India-administered majority-Muslim Kashmir and declared it a union territory.Pakistan denounced the move and quickly downgraded all ties with India, saying it would do so until the neighbor reversed its Kashmir-related actions. Islamabad said the Indian actions violated a longstanding United Nations resolution, which recognizes the region as a disputed territory.New Delhi rejected the objection as an interference in its internal affairs but the ensuing months witnessed intense deadly clashes between the Indian and Pakistani militaries along the de facto Kashmir border, known as the Line of Control (LOC).Sikh pilgrims return from Pakistan after celebrating the Baisakhi festival at India-Pakistan Wagah border, about 35 kms from Amritsar, April 22, 2021.Mutual tensions have gradually eased since February when Indian and Pakistani border commanders agreed to halt military skirmishes and reinstitute a 2002 LOC cease-fire, a move that reportedly stemmed from the backchannel negotiations.In back-to-back statements last month, Khan and Pakistan’s military chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, advocated a “stable” relationship with India. They both called for a peaceful settlement to the long-running Kashmir dispute.  Bajwa stressed that “it is time to bury the past and move forward,” saying the rivalry between the two South Asian countries “is dragging the region back to the swamp of poverty and underdevelopment.” 
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COVID-19 has “shaken” India, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his monthly radio address Sunday.349,691 new COVID cases had been recorded in the previous 24-hour period, yet another daily record, the country’s health ministry said Sunday.The new infection figures are likely undercounted, public health officials have warned. A recent account in The New York Times said, “however staggering” the reports are from the ministry of a string of days with more than 300,000 new infections, the numbers “represent just a fraction of the real reach of the virus’s spread.”The U.S. is under pressure from the international community to release some of its warehoused COVID vaccines to India and other countries that need the shots.In addition to hundreds of thousands of new daily COVID cases, India is also experiencing an oxygen shortage, literally leaving COVID patients gasping for air.The Biden administration’s top medical adviser on the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said Friday the U.S. is attempting to help India contain its coronavirus surge by providing technical support and assistance.Phnom Penh closed its markets Saturday. The Cambodian capital went into lockdown April 15, but markets remained open. High infection rates at the markets, however, prompted the local government to issue shutdown orders Friday for the markets. The snap move went into effect Saturday, catching many residents off guard, causing them to plead with the government for food. The market lockdown is in effect until May 7.According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, Cambodia has one of the world’s lowest COVID infection rates with 9,359 cases.The governor of the U.S. state of New York announced Saturday the state would immediately resume vaccinating residents with the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, despite evidence that it is linked to rare cases of blood clots.New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo made the announcement in a statement one day after a U.S. health panel recommended ending a pause on the use of the vaccine.“World-renowned public health experts from the federal government and our own independent state task force have reviewed the data and reaffirmed that the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine can resume,” Cuomo said. “The state of New York will resume administration of this vaccine at all of our state-run sites effective immediately.”Advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine should be resumed in the U.S. after regulators had paused it last week to review reports of rare but severe blood clots in a handful of Americans who had received the shot.The panel voted 10-4 for resumption of the vaccine, arguing that benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks.The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Sunday there were more than 146 million global COVID-19 infections. The U.S. remains at the top of the list as the country with the most infections, with more than 32 million. India is second on the list with almost 17 million cases, followed by Brazil with 14.3 million.
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India set a new global record of the most number of coronavirus infections in a day, as the United States said it was racing to send help to the country.India’s number of cases surged by 349,691 in the past 24 hours, the fourth straight day of record peaks, and hospitals in Delhi and across the country are turning away patients after running out of medical oxygen and beds.“Our hearts go out to the Indian people in the midst of the horrific COVID-19 outbreak. We are working closely with our partners in the Indian government, and we will rapidly deploy additional support to the people of India and India’s health care heroes,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Twitter.The United States has faced criticism in India for its export controls on raw materials for vaccines put in place via the Defense Production Act and an associated export embargo in February.The Serum Institute of India (SII), the world’s biggest vaccine maker, this month urged U.S. President Joe Biden to lift the embargo on U.S. exports of raw materials that is hurting its production of AstraZeneca shots.Others such as U.S. Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi urged the Biden administration to release unused vaccines to India.“When people in India and elsewhere desperately need help, we can’t let vaccines sit in a warehouse, we need to get them where they’ll save lives,” he said.India’s total tally of infections stands at 16.96 million and deaths 192,311 after 2,767 more died overnight, health ministry data showed.In the last month alone, daily cases have gone up eight times and deaths by ten times. Health experts say the death count is probably far higher.People were arranging stretchers and oxygen cylinders outside hospitals as they desperately pleaded for authorities to take patients in, Reuters photographers said.“Every day, it the same situation, we are left with two hours of oxygen, we only get assurances from the authorities,” one doctor said on television.The surge is expected to peak in mid-May with the daily count of infections reaching half a million, the Indian Express said citing an internal government assessment.V.K. Paul, a COVID-task force leader, made the presentation during a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and state chief ministers and said that the health infrastructure in heavily populated states is not adequate enough to cope, according to the newspaper.Paul did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. Experts said India became complacent in the winter, when new cases were running at about 10,000 a day and seemed to be under control. Authorities lifted restrictions, allowing for the resumption of big gatherings.
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About 200 protesters gathered Saturday in Almaty for an unsanctioned rally to oppose a draft law on land ownership that they said posed a threat to Kazakh sovereignty and national security.Rallies were planned in other cities, too, but many of the organizers abandoned the protests after authorities blocked permits to gather, citing COVID-19 risks.The Kazakh parliament’s lower chamber, the Mazhilis, earlier this month approved the first reading of a bill banning the purchase and rental of farmland by foreigners in the Central Asian nation ahead of the expiration of a moratorium on land sales this summer.The five-year moratorium was introduced in 2016 after thousands demonstrated in unprecedented rallies across the tightly controlled nation, protesting the government’s plan to attract foreign investment into the agriculture sector by opening up the market.Agriculture Minister Saparkhan Omarov said at a session of parliament on April 7 that current agreements on farmland rented by some foreign companies or joint ventures with foreign capital would expire in the 2022-25 period and would not be extended. The move came after President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev proposed the ban in late February.The protests stopped after the government withdrew the plan, but two men who organized the largest rally in the western city of Atyrau, Talghat Ayan and Maks Boqaev, were sentenced to five years in prison each after being found guilty of inciting social discord, knowingly spreading false information and violating the law on public assembly.
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Sri Lankan police on Saturday arrested a prominent Muslim lawmaker and his brother over suspected connections to the Easter Sunday suicide bombings in 2019 that killed 269 people.Rishad Bathiudeen is a former Cabinet minister who currently leads an opposition party in Sri Lanka’s Parliament. He and his brother, Reyaj Bathiudeen, were arrested in the capital for allegedly “aiding and abetting the suicide bombers who committed the Easter Sunday carnage,” said police spokesman Ajith Rohana. He said the brothers had not yet been officially charged but were arrested based on direct evidence, as well as what he called circumstantial and “scientific” evidence.Two local Muslim groups that had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group have been blamed for the six near-simultaneous blasts at two Roman Catholic churches, a Protestant church and three tourist hotels. Both Muslims and Catholics are minorities in Sri Lanka, where Buddhists make up 70% of the population.Before his arrest Saturday, Bathiudeen wrote on Facebook that police had been outside his house “since 1:30 a.m. today attempting to arrest me without a charge. … They have already arrested my brother. I have been in Parliament and have cooperated with all lawful authorities until now. This is unjust.”Rushdhie Habeeb, a lawyer representing Bathiudeen, called the arrests politically motivated and said, “No reasons for the arrest had been given at the time of their arrest by those who conducted the midnight raid.”In his statement, Habeeb said the purpose was to “punish the political leadership of the Muslims, which had nothing to do with 21/4, for the dastardly acts of some Muslim youths who were widely alleged as having been used as pawns by foreign powers.”Demands for justiceThe arrests came amid growing demands for justice by Sri Lanka’s Catholic leaders and community, including during a commemoration held Wednesday on the second anniversary of the attacks. Last month, Sri Lankan Catholics also attended Mass dressed in black and held placards in a silent “Black Sunday” protest.Most of the people connected to the groups accused of carrying out the attacks have been arrested, but Archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith has insisted the bombings couldn’t have been planned by the leader who committed suicide in one of the attacks.The government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who came to power later in 2019 after promising to determine the truth behind the attacks, is under pressure to find the mastermind.His government accused an Islamic cleric arrested soon after the attacks of being the organizer, but the claim has not been accepted by the Catholic Church, which suspects there was larger foreign involvement.Ranjith, the archbishop, has said a presidential commission that investigated the attacks focused on failures by those in political power at the time to prevent the bombings, instead of on finding the people who were directly responsible.A power struggle between the then-president and prime minister, which led to a communications breakdown and a resulting lapse in security coordination, is said to have enabled the attacks, which occurred despite prior foreign intelligence warnings.
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Officials in Pakistan appear upset over U.S. military assessments warning of a possible resurgence of terrorism in the South Asian country after the withdrawal of international troops from Afghanistan and calling into question Islamabad’s commitment to peace in the war-torn neighboring country.
 
Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East and South Asia, shared the assessment in his congressional testimony this week in Washington. The CENTCOM chief also highlighted long-running U.S. complaints the Taliban continue to maintain their sanctuaries on Pakistani soil and direct insurgent attacks in Afghanistan from there.
 
McKenzie spoke a week after President Joe Biden announced the last remaining 3,000 or so U.S. troops will leave Afghanistan by September 11 to end what he said was America’s “forever war.”
 
NATO allies have promised to match the action and withdraw thousands of their forces, as well. Biden’s announcement is in line with a troop withdrawal agreement the U.S. negotiated with the Taliban a year ago.
 
The drawdown, due to start May 1, has raised fears of intensification in the war between Afghan government forces and the Taliban insurgency in the conflict-torn nation, which shares about 2,600-kilometers of border with Pakistan, because the two adversaries have failed to reach a peace deal after months of talks.
 
“I think the country that’s going to be the most affected frankly is going to be Pakistan because of the possibility of unconstrained refugee flow because of the possibility of renewed terrorist attacks in Pakistan that could ramp up as a result of this,” McKenzie told lawmakers Tuesday while articulating the possible impact on neighboring countries after U.S. troops complete their Afghan exit.
 
In testimony Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the general noted that Islamabad was interested in a stable Afghanistan, but he cautioned it’s going to be “very difficult” for that stability to remain post-U.S. troop withdrawal.
 
“I think Pakistan will be very concerned by that. I would say frankly that it’s a situation they have not been terribly helpful on over the last 20 years so that’s unfortunate for them that some of this is now gone come back home in a way that they perhaps did not anticipate,” McKenzie said.FILE – Marine General Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, speaks with U.S. troops while visiting Forward Operating Base Fenty in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, Sept. 9, 2019.A senior Pakistani official who deals with national security matters has dismissed the U.S. charges, saying his country in the last three years has made all possible efforts to facilitate the Washington-led efforts to promote peace and reconciliation between Kabul and the Taliban.
 
The official, speaking to VOA on condition of anonymity, urged U.S. officials to desist from “starting a new blame game” at a time when Afghans need support from all sides to find peace for their turmoil-hit nation.
 
“It will be extremely unfortunate to blame Pakistan for continued disagreements among Afghan stakeholders and the inability of the United States to appreciate Pakistan’s unqualified, relentless efforts for peace and stability in Afghanistan,” said the official who is not authorized to speak to the media.
 
Despite its long-running skepticism, Washington credits Islamabad with facilitating talks between U.S. and Taliban interlocutors that culminated in the signing of the February 2020 peace agreement between the two adversaries.
 
Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri, when asked for his reaction to McKenzie’s remarks, insisted his country facilitated “in good faith” the U.S.-Taliban peace process.
 
“It is out of our legitimate security concerns and well wishes for the safety and security of Afghan people that we call for an orderly and responsible withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan leaving no security vacuum that could be exploited by spoilers,” Chaudhri told VOA.
 
“It is, therefore, important that the withdrawal coincides with the progress in the peace process.”
 
Chaudhri went on to underscore that Islamabad’s “historic and longstanding” relations with Washington have “always served mutual interests” of both countries.
 
The Biden administration has also attempted to brush aside suggestions of strains in relations with Pakistan.
 
“The United States looks forward to working together with Pakistan on a range of issues including addressing the climate crisis through improving access to energy, promoting efficient agricultural practices and supporting innovative climate adaptation measures all while growing our economies in sustainable ways,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA.  
 
Micheal Kugelman, deputy Asia program director at the Washington-based Wilson Center, said McKenzie’s comments “don’t portend well” for U.S.-Pakistan relations.
 
“He appears to acknowledge that the withdrawal will impact Pakistan’s stability deleteriously but doesn’t give any indication that the U.S. would be prepared to work with Pakistan to help reduce its risks of destabilization,” Kugelman told VOA.
 
Senator Mushahid Hussain, the chairman of foreign affairs committee of the upper house of the Pakistani parliament, criticized McKenzie’s remarks as “confusing” and an attempt to blame Pakistan for U.S. military failures in Afghanistan.
 
“The only clarity seems to be a readiness to scapegoat Pakistan, if and when things go wrong in Afghanistan, [convenient way of passing the buck!]. Accepting defeat for any army isn’t always easy, especially the American military in yet another land war in Asia. So, the easy way out: blame Pakistan!,” Hussain asserted.
 
Pakistan’s military bases and ground and air lines of communication played a crucial role in facilitating and sustaining the U.S.-led military invasion of landlocked Afghanistan 20 years ago.
 
The punitive military action was launched to oust the Taliban from power days after the deadly September 11, 2001 strikes on America that were plotted by al-Qaida leaders from Taliban-ruled Afghanistan at the time.
 
Pakistan has long retaken control of its bases from the U.S. military, but the country’s airspace and land routes are still being used to ferry non-lethal military supplies for international forces across the Afghan border.
 
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and his military leadership have vowed repeatedly in recent months that their country will not participate in any future U.S. military action and only play the role of a “peacemaker,” if required.
 
McKenzie told lawmakers during his testimony the U.S. is engaged in “a significant” diplomatic effort to determine where it would base a counterterrorism force in the region to deter terrorist groups after all American troops leave the country. However, no such understanding currently exists with any of Afghanistan’s neighbors for housing the proposed anti-terrorism forces, the general said.
 
“This may also be meant to signal to Pakistan that if the U.S. is to help Pakistan with its security needs, Islamabad will need to offer something in return, such as the use of Pakistani military bases to house U.S. counterterrorism forces focused on terror threats in Afghanistan that threaten the U.S. and Pakistan alike,” said Kugelman while referring to McKenzie’s criticism of Islamabad.Chaudhri called for a meaningful engagement of the international community for promoting reconstruction and economic development in the post-conflict Afghanistan for ensuring sustainable peace and stability.Pakistan still hosts around three million Afghan refugees who have fled four decades of civil war, persecution and poverty. Chaudhri called stressed the need for arranging a time-bound and well-resourced plan for repatriating the displaced population that Pakistani officials maintain has served as a hiding place for insurgents. VOA’s Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
 
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The United States is positioning more firepower in the Middle East and South Asia to provide cover for U.S. troops as they prepare to leave Afghanistan.The Pentagon on Friday announced that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had ordered the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier to remain in the region for “a period of time.” Long-range bombers are also headed to the region, and two U.S. Air Force B-52s are already in place.”We want to make this a safe, orderly and deliberate drawdown,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters. “That means giving the commander on the ground … options to make sure that our forces and our troops and those of our allies are protected as they move out.”U.S. President Joe Biden announced last week that he was pulling the approximately 2,500 to 3,500 U.S. troops out of Afghanistan beginning May 1, and that the withdrawal would be completed by early September.U.S. allies, who have another 7,000 or so troops in Afghanistan under the auspices of NATO, are also leaving, along with thousands of contractors, under the same timeline.Taliban threatsDespite the planned pullout, Taliban officials have repeatedly threatened to target U.S. and coalition forces if they fail to leave Afghanistan by the start of May — the deadline under an agreement signed between the Taliban and the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump.”It would be foolhardy and imprudent not to assume that there could be resistance and opposition to the drawdown by the Taliban given their staunch rhetoric,” Kirby told reporters about the threats, leaving open the possibility that additional steps could be coming.”It’s entirely possible there will be a temporary increase of some ground forces and enablers, not just for force protection but also for logistical and engineering support.”During a briefing at the Pentagon on Thursday, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East and Afghanistan, General Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie Jr., raised concerns about the ability of Afghan forces to hold off the Taliban once U.S. troops leave. But he also warned the insurgent group against going after U.S. or coalition forces in the interim.”I believe it is probably the Taliban’s intent to conduct military operations,” McKenzie said, adding that they have “never stopped fighting.””I would advise the Taliban we will be prepared to defend ourselves,” he said.US General Warns Afghan Forces Facing Possible FailureThe commander of US forces in the Middle East and Afghanistan tells lawmakers that Afghan forces may not be able to ‘hold on’ against the Taliban without help from US, NATO troops on the groundThe U.S. is also finalizing plans to remove equipment and supplies from Afghanistan, much of which will be flown out of the country.But the Defense Department said not all of it would be coming home.”Some of it will be inspected, cleaned and deployed elsewhere in the region. Some of it will be provided to our Afghan partners, if it makes sense,” the Pentagon’s Kirby told reporters. “And some of it will be destroyed.”
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Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan deployed the army into cities Friday to assist in enforcing coronavirus public safety restrictions to contain the pandemic outbreak, warning the country may soon be facing a health crisis similar to that of neighboring India unless the current tide of infections is reversed. Khan addressed the nation after chairing an emergency meeting of his top advisors as the number of COVID-19 infections soar across the country of about 220 million people.”I have also asked the Pakistan army to now come out on the streets and help our law enforcement, our police to ensure people are strictly following (COVID-19) SOPs (standard operating procedures), including wearing masks,” he said.India Reports Record Number of COVID Infections, AgainFire in Indian hospital COVID unit kills 13 patientsOfficials said hospitals in major Pakistani cities, including the capital, Islamabad, are nearly filled to capacity with coronavirus patients.Pakistan has recorded more than 784,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including at least 17,000 deaths, since the start of the pandemic early last year. Officials said Friday 144 deaths and nearly 5,900 new cases of infection had been reported in the last 24 hours.Tighter restrictions Pakistan’s prime minister said people are still violating social distancing rules, noting that so far, he has resisted calls from health care workers to impose a nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the virus. But Khan added the government may not resist those calls for long.”If our circumstances become the same as India, then we will have to close down cities. We really don’t want to do that because we know that the poor suffer the most when lockdowns are imposed,” Khan said.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
Health workers attend to a patient at the Jumbo COVID-19 hospital in Mumbai, India, April 22, 2021.India reported the world’s highest daily tally of COVID-19 cases for the second day Friday, surpassing 330,000 new infections amid an alarming shortage of oxygen for patients and beds in hospitals across the world’s second most populous country.”Pakistan’s Edhi Foundation, founded by the late great Abdul Sattar Edhi, has done what most of the world’s richest governments have declined to do: Extend an offer of assistance to an Indian nation deeply in need,” tweeted Michael Kugelman, deputy Asia program director at Washington-based Wilson Center. “This is the example that must be set, and that the world must see.”The devastating health crisis in the neighboring country, prompted people in Pakistan to take to Twitter expressing sympathy and solidarity with Indians, and urging the Khan government to offer help to India, Pakistan’s arch-rival. The hashtag #IndiaNeedsOxygen becoming a top trend Friday.Tensions between India and Pakistan, the two nuclear-armed rivals, have gradually eased since February when their militaries agreed to restore a mutual truce in the disputed Kashmir region.
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The coronavirus has conquered the world’s highest mountain.  
A Norwegian climber became the first to be tested for COVID-19 in Mount Everest base camp and was flown by helicopter to Kathmandu, where he was hospitalized.
Erlend Ness told The Associated Press in a message Friday that he tested positive on April 15. He said another test on Thursday was negative and he was now staying with a local family in Nepal.
An ace mountain guide, Austrian Lukas Furtenbach, warned that the virus could spread among the hundreds of other climbers, guides and helpers who are now camped on the base of Everest if all of them are not checked immediately and safety measures are taken.
Any outbreak could prematurely end the climbing season, just ahead of a window of good weather in May, he said.  
“We would need now most urgently mass testing in base camp, with everyone tested and every team being isolated, no contact between teams,” said Furtenbach. “That needs to be done now, otherwise it is too late.”
Furtenbach, leading a team of 18 climbers to Mount Everest and its sister peak Mount Lhotse, said there could be more than just one case on the mountain as the Norwegian had lived with several others for weeks.  
A Nepalese mountaineering official denied there were any active cases on the mountains at the moment.  
Mira Acharya, director at the Department of Mountaineering, said she had no official information about the COVID-19 cases and only reports of illnesses like pneumonia and altitude sickness.  
Mountaineering was closed last year due to the pandemic and climbers returned to Everest this year for the first time since May 2019.  
The popular spring climbing season in Nepal, which has eight of the highest peaks in the world, began in March and ends in May.
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The White House brought out the billionaires, the CEOs and the union executives Friday to help sell President Joe Biden’s climate-friendly transformation of the U.S. economy at his virtual summit of world leaders.
 The closing day of the two-day summit on climate change showcased Bill Gates and Mike Bloomberg, steelworker and electrical union leaders and executives for solar and other renewable energy.
“We can’t beat climate change without a historic amount of new investment,” said Bloomberg, who’s donated millions to promote replacing dirty-burning coal-fired power plants with increasingly cheaper renewable energy.
“We have to do more, faster to cut emissions,” Bloomberg said in his push for big investment.
Biden envoy John Kerry stressed the political selling point that the president’s call for retrofitting creaky U.S. infrastructure to run more cleanly would put the U.S. on a better economic footing long-term.
“No one is being asked for a sacrifice,” Kerry said. “This is an opportunity.”
It’s all in service of an argument U.S. officials say will make or break Biden’s climate agenda: Pouring trillions of dollars into clean-energy technology, research and infrastructure will speed a competitive U.S. economy into the future and create jobs, while saving the planet.
“Climate change is more than a threat,” Biden declared on Thursday’s opening day of his climate summit. “It also presents one of the largest job creation opportunities in history.”
The new urgency comes as scientists say that climate change caused by coal plants, car engines and other fossil fuel use is worsening droughts, floods, hurricanes, wildfires and other disasters and that humans are running out of time to stave off catastrophic extremes of global warming.
The event has featured the world’s major powers — and major polluters — pledging to cooperate on cutting petroleum and coal emissions that are rapidly warming the planet.
But Republicans are sticking to the arguments that former President Donald Trump made in pulling the U.S. out of the 2015 Paris climate accord. They point to China as the world’s worst climate polluter — the U.S. is No. 2 — and say any transition to clean energy hurts American oil, natural gas and coal workers.
It means “putting good-paying American jobs into the shredder,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on the Senate floor Thursday in a speech in which he dismissed the administration’s plans as costly and ineffective.
“This is quite the one-two punch,” McConnell said. “Toothless requests of our foreign adversaries … and maximum pain for American citizens.”
In an announcement timed to his summit, Biden pledged the U.S. will cut fossil fuel emissions as much as 52% by 2030.
Allies joined the U.S. in announcing new moves to cut emissions, striving to build momentum going into November’s U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, where governments will say how far each is willing to go to cut the amount of fossil fuel fumes it pumps out.
Japan announced its own new 46% emissions reduction target, and South Korea said it would stop public financing of new coal-fired power plants, potentially an important step toward persuading China and other coal-reliant nations to curb the building and funding of new ones as well. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his nation would boost its fossil fuel pollution cuts from 30% to at least 40%.
Biden was scheduled to address the summit Friday at a session on the “economic opportunities of climate action.” Leaders from Israel, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Kenya, Denmark, Norway, Poland, Nigeria, Spain and Vietnam also were scheduled to participate Friday, along with Biden’s transportation, energy and commerce secretaries and others.
Travel precautions under the coronavirus pandemic compelled the summit to play out on livestream, limiting opportunities for spontaneous interaction and negotiation. Its opening hours were sometimes marked by electronic echoes, random beeps and off-screen voices.
But the summit opening Thursday also marshaled an impressive display of the world’s most powerful leaders speaking on the single topic of climate change.
China’s Xi Jinping spoke first among the other global figures. He made no reference to disputes over territorial claims, trade and other matters that had made it uncertain until Wednesday that he would even take part in the U.S. summit.
“To protect the environment is to protect productivity, and to boost the environment is to boost productivity. It’s as simple as that,” Xi said.
The Biden administration’s pledge would require by far the most ambitious U.S. climate effort ever, nearly doubling the reductions that the Obama administration had committed to in the Paris climate accord.
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COVID-19 is surging at an astounding rate in India. The South Asian nation’s health ministry said Friday it had counted a record-breaking 332,730 new infections in the previous 24-hour period. The new tally surpasses Thursday’s record daily toll of 314,835 new infections.At least six hospitals in New Delhi, the capital, have run out of, or are on the verge of running out of, oxygen for their patients.The oxygen shortage is so acute that the high court in the capital ordered the national government to divert oxygen from industrial use to hospitals.In western India on Friday, a fire at the Vijay Vallabh Hospital killed at least 13 COVID patients.Prime Minister Narendra Modi is holding meetings with the country’s chief ministers Friday to determine how best to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reports that India has nearly 16 million COVID-19 cases. Only the U.S., with almost 32 million cases, has more infections than India.Agence France-Presse is reporting that Japan is set to declare a state of emergency because of a surge in COVID infections, just three months before the opening of the Olympic Games in Tokyo.“We have a strong sense of crisis,” Yasutoshi Nishimura, Japan’s minister for virus response, said Friday, according to AFP.Japan has more than 550,000 COVID-19 cases, according to Johns Hopkins.Syria’s government and the country’s last opposition-held enclave received their first doses of COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday.UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the GAVI vaccine alliance announced in a joint statement the delivery of 200,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to the Syrian government, and 53,800 doses to the rebel-controlled region in the northwest.While fighting has mostly subsided since a cease-fire was implemented a year ago, Syria’s civil war has complicated the delivery of the vaccines, forcing most of them to be transported through Damascus for government-controlled areas while the others are shipped through the border with Turkey.Western nongovernmental organizations have said that Syria’s logistical challenges in coordinating vaccinations in combat zones are worsened by the international financial sanctions that have been imposed on the country. Johns Hopkins reports there are nearly 145 million worldwide COVID-19 infections and more than 3 million people have died.
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Pakistan’s parliament will resume debating the fate of the French ambassador Friday after the government appeared, for now, to put a lid on bloody anti-France protests that rocked the country for a week.A resolution calls for debate on whether to expel the French envoy, for the national assembly to condemn Western blasphemy, for Muslim nations to unite on the issue, and for authorities to provide space in cities for future protests.The resolution — put forward privately by a member of the ruling party — will likely be replaced by a more strongly worded one from the opposition, but will nevertheless be non-binding.Still, it appears to have taken the steam out of an anti-France campaign waged for months by the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) since President Emmanuel Macron defended the right of a satirical magazine to republish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed – an act deemed blasphemous by many Muslims.Supporters of the upstart radical party protested violently across the country last week when its leader was arrested after calling for a march on the capital to demand the French envoy’s expulsion.As the protests grew, the French embassy recommended all its citizens leave the country — a call that appeared to go largely unheeded.Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed — who negotiated an end to the protests with TLP leaders — said five police officers and eight protesters were killed.Protesters also held hostage 11 police officers and two special rangers for hours, before releasing them bruised and bloodied.Despite the TLP being banned last week under anti-terror laws — and its leader’s continued detention — party elders on Tuesday called off further action.”We have not given anything away,” Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry told a news conference Wednesday.”They have realized the state is serious,” added Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari.Prime Minister Imran Khan has in the past been accused of appeasing the TLP, fearful of antagonizing Pakistan’s conservatives.On Monday he had pleaded with the group to end its violent campaign to oust the French ambassador, saying the unrest was harming the nation.”It doesn’t make any difference to France,” he said in a national address broadcast on television.”If we keep protesting our whole lives we would only be damaging our own country and it will not impact (the West).”Few issues are as galvanizing in Pakistan as blasphemy, and even the slightest suggestion of an insult to Islam can supercharge protests, incite lynchings, and unite the country’s warring political parties.
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The Afghanistan government says it is time for Pakistan to stop supporting and sheltering the Taliban as the United plans to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.  Rahim Gul Sarwan Reports from Kabul. 
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A U.S. government body that monitors global religious freedom is recommending that the State Department include Uzbekistan on its special watchlist (SWL) because of Tashkent’s incarceration of 2,000 mostly observant Muslims on charges of religious extremism.In its 22nd annual report published Wednesday, the independent, bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) said Uzbekistan merits the designation for engaging in or tolerating “severe violations” of religious freedom.The USCIRF 2021 report recommends an additional 11 countries for the State Department’s SWL: Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Cuba, Egypt, Iraq, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nicaragua and Turkey.”We urge the Uzbek government to continue to make tangible improvements on its religious freedom and human rights records,” USCIRF Commissioner Nury Turkel told VOA, calling on the government of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to release an estimated 2,000 people incarcerated for religious activity nationwide.”Mirziyoyev’s government has been trying to make some notable improvements to religious freedom conditions in Uzbekistan in recent years,” Turkel said. “Nevertheless, the Uzbek government still has to release those religious prisoners of conscience, some of whom have remained locked up for many years.”Home to nearly 33 million people, the majority Muslim Central Asian republic had been designated a “country of particular concern” (CPC) by U.S. officials from 2006 to 2019, after which the State Department elevated Uzbekistan to the SWL, citing some progress toward broader religious freedom.CPC is a State Department designation for countries that engage in or tolerate “‘particularly severe violations of religious freedom” under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, whereas the second-tier SWL designation is reserved for countries that engage or tolerate “‘severe’ violations.”Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev is seen in this undated photo. (Courtesy, president.uz)According to the USCIRF 2021 report, Mirziyoyev, who assumed power in 2016 following the death of former President Islam Karimov, had in 2020 made some reforms to improve religious freedom conditions in Uzbekistan that “trended positively.””Over the course of [2020], the government registered at least eight non-Muslim religious organizations, ended a de facto ban on children attending mosques, interceded to prevent the eviction and demolition of a synagogue located in Tashkent, and released some religious prisoners,” the report said.Independent MuslimsUSCIRF also noted, however, that Uzbek authorities continued to harass, detain and imprison Muslims who practiced Islam independently of strict state controls or possessed unauthorized “extremist” sermons and other religious texts in print or electronic form.According to the USCIRF report, although the government of Uzbekistan had pardoned and reduced sentences for some religious prisoners throughout 2020, thousands remained imprisoned.”Moreover, in 2020 the government arrested an undetermined number of individuals under broad and ill-defined charges of ‘extremism’ that many observers viewed with skepticism given Uzbekistan’s ‘history of alleging extremism accusations to target political opposition’ and religious individuals,” the report charges.Uzbekistan, which defends its religious freedom record, has downplayed the accusations. Discussing religious freedom with journalists in February, Uzbek Justice Minister Ruslanbek Davletov denied that any restrictions exist.”We must recognize Uzbekistan’s achievements in freedom of thought, conscience and religion,” Davletov said at the time, adding that the Ministry of Justice would continue to work to ensure the religious rights and freedoms of every person.In March, the U.N. Human Rights Committee expressed its concerns about the persistence of torture in prisons and other detention facilities and the use of arbitrary arrest, detention and torture of independent Muslims in the country.Using its religious freedom findings, USCIRF makes policy recommendations to the White House, State Department and U.S. Congress.The watchdog commission also listed Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan for CPC redesignation.It also called for adding India, Russia, Syria, and Vietnam to the CPC list.
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The withdrawal of U.S. and coalition forces from Afghanistan could lead to the eventual collapse of the country’s own security forces, according to the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East and South Asia.U.S. Central Command’s Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie told lawmakers Thursday that the presence of some 10,000 American and coalition troops has allowed Afghan security forces to maintain a stalemate with the Taliban, but that things could change rapidly once Afghan forces are on their own.Marine General Kenneth McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, speaks with U.S. troops while visiting Forward Operating Base Fenty in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, Sept. 9, 2019.”My concern is the ability of the Afghan military to hold the ground that they’re on now without the support they’ve been used to for many years,” McKenzie told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.”I am concerned about the ability of the Afghan military to hold on after we leave, the ability of the Afghan air force to fly, in particular, after we remove the support for those aircraft,” McKenzie said, noting the U.S. and NATO no longer provide direct support to Afghan forces. “It’s the enabling things that actually give them an edge over the Taliban.”McKenzie’s assessment runs counter to assurances given by other U.S. officials as well as by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who expressed confidence in his forces on Twitter.”Afghanistan’s proud security and defense forces are fully capable of defending its people and country, which they have been doing all along,” Ghani wrote last week.Afghanistan’s proud security and defense forces are fully capable of defending its people and country, which they have been doing all along, and for which the Afghan nation will forever remain grateful.— Ashraf Ghani (@ashrafghani) April 14, 2021But concern about the Afghan security forces, and the future stability of Afghanistan, has been growing since U.S. President Joe Biden announced last week, after months of deliberations, that he would begin pulling U.S. forces from the country starting May 1.”It’s important the American people understand that the repercussions of this are not going to be pretty,” said Republican Senator Mike Rounds. “We will see reports of atrocities in those areas as committed by the Taliban if these Afghan national forces are not able to hold their own.”Threat of increased violenceThere has also been concern about the safety of U.S. and coalition forces during the withdrawal.Some lawmakers and analysts see the likelihood of a Taliban attack on withdrawing U.S. forces as high, citing threats from Taliban officials that “problems will certainly be compounded” if U.S. troops do not adhere to the original terms of the deal and vacate Afghanistan by May 1..@PentagonPresSec on @nytimes report @CENTCOM wants an aircraft carrier for #Afghanistan withdrawal@SecDef “has made clear that we will execute the drawdown in Afghanistan in a safe, orderly & deliberate manner & that we will do everything possible to protect our troops…”— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) April 22, 2021U.S. military officials say planning and coordination with the Afghan government and other allies is still under way, but McKenzie said the U.S. and its allies would be ready.”We will have additional capabilities, and I’m confident that we and our coalition partners will be able to extract ourselves,” he told lawmakers Thursday. “We’re prepared if the Taliban want to take shots at us.”But McKenzie said the bigger concern is what happens to Afghan security forces once U.S. and NATO forces are gone, admitting that the Taliban have at least 50,000 fighters at their disposal and control more territory now than they did a decade ago.”If we don’t provide them some support, they certainly will collapse, and I think that’s not in our best interest,” he said.Those concerns are not new. The U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), John Sopko, warned in March that without U.S. and international assistance, and in absence of a viable peace agreement, “Taliban forces could be at the gates of Kabul in short order.”SIGAR further warned that without U.S. and international contractors, all of whom are slated to leave as part of the withdrawal, the Afghan air force could be effectively grounded within months. JUST IN: Pentagon says that as of this month (April 2021) there are 16,832 @DeptofDefense contractors in #AfghanistanUS Citizens: 6,1473rd Country Nationals: 6,399Afghans: 4,286 https://t.co/O2uVIO2lfm— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) April 16, 2021An opening for terror groupsA study group mandated by Congress also sounded alarms in February, noting that a U.S. withdrawal would create opportunities for terror groups, including al-Qaida and Islamic State.”We believe a U.S. withdrawal will provide the terrorists an opportunity to reconstitute,” retired General Joseph Dunford, study group co-chair and former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the time. “That reconstitution will take place in about 18 to 36 months.”MORE: “The probability of civil war is high in the wake a precipitous withdrawal of the #UnitedStates” per ret. Gen Joseph Dunford, calling #Afghanistan a “fragile state”#AfghanistanStudyGroup— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) February 3, 2021On Thursday, however, U.S. Central Command’s McKenzie expressed more immediate fears.”Protection of an embassy is the responsibility of the host nation,” he told lawmakers. “It is a matter of great concern to me, and I think everyone, whether or not the future government of Afghanistan is going to be able to do that after we leave.”Several lawmakers, though, voiced support for the decision to pull U.S. troops from Afghanistan despite the risks.”We should have learned by now that a conditions-based withdrawal is just a recipe for staying in Afghanistan forever,” Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said during Thursday’s hearing.”Defense officials have come before this committee year after year to proclaim that the U.S. has ‘turned the corner’ in Afghanistan,” she said. “But all I see is a vicious cycle that damages our nation’s reputation abroad and keeps our troops in harm’s way while producing little tangible benefit for our security.” 
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Hospitals in India are running desperately short of beds, medical oxygen and key drugs for coronavirus treatment as a lethal second wave of the pandemic brings the country’s health care system to a breaking point.   
 
India reported 314,835 new COVID-19 infections Thursday, the highest one-day total posted by any nation during the year-long global pandemic.  
 
The public health emergency in India is on a scale doctors have never seen before. “It is worse than a tsunami, worse than carpet bombing,” says Jalil Parkar, senior pulmonary consultant at Lilavati Hospital in Mumbai, India’s financial capital that boasts of some of the country’s best hospitals and medical infrastructure.   
 
In locked-down cities, the wail of ambulance sirens is the only sound that breaks the silence on streets and the only crowds seen are outside hospitals and crematoriums as families scramble to get beds or cremate loved ones.    
 
“The influx of patients is so much that we have to treat patients on the wheelchair, sometimes in the ambulance itself and we are doing our best,” according to Parkar.    
 
 India’s Capital Shuts Down as Pandemic Chokes Health Care SystemNew Delhi is not the only one struggling to cope – in other cities too like financial capital Mumbai – people are scrambling for hospital beds As oxygen ran scarce, the Delhi High Court ordered the federal government to divert oxygen from industries to hospitals. “You can’t have people die because there is no oxygen,” a two-judge bench said late on Wednesday. “Beg, borrow or steal, it is a national emergency.”  
 
The order came after one of the city’s leading private sector hospital chains, Max Healthcare, told the court that most of its hospitals were working on “dangerously low levels of oxygen supply.”  
 
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called India’s second wave a “storm.”   
 
“The corona crisis has led to a huge demand for oxygen throughout the country,” Modi said in a nationwide address Tuesday night. “We are taking steps to address this very quickly.” He said authorities were working with states and private firms to deliver oxygen with speed.  
 
It will be too late for many already mourning dead relatives.   A man walks past burning funeral pyres of people, who died due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at a crematorium ground in New Delhi, India, April 22, 2021. 
As the virus ravaged Delhi, doctors said they were flooded with endless calls from desperate people seeking help for beds and oxygen.
 
“My phone kept ringing all night. People said my son is dying, mother-in-law is dying, or another relative is suffering, so I am troubling you. I had the same request from all – their oxygen level is falling, where should they go?” said Arvind Kumar, a chest surgeon at Medanta Hospital in Gurugram, an affluent business district near New Delhi.
 
“I don’t think even nightmare is a correct word which expresses the gravity of the situation. There is not a single hospital bed in Delhi today,” Kumar said.
 
The northern Haryana state ordered police to escort vehicles carrying oxygen cylinders after authorities said one tanker was looted. Local television showed people crowding with empty oxygen cylinders around refilling facilities in the most populous state of Uttar Pradesh. Social media has become a helpline filled with pleas for getting beds or oxygen.   
 
India’s health minister, Harsh Vardhan, said that to address the exponential spike in demand, the government has increased the quota of oxygen for the seven worst-hit states in the country.   A worker loads empty oxygen cylinders onto a supply van to be transported to a filling station, at a COVID-19 hospital, amidst the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Ahmedabad, India, April 22, 2021. 
Daily infections have risen at a staggering pace in the past seven days, making it India’s deadliest week since the pandemic.   
 
The swift rise has taken aback a country where a steadily downward graph of infections from last September to February brought hope the virus was in retreat – in early February it was counting just around 10,000 cases a day. The optimism was short lived as the case count began rising and then exploded this month.    
 
Prime Minister Modi’s government been criticized for allowing super spreader events in recent weeks, such as a massive Hindu religious festival and packed political rallies led by top leaders. The gatherings took place without COVID-19 protocols, as tens of thousands jostled close to each other mostly without masks. As many as 2.8 million pilgrims took a dip in the Ganges River in Haridwar city on April 12.   
 
Experts say more infectious variants of the coronavirus also could be driving the relentless rise in cases. One such variant called the “double mutant” was first found in the western state of Maharashtra in February, but it failed to ring alarm bells.   “It’s known that this variant is more transmissible, moves more easily between people and is able to evade the immune response in some cases,” says Gautam Menon, Physics and Biology Professor at Ashoka University. “We should have been more careful. Certainly, we should step up genomic sequencing that is needed to detect variants.”  
 
The second wave, which has made India the epicenter of the global pandemic, is not expected to peak soon, according to Menon.    
 
“The situation is worrying. We are already at around 300,000 cases, and at 2,000 odd deaths daily. Our vaccination program is faltering a little bit. All this suggests the next couple of weeks is not going to be good for India,” says Menon.   
 
That will be a challenge for an exhausted health care system.     
 
“I think we have nearly crumbled and crashed, I should say. I don’t know how we are going to resurrect,” says pulmonary consultant Parkar, even as he says he is fervently hoping for a dip in the second wave. “Let us all vaccinate everybody, let us save lives. Let there be more beds, let there be more oxygen.”  
 
That is also what people are demanding as they question why authorities did not prepare adequately for a second wave.
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Officials in Pakistan said Thursday the death toll had risen to at least five from an overnight suicide car bombing of a luxury hotel in a southwestern city, which apparently targeted visiting Chinese diplomats. The powerful explosion ripped through the parking lot of Serena Hotel in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, late Wednesday, injuring at least 13 others, some of them critically.Security sources said the bomber detonated the “vehicle-born” explosives just before China’s ambassador to Pakistan, Nong Rong, was due to arrive back at the hotel from a dinner party elsewhere in the city.Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a daily briefing Thursday that Beijing “strongly condemns” the bombing and extended sympathies to the victims. Wenbin confirmed that Rong had been leading a delegation to the city and that they were staying at the Serena Hotel.“The Chinese delegation was not in the hotel when the attack happened. So far, no Chinese casualties have been reported in the attack,” Wenbin said. He offered no indication as to whether Rong’s delegation might have been specifically targeted in the attack. Suicide Blast Rips Through Parking Lot of Pakistan Hotel Pakistani Taliban claims responsibility for late-night bombing at Quetta’s Serena Hotel targeting local, foreign officials The outlawed Pakistani Taliban militant group claimed responsibility for the bombing, saying the intended target of the suicide bombing was a “high-profile meeting involving foreign officials.” It did not elaborate further. “At present, the relevant departments in Pakistan are making full effort to investigate the incident,” said Wenbin. “We believe that the Pakistani side will find out the truth at an early date and bring the perpetrators to justice.”The Chinese spokesman said that China will continue to “firmly support” Pakistan’s efforts against terrorism and “jointly maintain and promote regional security and stability and ensure the safety of Chinese personnel and institutions in Pakistan.”“I am deeply saddened by the loss of innocent lives in the condemnable & cowardly terrorist attack in Quetta yesterday,” Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan tweeted Thursday. I am deeply saddened by the loss of innocent lives in the condemnable & cowardly terrorist attack in Quetta yesterday. Our nation has made great sacrifices in defeating terrorism & we will not to allow this scourge to rise again. We remain alert to all internal & external threats— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) April 22, 2021He added that Pakistan has made “great sacrifices in defeating terrorism” and it will not allow this “scourge” to resurge. “We remain alert to all internal & external threats.”Pakistani Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said that the attack was a “major security breach” and a high-level investigation would be conducted to hold those responsible to account.”We condemn in the strongest terms last night’s bombing in #Quetta, a senseless act of terrorism that killed and injured several people,” the U.S. embassy in Islamabad tweeted Thursday. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families, and we wish a speedy recovery for the survivors.” We condemn in the strongest terms last night’s bombing in #Quetta, a senseless act of terrorism that killed and injured several people. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families, and we wish a speedy recovery for the survivors.— U.S. Embassy Islamabad (@usembislamabad) April 22, 2021Baluchistan is at the center of a Chinese-funded, multibillion-dollar infrastructure development project, an extension of Beijing’s global Belt and Road Initiative. The bilateral cooperation, known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor or CPEC, has built the deep-water Arabian Sea port of Gwadar in the province and constructed new roads, as well as power plants elsewhere in Pakistan, over the past six years.Ethnic Baluch secessionist groups are waging an insurgency in Baluchistan, the country’s natural resource-rich and largest province. The separatists also routinely claim credit for plotting attacks against Pakistani security forces and other installations.
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India reported 314,835 new COVID-19 infections on Thursday, the highest one-day total posted by any nation during the year-long global pandemic. The devastating second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the world’s second most populous country has brought its health system to the brink of collapse even in its biggest cities. Experts say super spreader events and a more infectious variant could have caused the surge in India that is now the epicenter of the global pandemic. Anjana Pasricha reports from New Delhi. 
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India reported 314,835 new COVID-19 infections Thursday, the highest one-day total posted by any nation during the yearlong global pandemic.By contrast, the United States posted 300,310 single day new cases on Jan. 2, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.India, the world’s second-most populous country, is dealing with a second wave of infections that has pushed the country’s health care system to the brink of collapse, with hospitals near capacity and facing an acute shortage of oxygen canisters. The oxygen shortage is so acute that the high court in the capital, New Delhi, ordered the national government to divert oxygen from industrial use to hospitals.“Beg, borrow or steal,” the judges said in response to a petition by a New Delhi hospital.Thursday is the eighth consecutive day India has posted more than 200,000 new coronavirus cases, pushing the country’s total number of infections to well over 15.9 million, second only behind the 31.8 million in the United States. India’s health ministry also revealed that 2,104 people died Thursday, raising the overall death toll to 184,657, as the current surge has overwhelmed cemeteries and crematories.Experts have blamed the surge on the spread of more contagious variants of the virus, as well as lifting restrictions on large crowds when the outbreak appeared to be under control earlier this year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has come under fire for holding packed political rallies and allowing an annual Hindu religious festival that attracted millions of pilgrims.The latest figures from Johns Hopkins puts the total number of COVID-19 infections at 143,863,870, including more than 3 million deaths. In addition to the total number of confirmed cases, the U.S. leads in the number of total fatalities with 569,402.A preliminary study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine shows the two-shot vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna do not pose any serious risk during pregnancy.The study used data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s smartphone-based vaccine surveillance system, where participants complete regular surveys about their health and any side effects they may be experiencing after being inoculated. More than 35,000 pregnant women who received either vaccine between December 14, 2020 and February 28, 2021 reported the same general side effects experienced by non-pregnant women, including pain at the injection site, fatigue, headaches and muscle pain.
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Authorities in southwestern Pakistan said Wednesday that a powerful bomb had ripped through the parking area of a five-star hotel, killing at least four people and wounding about a dozen others.The outlawed Pakistani Taliban militant group through its social media outlets claimed responsibility for the late-night suicide bombing at Serena Hotel in Quetta, capital of Baluchistan province.In a prepared statement, the militants identified a meeting of local and Chinese foreign officials as the intended target.Pakistani Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed condemned the attack as a terrorist act. He told a local television channel that the Chinese ambassador to Pakistan and his delegation were staying in the hotel, but he said the foreigners were attending an event elsewhere in the city at the time of the blast.Ahmed said the bombing was a “major security breach” and a high-level investigation would be ordered to hold those responsible to account.Police official Azhar Akram told reporters a “vehicle-borne” bomb was used to carry out the attack and the ensuing blast set ablaze several vehicles. A provincial police spokesperson said evidence collected at the scene indicated a suicide detonation.Television footage showed burning cars at the city’s only upscale hotel, which is frequented by high-profile local and international delegations. The facility is located in a high-security zone of Quetta.Injured victims of a bomb blast are treated at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, April 21, 2021.Hospital officials said several of those injured were listed in “critical condition” and feared the death toll could increase.Ethnic Baluch secessionist groups also are waging an insurgency in Baluchistan, Pakistan’s natural resource-rich and largest province. The separatists routinely claim credit for plotting attacks against security forces and other installations.Militants linked to a regional affiliate of the Islamic State terrorist group also operate in the province, which is at the center of a multibillion-dollar infrastructure development project being funded by China.The collaboration, known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor or CPEC, has built the deep-water Arabian Sea port of Gwadar in Baluchistan and constructed new roads, as well as power plants elsewhere in the South Asia nation, over the past six years.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says that the Biden administration is working with Congress to provide nearly $300 million in additional aid for Afghanistan in 2021.”The funding will be targeted at sustaining and building on the gains of the past 20 years by improving access to essential services for Afghan citizens, promoting economic growth, fighting corruption and the narcotics trade, improving health and education service delivery, supporting women’s empowerment, enhancing conflict resolution mechanisms, and bolstering Afghan civil society and independent media,” Blinken said in a statement.The move comes as the United States and NATO have announced they are withdrawing all troops from Afghanistan. President Joe Biden has said U.S. military forces will be out of the country by Sept. 11.Blinken made a surprise visit to Afghanistan last week to reassure officials there that Washington would still be committed to the country, where U.S. troops have been stationed since 2001 following the September 11 attacks when terrorists flew hijacked planes into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon, outside Washington. Another hijacked plane crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.When Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, was in office, the U.S. reached an agreement with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. forces by May 1. Biden’s pushing back the deadline angered the insurgent group, which said the move was a violation of the agreement.  Over the course of the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, more than 2,200 U.S. troops have been killed and 20,000 wounded. It is estimated that the U.S. has spent more than $1 trillion on the war, America’s longest.According to the World Bank, more than half of Afghans live on less than $1.90 a day. It is also considered one of the worst countries for women’s rights, according to the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security. 
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The United Nations said Wednesday a multi-nation conference that the organizers had hoped would “add momentum” to the faltering peace talks between Afghanistan’s warring parties has been postponed. 
  
Turkey, Qatar and the U.N. had planned to convene the 10-day event, proposed by the United States, in Istanbul starting this Saturday. 
  
“In view of recent developments, and after extensive consultations with the parties, it has been agreed to postpone the conference to a later date when conditions for making meaningful progress would be more favorable,” the conveners said in a joint statement. Afghan officials had already said they would send their delegation to the conference. Kabul has not immediately commented on the postponement of the event. 
  
Representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban were supposed to attend the conference and discuss resumption of stalled peace talks between the two adversaries to reach a power-sharing deal that would end the country’s nearly two-decade long war. 
  
The so-called intra-Afghan negotiations have been deadlocked for most of the time since they began last September in Doha, Qatar. FILE – Taliban delegates speak during talks between the Afghan government and Taliban insurgents in Doha, Qatar, Sept. 12, 2020.The talks stemmed from a landmark peace-building agreement Washington sealed with the Taliban in February 2020 to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan to end what has been America’s longest war. The U.S.-Taliban deal had required all American and NATO-led troops to leave the country by May 1. But President Joe Biden last week announced that the U.S. would withdraw its remaining between 2,500 and 3,500 troops from Afghanistan by September 11, and not by the deadline originally agreed with the insurgents. 
 
Within hours of Biden’s announcement, the Taliban said they would not participate “in any conference that shall make decisions about Afghanistan” until all foreign forces leave their country.  FILE – Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu attends a press conference in Ankara, Turkey, Aug. 25, 2020.“The conference would be meaningless without the Taliban joining. At the moment, we decided to postpone it since there is no clarity about the formation of the delegations and participation,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told the Habertürk news channel in an interview that aired Tuesday night. 
 
The Turkish foreign minister said diplomatic efforts together with co-conveners and the U.S. will continue to arrange the conference after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which ends in mid-May. Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said, “We believe that the meeting of Afghan leadership in Turkey, on the new dates once finalized, would be an important opportunity for the Afghans to make progress towards a negotiated political settlement.” The postponement of the Istanbul conference has dampened hopes of a reduction in the deadly Afghan war that a new study estimated this week has killed about 241,000 people, including Americans, and cost Washington more than $2.4 trillion since the October 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan. FILE – Afghan security forces and a British soldier with NATO-led Resolute Support Mission stand guard at the site of a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, May 31, 2019.  
“Well, when it comes to the talks in Istanbul, this gets to the point that from the various early — very earliest days of the Biden administration, we have recognized, number one, that there is no military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan,” U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in Washington when asked about the status of the Istanbul meeting. 
  
Price went on to say, “Only through a political settlement and a comprehensive cease-fire will we be able to support a resolution that brings security, stability, and prosperity to the people of Afghanistan.” 
  
Russia, which was among the participating nations, said that in the absence of a “shared agenda, the decision to postpone the Istanbul conference was expected. 
  
“This is predictable, to be honest, because we see that so far, the positions of the Taliban movement and the wider Kabul side, that includes the government, the High Peace Council and separate political figures, do not coincide,” Zamir Kabulov, Moscow’s presidential envoy for Afghanistan, told the TASS news agency. 
  
“In these conditions, without some shared agenda, holding such an event would make no sense, of course,” Kabulov was quoted as telling the Russian media outlet. 
  
Analysts say Afghan battlefield hostilities would have continued even if the Turkey-hosted conference had taken place because of the Taliban’s insistence on replacing President Ashraf Ghani’s administration in Kabul with a new “Islamic government.” Torek Farhadi, a former Afghan government adviser and political commentator, anticipates the Taliban would intensify their military campaign and extend territorial influence in the months leading up to the complete foreign troop withdrawal 
  
“This will likely put the government under pressure. Winning or losing after the U.S. exit will be dictated at the battlefield. Kabul politicians will intensify pressure on Ghani to resign in order to open the door for the participatory government, including the Taliban,” Farhadi added. 
  
President Ghani has refused to relinquish power in favor of a transitional government, as has been proposed by the U.S. to help move the peace process forward.   
 
Ghani says he is ready to hold early elections and neither he nor officials in his current government will run in them in exchange for a peace deal with the Taliban that would establish a comprehensive cease-fire.
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