NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan need to do more to meet the terms of a 2020 peace deal with the United States to allow for all international forces to leave the country by a May deadline.Stoltenberg spoke to reporters in Brussels ahead of a meeting later this week of allied defense ministers where the future of a NATO presence in Afghanistan will be discussed in line with the February 29 U.S.-Taliban agreement.The NATO chief, however, cautioned against staging an abrupt foreign troop withdrawal, saying it could again turn Afghanistan into a haven for international terrorists.“There is still a need for the Taliban to do more when it comes to delivering on their commitments, including the commitment to break ties to not provide any support for terrorist organizations,” Stoltenberg argued.“So, our presence is conditions-based. While no ally wants to stay in Afghanistan longer than necessary, we will not leave before the time is right,” he stressed. “We need to find the right balance between making sure that we not stay longer than necessary, but at the same time, that we don’t leave too early.”In this Sept. 12, 2020 photo, a Taliban delegation arrive to attend the opening session of the peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban in Doha, Qatar.The deal signed under former U.S. President Donald Trump helped launch the first direct peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government last September. It has allowed Washington to reduce the number of U.S. forces in the country to 2,500 from nearly 13,000 a year ago.But Afghanistan has lately experienced a spike in violence, prompting U.S. President Joe Biden to review the deal to examine whether the insurgents are complying with their commitments and whether to close what has been the longest overseas U.S. military intervention.The U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan has claimed the lives of more than 2,400 U.S. soldiers and cost Washington nearly $1 trillion.Stoltenberg echoed the U.S.’s skepticism about the Taliban’s intentions to end hostilities.“Peace talks remain fragile, and the level of violence remains unacceptably high, including Taliban attacks on civilians,” Stoltenberg said. “The Taliban must reduce violence, negotiate in good faith and live up to their commitment to stop cooperating with international terrorist groups.”Afghan leaders have alleged the Taliban are dragging their feet in the peace talks because the insurgents plan to seize power through military means once all U.S.-led foreign forces withdraw from the country.The Taliban have repeatedly rejected allegations they are not complying with their obligations outlined in the agreement with the U.S. They have warned against abandoning the February 29 accord, saying it would lead to a “dangerous escalation” in the nearly 20-year-old war.In a statement issued ahead of the NATO ministerial conference, the Islamist group insisted their fighters were not launching new offensives and instead were taking “only defensive” actions to guard Taliban-held territory against attacks from U.S.-backed Afghan security forces.“Our message to the upcoming NATO ministerial meeting is that the continuation of occupation and war is neither in your interest nor in the interest of your and our people. Anyone seeking extension of wars and occupation will be held liable for it just like the previous two decades,” the Taliban said.
…

A United Nations report published Monday points to a sharp increase in targeted killings of human rights defenders and journalists in Afghanistan since peace talks started between the Taliban and Afghan government last September. At least 11 rights activists and journalists have been killed in the period starting September 12.  Analyzing data from the beginning of 2018 to date, the report published by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, says there has been “a distinct change in the type of killings.”Previously, journalists or activists mostly became victims of general attacks on the population, such as suicide blasts or other kinds of explosions.FILE – Afghan journalists film inside a classroom after yesterday’s attack at the university of Kabul, Afghanistan, Nov. 3, 2020.UNAMA has called on the government of Afghanistan to ensure the safety of journalists and rights activists by putting in place proactive security measures, conducting swift and thorough investigations into killings, and bringing the perpetrators to justice under international law.It called on non-state actors to stop killing journalists and activists, and the Taliban leadership to condemn such killings and to act against members involved in such actions.  Senior Afghan officials blame the Taliban for the targeted killings. Amrullah Saleh, the first vice president of Afghanistan, said the assassinations were part of the Taliban’s “terror campaign” and linked to the peace negotiations.”They want to break the political will of the Afg people & demand impossible concessions,” he tweeted in December.In January, Saleh tweeted that the Taliban was “targeting civil society members to weaken the voice of the Republic.”The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists has listed Afghanistan as one of the most dangerous places in the world for the news media.Meanwhile, the Taliban kidnapped 11 men, including some engineers, working on a dam in western Herat province. Sayed Wahed Qetali, the provincial governor, said that efforts were under way to secure the release of the hostages. The Taliban indicated to some local journalists that they might release the hostages in a few days.In another development, scores of local security forces personnel died in multiple attacks around the country. Eleven police officers were killed in an insider attack, followed by a Taliban ambush in Zabul province Sunday night. Another seven were killed in a Taliban attack Sunday night in Kunduz province, authorities said.
…

The search for three climbers, who went missing on Pakistan’s K2 mountain earlier this month, has found no trace of them.Iceland’s John Snorri, 47, Chile’s Juan Pablo Mohr, 33, and Pakistan’s Muhammad Ali Sadpara, 45, lost contact with base camp on February 5 during their ascent of what global mountaineers describe as the killer mountain. K2 is the world’s second-highest mountain at 8,611 meters.”An unprecedented search in the history of mountaineering has been ongoing,” Vanessa O’Brien, the first British-American mountaineer to climb K2, said Sunday.She is assisting the search effort as part of the virtual base camp comprising family members in Iceland, Chile, and specialists from around the world, including in Pakistan.”It has been nine long days. If climbing the world’s second-tallest mountain in winter is hard, finding those missing is even more of a challenge,” said O’Brien.When asked whether the men could still be alive despite harsh winter conditions, O’Brien told VOA, “That I don’t know. But on Valentine’s Day, I guarantee you they were loved by their families and their nations.”She explained that specialists, with “devoted support” from Pakistani, Icelandic and Chilean authorities, have scrutinized satellite images, used synthetic aperture radar technology, scanned hundreds of pictures, and checked testimonials and times.”When the weather prevented the rotary machines (helicopters) from approaching K2, the Pakistan Army sent a F-16 (aircraft) to take the photographic surveys,” O’Brien said.Unfortunately, there has been no sign of the missing climbers, she added.Karrar Haidri, an official at the private Alpine Club of Pakistan that promotes mountaineering in the country, said the base camp stopped receiving signals from Snorri and his companions after they reached 8,000 meters.Sonrri made his first winter attempt on K2 in 2019, but was forced to abort it “when two members of his team expressed they did not feel fully prepared” for the expedition. ‘Savage Mountain’K2 has gained the reputation as “Savage Mountain” because while more than 6,500 people have climbed the world’s highest peak, Everest, only 337 have conquered K2 to date.Since 1954, up to 86 climbers have died in their attempt to scale K2, where summit winds reach hurricane force and still-air temperatures can plunge below -65 degrees Celsius.Experts say about one person dies on K2 for every four who reach the summit, making it the deadliest of the five highest peaks in the world.Since the first failed bid in 1987-88, only a few expeditions had attempted to summit K2 in winter.Last month, a 10-member team of Nepali climbers made history when they became the first to climb K2 in winter.Located in the Karakoram range along the Chinese border, K2 was the last of the world’s 14 tallest mountains higher than 8,000 meters to be scaled in winter.Bulgarian alpinist Atanas Skatov died earlier this month on K2. A renowned Spanish climber, Sergi Mingote, fell to his death last month while descending the mountain.
…

Rescuers pulled out nine more bodies from the site of a flash flood in a Himalayan region of northern India on Sunday, a week after the disaster struck, bringing the death toll to 50 with more than 150 people still missing, officials said.The flash flood in Uttarakhand state, triggered by what scientists said could have been a large avalanche of glacier ice, sent water, rocks and debris surging down the Dhauliganga river valley, destroying dams and bridges.Rescuers are using heavy digging machinery in race to free dozens of dam construction workers trapped in an underground tunnel connected to a hydroelectric project being built by the government-owned National Thermal Power Corporation.”We have not lost all hope yet. We hope to find more survivors,” the top government official in the region, Swati Bhadoriya told Reuters.Authorities said 154 people were still missing.Experts have cautioned there could be still be huge amounts of rock, debris, ice and water that could be dislodged, making rescue efforts risky.Uttarakhand is prone to flash floods and landslides. The disaster has prompted calls by environmental groups for a review of power projects in the ecologically sensitive mountains.A team of scientists are investigating if a piece of a Himalayan glacier did fall into water and trigger the flood.There are about 10,000 glaciers in the Indian Himalayas. Uttarakhand itself has up to 1,495 glaciers and many are receding due to the warming climate.  
…

Azhoni Marina had witnessed the havoc wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic up close as she nursed patients in a COVID ward for seven months at New Delhi’s Indraprastha Apollo Hospital. As she waited after her night shift to get her first shot of the COVID-19 vaccine, however, she was apprehensive.“I heard from so many people that there is lot of side effect, so actually I was a bit worried before I received the vaccine,” Marina said.However, a sense of relief washed over her when she did not suffer any aftereffects during the half-hour mandatory wait after she got the shot.“I am now waiting for my second dose,” she said, heading home.Unlike most countries, for India the challenge is not availability of vaccines as it rolls out a nationwide inoculation drive – there are millions of doses ready in the world’s largest vaccine-producing country.Since launching the program in mid-January, though, health officials have been battling to overcome “vaccine hesitancy” as people scheduled to take shots failed to show up at inoculation centers.The waning pandemic in India, health officials warn, has led to a sense of complacency about the need to get vaccines, while initial reports about possible side effects have raised doubts among some. That includes some of the country’s 30 million health and front-line workers, who are first in line to get the shots.At the Apollo Hospital, doctors ramped up the numbers of inoculations by stepping forward to take the vaccine to allay doubts — the daily numbers of inoculations have grown nearly threefold here.Nurse Azhino Marina is apprehensive as she waits for her COVID-19 vaccine shot at New Delhi’s Indraprastha Apollo Hospital. (Anjana Pasricha/VOA)“People were a bit scared, they asked a lot of questions, we kept on answering their questions and then when they saw that vaccine is quite safe, this helped us in building confidence in vaccines,” said Sanjeev Sharma, a hospital clinical pharmacologist.From talks by senior doctors, to individual counseling sessions, to selfie points where those who get vaccinated take photos and upload them on social media, the Indian capital has launched several initiatives to persuade people to take the shots.For Rajesh Kumar Kohli, who worked in the COVID section of the Apollo Hospital for several weeks, getting the vaccine’s first dose brought huge relief.“Even if something happened to me, I will now be safe,” he said.However, the decreased sense of urgency about getting inoculated as India’s case numbers dip dramatically is posing a challenge. India is reporting about 12,000 infections a day, compared to about 90,000 at its peak in September.Indian cities such as New Delhi that were hot spots for the pandemic are fully open. Markets are buzzing, movie theaters and restaurants have opened, the streets are again crammed with vehicles.The government’s decision to administer a homegrown vaccine, Covaxin, before final trial results become available has also created doubts among some, even though health experts have been reiterating that it is both effective and safe, and leading doctors in the city have taken the shot to instill confidence. This is one of the two vaccines being used at inoculation centers.A health care worker in New Delhi gets a photo taken at a selfie point set up to encourage people to come forward to get inoculated. (Anjana Pasricha/VOA)Several big Indian states, such as Tamil Nadu and Punjab, have vaccinated fewer than half of their health care workers who are due to be given shots.Health officials have been constantly reinforcing the message that only vaccinations will end the pandemic, saying the lower numbers present India a with window of opportunity to make sure it is not hit by a second wave, as many Western countries have been.“Where the footfall is not so good, we are organizing talks by senior consultants, we are involving local people and mobilizers to ask them to come to the centers,” said Dr. Pareejat Saurabh, an immunization officer in Delhi. Those steps have boosted numbers.India is expected to move to the next phase of its program next month, inoculating those over 50. This may pose greater challenges, though. Even in this vulnerable group, opinion on taking the vaccine is divided, with some saying they are anxiously awaiting their turn and others preferring to “wait and watch.”“Whenever my turn comes, I will take the vaccine,” said Veena Sawhney, shopping at a New Delhi market.A shop owner, Rajesh Mehta, however, was more cautious.“The old should take it. I want my mother to get it. But I am in no rush, my immunity is OK,” he told VOA.So far, more than 8 million people have been vaccinated – India says it has been the fastest to administer this many shots and plans to accelerate the drive in coming weeks.Given the massive scale of the task, though, the country with the second-highest number of infections after the United States could fall short of its target of reaching 300 million people, nearly one quarter of its population, by August.
…

At least 60 people were injured as hundreds of fuel vehicles exploded in a massive blaze that tore through a customs post in Afghanistan close to the Iranian border, disrupting power supplies and causing millions of dollars’ worth of damage.Iranian authorities sent fire engines and ambulances across the border, while scores of locals fought the blaze in the border town of Islam Qala before it was brought under control. Initial reports said the blaze had started after a gas tanker exploded. Officials said later that the cause was not immediately clear.Waheed Qatali, governor of the western province of Herat, said Iranian authorities and NATO-led personnel in Afghanistan were asked for assistance to help contain the fire, which damaged electricity infrastructure, leaving much of Herat’s capital without power.Thick plumes of black smoke and flames rose high into the air around the scene, television pictures showed.Late Saturday, Iran’s state news agency IRNA quoted Jilani Farhad, a spokesman for Herat’s governor, as saying the fire had been brought under control but that about 500 vehicles had been burned.Earlier, rescue workers and Afghan security forces moved hundreds of fuel tankers from the area, while the international Resolute Support Mission was contacted with a request to provide aerial firefighting assistance, Qatali said.A Western official monitoring the situation told Reuters at least 60 people had been injured. Afghan officials gave a lower casualty toll but said the number could rise.Help from IranAcross the Iranian border, regional emergency official Mohsen Nejat told state television Iran had sent 21 ambulances and 20 firetrucks to the scene.More than 300 vehicles carrying fuel exploded, Hossein Akhundzadeh, a regional Iranian trade official, told Iran’s semiofficial news agency ISNA. “It’s not known whether the drivers were able to escape or not,” he said.Wahid Tawhidi, a spokesman for power distribution company Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat, said 100 megawatts of electricity imported from Iran to Herat province had been disconnected because two pylons had burned down. He said 60% of Herat, one of Afghanistan’s largest provinces, was without power.Younus Qazizada, the head of the Herat Chamber of Commerce and Industries, told Reuters the blaze had caused millions of dollars’ worth of damage.”Preliminary investigations show that more than $50 million of damage has been caused by the fire so far,” he said. Seventeen injured people were taken to hospitals and the number of casualties could rise, said Mohammed Raffia Shiraz, a spokesman for Herat’s health department.  
…

The Taliban on Saturday warned NATO against seeking a “continuation of war”, as the alliance weighs a planned withdrawal from Afghanistan.Defense ministers from the Washington-backed allies are to meet next week to discuss whether NATO’s 10,000-strong mission — mostly carrying out support roles — should stay or go, as Taliban violence rages.”Our message to the upcoming NATO ministerial meeting is that the continuation of occupation and war is neither in your interest nor in the interest of your and our people,” the Taliban said in a statement.”Anyone seeking extension of wars and occupation will be held liable for it just like the previous two decades.”Violence Still ‘Too High’ in Afghanistan, US General Says    General Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of the US Central Command that covers the Middle East and parts of South and Central Asia, said he was ‘concerned about the actions the Taliban have taken until this point’ Former US president Donald Trump struck a deal with the Taliban last year under which the United States agreed foreign troops would leave Afghanistan by May 2021 in return for conditions including cutting ties with Al-Qaeda and opening peace talks with the Kabul government.Joe Biden’s administration has said it would review the deal, with the Pentagon accusing the Afghan insurgent group of not meeting their commitment to reduce violence.The Taliban in turn has accused the US of breaching the agreement and insisted it will continue its “fight and jihad” if foreign troops do not leave by May.In his final days in office Trump unilaterally reduced US forces in Afghanistan to just 2,500 — the lowest since the start of the war in 2001.NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has repeatedly insisted that NATO members must decide “together” on the future of their mission and he hopes Biden will coordinate more closely with allies.”If we decide to leave we risk to jeopardize the peace process, we risk to lose the gains we have made in the fight against international terrorism over the last years,” the NATO chief said earlier this month.”If we decide to stay we risk to continue to be in a difficult military operation in Afghanistan and we risk increased violence also against NATO troops.”The Taliban on Saturday said it was “seriously committed” to the US deal, claiming it had “significantly decreased the level of operations”.Insurgents have launched a string of offensives threatening at least two strategic provincial capitals in southern Afghanistan in recent months.They have also been blamed by the US and the Afghan government for a wave of assassinations on journalists, politicians, judges and activists.The warring sides launched peace talks in September year, but progress has been slow and overshadowed by the violence.
…

Environmentalists who have long warned about the double jeopardy posed by climate change and unsustainable development projects in the Himalayan mountains say the recent flash flood in northern India should be a wake-up call for authorities pressing ahead with hydropower and road projects.    Experts investigating the disaster say it was likely caused by a massive chunk of rock that hurtled down in Uttarakhand state Sunday. At least 36 people died and about 200 are still missing.  “It seems that the rock mass got weakened due to freezing and thawing process due to the climate change phenomenon and crashed down along with a glacier hanging on it,” said Kalachand Sain, head of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology.  “It then created an artificial dam that breached and caused the flood.”A team of scientists from the institute is conducting a detailed survey to ascertain the cause of the disaster. People help an injured woman to board a helicopter after a flash flood swept a mountain valley destroying dams and bridges, at Lata village in Chamoli district, in the northern state of Uttarakhand, India, Feb. 12, 2021.The torrent of water, mud and debris that coursed down the mountainside washed away roads and bridges, swallowed one dam in its path and damaged another hydropower project under construction. Many of those missing are construction workers — for days, rescue teams have focused their efforts on a tunnel where they have been trapped, although hopes of finding them alive are receding. Thirteen villages were cut off by the flood.    “This was a disaster waiting to happen,” said Ravi Chopra, director of the People’s Science Institute. He was member of a committee set up India’s Supreme Court to study the impact of hydropower projects that dot the mountains in the state.“The construction of hydropower projects is quite destructive to the environment and aggravates the impact of floods in the Himalayan region that may be caused by climate change,” he said.    The study was commissioned after flash floods in 2013 that killed about 6,000 people in the same state. The committee had suggested that hydropower projects should not be built at an altitude of more than 2000 meters as this was a “para glacial zone” that could be prone to flooding. Both the dams affected by the recent flood lay above that altitude. Environmentalists have long flagged retreating glaciers as a huge threat to millions of people in the Himalayan region – the melting ice creates glacial lakes and natural dams, which can breach and trigger floods down the valley. In the event of a flash flood, the earth, rocks, and debris left behind by retreating glaciers cause intense damage in populated valleys that are already vulnerable from the blasting of mountainsides and cutting of trees for roads and hydroelectric projects.   Rising temperatures could melt away one-third of the Himalayan glaciers by the end of the century, according to a report by the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development. The loss will be much higher if carbon emissions are not cut, other studies have said. People load relief goods onto a helicopter for distribution in the affected areas, after a flash flood swept a mountain valley destroying dams and bridges, in Dhak village in Chamoli district, in northern state of Uttarakhand, India, Feb. 12, 2021.Experts are not alone in their concerns about the Himalayas.  Residents of Raini, one of the villages worst affected by Sunday’s avalanche petitioned Uttarakhand’s top court in 2019 to investigate environmentally hazardous practices at a nearby power plant that was destroyed in the recent flood.  The tiny settlement of about 150 families is no stranger to environmental activism; it was part of a movement that began in the 1970s to prevent the felling of trees. Now villagers are demanding that they be relocated to a safer place, as they fear another deluge after authorities said that a lake may have formed in the vicinity of the village following the flood.  Concerns have also been voiced about a project to widen about 900 kilometers of roads that snake along the Himalayan mountains to four Hindu holy shrines. Initial plans for 10-meter-wide roads have been scaled back to 5.5 meters under a Supreme Court order.  The government has said the roads would bring economic benefits to the region and were needed for military deployment to the border with China.  Several members of a committee appointed by the court to look into the environmental impact of the highway project said it could cause “irreversible damage” to the Himalayas.  “The Himalayas are a young, fragile mountain chain, it is mud and rock held together,” said Chandra Bhushan, head of the International Forum for Environment, Sustainability and Technology in New Delhi.“When you blast hillsides and cut trees to build wide roads and develop power projects, we make them more sensitive,” he said.  After the latest tragedy, the chief minister of Uttarakhand state, Trivendra Singh Rawat, warned against seeing the flooding as “a reason to build anti-development narrative.” 
 
“I reiterate our government’s commitment to develop hills of Uttarakhand in a sustainable manner, and we will leave no stone unturned in ensuring the achievement of this goal,” he said on Twitter earlier this week.  
 
Experts say they recognize the need for development projects in a region that remains poor, with little access to resources such as water, sanitation and healthcare.  “I have seen the tragedy of women walking kilometers to fetch water as streams dry up because of climate change,” Anjal Prakash, lead author of the ongoing sixth assessment report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said.  However, he said the focus must move to more sustainable projects such as micro hydro, solar and wind energy. “We need to understand the local ecology and take environmental considerations into account. Otherwise, the risk of disasters is going to be much more in future, both in terms of magnitude and frequency,” he said.  
  
…

In Pakistan, relatives are protesting the enforced disappearances of their loved ones. Some have been missing for years. VOA’s Ayesha Tanzeem reports from the capital Islamabad.
Camera: Malik Waqar Ahmed   Produced by: Malik Waqar Ahmed 
 
…

Environmentalists who have long warned about the double jeopardy posed by climate change and unsustainable development projects in the Himalayan mountains say the recent flash flood in northern India should be a wake-up call for authorities pressing ahead with hydropower and road projects.    Experts investigating the disaster say it was likely caused by a massive chunk of rock that hurtled down in Uttarakhand state Sunday. At least 36 people died and about 200 are still missing.  “It seems that the rock mass got weakened due to freezing and thawing process due to the climate change phenomenon and crashed down along with a glacier hanging on it,” said Kalachand Sain, head of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology.  “It then created an artificial dam that breached and caused the flood.”A team of scientists from the institute is conducting a detailed survey to ascertain the cause of the disaster. People help an injured woman to board a helicopter after a flash flood swept a mountain valley destroying dams and bridges, at Lata village in Chamoli district, in the northern state of Uttarakhand, India, Feb. 12, 2021.The torrent of water, mud and debris that coursed down the mountainside washed away roads and bridges, swallowed one dam in its path and damaged another hydropower project under construction. Many of those missing are construction workers — for days, rescue teams have focused their efforts on a tunnel where they have been trapped, although hopes of finding them alive are receding. Thirteen villages were cut off by the flood.    “This was a disaster waiting to happen,” said Ravi Chopra, director of the People’s Science Institute. He was member of a committee set up India’s Supreme Court to study the impact of hydropower projects that dot the mountains in the state.“The construction of hydropower projects is quite destructive to the environment and aggravates the impact of floods in the Himalayan region that may be caused by climate change,” he said.    The study was commissioned after flash floods in 2013 that killed about 6,000 people in the same state. The committee had suggested that hydropower projects should not be built at an altitude of more than 2000 meters as this was a “para glacial zone” that could be prone to flooding. Both the dams affected by the recent flood lay above that altitude. Environmentalists have long flagged retreating glaciers as a huge threat to millions of people in the Himalayan region – the melting ice creates glacial lakes and natural dams, which can breach and trigger floods down the valley. In the event of a flash flood, the earth, rocks, and debris left behind by retreating glaciers cause intense damage in populated valleys that are already vulnerable from the blasting of mountainsides and cutting of trees for roads and hydroelectric projects.   Rising temperatures could melt away one-third of the Himalayan glaciers by the end of the century, according to a report by the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development. The loss will be much higher if carbon emissions are not cut, other studies have said. People load relief goods onto a helicopter for distribution in the affected areas, after a flash flood swept a mountain valley destroying dams and bridges, in Dhak village in Chamoli district, in northern state of Uttarakhand, India, Feb. 12, 2021.Experts are not alone in their concerns about the Himalayas.  Residents of Raini, one of the villages worst affected by Sunday’s avalanche petitioned Uttarakhand’s top court in 2019 to investigate environmentally hazardous practices at a nearby power plant that was destroyed in the recent flood.  The tiny settlement of about 150 families is no stranger to environmental activism; it was part of a movement that began in the 1970s to prevent the felling of trees. Now villagers are demanding that they be relocated to a safer place, as they fear another deluge after authorities said that a lake may have formed in the vicinity of the village following the flood.  Concerns have also been voiced about a project to widen about 900 kilometers of roads that snake along the Himalayan mountains to four Hindu holy shrines. Initial plans for 10-meter-wide roads have been scaled back to 5.5 meters under a Supreme Court order.  The government has said the roads would bring economic benefits to the region and were needed for military deployment to the border with China.  Several members of a committee appointed by the court to look into the environmental impact of the highway project said it could cause “irreversible damage” to the Himalayas.  “The Himalayas are a young, fragile mountain chain, it is mud and rock held together,” said Chandra Bhushan, head of the International Forum for Environment, Sustainability and Technology in New Delhi.“When you blast hillsides and cut trees to build wide roads and develop power projects, we make them more sensitive,” he said.  After the latest tragedy, the chief minister of Uttarakhand state, Trivendra Singh Rawat, warned against seeing the flooding as “a reason to build anti-development narrative.” 
 
“I reiterate our government’s commitment to develop hills of Uttarakhand in a sustainable manner, and we will leave no stone unturned in ensuring the achievement of this goal,” he said on Twitter earlier this week.  
 
Experts say they recognize the need for development projects in a region that remains poor, with little access to resources such as water, sanitation and healthcare.  “I have seen the tragedy of women walking kilometers to fetch water as streams dry up because of climate change,” Anjal Prakash, lead author of the ongoing sixth assessment report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said.  However, he said the focus must move to more sustainable projects such as micro hydro, solar and wind energy. “We need to understand the local ecology and take environmental considerations into account. Otherwise, the risk of disasters is going to be much more in future, both in terms of magnitude and frequency,” he said.  
  
…

Pakistan said Friday four of its soldiers were killed when “terrorists” raided a security post in a remote northwestern district.The overnight attack occurred in South Waziristan, near the border with Afghanistan, an army statement said.Pakistani troops responded promptly and killed four assailants, it added.No one immediately took responsibility for the attack.The district is a known former stronghold of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, an alliance of outlawed extremist groups. TTP is also known as the Pakistani Taliban.Pakistani officials say sustained military-led operations in recent years have cleared Waziristan and surrounding districts of militants, aside from isolated pockets.The security operations have killed thousands of militants and forced others to take refuge in volatile Afghan border districts.The United Nations said in a recent report that TTP has regrouped in Afghanistan and gained strength.The TTP has “overseen a reunification of splinter groups that took place in Afghanistan and was moderated by Al-Qaida,” according to the 27th U.N. Analytical and Monitoring Team report of Feb. 3.“One member state reported that TTP was responsible for more than 100 cross-border attacks between July and October 2020,” it said.
…

The United Nations confirmed Thursday an attack on its convoy in Afghanistan killed at least five members of the local security force escorting it.The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said its staff and vehicles were unhurt in the incident.The convoy was traveling in the morning through the Surobi district, 60 kilometers east of the Afghan capital, Kabul, when unknown gunmen ambushed it.UNAMA said the attack hit a vehicle of Afghan security personnel escorting the convoy. Afghan sources confirmed the assault occurred on the main highway linking Kabul to eastern Nangarhar province, saying the Afghan security vehicle careened off the road and plunged into a river after the driver was shot.”The U.N. family in Afghanistan mourns the loss of five Afghan Directorate of Protection Service personnel in an incident today in Surobi District of Kabul,” UNAMA wrote Thursday on Twitter. 
 My thoughts and prayers are with families of officers who died offering protection our staff, as they do on so many days. The UN has expressed its deepest condolences to Govt of Afghanistan 🇦🇫 in official NV. Violence in FILE – U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, left, and Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban group’s top political leader, sign a peace agreement between Taliban and U.S. officials in Doha, Qatar, Feb. 29, 2020.The new U.S. administration says it is examining whether the insurgents have lived up to their commitments to help end the 19-year-old war.The United States has reduced the number of troops in Afghanistan to 2,500 since signing the agreement, but the level of violence remains high, and the Taliban is largely blamed for this.The February 29 pact requires all American and allied forces to leave the country by May 1.Early indications from the Biden administration are that the Taliban has failed to reduce violence, cut ties with terrorist groups or make progress in peace talks with the Afghan government.The Taliban has rejected the allegations and cautioned Washington against changing mutually agreed timelines in the agreement, saying it “will lead to a dangerous escalation” in the Afghan war. 
 
…

India has warned social media giants to comply with local laws or face action amid an escalating dispute with Twitter over the government’s demand that hundreds of accounts be blocked.
 
Information and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told parliament Thursday that “if social media is misused to spread fake news and misinformation, then action will be taken.”  
 
Naming Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube and LinkedIn, he said that they were free to do business in India but would have to “follow the Indian constitution.”
 
The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called on Twitter to take down hundreds of accounts and posts for allegedly using provocative hashtags and spreading misinformation about a massive farmers’ protest that erupted in violence on January 26.
 
India has reacted angrily to Twitter’s failure to comply fully with its directive — while the social media company has acted on some of these accounts, it has not taken down all of them.   
 
Following a virtual call with Twitter’s executives, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said that it had “expressed deep disappointment” over the manner in which the company had “unwillingly, grudgingly and with great delay” complied with only parts of its orders. “Lawfully passed orders are binding on any business entity and must be obeyed immediately,” it said in a statement on Wednesday.FILE – A man reads tweets by Indian celebrities on his mobile phone in New Delhi, India, Feb. 4, 2021.Twitter had earlier said, “In keeping with our principles of defending protected speech and freedom of expression, we have not taken any action on accounts that consist of news media entities, journalists, activists, and politicians.”
 
India also called out Twitter for “differential treatment,” citing its crackdown on accounts following last month’s insurrection at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington.
 
“During Capitol Hill, social media platforms stand with the police action and in violence at Red Fort, you take a different stand,” Minister Prasad said in parliament, referring to the storming of a historic building in New Delhi by thousands of farmers during a rally. “We won’t allow these double standards.”
 
Critics have voiced concern about the government’s intolerance of dissenting voices and accuse it of cracking down on free speech.    
 
Digital rights activists say there is no way to ascertain whether the government’s request to act against hundreds of accounts is legal because the orders “lack transparency.”
 
“Apart from Twitter which has seen these orders, no one can comment on whether these orders are justified,” according to Nikhil Pahwa, founder of MediaNama, a mobile and digital news portal. “But on the face of it some of these demands appear to be a disproportionate act of censorship,” he said.
 
Pahwa cites the example of a news magazine, The Caravan, whose account was restored after being briefly blocked. “The Caravan is an award-winning, legitimate news organization and was not even given an opportunity of a hearing.”
 
Pahwa welcomed Twitter’s move to not take down all the accounts as the government demanded. “I wish more platforms stood up for their users’ speech like this and push back against orders that are in their opinion not lawful,” he said.
…

India and China are pulling back troops from a disputed border in the Himalayas marking a key breakthrough in easing their worst military standoff in decades.     Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh told parliament Thursday that troops would begin disengaging from the strategic Pangong Tso lake in Ladakh that became a flashpoint between the Asian giants.    “Our sustained talks with China have led to agreement on disengagement on the north and south banks of the Pangong lake,” Singh said. He said the pact “envisages that both sides will cease their forward deployments in a phased, coordinated and verified manner.”    A screenshot from a video shows the disengagement process between Indian Army and China’s People’s Liberation Army from a contested lake area in the western Himalayas, in Ladakh region, India, Feb. 11, 2021. (Indian Army/Reuters TV/via Reuters)The Indian statement follows an announcement by the Chinese Defense Ministry that both armies had begun “synchronized and organized disengagement” on the southern and northern shores of the lake.     The accord was reached after multiple rounds of military and diplomatic negotiations. The pullback from Pangong Tso Lake will be followed by disengagement from other areas, Singh said.     The standoff was sparked last May when India accused Chinese troops of coming deep into territory patrolled by Indian soldiers in the Pangong Tso lake area and erecting tents and guard posts. China said its troops were operating in its own area and accused Indian border guards of provocative actions.    The standoff intensified after 20 Indian soldiers were killed and several others were wounded in a brutal hand-to-hand combat when troops from both sides fought with crude weapons such as stones and clubs last June.   In the following months, both countries deployed tens of thousands of soldiers, fighter aircraft and heavy artillery along icy Himalayan slopes.     “Our aim is to maintain peace and tranquility at LAC [line of actual control]. Last year, what China did, impacted peace at the border,” Defense Minister Singh told parliament.     Large stretches of the roughly 3,800 kilometer-long India-China border in the Himalayas are disputed, with both sides claiming large swathes of each other’s territory. The boundary dispute has simmered since they fought a war in 1962 and negotiations have failed to resolve the issue. Following the tense standoff, both sides had bolstered forces all along the border.     Analysts in New Delhi have welcomed the disengagement but warn that the deep strain in ties caused by the months-long standoff is likely to persist.“It was an important step and will hopefully build confidence,” says Harsh Pant director of studies at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. “But we will continue to see greater volatility along the disputed border. The biggest challenge is that there is no trust now and that trust deficit will define future engagement.”     FILE – Indian soldiers walk at the foothills of a mountain range near Leh, the joint capital of the union territory of Ladakh, June 25, 2020.India, analysts say, will continue to build deeper ties with countries like the United States as it seeks to counter what it sees as a more aggressive China.     “If anything, this crisis with China has reinforced that India needs to leverage its partnership with like-minded countries like the U.S. much more robustly,” says Pant.     Earlier this week, in a telephone conversation, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden agreed to strengthen Indo-Pacific security through the Quad grouping that is seen as a way to push back against China’s growing assertiveness in the region. The Quad consists of India, United States, Japan and Australia.             
 
…

With new sanctions slapped on Myanmar, the Feb. 1 military takeover in the country has emerged as an early test of President Joe Biden’s multilateral diplomatic strategy, as his administration pledges to defend democracy and seeks to counter China’s rising influence in a region that has shown significant democratic erosion in recent years.Biden announced on Wednesday targeted sanctions on the Burmese military junta following consultation with allies and partners.“A strong and unified message emerging from the United States has been essential, in our view, to encouraging other countries to join us in pressing for an immediate return to democracy,” Biden said.Reaching out to allies is a necessary step since there is little leverage that Washington can employ after increasing sanctions on the country following human rights abuses against the Rohingya minority group.It remains to be seen, however, whether Biden’s multilateral diplomacy approach will be effective in a region where authoritarian rule is increasingly the norm rather than the exception.Democratic backslidingThe Burmese coup followed democratic backsliding in the region, including in Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and the Philippines. Addressing them in the context of strategic competition with China is a challenge for the Biden administration, said Robert Daly, director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Woodrow Wilson Center.“How will we compromise and play the long game and keep channels open even with regimes that we object to? How can we do that and back off of an absolute declaration of principles in order to compete with China, while still claiming that the grounds of our competition with China is in some way ideological?” Daly said.Beijing is Naypyitaw’s biggest trading partner, and the two countries have strong defense ties. The Burmese military has also deepened ties with Russia, another U.S. adversary.Split within ASEANOn Feb. 4, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan spoke with ambassadors from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, urging them to provide support for the “immediate restoration” of democracy in Myanmar.Indonesia and Malaysia, Muslim-majority countries that have raised alarms following atrocities against the Rohingya, have called for a special meeting within ASEAN, while Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines have taken the position the coup is an internal affair.Indonesia Urges All Parties in Myanmar to Exercise Self-Restraint 1.Indonesia expresses its concern over the recent political situation in Myanmar. pic.twitter.com/hElDrn4vMD— MoFA Indonesia (@Kemlu_RI) February 1, 2021“The problem with multilateralism is that it works great when everybody agrees,” said Dean Cheng, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “What happens when your multilateral allies say, ‘We don’t want to do what you want to do?’”ASEAN remains the main regional body for the Biden administration to lean on, though, as it tries to return democracy and human rights as pillars of U.S. foreign policy.It’s a major trade and investment partner, with Singapore being the largest foreign investor in Myanmar and Indonesia and Thailand as key trading partners. In the past, ASEAN has shown some flexibility over its principle of non-interference as it deals with Naypyitaw, including when its leaders agreed to skip the country’s turn to host the ASEAN Summit in 2007 over concerns about its authoritarian government.The ASEAN sentiment is that it prefers the U.S. to engage with Myanmar and continue the country’s rapprochement with the West that was disrupted by sanctions over the Rohingya crisis, said Tai Wei Lim, a research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s East Asian Institute.Beginning in December 2017, the U.S. imposed sanctions on the perpetrators of Rohingya atrocities, including Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and his deputy, General Soe Win.Western allies are noting the fact that the military junta in Myanmar is wary of being viewed as a puppet of any foreign power, including Beijing and New Delhi. It has signaled intent to maintain existing diplomatic and economic relations with partners.“There will be no change in the foreign policy, government policy and economic policy of the country during the periods we are temporarily taking the state responsibility,” said Min Aung Hlaing in a speech Monday, his first national address following the coup.Restoring regional relationsResearch fellow Lim added that for the multilateral approach to succeed, the U.S. also will need to restore relations with traditional allies in the region, including India, South Korea and Japan.India was Myanmar’s leading arms supplier in 2019, selling $100 million in equipment, according to the SIPRI Arms Transfers Database. South Korea is next with $90 million, and then China with $47 million. Japan and India are the country’s main trading partners after China.Biden discussed the Myanmar coup Monday with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.President @JoeBiden and I are committed to a rules-based international order. We look forward to consolidating our strategic partnership to further peace and security in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. @POTUS— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 8, 2021Ultimately, this kind of regional consensus-building and marginal nudging toward a more democratic path may be the most viable option for the administration.“Our best play is to work with allies to achieve what we can while keeping as much support and as many channels of communication to the people of Myanmar as possible,” said Daly of the Wilson Center.Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party won a resounding victory in November. Post-coup, the Burmese people, including government workers, have marched together in a growing civil disobedience campaign.Staying powerWhile Washington has very little direct leverage in affecting change in Myanmar, it can still cooperate with regional partners to incentivize compromise, said Gregory Poling, senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.“But if we think that we’re going to slap sanctions and Min Aung Hlaing is going to say, ‘I’m sorry,’ we are mistaken,” he said.Poling added that “a degree of modesty” is required from Washington, particularly after the deadly siege Jan. 6 of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump, who believed his false claims the election was stolen. The Burmese military’s pretext for the coup is alleged electoral fraud in their November 2020 election.“I don’t think it was ever all that effective when U.S. officials went into Southeast Asian states preaching, but now they’ll just be laughed at,” Poling said.Responding to VOA’s question during a press briefing on Feb. 4, National Security Adviser Sullivan acknowledged the criticism.“Pulling our country together, revitalizing our own democratic foundation, building more unity, as President Biden has talked about — that will be an important part of us operating effectively in the world,” he said.The more important question for regional allies, however, may not be about America’s moral authority but about its staying power.“Are they willing to risk partnering with us in ways that China dislikes, if every four years America is willing to switch tracks entirely and have a president who tries to undo all of the accomplishments and commitments of his or her predecessor?” Daly, of the Kissinger Institute, said.“This is skepticism about the United States, and whether it can be consistent given its internal divisions,” Daly said. “And those are very reasonable concerns.”
…

The U.S. slapped additional sanctions on Myanmar following a military coup Feb. 1. The crisis has emerged as an early test of President Joe Biden’s foreign policy as his administration pledges to defend democracy and seeks to counter China’s rising influence in the region. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara reports.
…

Twitter said Wednesday it had suspended some accounts in India after New Delhi served the social media giant several orders to block accounts amid civil unrest.  The announcement comes after months of unrest in India over changes to agriculture bills in the country. Protesting farmers have been met with internet cuts and social media blocks, which New Delhi has said are necessary for security. In a FILE – Security officers push back people shouting slogans during a protest held to show support to farmers who have been on a monthslong protest, in New Delhi, India, Feb. 3, 2021.Just last week, Twitter blocked hundreds of accounts in India — many of them belonging to news professionals and activists. Twitter said that two orders served by the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) were “emergency orders,” and that while they were initially complied with, Twitter later restored the accounts, arguing that blocking them was against India’s own free speech laws. “After we communicated this to MeitY, we were served with a non-compliance notice,” the blog post said. Twitter relented, to some degree, after the order, as the company was told its local employees could face up to seven years in prison under an Indian information technology law. After more the two months of protests and campaigns against the new “farm bills,” which protesters say would leave them at the mercy of corporations, the demonstrations have experienced a resurgence and received international attention over the last week.
 
…

Pakistan’s Supreme Court, in a rare verdict Wednesday, converted the death sentences of two mentally ill convicts into imprisonment for life.The case concerned Kanizan Bibi, a middle-aged woman who has been on death row for 30 years, and Imad Ali, 55, who has spent 20 years on death row. Both suffer from “severe” schizophrenia, according to officials.“We hold that if a condemned prisoner, due to mental illness, is found to be unable to comprehend the rationale and reason behind his/her punishment, then carrying out the death sentence will not meet the ends of justice,” ruled the five-judge panel.The court also directed Pakistani federal and provincial governments to immediately make necessary amendments to relevant laws and rules.“Because of certain misconceptions, the implications of mental illness are overlooked and the vulnerability or disability that it causes is not given due attention,” Justice Manzoor Ahmad Malik stressed in his opening remarks for the judgment.The Justice Project Pakistan (JPP), a rights group that has fought the legal battle for the two inmates, hailed the court ruling. The non-governmental organization has long advocated for mentally ill prisoners to be exempted from death.“This is a historic judgment that validates our decade-long struggle to get the courts to recognize mental illness as a mitigating circumstance against the imposition of the death penalty,” said Sarah Belal, the JPP’s executive director.Bibi was 16 when she was charged with murdering her employer’s wife and five children. She was sentenced to death in 1991 and was diagnosed with schizophrenia nine years later in a prison in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore.Ali was sentenced to death in 2002 for killing a religious scholar. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2007 and activists say his condition has continued to worsen. In 2016, the Supreme Court intervened and halted Ali’s execution, just days before he was to be hanged.Pakistani officials say there are at least 600 prisoners who are using mental healthcare facilities in jails across the country.However, only two of them are on death row and said to be suffering from schizophrenia-like conditions. The JPP expects the two inmates to directly benefit from Wednesday’s court ruling.The Supreme Court, however, said that the exemptions of the mentally ill prisoners require certification by an authorized medical board comprising mental health professionals.Belal said the judgment will “reset the legal foundations upon which prisoners with mental illness are dealt with in the criminal justice system.” 
…

Uighurs who were once detained in internment camps in China’s Xinjiang region say they have been sexually abused and raped during interrogations by Chinese authorities, while also witnessing other fellow detainees being raped.Tursunay Ziyawudun, a 42-year-old Uighur women’s camp survivor who now lives in the U.S. state of Virginia, told VOA that she was beaten, sexually abused and gang raped during interrogations in an internment camp in Kunes county in northern Xinjiang in 2018.Uighur protester Mirza Ahmet Ilyasoglu holds photographs of relatives he says they have not heard from in years, speaks near the Chinese Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, Feb. 9, 2021.“On four different occasions, I was taken to an interrogation room, where I was beaten, my private part was electrocuted unbearably by an electric baton and I was gang raped,” Ziyawudun told VOA, adding that some of her fellow detainee women never came back to the cell after their visit to the interrogation room, and the ones who returned were asked to keep quiet or face consequences.In December 2018, after nine months in the camp, Ziyawudun was released. She said the Chinese authorities freed her under pressure because of her husband’s campaigning in Kazakhstan.In September 2019, the Chinese government allowed her to travel for only one month to Kazakhstan to stay with her husband. In Kazakhstan, her application for asylum was denied, but she was able to remain with family despite the constant risk of sudden deportation back to China. By September 2020, the U.S. government allowed her to come to the United States.China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said last week that Ziyawudun’s rape claim “has no factual basis at all.”U.S. officials say, “these atrocities shock the conscience and must be met with serious consequences.”“We are deeply disturbed by reports, including first-hand testimony, of systematic rape and sexual abuse against women in internment camps for ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang,” a U.S. State Department spokeswoman said in a statement last week.This file photo taken on May 31, 2019, shows a watchtower on a high-security facility near what is believed to be a re-education camp where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities are detained, on the outskirts of Hotan, China.Not a new phenomenonSexual violence against Uighur women in China is not a new phenomenon, says Zubayra Shamseden, Chinese Outreach Coordinator at the Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project.“Due to the restrictive environment, fear of retaliation by the Chinese government against other family members and social connections and due to cultural sensitivity, many victims of sexual violence, torture and abuse by Chinese authorities were unable to speak out,” said Shamseden, who has previously interviewed other Uighur women who were sexually abused and tortured during detention in China.According to Maya Wang, a senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch, the combination of a strong power imbalance between the Han-Chinese and Uighurs, fetishization of Uighur women in the popular imagination, corruption and the state encouragement of inter-ethnic romance create an environment in which Uighur women and children are at risk during the crackdown.“But as to the extent to which sexual violence is systematically perpetuated against Turkic Muslim women in Xinjiang, Human Rights Watch is unable to ascertain due to the hidden nature of such abuses,” Wang told VOA.Rape in other campsQelbinur Sidiq, a 51-year-old woman who in 2017 taught Mandarin at two male and female detention camps in Urumqi, the capital city of Xinjiang, says that one of her female police officer friends discussed with her the raping and sexual abuses against detained Uighur women by male Chinese police officers.“When my police friend told me the horrific details of sexual abuses and rape of Uighur women in the camps by Chinese policemen, and how it has become a normal topic for conversation over dinner among Chinese camp police, I couldn’t stop crying,” said Sidiq, who has been living in the Netherlands since October 2019.Because camps in Xinjiang are closed spaces under tight physical surveillance with little chance for external communication, Vanessa Frangville, a China studies professor at the University Libre of Brussels, says it is very likely that many inmates have been victims of sexual assault or rape.“Such allegations are obviously consistent with a series of right abuses that have been committed with complete impunity in China, not just in Xinjiang,” Frangville told VOA.“Tibetan nuns, for instance, have reported on several occasions systematic rape during their time in prison, so did several testimonies from Chinese prisons and ‘reeducation’ camps,” she said, referring to Falun Gong detention facilities Beijing has operated since the late 1990s.Men rapedIn 2013, Abduweli Ayup, a 48-year-old Uighur linguist who now lives in Norway, spent 15 months in jail for advocating the use of Uighur language in Xinjiang schools.He alleges he was raped during his first interrogation and later witnessed other Uighur cellmates being raped before or after they were interrogated.“After I never gave in to their demands for confession to the ‘crimes’ I never committed, such as being ‘a separatist and a spy for the U.S.,’ they shocked me with an electric stick, and later, under the observance of four police, I was transferred to another room and ordered to be raped by Chinese men who wore striped prison uniforms,” Ayup told VOA, adding that the rapes were carried out systematically to intimidate and coerce Uighur prisoners into making forced confessions.Adrian Zenz, a senior fellow of China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington, told VOA that these allegations of rape could open new categories for crimes against humanity and provide additional evidence of genocide.“This should bring real and strong sense of international urgency to the crisis which has been taking place in Xinjiang,” he said.
…

A weekly newspaper run by a team of female journalists is thriving in Afghanistan’s northern Balkh province, despite threats against journalists in parts of the country. Gulrahim Niazman from VOA’s Afghan service has more in the report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
Camera: Gulrahim Niazman  Produced by: Gulrahim Niazman 
…

Pakistan has approved a three-month extension in its decade-old transit trade agreement with landlocked Afghanistan, allowing the two sides to finalize and sign a revised version of the document currently under review.The February 2010 Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA) is due to expire on February 11.In a meeting Tuesday, the Pakistani Cabinet allowed the temporary extension of the APTTA until Islamabad and Kabul conclude their ongoing discussions on the proposed “amendments, suggestions and additions” in the updated agreement.The arrangement allows Afghanistan access to Pakistani seaports, as well as land routes, to conduct international trade and export Afghan goods to India, Pakistan’s arch-rival. In return, Islamabad gets access through Afghanistan to markets in Central Asian states.The Pakistani Commerce Ministry informed Cabinet members that more than 832,000 containers of Afghan transit trade, carrying goods worth $33 billion, have passed through Pakistan during the last 10 years.“It is estimated that 30% of Afghan Transit Trade passes through Pakistan,” the ministry noted in is summary.Top Pakistani and Afghan Commerce Ministry officials have regularly met in recent months to discuss the revised agreement, but differences have apparently prevented them from finalizing the deal.
Kabul has long demanded access for Afghan trucks to transport export-related goods through Pakistani over land routes up to Indian destinations. Afghan officials also want their trucks to be able to load goods Afghanistan wants to import from India.
Pakistan allows Afghan trucks to unload their goods not far from the Indian border and return empty.Islamabad maintains the APTTA is a bilateral arrangement and is reluctant to provide unhindered two-way access to Afghan trucks, citing security concerns stemming from increased bilateral tensions with New Delhi.The APTTA was concluded in 2010 after years of effort, with the United States playing the facilitating role at the time, and replaced an outdated agreement dating from 1965.
…

Rescuers are still working Tuesday to find at least 35 Indian construction workers trapped in a tunnel, two days after the hydroelectric dam they were building was swept away by a wall of water from a collapsed glacier.Officials said the death toll rose to at least 30, and the trapped workers are among at least 170 people who were still unaccounted for after a section of glacier from Nanda Devi, India’s second highest peak, collapsed, sending water from a glacial lake cascading down the Dhauliganga Rver Sunday.The wall of water broke apart bridges, cut off villages and scarred tracts of mountainside.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 3 MB480p | 5 MB540p | 7 MB720p | 18 MB1080p | 29 MBOriginal | 70 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioMany Feared Dead After Himalayan Glacier Burst in Northern IndiaOfficials said most of those still missing were shift workers at either the Tapovan Vishnugad hydroelectric project, where the tunnel was situated, or at Rishiganga, a smaller dam, which was swept away in the flood.Soldiers using bulldozers cleared rocks at the mouth of the 2.5-kilometer tunnel, and video posted by the Indo-Tibetan border police service showed rescuers checking the water level deeper inside.A government official said many locals had apparently managed to escape the waters by fleeing to higher ground as soon as they heard the rumble of water racing down the valley.Officials have yet to determine what caused the disaster, though scientists investigating it believe heavy snowfall followed by bright sunshine combined with rising temperatures may have triggered the glacier’s collapse.
…

The Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan – seemingly pushed to the brink last year following unrelenting pressure from the U.S. and Afghan militaries, and by multiple Taliban offenses – appears to have recovered and may soon look to strike further afield, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials.The turnaround for IS-Khorasan, as the group’s Afghan affiliate is known, contrasts with its waning fortunes just over a year ago, when U.S. officials estimated it had lost “up to half its force” while suffering a string of defeats in Nangarhar and Kunar provinces.Stripped of its key territories, U.S. intelligence estimates at the time suggested IS-Khorasan was down to as few as 1,000 fighters. So too, there were growing questions about its offensive capabilities.FILE – Afghan security forces take part in an ongoing operation against Islamic State (IS) militants in the Achin district of Nangarhar province, Nov. 25, 2019.“Sleeper cells are active in other parts of the country, particularly in Kabul,” the U.N. report added, noting that is where new IS-Khorasan leader Shahab al-Muhajir, also known as Sanaullah, is based.Estimates from global intelligence services now put the number of IS-Khorasan fighters at between 1,000 and 2,500. While not the 5,000 fighters it once boasted, it has been enough for the group to carry out a series of high-profile attacks, including the 20-hour-long assault on a prison in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad this past August, which killed at least 29 people as well as November’s attack on Kabul University, which killed at least 19.FILE – A member of Afghan security forces inspects the site of an attack on a jail compound in Jalalabad, Aug. 3, 2020.Some intelligence services of U.N. member states also suspect IS-Khorasan is getting help from an unusual source — the Haqqani Network, which maintains ties with both the Taliban and IS rival al-Qaida.One intelligence service told the U.N. that the new IS-Khorasan leader, al-Muhajir, was once a mid-level Haqqani commander and has maintained close ties with his former associates.Those ties have paid off, the service said, with the Haqqanis providing IS-Khorasan “key expertise and access to networks” as it sought to recover from losses in its former Afghan strongholds.
 
…

U.S. President Joe Biden and his Indian counterpart, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, spoke Monday to discuss their commitment to fighting the coronavirus pandemic and climate change.The two leaders made no mention of ongoing protests by farmers in India, which have dominated the Indian news cycle for months, according to a readout of the call from the White House.“The United States and India will work closely together to win the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, renew their partnership on climate change, rebuild the global economy in a way that benefits the people of both countries, and stand together against the scourge of global terrorism,” according to the White House readout of the call.“We discussed regional issues and our shared priorities,” Modi wrote on Twitter after the call.Spoke to @POTUS@JoeBiden and conveyed my best wishes for his success. We discussed regional issues and our shared priorities. We also agreed to further our co-operation against climate change.— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 8, 2021According to the White House, Modi welcomed calls to collaborate on combatting climate change and agreed to participate in a climate summit Biden will host in April.But India, the third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide after China and the United States, has argued that, as a developing country, it should not be subject to the same rules as richer countries.The United States and India had close ties under the previous U.S. administration. Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, visited India in February 2020. Trump’s White House saw New Delhi as an ally in its hard-line stance against China.   
…