California high school students are helping girls in Afghanistan continue their studies under Taliban rule by sharing virtual lessons and fundraising. VOA’s Genia Dulot has the story from San Diego.
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The Taliban government in Afghanistan released a nationally known education activist Thursday after nearly seven months in prison.

Matiullah Wesa, founder of PenPath, a community-based education support network, was picked up at gunpoint in Kabul in March for alleged “suspicious activities.” His house was raided by de facto Afghan authorities.

“Matiullah Wesa was released today after spending 215 days in prison,” PenPath  confirmed through the X social media platform.

Taliban officials did not immediately comment on the activist’s release. His arrest outraged the international community and drew widespread calls for the Taliban to free him.

“I welcome the release of Matiullah Wesa and call for the immediate & unconditional release of all #Afghanistan human rights defenders who are arbitrarily detained for standing up for their own rights & the human rights of others,” Richard Bennett, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of Afghan human rights, wrote on X.

Amnesty International hailed Wesa’s release as “good news from Afghanistan” and said on X that he “should never have been jailed for promoting girls’ right to education.”

The rights group urged the Taliban to release other detained Afghan human rights defenders, identifying them as Rasool Parsi, Neda Parwani, Zholia Parsi and Manizha Sediqi, saying they “are unfairly kept behind bars for standing up for equality and denouncing repression.”

After the Taliban closed schools for teenage girls beyond the sixth grade in Afghanistan last year, Wesa kept visiting provinces to advocate for female education through his organization before being arrested.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid suggested that the activist was detained and interrogated for activities unrelated to his work.

Mujahid alleged that Wesa “had secret and open meetings without informing the [Taliban] government. He also had connections abroad and was getting instructions from abroad.”

Wesa’s brother rejected Mujahid’s allegations, saying that PenPath’s activities and meetings with foreign partners were public.

Wesa’s release came just days after the London-based nonprofit Index on Censorship declared him the winner of this year’s campaign award in recognition of his advocacy for education for women even after the Taliban reclaimed control of Afghanistan two years ago.

Through his PenPath network, established in 2009, Wesa has promoted education and negotiated with village elders in conservative Afghan society to allow their girls to attend school. The network has equipped hundreds of thousands of children with pens and books and set up libraries in rural Afghanistan. Wesa would set out on a motorbike, using it as a mobile classroom with a computer screen, speakers and a bookcase.

The hard-line Taliban returned to power in August 2021 as the United States and its Western coalition partners withdrew their troops from Afghanistan after almost two decades of involvement in the Afghan war.

Since then, the male-only Taliban government has placed an indefinite ban on girls’ education, ordered most female government employees to stay home and barred the U.N. and nongovernmental aid groups from employing Afghan women.

Taliban leaders have rejected international calls for them to remove restrictions on women and respect civil liberties before seeking formal recognition for their rule in Kabul. They have ruled out any compromise on their governance, saying it is aligned with Afghan culture and Islamic law.
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The Taliban are pushing back against persistent global criticism of their Islamic governance in Afghanistan, claiming their supreme leader’s decrees, including a general amnesty, have promoted national reconciliation and put the war-torn country on the path to stability.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the chief Taliban spokesman, Wednesday posted a 40-minute promotional video documentary on social media, showcasing some of the decrees and touting their “good” outcomes more than two years into their male-only government, known as the Islamic Emirate. 

However, the video did not discuss several other decrees issued by reclusive Taliban supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, that placed an indefinite ban on Afghan girls’ education beyond the sixth grade and barred most women from workplaces, including the United Nations and other aid groups.

“The general amnesty has reunited Afghans,” Mujahid wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, with the video. He referred to the decree that reclusive Taliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada first issued after the then-insurgent group reclaimed power from a U.S.-backed government in August 2021. 

The amnesty covered all members and politicians associated with the ousted Afghan government and individuals who worked for the U.S.-led Western troops during their presence in Afghanistan for almost two decades. 

While appearing in the documentary, Mujahid said that the amnesty decree was being enforced “effectively and seriously” nationwide by Taliban authorities, saying those found guilty of breaching it in “a few instances” were brought to justice and jailed. 

Mujahid’s social media post came a day after a senior U.N. diplomat renewed allegations the Taliban’s “repressive policies and practices” were responsible for a deteriorating human rights situation in Afghanistan.

“There is a culture of impunity for torture and inhumane treatment in detention centers, as well as for human rights violations against former government officials and military personnel, despite promises made to the contrary,” Richard Bennett, the special rapporteur on the situation of Afghan human rights, told a U.N. meeting in New York on Tuesday. 

Last August, a U.N. report accused Taliban fighters of committing more than 200 extrajudicial killings since taking power despite the general amnesty. It documented at least 800 alleged offenses, including arbitrary arrests and detention, ill-treatment, torture, and enforced disappearances of former Afghan officials and security personnel.

The Taliban at the time rejected the U.N. findings, declaring them unfounded and propaganda to malign their administration. 

While speaking Tuesday, the U.S. representative told the U.N. meeting that the Taliban continue to issue edicts targeting women and girls, human rights defenders, women’s rights activists, journalists, former government officials, and other vulnerable Afghan groups, including religious minorities. 

“Until the Taliban honors their word to respect the human rights of all Afghans, the international community must monitor the situation in Afghanistan with vigilance and hold the Taliban accountable,” said David Johnson, U.S. senior advisor for South and Central Asia.

Taliban officials have repeatedly rejected criticism of their policies, saying they are aligned with Afghan culture and Islamic law. 

The Taliban documentary hailed Akhundzada’s decree on women’s rights, saying it prohibited forced marriages of women and ensured their right to inheritance, dowry, and fair treatment, among other rights, within Islamic law, or Sharia. 

The video also highlighted “among others, the decree outlawing poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, which is known as the world’s largest producer of narcotics.

“Now we believe that we do not have even one percent of poppy cultivation in Afghanistan. God willing, in the coming days, we will have an Afghanistan free of drug cultivation and smuggling,” Mujahid said. 

Recent media reports and satellite images backed by the U.N. and the U.S. have concluded that annual poppy cultivation “significantly” decreased in the country. However, critics remain skeptical about whether the gains are sustainable, noting that de facto Afghan authorities have not yet provided an alternative livelihood program for farmers affected by the ban in the impoverished nation.

The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crimes, in its report last month, revealed that Afghanistan had become the world’s fastest-growing producer of methamphetamine. It noted that the highly addictive stimulant is mainly made from legally available substances or extracted from the ephedra plant, which grows in the wild.  

The Taliban documentary commentator echoed its government’s assertions that Akhundzada’s decrees “are based on the demands of a healthy and Islamic society and raised the hopes of Afghans for a better future.”

No foreign government has recognized the Taliban government over human rights concerns and their treatment of Afghan women.

 
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Pakistan’s Supreme Court this week declared that trying civilians in military courts is unlawful. The ruling immediately affects more than 100 people in military custody who were arrested when supporters of former Prime Minster Imran Khan stormed military installations to protest his May 9 arrest. VOA Pakistan bureau chief Sarah Zaman spoke with the father of one of the accused, who says he is encouraged by the top court’s decision. VOA footage by Naveed Nasim.
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India has decided to resume visa services for Canadians after suspending them in September amid recent frosty diplomatic relations, India’s High Commission in Ottawa announced Wednesday.

Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar earlier promised to reopen visa offerings if Canada addressed “security threats” that New Delhi claimed its diplomats were facing.

In Wednesday’s press release, India’s High Commission in Ottawa promised to allow Canadians to apply for entry, business, medical and conference visas “after a considered review of the security situation” found that Canada has made progress in improving “the security situation.”

Ottawa has long affirmed its commitment to the safety of foreign diplomats. India did not identify specific threats to its ambassadors.

The development comes in the weekslong fallout of what Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called “credible allegations” of Indian involvement in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, an Indian expatriate living in suburban Vancouver. India has denied any role in the killing.

Since Trudeau leveled that accusation, the two nations have ousted each other’s top diplomats. In early October, India issued an advisory to its citizens, including students studying abroad, to exercise utmost caution when in Canada.
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Canada is on the brink of fulfilling its commitment to accept 40,000 Afghans before the end of this year.

The pledge, made by Ottawa in August 2021 when the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, was driven by concerns for the safety of Afghans who had collaborated with Canadian programs and the former Afghan government.

In the past two years, Canada has successfully assisted the resettlement of at least 39,730 Afghans, as reported by Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).

More than half of these refugees have been admitted under a humanitarian program specifically tailored for human rights activists, journalists, religious and ethnic minority groups, and LGBTI individuals.

An additional 12,000 Afghans, who had worked for the Canadian government in Afghanistan before 2021, found safety in Canada through a special immigration visa program.

“Canada’s Afghan resettlement commitment is one of the largest on a per capita basis in the world and is second only to that of the United States in overall numbers,” Mary Rose Sabater, IRCC’s communication adviser, told VOA.

Among those resettled across Canada, at least 17,000 are women, many of whom are former government employees, lawmakers and civil society activists.

Afghan women have been disproportionately affected by the Taliban’s rule, which is often referred to as the world’s only gender-apartheid system, denying them fundamental rights such as education and employment.

Even after reaching the commitment of 40,000 Afghan refugees this year, Canada intends to maintain its flexibility in providing shelter to at-risk Afghans in the future.

“Afghans may also be eligible for regular immigration programs, including economic, family reunification and refugee resettlement programs … they may be referred for resettlement by the United Nations Refugee Agency and other organizations. Canadians can also continue to privately sponsor Afghan refugees,” Sabater said.

Canada’s government has earmarked approximately $615 million ($844.3 million Canadian) in resettlement services for the Afghan refugees including a 12-month income support program that pays for accommodation, food and health care.

Permanent residents

One distinctive aspect of Canada’s approach is the ease with which Afghans become permanent legal residents upon their arrival.

“Canada processes refugees overseas before admitting them to Canada,” said Sabater.

After residing in Canada for five years, of which three must be spent within the country, these permanent residents will be eligible to apply for Canadian citizenship.

In contrast, the United States is currently navigating legislative hurdles to approve the Afghan Adjustment Act, which is expected to establish legal pathways for long-term residence and naturalization of tens of thousands of Afghans who entered the U.S. under humanitarian parole in 2021.

While the act is mired in Congressional debates, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently extended the parole deadline until May 2025.

The U.S. military airlifted 124,000 individuals out of Kabul in August 2021 of which at least 77,000 were offered a temporary humanitarian parole in the United States.

“After reviewing the country conditions in Afghanistan and consulting with interagency partners, Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas determined that an 18-month TPS [temporary parole status] extension and redesignation is warranted because conditions, including armed conflict, that support Afghanistan’s TPS designation are ongoing,” the DHS said in a statement.
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Inayat Amran, a resident of eastern Khost province in Afghanistan, has been working as a poliovirus vaccination volunteer for the past three years. Polio remains endemic in only two countries in the world: Afghanistan and Pakistan. VOA’s Monir Bahar reports from Mandozayi, Khostn. Bezhan Hamdard narrates.
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The Pakistani government approved the creation of several deportation centers for hundreds of thousands of illegally residing Afghan nationals they plan to arrest and repatriate to Afghanistan starting next month, VOA learned Tuesday.

Approval of the Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan comes ahead of the November 1 deadline the government set for all “illegal/unregistered foreigners” and those “overstaying their visa validity periods” to return to their countries of origin or face deportation for breaching Pakistan’s immigration laws.

Pakistani Interior Minister Sarfaraz Bugti, when announcing the deadline in early October, said an estimated 1.7 million Afghans are among those facing forcible eviction.

Official sources told VOA that special deportation centers would be established in the country’s four provinces: Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Afghans detained in Punjab and Sindh will be transferred to centers in Rawalpindi and Karachi districts, respectively.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will have two deportation centers — in Nowshehra and Chamkani — while Baluchistan will house three facilities in the provincial capital of Quetta, and in Pishin and Qilla Abdullah districts. These two provinces line Pakistan’s nearly 2,600-kilometer (1,600-mile) border with Afghanistan and collectively host most refugee families.

The new plan empowers district administrations, police, prosecution and prison authorities to detain and deport illegally residing Afghan nationals. It specifies that individuals convicted of or currently on trial for minor offenses will be expelled, whereas those convicted of or facing trial for “serious crimes” will not be sent back to Afghanistan.

Islamabad has pledged to carry out the deportations in “a phased and orderly manner.” It has also clarified that the crackdown would not target 1.4 million Afghan refugees living legally in the country and around 900,000 others holding valid Afghan citizenship cards and formally registered in Pakistan as economic migrants.

The government has formally directed law enforcement agencies not to harass refugees there legally and those carrying Afghan nationality cards, although Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers and refugee families have alleged that some were subjected to police abuses, mistreatment and extortion.

The Taliban have called on Pakistan to review the deportation plan, decrying it as “inhumane” and “unacceptable.” However, they have lately set up special camps on the Afghan side of the border to provide immediate shelter, health, food and financial aid to families returning from the neighboring country.

Officials in both countries have confirmed that tens of thousands of Afghans have voluntarily returned to their home country since Islamabad announced the deadline nearly a month ago.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, while speaking to an Afghan television channel Tuesday, urged Pakistan to treat Afghan refugees “humanely” and extend the period of deportation. He asked all the refugees to return to their country, claiming they have turned war-torn Afghanistan into a “safer and better” place.

The Taliban seized power from a U.S.-backed government in August 2021 when the United States and NATO troops withdrew from the country after nearly two decades of involvement in the Afghan war.

The Taliban takeover prompted hundreds of thousands of people to flee to Pakistan, fearing retribution for their association with Western forces. They included human rights defenders, former government officials, professionals, female activists and journalists. Many have since been relocated to the U.S. and other Western countries, while thousands are awaiting the processing of their applications for resettlement in the United States and Europe.

The Taliban imposed their strict interpretation of Islamic law, barring teenage girls from receiving an education and many women from work. The restrictions have discouraged many Afghan refugee families from returning to Afghanistan, saying their daughters cannot seek education or work there.

The United Nations also has urged Islamabad to suspend its plan to force out Afghans seeking refuge, warning it could expose them to persecution and other abuse by the country’s de facto Taliban authorities.
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An Afghan-French journalist who spent 284 days imprisoned in Afghanistan has recalled how he was beaten, nearly choked, and interrogated. 

Speaking at a news conference in the French capital, Paris, on Monday, the newly released Mortaza Behboudi said he didn’t think he would make it out of custody alive. 

The Taliban arrested Behboudi outside Kabul University in January while the reporter was working on a story about how female students are banned from higher education.

He was held on charges of espionage and illegal support of foreigners until last week, when a Kabul court threw out all charges. The journalist said that neither his French passport nor his media credentials was enough to prevent him from being arrested. 

The media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, which provided legal support and campaigned to free Behboudi, described the court decision as a “huge relief.”

“It is the end of a painful ordeal and of constant worry for more than nine months,” said Christophe Deloire, RSF’s secretary general.

Behboudi was released Oct. 18.

Behboudi is part of the Shi’ite Hazara minority and had moved to France as a refugee in 2015 where he set up the news site Guiti with other exiled Afghans.

Speaking of his experiences in custody, Behboudi said, “I felt kidnapped.”

The journalist was kept in cells that measured two to three square meters, sharing the space with a dozen other detainees. Unable to see daylight, he said he soon lost track of time and was constantly harassed. He says the guards also beat him.   

In one harrowing episode that Behboudi recalled to a French media outlet, the journalist said that Islamic State militants in his shared cell tried to choke him. A guard intervened and moved the journalist. 

The Sunni Islamic State group for years has targeted predominantly Shi’ite Hazaras and other religious minorities.

Spokesmen for the Taliban did not respond to VOA’s requests for comment sent via messaging app.  

A recent report by the U.N. mission in Afghanistan has said prisoners are subject to mistreatment and urged the authorities to act.

The Taliban have issued directives on detainees’ rights, and the interior ministry said that an internal investigation found evidence of mistreatment at its detention centers and that it was working to address the issue.

Six months into his imprisonment, Behboudi was moved to a new prison in Kabul where he says conditions improved. 

It was at that point that he learned the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders had provided him with a lawyer. 

Now back in France and reunited with his family, Behboudi said he wanted to “move on.”

When the journalist traveled to Afghanistan at the start of 2023, he had planned to report on restrictions to women including on access to university and most higher education. 

As well as education restrictions, women are currently blocked from being in parks, funfairs, and gyms, and cannot travel without a close male relative. Many are unable to work.

More than 80% of women who worked in media before the Taliban takeover no longer are in the profession, according to RSF data. 

Afghanistan ranks as the worst performing country globally for the status of women, according to the Women, Peace and Security Index released by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security and the Peace Research Institute Oslo.

Behboudi said he felt fortunate to be released but that other Afghan journalists are not so lucky. 

Under the Taliban, “Everything is censored these days,” Behboudi said.

“If I take photo on the street, I risk being arrested … There is no longer freedom of expression, there is no longer freedom of the press in Afghanistan.”

The nonprofit Afghanistan Journalists’ Support Organization welcomed Behboudi’s release.

“The latest development underscores two critical points,” the organization said in a statement on his release. 

“The unity and collaborative efforts of national and international professional bodies in supporting Afghan journalists can prove to be a powerful force,” the statement read, adding that Behboudi’s case “highlights the vital role played by international journalist support organizations.”

Some information in this report came from Agence France-Presse.
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The ongoing violence between Israel and Hamas has underlined the challenges facing an ambitious initiative to build a new trade route from India through the Middle East to Europe, according to analysts.

Announced at the Group of 20 summit held in India last month, the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, or IMEC, is seen as a modern-day spice route and an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. It is backed among others by the United States, the European Union and Saudi Arabia.

The corridor aims to establish a rail and shipping network linking the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Jordan to the Israeli port of Haifa on the Mediterranean Sea. Goods could then be shipped to Europe, bypassing the Suez Canal.

But as Israel conducts strikes on Gaza in response to the October 7 attack by Hamas militants, the region has been plunged into instability as the conflict becomes the deadliest of five Gaza wars.

“Now we are facing the possibility of a spillover of this war into the wider region and that is a reality check for IMEC,” according to Chintamani Mahapatra, founder of the Kalinga Institute of Indo Pacific Studies in New Delhi. “In the midst of this conflict, the whole idea of IMEC is getting lost.”

‘Wake-up’ call

Pointing out that the project involves passing through some of the most volatile regions of the Middle East, analysts say the war is a “wake-up” call about the scale of challenges IMEC will have to confront. 

“The new war is a tragic reminder of just how difficult it will be to build out the new corridor,” Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, said in emailed comments to VOA.  “It’s not just a matter of financing challenges, but also of stability and diplomatic cooperation. The war makes it painfully clear that these conditions remain elusive.”

When the project was announced, Washington’s push for normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel was making headway and there were hopes that this could transform longstanding Mideast rivalries.  A reliable link between Saudi Arabia and Israel is a crucial element of the project. An agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia would have followed the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords which saw Israel establish diplomatic relations in 2020 with three Arab countries.

“This project was worked under the presumption that there would be peace and stability in the region. But even if there is no wider conflict in the days and months to come, the future is now uncertain,” according to Manoj Joshi, Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.

He pointed out that the project requires billions of dollars of investment. “It involves building two to three thousand kilometers of rail lines. With the region now plunged into political instability, the question is who will invest?” 

‘A counter to China’

The Western-backed corridor was not envisaged as just a trade route – it had geopolitical motives, according to analysts. It was seen as a counter to China, whose influence in the Middle East is rising.

It also aimed to build trust and political capital for normalization of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia according to Kugelman. But he said that plan has been put on “cold ice” for now, although it could be reconstituted down the road.

“Saudi Arabia and Israel have strong strategic imperatives to normalize ties, but for Riyadh, the political costs of doing so while Israel is carrying out its brutal campaign in Gaza are too high,” he said.

New Delhi has said that the ongoing conflict will not dampen plans for the trade corridor. India, whose economy is growing, would be one of the major beneficiaries of the proposed route. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has described IMEC as the “basis of world trade for hundreds of years to come.”

“IMEC is for the long term,” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in Morocco last week where she attended a meeting of G-20 Finance Ministers. “While short-term glitches can have concerns and occupy our minds, we will keep engaging with all stakeholders.”

For New Delhi, the new trade route would slash shipping costs and expedite access to markets in the Middle East and Europe. India’s ties with countries like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt as well as Israel have warmed significantly in recent years. Trade with these countries is rising while the European Union is its third largest trading partner.

As the current conflict unfolds, New Delhi has reached out to both Israel and the Palestinians.

In a show of solidarity with Israel, Prime Minister Modi condemned the Hamas assault as terrorist attacks. India has also reiterated its longstanding support for establishment of an independent Palestine state and sent humanitarian aid for Gaza.

But even if New Delhi is able to strike a balance in its ties with Arab countries and Israel, the project’s future hinges on how relations will shape up among the countries in the region.

“IMEC will not be buried, I won’t write its obit,” said Mahapatra. “When the dust settles down in West Asia, it will likely make headway.  But in the midst of such a conflict, there is no possibility of a cooperative and positive proposal with the various countries involved,” said Mahapatra. 
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The coming election to choose the World Health Organization’s next chief of the South-East Asia Regional Office, or SEARO, has become contentious as the person who takes up that post could influence the health of billions of people. 

The daughter of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is one of two candidates for the SEARO position. Saima Wazed’s nomination has sparked controversy with many health experts calling it “nepotism,” and expressing concern over the election process to fill senior roles at the U.N. health body. 

A candidate for the SEARO post should have a “strong technical and public health background and extensive experience in global health”, according to the WHO website. The candidate should also have “competency in organizational management” and “proven historical evidence for public health leadership”, the website says.

The next SEARO chief will be elected through a secret ballot by the region’s 11 member countries, which include Bangladesh, Nepal and India. The vote is scheduled to take place in New Delhi during a WHO regional committee meeting Oct. 30-Nov. 2. 

Countries in the region nominate candidates to head the WHO regional office.

Wazed was nominated by the government of Bangladesh. 

In addition to Wazed, who is a mental health advocate, only one other candidate has been put forward: Shambhu Acharya, a public health expert and senior WHO official who was nominated by Nepal. 

Questions have been raised about the disparity between the candidates’ qualifications.  

Wazed has a master’s degree in clinical psychology from Barry University, a school in Florida. She has spent nearly a decade serving as an adviser to the director general of the WHO on mental health and autism issues. 

Acharya has been with the WHO for almost 30 years. He has experience working with the U.N. body in senior positions and holds a Ph.D. in public health, health policy and financing from the University of North Carolina. 

Sixteen public health experts in Nepal issued a statement saying that Acharya “is the better fit” of the two candidates vying for the SEARO director’s position. 

“[Acharya] possesses a very strong public health background and has extensive leadership experience in tackling global health issues,” the statement said. 

“He knows the public health and medical challenges of our region intimately, having worked for three decades to strengthen responses at local, national, regional and global levels, including in Nepal, Bangladesh and India, apart from his responsibilities at [the] WHO headquarters in Geneva.” 

So far there have not been any public statements of support for Wazed from public health experts in Bangladesh.  

Right now a strong anti-Hasina wave is sweeping Bangladesh, ahead of next general election all likely to be held in January. With the US closely monitoring the forthcoming election in Bangladesh many believe the ruling Awami League party will not be able to rig the elections this time and lose power. In such a situation many, long-known as pro-Awami League groups, are not speaking in support of Hasina, her party and family members now. 

However, AK Abdul Momen, Bangladesh’s foreign minister spoke in support of Wazed’s candidacy several days ago. 

In an interview with the Indian newspaper The Hindu, the minister demanded that Nepal withdraw its candidate from the contest for the WHO-SEARO post.

“[Nepal’s candidate] had been working in the WHO for the last 30 years and was in a decision-making position. So why have [health indices] not improved in the whole of the South East Asian region, even though he himself is a person of South Asian origin?” Momen asked while adding that Acharya should “step down” from the race for the WHO-SEARO post.

Wazed, who has held advisory positions at some Bangladesh government mental health bodies, rebuffed accusations that her nomination was “fueled by nepotism” because her mother is the prime minister. She said those critical of her nomination were overlooking her experience and achievements in the field of mental health. 

“They ignore that I have been an adviser to WHO’s DG on Mental Health & Autism, or that I have been a member of the WHO’s Expert Advisory Panel on mental health for almost a decade,” Wazed wrote in an Inter Press Service opinion piece earlier this month. 

“They do not mention that I am [the] chief adviser to Bangladesh’s National Mental Health Strategic Plan, or that I was a technical expert for Bangladesh’s National Mental Health Act of 2018,” she wrote.

Bangladesh’s nomination of Wazed has also come under scrutiny by several activists and public health experts. 

Bishow Parajuli, former U.N. resident coordinator and U.N. Development Program representative in Myanmar and Zimbabwe, said that Wazed has limited experience and qualifications to assume such a leadership position. 

“In a country with so many qualified and competent health professionals, the nomination of Ms. Wazed, and her use of the Prime Ministerial Office to engage with the various world leaders, also shows nepotism and the influence of her mother’s office in the process. …The selection must be made ‘on the basis of merits,’” he said in emailed comments. 

Paris-based Bangladeshi social activist and physician Pinaki Bhattacharya said Wazed has none of the required qualifications for the WHO-SEARO post.

“Hasina and her daughter are not aware that while being a descendant of the powerful can give one political advantage, the position of a professional international health leader requires the necessary education, skills and talent,” he told VOA. 

In recent weeks, Wazed accompanied her mother, Sheikh Hasina, on a high-profile diplomatic tour attending the U.N. General Assembly in New York and the summit in New Delhi of the 20 biggest economies, known as the G20. Wazed accompanied Prime Minister Hasina during her meetings with U.S. President Joe Biden, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Wazed said she is used to being held to different professional standards than men, and having her identity reduced to simply being “her mother’s daughter,” which is blatant sexism, Wazed said.

Wazed has not responded to a VOA email requesting direct comment on the nepotism issue.

Kent Buse is director of the Global Healthier Societies Program at The George Institute for Global Health at Imperial College London. Buse told VOA that the rules governing the selection of directors across all WHO regions need considerable reform to ensure public confidence in the merit-based nature of the organization. 

“This relates to improving transparency and delivering enhanced oversight of the election process. This should include better scrutiny of the candidate’s compliance with the existing codes of conduct governing the campaign processes.”
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A special court in Pakistan indicted Imran Khan, the jailed former prime minister, and his deputy Monday on disputed charges of leaking state secrets.

The tribunal conducted the closed-door hearing inside a prison near the capital, Islamabad, under a century-old colonial-era law known as the Official Secrets Act.

“Today’s hearing was exclusively meant to indict both of them; therefore, the court read out the charge openly,” Shah Khawar, the special prosecutor, told reporters outside the Adiala Jail. He said that the court had formally commenced the trial in the case and summoned the witnesses at the next hearing on Friday.

Khan, 70, and co-defendant Shah Mahmood Qureshi, a former Pakistani foreign minister, pleaded not guilty, their attorneys said. They pledged to challenge the indictment in a higher court.

The lawsuit stems from a March 2022 classified Pakistani diplomatic cable, internally known as a cipher, that Khan alleged documented the United States’ role in toppling his government with the help of his country’s powerful military a month later. The cipher was written by Pakistan’s then-ambassador to the United States, Asad Majeed Khan.

The cipher purportedly quoted Donald Lu, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, as asking the ambassador to tell his military leadership it should remove Khan from office through a parliamentary vote of no-confidence because of his government’s neutrality over the war in Ukraine.

The deposed cricket star-turned-prime minister was in Moscow for official talks with President Vladimir Putin on the day Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Coincidently, an opposition alliance moved a no-confidence vote a day after the ambassador met with the U.S. officials, eventually bringing down the Khan government in April of that year because several of his party lawmakers and coalition partners had also defected allegedly under pressure from the military.

The State Department, while commenting on the reported cipher content, said this past August that Washington had objected to Khan’s visit to Russia, but played no role in his removal from power.

While in office, Khan had convened an emergency meeting of his national security committee, comprising top civilian and military leaders, to review the cipher.

The meeting condemned the U.S. for its alleged interference in Pakistan’s politics, and the U.S. ambassador in Islamabad was subsequently summoned to the foreign ministry so Islamabad could formally lodge a “strong protest.”

Washington and the Pakistani military have denied Khan’s allegations.

The deposed prime minister was jailed in August for three years over corruption charges he rejected as politically motivated and fabricated by the military. A higher court later overturned his sentence and ordered authorities to release him on bail. But Khan was instead kept in custody on allegations he had leaked the contents of the cipher to the public for political gain.

Khan discussed details of the cipher at party rallies and during media interviews in the run-up to the controversial no-confidence vote and continued doing so after his dismissal. Khan maintained he was doing so lawfully because he was bound to inform Pakistanis about “the foreign conspiracy” against the government they had elected.

Defense lawyers said that if found guilty, the former Pakistani leader and Qureshi could be sentenced to life in prison or even the death penalty. However, the lawyers said they were confident their clients would be acquitted, saying the clients had committed no crime.

While reading the charge sheet Monday to Khan, the judge said Khan “illegally retained and wrongly communicated secret document [cipher] telegram” sent from Washington on March 7, 2022, to the Pakistani foreign ministry.

The judge went on to read that the cipher “was relating to top secret information” between the state of the United States and Pakistan, “which you accused used in a prohibited place [Jalsa or public rally], and you willfully communicated the said cipher document… to unauthorized persons.”

A spokesman for Khan on legal matters, Naeem Panjutha, said Monday that the indictment was carried out “in haste” in an apparent bid to conclude the trial quickly to punish “our incarcerated national hero.”

“A trial conducted within a secret courtroom with no access to public or media, other than a couple of defense lawyers, is neither fair nor in line with the constitutional requirement of due process,” Panjutha said in a video statement.

Aitzaz Ahsan, a prominent Supreme Court lawyer and former law minister, said Monday that the cipher case would not stand the scrutiny of a higher court. He explained to reporters that Pakistan’s constitution authorizes a prime minister, in line with his oath, to “de-cipher a cipher” or to “declassify a classified document” if he finds a foreign nation is threatening his elected government.

A U.S. news outlet, The Intercept, published the purported text of the cipher for the first time in August.

Separately, Pakistan’s Supreme Court outlawed military trials of dozens of Khan supporters Monday, binding authorities to try the suspects in civilian courts instead.

An army-backed crackdown on Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, party has led to the arrests of hundreds of political activists, including women. More than 100 people have been handed over to the military for trial in its tribunals, which are solely meant for personnel of Pakistan’s armed forces.

The suspects face charges of storming army installations during anti-government protests last May. Khan rejects the accusations, saying the military wants to punish him and dismantle his party to keep him from returning to power. The army has not commented on the allegations.

Khan remains the most popular national political leader, and the opposition PTI is rated as the country’s largest political party, according to recent public surveys.

The military has staged repeated coups against elected prime ministers since Pakistan gained independence from Britain in 1947 and ruled the country for more than three decades. Analysts and former Pakistani leaders say the army significantly influences policymaking even when it is not in power.
…

Women and girls are in a “not only difficult … but deadly” situation following recent earthquakes in Afghanistan because of the humanitarian and civil rights crises in the country since the Taliban seized power, a U.N. official said Sunday.

An update from U.N. Women highlighted some of the problems women are facing in areas of Herat province, where a series of violent earthquakes and aftershocks this month killed thousands of people, more than 90% of them women and children, and destroyed nearly every home.

Cultural norms make it impossible for women to share a tent with neighbors or other families, the U.N. agency said in its update published Thursday. Many women also have difficulty obtaining humanitarian aid if they don’t have a male relative who can access it on their behalf and there is an absence of female workers aid distribution points, the U.N. said

Women affected by the earthquake have told the U.N. they cannot access aid without the national identity card, or tazkera, of a male relative. They need clothing, including the Islamic headscarf, so they can dress appropriately to access services and aid, according to the update.

“When natural disasters strike, women and girls are impacted most and often considered least in crisis response and recovery,” Alison Davidian, the U.N. special representative for women in Afghanistan, said in a message to The Associated Press. “The earthquakes, when combined with the ongoing humanitarian and women’s rights crisis, have made the situation not only difficult for women and girls, but deadly.”

One reason children and women accounted for the vast majority of the at least 1,482 people who died in the quakes is they were more likely to have been indoors when the disasters struck, according to aid officials. Taliban officials gave higher casualty figures than humanitarian groups, saying more than 2,000 people died.

Davidian noted that women and girls have been increasingly confined to their homes because of increasing Taliban-imposed restrictions on them in the last two years.

The Taliban have barred girls from school beyond sixth grade and banned women from public spaces and most jobs. Women must also comply with dress codes and have a male chaperone accompany them on long journeys.

The Taliban have also restricted Afghan women from jobs at nongovernmental organizations, although there are exemptions for emergencies and health care.

Most emergency assistance in earthquake-hit Herat is being distributed through a local intermediary, normally a male community or religious leader.

Women mentioned the involvement of community leaders as their “main challenge” when accessing help as community leaders are not always aware of the most vulnerable women, the U.N. update said.

Afghans are struggling with the social, political and economic shocks from the withdrawal of international forces in 2021 and decades of war. More than half of the country’s population of 40 million needs urgent humanitarian assistance.

Aid agencies have been providing food, education and health care support in the wake of the Taliban takeover and the economic collapse that followed it.
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Pakistan’s three-time former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, returned to the country Saturday after living in self-imposed exile for four years in the United Kingdom. Analysts say Sharif’s return will help restart politics in Pakistan, which have been stifled for months, but regaining political space lost to the powerful military will remain difficult. VOA’s Pakistan bureau chief Sarah Zaman reports from Sharif’s political stronghold, Lahore. VOA footage by Wajid Asad, Iqbal Khan. Video editing by Malik Waqar Ahmed.
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Pakistan’s former three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif returned home Saturday after four years in self-imposed exile, months before a general election.

The 73-year-old politician landed at Islamabad airport from Dubai on his chartered plane, where he signed and filed appeals through his attorneys against his convictions for corruption. Sharif later flew to his native Lahore to address a homecoming rally organized by his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party, or PML-N, in the eastern city.

A Pakistani court allowed Sharif to travel to London for medical treatment in 2019 while he was serving a seven-year sentence for corruption on the condition that he would return within four weeks to complete his prison term. He defied that agreement and was declared a fugitive.

The former prime minister denied corruption charges, claiming the powerful Pakistani military orchestrated them to facilitate his ouster from power in 2017 and disqualify him from holding public office.

Sharif arrived back in Pakistan after a federal court granted him protective bail in a rare ruling Thursday, barring authorities from arresting him until he appeared before the court Tuesday.

It is widely perceived, and his party members privately have acknowledged, that Sharif’s return was the outcome of a deal with the military.

Pakistan has been in political and economic turmoil since the former cricket star turned prime minister, Imran Khan, was ousted from power in April 2022 through a parliamentary no-confidence motion.

The country has witnessed frequent protests over Khan’s removal, record levels of inflation and rising energy prices blamed on his immediate successor, former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, the younger brother of Nawaz Sharif.

While speaking to reporters at Dubai airport, Nawaz Sharif said the situation in Pakistan was “alarming and worrying,” claiming his party was “competent enough to solve the country’s problems.”

The former prime minister, while addressing the Lahore rally, blamed his ouster for financial challenges facing Pakistan, claiming the country was economically progressing under his leadership.

“Is this why you ousted me?” Sharif asked, without naming the military. He cannot run for or hold public office because of his convictions, but his legal team and party leaders say Sharif plans to appeal so he can contest national elections expected in late January and perhaps become prime minister for a fourth time.

Khan, 70, is now behind bars on controversial corruption charges and faces dozens of lawsuits he alleges the military has fabricated to keep him from staging a comeback to power. He also rejected his ouster as illegal, saying it was orchestrated by the army at the behest of the United States for his neutrality over the Ukraine war.

Washington and the Pakistani army denied the charges.

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, or PTI, decried Sharif’s homecoming, saying the “coward fugitive” returned under a “judicial asylum.” Without naming the military, a PTI spokesperson said that the “state has buried shame, modesty, law and justice with its own hands” to pave the way for a “national criminal” to return to Pakistan.

The military has staged repeated coups against elected prime ministers since Pakistan gained independence from Britain in 1947 and ruled the country for over three decades. Analysts and former Pakistani leaders say the army significantly influences policymaking even when it is not in power.

The last coup was led by then-army chief Gen. Pervez Musharraf in 1999, ousting Sharif during his second stint in office and leading to a decade of dictatorial rule in the nuclear-armed nation of about 241 million people.

Musharraf arrested Sharif, and a special court later convicted him and sentenced the deposed prime minister to prison on controversial terrorism charges.

Sharif later was allowed to go into exile with his family in Saudi Arabia at the intervention of the Saudi leadership. He returned to Pakistan in 2007 and became the prime minister in 2013 for a record third time after his party won elections.

Khan, a bitter rival of Sharif, remains the most popular national political leader, and his PTI is rated as the country’s largest political party, according to all recent public surveys.

“So far Nawaz’s return has gone exactly as PML-N planned; A smooth arrival and massive crowds the party worked very hard to attract,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Willson Center in Washington. “But it gets more difficult from here. He’ll have to address internal party fissures, his legal woes, the bad economy, a vote bank impacted by Khan,” Kugelman wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
…

The World Health Organization warns that tens of thousands of survivors of a series of powerful 6.3 magnitude earthquakes that struck western Afghanistan’s Herat province between October 7 and 15 are in desperate need of humanitarian aid and essential health services.

“I have personally seen how these multiple earthquakes flattened villages, displaced thousands of people and left many families in urgent need of humanitarian and health assistance,” said Alaa AbouZeid, health emergencies team lead for WHO Afghanistan.

Speaking in Kabul on Friday, AbouZeid said, “Over 114,000 people are in urgent need of lifesaving health assistance. … The health consequences are staggering.”

Those most seriously affected by the disaster, he said, are women, girls, boys and the elderly, “who account for over 90% of the deaths and injuries. Many children are left orphaned.”

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, reports that the earthquakes directly affected more than 66,000 people — about 1,500 killed, some 2,000 injured, at least 3,700 homes destroyed and another 21,300 buildings damaged.

“I have talked to people affected by earthquakes, and the sense of loss is heartbreaking,” said Luo Dapeng, WHO representative in Afghanistan. “Many people spent days digging under the rubble to search for members who either died or got injured.”

According to an initial assessment by the WHO, at least 40 health facilities across nine districts were damaged, resulting in severe disruptions of health services for an estimated 580,000 people.

AbouZeid said health providers were afraid to go into those buildings, which showed visible cracks and risked collapse. “So, most health services for now are provided from tents,” he said, calling the situation untenable.

“We need immediate action to restore, renovate and ensure services that provide health facilities, especially in wintertime. The survivors need water [and] better shelters that can protect them from the harsh winter,” he said.

“Last year, Herat experienced minus 30 degrees centigrade during wintertime, and winter has already started in Afghanistan,” he said. “So, there are needs for water and sanitation to stop any possible disease outbreaks.”

He said that WHO staff in Afghanistan was on the ground within hours of the disaster and able to treat the injured, provide medicine and medical supplies, and give mental health and trauma care.

“Thanks to the long and established presence in Herat, we were able to rapidly mobilize resources … and extend immediate lifesaving support to the affected population at the most critical time of the emergency.”

He said the WHO has deployed 21 female health workers, including doctors and midwives, to Herat to ensure that women have unimpeded access to the health services they need.

“They have been distributed over different facilities to provide services for their female patients, with a special focus on reproductive health services, obstetrics, gynecology services and child health services,” AbouZeid said.

The WHO launched an appeal for $7.9 million Wednesday to provide urgent and essential health services for 114,000 of the most vulnerable people in the next six months.

AbouZeid said the WHO needs to scale up emergency health needs urgently and swiftly “as the upcoming winter season is bringing new health risks and exposure to the affected population currently living outdoors or in tents.”
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India successfully carried out Saturday the first of a series of key test flights after overcoming a technical glitch ahead of its planned mission to take astronauts into space by 2025, the space agency said.

The test involved launching a module to outer space and bringing it back to earth to test the spacecraft’s crew escape system, said the Indian Space Research Organization chief S. Somanath, and was being recovered after its touchdown in the Bay of Bengal.

The launch was delayed by 45 minutes in the morning because of weather conditions. The attempt was again deferred by more than an hour because of an issue with the engine, and the ground computer put the module’s liftoff on hold, said Somanath.

The glitch caused by a monitoring anomaly in the system was rectified and the test was carried out successfully 75 minutes later from the Sriharikota satellite launching station in southern India, Somanath told reporters.

It would pave the way for other unmanned missions, including sending a robot into space next year.

In September, India successfully launched its first space mission to study the sun, less than two weeks after a successful uncrewed landing near the south pole region of the moon.

After a failed attempt to land on the moon in 2019, India in September joined the United States, the Soviet Union and China as only the fourth country to achieve the milestone.

The successful mission showcased India’s rising standing as a technology and space powerhouse and dovetails with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s desire to project an image of an ascendant country asserting its place among the global elite.

Signaling a roadmap for India’s future space ambitions, Modi earlier this week announced that India’s space agency will set up an Indian-crafted space station by 2035 and land an Indian astronaut on the moon by 2040.

Active since the 1960s, India has launched satellites for itself and other countries, and successfully put one in orbit around Mars in 2014. India is planning its first mission to the International Space Station next year in collaboration with the United States.
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Officials in Pakistan say tens of thousands of Afghan nationals have left the country, returning to Afghanistan this month following a government deadline for foreigners without documentation to leave by November 1 or face deportation.

Islamabad announced the deadline in early October, saying an estimated 1.7 million Afghans are among the foreigners being asked to return to their native countries for lacking documentation or overstaying their visas. The Pakistani government has vowed to arrest and deport in “a phased and orderly manner” those who fail to comply.

Official sources said that, as of Friday, almost 52,000 men, women, and children had returned to Afghanistan — and numerous families in various parts of Pakistan, including its largest city, Karachi — were boarding trucks and buses to head to the Afghan border. On Thursday alone, more than 3,000 Afghans went back to their country, according to state-run Pakistani television.

Calls to halt expulsion

Islamabad has disregarded domestic and calls by the United Nations to not force out Afghans seeking refuge, warning it could expose many families to persecution and other abuse by the country’s de facto Taliban rulers.

On Thursday, the United States joined the international calls, stressing the need for Pakistan and other nations to uphold their obligations to help refugees and asylum-seekers. U.S. State Department spokesperson Mathew Miller made the statement at his regular news conference when asked for a response to the forcible expulsion of Afghans from Pakistan and Iran.

“We strongly encourage Afghanistan’s neighbors, including Pakistan, to allow entry for Afghans seeking international protection and to coordinate with international humanitarian organizations such as UNHCR and IOM [International Organization for Migration] to provide humanitarian assistance,” Miller said.

The Taliban have called on Pakistan to suspend the expulsion of Afghans, decrying it as unacceptable. However, they have set up special camps on the Afghan side of the border to provide immediate shelter, health, food, and financial aid to families returning from the neighboring country.

Pakistani officials have clarified that the nationwide crackdown is not targeting 1.4 million legally registered Afghan refugees and nearly 900,000 others holding Afghan citizenship cards. The government has instructed law enforcement agencies not to harass Afghans living legally in the country, though Taliban officials and refugees have alleged police abuses, mistreatment, and extortions.

Afghans fled, seeking safety

The Taliban’s return to power as U.S.-led international troops withdrew in August 2021 prompted tens of thousands of people to flee to Pakistan, fearing retribution for their association with Western forces during their two decades of presence in Afghanistan.

They included human rights defenders, U.S.-backed former Afghan government officials, professionals, female activists, and journalists. Many have since been relocated to the U.S. and other Western allies while thousands are awaiting the processing of their applications for U.S. Special Immigration Visas or resettlement in the United States as refugees.

A female refugee facing deportation told VOA that she left Taliban-ruled Afghanistan last year and moved to Pakistan for her family’s safety. The mother of three asked VOA to call her by the name Haleema to protect her identity.

“My husband was a journalist there. He worked for Americans, so we cannot go back because his life would be in danger there,” Haleema said, claiming their visa renewal request was denied.

“When I go outside, I am lost in my thoughts because I don’t have a visa, my husband doesn’t have a visa. What should we do? If the police come and arrest him, what will I do with my three children?” Haleema said their lives “are ruined” because they face danger in Afghanistan and are now being threatened in Pakistan.

Taliban officials deny charges of persecution against anyone intending to return to Afghanistan, citing their general amnesty for all Afghans, including those associated with Western forces.

On Tuesday, a group of 80 former American officials, U.S. resettlement organizations, and other individuals urged Pakistan to exempt from detention or deportation thousands of Afghans awaiting the processing of their applications, saying they “face significant risks” if repatriated.

“To deport them back to an environment where their lives would be in jeopardy runs counter to humanitarian principles and international accords” signed by Pakistan, read an open letter inked by the group and sent to the Pakistani Embassy in Washington.

The Taliban have imposed their strict interpretation of Islamic law, barring teenage girls from receiving an education and many women from work across Afghanistan.

Pakistan Bureau Chief Sarah Zaman contributed to this report.
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In a rare ruling, a federal court in Pakistan restrained authorities Thursday from arresting the convicted former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, upon his return to the country this coming weekend after four years in self-imposed exile. 

A two-member panel of judges approved Sharif’s appeal for protective bail until he appears before the high court in Islamabad on October 24, his lawyers told reporters in the Pakistani capital. “Meanwhile, he shall not be arrested on his arrival in Pakistan until he surrenders before this court,” the ruling read. 

The verdict paved the way for the former three-time prime minister to return to the country on Saturday, where his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party said that he would address a homecoming rally in his native eastern city of Lahore the same day.

Sharif was convicted of corruption charges in 2018 in two cases and sentenced collectively to 14 years in prison. He denied the allegations, claiming the powerful Pakistani military orchestrated his ouster from power in 2017 and subsequent court convictions. 

In 2019, a provincial high court, in an unprecedented ruling, allowed the veteran politician to travel to London for medical treatment for four weeks, accepting his undertaking that he would return to serve his prison term. Sharif failed to come back to Pakistan and was subsequently declared an absconder.

Defense attorney Azam Nazir Tarar said Thursday that Sharif would pursue his pending appeals against his convictions, hoping they would be overturned to allow the former Pakistani leader to campaign for the general elections, which are due in late January. 

“It is everyone’s constitutional right to do political activities freely,” said Tarar, a former Pakistani law minister and member of Sharif’s party.

Shehbaz Sharif, the younger brother of the self-exiled former Pakistani leader, hailed Thursday’s court ruling in a post on the X social media platform.

“He was implicated in absurd cases and subjected to mistreatment. Any fair hearing would have established his innocence,” said the younger Sharif, who served as prime minister from 2022 until this past August.

Pakistan’s military has launched several coups against elected prime ministers since the country gained independence from Britain in 1947 and ruled the country for more than three decades.

The last coup was staged by General Pervez Musharraf in 1999, which ousted Nawaz Sharif during his second stint in office, leading to a decade of military rule in Pakistan. The deposed prime minister was later convicted and sentenced to prison on controversial terrorism charges.

Sharif was later allowed to go into exile with his family at the intervention of Saudi Arabia. He returned to Pakistan in 2007 and became the prime minister in 2013 for a record third time after his party won the elections. 
…

The Taliban administration wants to formally join Chinese President Xi Jinping’s huge ‘Belt and Road’ infrastructure initiative and will send a technical team to China for talks, Afghanistan’s acting commerce minister said on Thursday.

Beijing has sought to develop its ties with the Taliban-run government since it took over in 2021, even though no other foreign government has recognized the administration.

Last month, China became the first country to appoint an ambassador to Kabul, with other nations retaining previous ambassadors or appointed heads of mission in a charge d’affaires capacity that does not involve formally presenting credentials to the government.

“We requested China to allow us to be a part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and Belt and Road Initiative… (and) are discussing technical issues today,” acting Commerce Minister Haji Nooruddin Azizi told Reuters in an interview a day after the Belt and Road Forum ended in Beijing.

The Pakistan “economic corridor” refers to the huge flagship section of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Afghanistan’s neighbor.

Azizi said the administration would also send a technical team to China to enable it to “better understand” the issues standing in the way of it joining the initiative, but did not elaborate on what was holding Afghanistan back.

Afghanistan could offer China a wealth of coveted mineral resources. Several Chinese companies already operate there, including the Metallurgical Corp. of China Ltd (MCC) which has held talks with the Taliban administration, as well as the previous Western-backed government, over plans for a potentially huge copper mine.

“China, which invests all over the world, should also invest in Afghanistan… we have everything they need, such as lithium, copper and iron,” Azizi said. “Afghanistan is now, more than ever, ready for investment.”

Asked about the MCC talks, Azizi said discussions had been delayed because the mine was near a historical site, but they were still ongoing. “The Chinese company has made a huge investment, and we support them,” he added.  

Investors have said security remains a concern. The Islamic State militant group has targeted foreign embassies and a hotel popular with Chinese investors in Kabul.

Asked about the security challenges, Azizi said security was a priority for the Taliban-run government, adding that after 20 years of war – which ended when foreign forces withdrew and the Taliban took over – meant more parts of the country were safe.

“It is now possible to travel to provinces where there is industry, agriculture and mines that one previously could not visit… security can be guaranteed,” Azizi added.  

Afghanistan and 34 other countries agreed to work together on the digital economy and green development on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Forum on Wednesday.
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Amid heightened tensions in the Middle East, the Taliban’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has been notably quiet on the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza — in sharp contrast to the fervent, daily anti-Israel comments from neighboring Iran.

While Akhundzada has no public-facing digital accounts, his edicts and statements often reverberate across the Taliban’s online platforms via other channels.

Akhundzada’s second in command, Mullah Mohammad Hassan, and his trio of deputies have also been reticent. The only senior Taliban official who has broken the silence so far is Sirajuddin Haqqani, the acting interior minister, who remains on the United States’ most-wanted list with a $10 million reward offered for information leading to his arrest.

“We do not interfere in others’ internal affairs,” Haqqani said in terse remarks at an event last week, “but we have faith-based sympathy with Muslims.”

‘Comparable’ messaging

Last week, Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s chief spokesperson, issued a statement in condemnation of Israel’s besieging of Gaza while calling on the international community to address the crisis.

“Official messaging from the Taliban has been comparable to what we’ve seen from other Muslim countries, with expressions of solidarity and support for the Palestinians,” Michael Kugelman, an expert at the Wilson Center, told VOA.

According to Javid Ahmad, a former Afghan ambassador and a fellow at the Atlantic Council, the Taliban’s public comments, while sparse, are calculated to show support for the Palestinians alone, as the group has no formal diplomatic ties with Hamas.

“Senior Taliban figures evidently expect neighboring Arab countries to step up and find a solution to end the violence, rather than relying on non-Arab states to intervene,” Ahmad told VOA.

This measured approach from a regime that boasts divine support in defeating a superpower and its NATO allies may be surprising for some.

A day after Hamas attacked Israel, Michael McCaul, chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he had seen “indications that the Taliban want to come to ‘liberate Jerusalem,’ in their words, to “fight the Zionists.”

The Taliban rejected the allegations.

Some Afghans have criticized the Taliban’s largely muted response. Ata Mohammad Noor, a former Afghan governor and a known anti-Taliban militia leader, posted an audio file Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter, calling on the Taliban to speak out in defense of Gaza.

Titled “Message of a sister from Palestine to the people of Afghanistan,” the audio clip runs Dari texts over the voice of a female speaking in Arabic begging for Afghans to help the Palestinians.

Mariam Solaimankhil, a former female member of the Afghan parliament, posted a statement on X calling the Taliban response “hollow.” “Where is your action?” she commented under the post of a Taliban spokesperson.

Doha deal

The Taliban have committed to forbid any security threats to the United States and its allies from emerging in Afghanistan, according to a U.S.-Taliban agreement signed in Doha, Qatar, in February 2020.

But experts say any Taliban rhetoric supporting Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, doesn’t violate that agreement.

“The Doha agreement focuses on a very specific, narrowly defined stipulation: The Taliban cannot let its territory be used by terrorist groups that threaten the U.S. and its allies. Pro-Hamas protests, or any type of anti-Israel activism in Afghanistan, do not come close to violating that stipulation,” said Kugelman.

Nearly a dozen other terrorist groups allegedly have sanctuaries in Afghanistan that could, if not prevented, pose regional and even global security threats.

So far, the response from such groups within Afghanistan to the war in Gaza remains “curiously muted and unusually restrained,” according to Ahmad of the Atlantic Council.

Despite keeping a firm control over all Afghanistan for more than two years, the Taliban have seen the Islamic State Khorasan or IS-K, challenging their writ with terrorist attacks all over the country.

IS-K has not supported Hamas because of its ties to Iran, a majority-Shiite country the terrorist group considers to have deviated from Islam.

“There is the risk that IS-K, or any active terror group in Afghanistan, could react by trying to stage its own attacks in Afghanistan, either as a gesture of solidarity with Hamas or as a competitive tactic to one-up what Hamas did in Israel,” said Kugelman. 
…

China and Pakistan agreed Wednesday to boost cooperation under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, signing a key deal to construct a multibillion-dollar railway project in the South Asian nation.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang and his Pakistani counterpart, Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar, held bilateral talks Wednesday on the sidelines of the Beijing-hosted Belt and Road Forum before witnessing the signing of several memorandums of understanding and agreements under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC.

“The two leaders discussed bilateral collaboration in the context of the CPEC and prospects of further deepening economic linkages,” said a post-meeting Pakistani statement.

The CPEC is a flagship project under the BRI. It is expected to bring more than $65 billion in Chinese investments in road, rail, energy, and other infrastructure developments in Pakistan to improve regional land and sea trade routes.

Officials said that one of the documents signed Wednesday was related to what is known as the Mainline-1, or ML-1, railway project. It is designed to connect Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar to the southern port city of Karachi through a more than 2,600-kilometer track with a price tag of $7 billion.

With Islamabad and Beijing sharing the cost, the project is expected to take 16 years and increase the line capacity from 34 to 134 trains each way per day, moving up to 165 kilometers per hour — twice as fast as they currently run.

Earlier on Wednesday, Kakar noted in his speech to the Belt and Road Forum international gathering that CPEC had played a “crucial role in generating new economic opportunities” in Pakistan since it was launched a decade ago.

“We have completed over 50 projects worth $25 billion under the CPEC,” the prime minister said. “Pakistan has successfully operationalized its deep seaport of Gwadar with state-of-the-art facilities to handle cargo ships facilitating transshipment to regional countries, especially the landlocked states,” Kakar added.

Mustafa Hyder Sayed, executive director of the Islamabad-based, nongovernmental Pakistan-China Institute, says the ML-1 is the biggest single project under the CPEC and is central to it.

“This project connects Xinjiang with Gwadar port and will unlock the access of Xinjiang to the warm waters to give it access to markets of the Middle East and Europe,” Sayed said. “The ML-1 will be the key driving force and catalyst in the next phase of CPEC projects as its execution will help boost Pakistan’s local industry, such as steel, cement and other local manufacturing,” he added.

China has built and operationalized the deep-water southwestern Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea under CPEC investments. It is located near the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial oil shipping route in the Arabian Sea.

Kakar said a new international airport China is building in Gwadar would soon be inaugurated, turning it into a hub of regional trade and connectivity. He added that CPEC energy projects have injected at least 8,000 megawatts of electricity into Pakistan’s national grid, and nearly 10,000 megawatts of additional and clean energy projects are expected to be completed within the next five years.

The CPEC is building industrial zones to attract local and Chinese investors, enabling cash-strapped Pakistan to increase its exports and boost its foreign exchange reserves.

Pakistan’s mineral-rich southwestern province of Baluchistan, which hosts Gwadar, has seen significant CPEC-related investments despite a years-long ethnic Baluch separatist insurgency.

Chinese nationals working on CPEC projects, including Gwadar, have come under deadly attacks in Pakistan. Beijing has pressed Islamabad to ensure the security of its citizens.

Although China’s BRI investments have led to the construction of much needed infrastructure in Pakistan and elsewhere, there has been heated debate over the debt that such projects create and the political influence it gives Beijing.

In an interview published on Tuesday, Kakar told a Chinese media outlet that China’s development financing “is without conditions and different from traditional development financing models.” He dismissed allegations that the BRI had led participating nations into “debt traps.”

“It is wrong to describe BRI financing as a ‘debt trap;’ it is rather an essential tool for helping countries in achieving comprehensive and inclusive development of their peoples,” Kakar asserted.

Pakistani government data indicates that CPEC has created 200,000 jobs, built more than 1,400 kilometers of highways and roads, and added thousands of megawatts of electricity to the national grid, effectively ending years of power outages in the country of about 241 million people. According to officials, the port of Gwadar has handled 600,000 tons of cargo in the last 18 months.

In the run-up to this week’s international gathering in Beijing, the Chinese government published a report documenting progress under its BRI financing.

“Major projects along the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor are underway,” the so-called white paper said. “The Gwadar Port in Pakistan has seen major progress and is marching towards the goal of becoming a logistics center and industrial base,” it added.

The report listed, among several completed projects, two nuclear power plants the two countries have jointly constructed in Karachi, saying they “are in operation, utilizing China’s Hualong One nuclear technology.”
…

India’s expanding economy was expected to bring more women into the workforce, but in the world’s most populous nation, their low participation continues to pose a challenge. While demographers hope that the country’s huge working-age population will propel economic development, they say women need to be included to reap the benefits of growth. Anjana Pasricha has a report.
…

A new survey finds that most American adults perceive Afghanistan as an adversary rather than an ally of the United States, and two-thirds believe the nearly 20-year Afghan war was not worth fighting.

The nationwide poll’s findings from the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research come two years after the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in August 2021 and the return of the Taliban to power. The U.S. had invaded the South Asian nation to punish the then-Taliban rulers for harboring al-Qaida leaders who planned the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Many of those surveyed were skeptical about how successfully the U.S. achieved its key objectives, such as eliminating the threat from extremists or improving opportunities for women in Afghanistan.

While 46% of adults believed the war successfully captured or killed those responsible for the 9/11 terror strikes on the U.S., only 16% said that Washington had succeeded in developing a functioning Afghan government. Less than a quarter of adults, or 22%, said the U.S. successfully improved opportunities for women in Afghanistan.

“The findings show that few think the U.S. succeeded during the war in improving opportunities for Afghan women, but most still view advancing the rights of Afghan women as an important foreign policy goal,” said Sheila Kohanteb, Forum Executive Director at The Pearson Institute for Study and Resolution of Global Conflict.

“The public clearly believes the U.S. should try to help improve the situation of Afghan women, and many continue to hear about the restrictions being placed on women in Afghanistan,” Kohanteb added.

The Taliban have imposed their strict interpretation of Islamic law across the impoverished country since reclaiming power and installing their men-only government in Kabul. They have restricted women’s rights to education and work. Women are forbidden from visiting public places, such as parks and gyms, and undertaking long road trips without a close male guardian.

The U.S. survey reveals that 41% of adults think Afghanistan is an enemy, and another 42% say it is unfriendly, while only 14% report it is an ally or friendly nation.

Regarding current foreign U.S. policy goals in Afghanistan, 77% of adults say it is at least somewhat important to eliminate the threat of Islamic extremists taking shelter in the country, and 74% support advancing the rights of women and girls.

The survey indicated that 59% were unaware of the Taliban retaking control in 2021, and 64% had not heard about the restrictions on women.

The poll showed that 68% of U.S. adults had heard at least something about the U.S. troop withdrawal, but fewer had heard about the treatment by the Taliban of Afghan citizens who worked with the United States during the war. Only 52% had heard a lot or some information, while 47% said they had heard little or nothing.

While withdrawing its troops in August 2021, the U.S. also airlifted tens of thousands of Afghans from Kabul airport, who worked closely with international troops during their two-decade-long presence in Afghanistan. But many more are still trying to flee the country, fearing retribution from the Taliban and urging Washington to meet what they say is its moral responsibility to ensure their safety.
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