Bangladesh is struggling with a record outbreak of dengue fever, with experts saying a lack of a coordinated response is causing more deaths from the mosquito-transmitted disease. 

The World Health Organization recently warned that diseases such as dengue, Zika, chikungunya and yellow fever caused by mosquito-borne viruses are spreading faster and further because of climate change. 

So far this year, 778 people in Bangladesh have died and 157,172 have been infected, according to the government’s Directorate General Health Services. The U.N. children’s agency says the actual numbers are higher because many cases are not reported. 

The previous highest number of deaths was in 2022, when 281 people are reported to have died during the entire year. 

Dengue is common in tropical areas and causes high fevers, headaches, nausea, vomiting, muscle pain and, in the most serious cases, internal bleeding that leads to death. 

Mohammed Niatuzzaman, director of the state-run Mugda Medical College and Hospital in Dhaka, said Thursday that Bangladesh is struggling to cope with the outbreak because of a lack of a “sustainable policy” and because many do not know how to treat it. 

Outside Dhaka and other big cities, medical professionals including nurses need better training in handling dengue cases, he said. 

He said authorities should include groups like city corporations and local governments in the fight against dengue, and researchers should study how to prepare for future outbreaks. 

Some residents of Dhaka are unhappy with the authorities. 

“Our house is in an area which is at risk of dengue. It has a higher quantity of waste and garbage. I’m cautious and use a mosquito net. Despite that, my daughter caught dengue,” said Zakir Hassain, a resident of Dhaka’s Basabo area.

“What will happen to those who are unaware? If the city corporation or ward commissioner took more care and sprayed insecticides, then we could have avoided the dengue outbreak,” he said. 
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The new trade corridor linking India and the Mideast to Europe is being hailed as a modern version of the Spice Route, the road of yore that connected East and West — and as a way to counter China’s modern Belt and Road Initiative. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Washington on how the U.S. and allies are promoting the rail and maritime route.
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September engagements by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in India, Vietnam and Indonesia underscored a trend in international affairs — that countries in the Global South are seeking a more multipolar world in which they can chart their own courses independent of great powers agendas.

This trend is a backdrop to the Biden administration’s view of the power and purpose of American diplomacy at what it sees as a “historic inflection point” — the end of the post-Cold War era and the early days of fierce competition to define what comes next. The result is a policy that is increasingly less ideological and more pragmatic.

Biden attended the G20 summit in New Delhi on Sept. 9-10 and continued with a historic visit to Hanoi to upgrade bilateral ties with Vietnam. On Sept. 6-7, Harris attended the U.S.-ASEAN Summit in Jakarta, Indonesia, with leaders of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations and the East Asia Summit that brings together ASEAN and its partners.

The themes outlined in these engagements are expected to re-emerge in the Biden administration’s approach in this month’s U.N. General Assembly session in New York.

Global South pushing back

In Jakarta, leaders attending the East Asia Summit saw strong pushback against the geopolitical rivalry among the U.S., China and Russia, summed up in Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s forceful call to ease tensions and avoid conflict.

Widodo’s calls were echoed by leaders of other Southeast Asian countries, from Singapore, which is closely aligned with the U.S., to Vietnam, a communist country seeking diplomatic diversity by upgrading ties with Washington amid Beijing’s increased aggression in the South China Sea.

The region saw much bloodshed during the Cold War. And states such as South Vietnam failed because they chose a side and lost, Brian Eyler, director of the Stimson Center’s Southeast Asia Program, told VOA.

In New Delhi, G20 leaders unanimously welcomed the African Union, the second regional grouping to be part of the bloc after the European Union. The AU’s inclusion bolsters the push to give the Global South a bigger voice on global platforms.

The Global South is getting stronger, and will get stronger in the coming years, said Aparna Pande, director of the Initiative on the Future of India and South Asia, at the Hudson Institute.

It remains to be seen whether the group will have hard power potential, Pande told VOA. But in a world where both the U.S. and China are willing to allow more countries to stay in the middle rather than join the other side, the Global South will have increased diplomatic leverage.

Compromise on Ukraine

The tricky dance of the great power rivalry was on display as leaders of the 20 largest economies came to a compromise on Ukraine in New Delhi, brokered by summit host India and last year’s chair, Indonesia, both of whom have good relations with Moscow and the West.

This year’s softer G20 communique language avoided direct criticism of Russia, a member of the group, only reiterating that states must refrain from “the threat or use of force to seek territorial acquisition.”

In last year’s Bali summit declaration, by contrast, “most members” condemned “aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine.”

The breakthrough was only possible because the Biden administration sees India as an important counterweight to China and did not want the summit to end without consensus. That would have been a first in the group’s history, embarrassing the Narendra Modi government.

Countering China

The absence of Chinese President Xi Jinping at the summits allowed the Biden administration to project the U.S. as a Pacific power that will counter Chinese aggression, including by bolstering alliances in the region.

Harris quietly did that by inviting Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to chat as leaders were enjoying a gala dinner in Jakarta. She then released a statement underscoring U.S. “opposition to unilateral changes to the status quo in the South China Sea and East China Sea.”

In New Delhi, Biden, Modi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced a new initiative, the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), a transnational rail and shipping route spread across two continents to bolster economic integration between Asia, the Persian Gulf countries, Israel and Europe.

The corridor is funded under the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII), the administration’s alternative to Beijing’s infrastructure investment juggernaut, the Belt and Road Initiative.

More pragmatic foreign policy

Biden campaigned to turn Saudi Arabia into the “pariah that they are” over its human rights abuses and began his administration with a foreign policy that pits “autocracies versus democracies.” But the IMEC deal with Salman, Biden’s growing partnership with an Indian leader criticized for his treatment of minorities, and his meeting with Vietnamese Communist Party Chief Nguyen Phu Trong are more proof that his foreign doctrine has evolved.

“It’s not that the United States is going to Vietnam and opposing communist parties globally,” said Zack Cooper, a senior fellow focusing on U.S. strategy in Asia at the American Enterprise Institute. “We’re dealing with the Communist Party there, where we think our interests are aligned,” he told VOA.

The approach is characterized by Secretary of State Antony Blinken as “diplomatic variable geometry.”

“We start with the problem that we need to solve, and we work back from there — assembling the group of partners that’s the right size and the right shape to address it,” Blinken said in a Wednesday speech at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington.

“We’re intentional about determining the combination that’s truly fit for purpose,” Blinken added.

Activists have questioned this approach, especially when they believe human rights are treated as an afterthought.

“The White House statement afterwards was pathetic, flagging an ongoing U.S.- Vietnam human rights ‘dialogue’ that conveniently sequesters human rights issues to a symbolic, once-a-year meeting with midlevel officials who talk but don’t get anything concrete done,” Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, Phil told VOA. 
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Pakistan is set to reopen the main Torkham border crossing with landlocked Afghanistan on Friday following a nine-day closure because of terrorism and other security concerns, according to officials in both countries.

The development came after the Taliban’s foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, promised during a meeting Thursday with Islamabad’s acting ambassador in Kabul that the group would not permit the use of Afghan soil to carry out acts of terrorism against Pakistan, a Pakistani official told VOA on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to interact with the media publicly. 

Muttaqi’s office said that in the meeting with the Pakistani envoy, Ubaid Nizamani, they discussed the border closure and problems facing Afghan refugees and traders in Pakistan. The statement said both sides emphasized the need for addressing these issues, but it gave no other details.  

Late Thursday, the Taliban state news agency quoted a senior border official, Esmatullah Yaqoob, as announcing to Afghan travelers, including patients seeking medical treatment in Pakistani hospitals, that the Torkham gate “will open for passengers and transit on Friday morning.” 

A Pakistani border security official confirmed that all immigration and security personnel have been instructed to return to duties early Friday to facilitate pedestrian and vehicular traffic through the Torkham gate.  

Pakistan temporarily closed the busy transit point for trade and travelers on September 6 after security forces from the two countries exchanged fire. The clashes killed two Afghans, including a Taliban guard. The incident occurred shortly after militants had staged a deadly cross-border assault on Pakistani outposts elsewhere along the 2,600-kilometer frontier separating the two countries.  

The Torkham closure has stranded hundreds of trucks carrying commercial goods, mostly fresh Afghan fruits and vegetables, and thousands of travelers on both sides of the border. 

Earlier Thursday, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson indicated at a weekly news conference that Islamabad could soon open the Torkham crossing. 

“I must underline that the closure of the border is temporary. And we will make the decision regarding its opening in view of the developments that take place in the coming hours and days,” Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said without elaborating. 

Islamabad defended its decision to shut the Torkham transit point, saying Taliban authorities were trying to build “unlawful structures” on its territory and opened fire when challenged by Pakistani security forces.  

Pakistani officials said the attack on the same day against two outposts in the northern Chitral border district was carried out by hundreds of heavily armed militants from bases on the Afghan side. The Pakistani military said four soldiers and 12 assailants died in the raid. 

“Pakistan is concerned about the security threat emanating from Afghanistan … and that is why it is important for the Afghan interim authorities to ensure that Afghan territory is not used to threaten Pakistan,” Baloch said Thursday. 

The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, claimed responsibility for the Chitral attack. The banned militant group has for years been plotting bombings and other terrorist attacks in Pakistan.  

Islamabad says TTP leaders and fighters have increased cross-border raids from Afghan soil since the Taliban seized power in Kabul two years ago. Taliban authorities reject the charges.  

Pakistani security sources asserted that scores of Afghan Taliban fighters had joined TTP in the Chitral raid, saying Islamabad shared the evidence with Kabul to substantiate its claims.  

TTP, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, is listed as a global terrorist organization by the United States. It is an offshoot and close ally of the Afghan Taliban.  

Tom West, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan, said Tuesday that TTP “is posing the greatest threat” to regional stability. “We see a very significant increase in [TTP] attacks directed at Pakistan,” he told a seminar in Washington.

West said the militant group had helped the Taliban mount insurgent attacks against American and NATO troops, which left the country in August 2021 after nearly 20 years of involvement in the Afghan war.  

“They became allies of the Taliban during the war. They were financial supporters, logistical supporters and operational allies, as well. I think the ties between them are quite tight,” the U.S. envoy noted.  

The United Nations estimated in its latest assessment that at least 4,000 TTP operatives are based in Afghanistan.
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The Taliban government has been pressing for the extraction of copper from Afghanistan’s Mes Aynak mine as an additional revenue source, but the mine is located at an ancient historical site, which worries some archaeologists.

The mine is more than 40 kilometers southeast of Kabul in the Logar province. The area is considered one of the largest untapped copper mines in the world, with deposits worth at least $50 billion. 

The Mes Aynak mine is at the site of an ancient Buddhist city of the same name along the Silk Road. Structures and artifacts uncovered at the site lead archeologists to believe that 2,000 years ago, the residents mined copper, with evidence of ancient smelting workshops.

But the Taliban are eager for the mine to start operating to offset international sanctions, observers say. The Taliban are “in need of money,” Azarakhsh Hafizi, an economist and former head of the international relations committee at Afghanistan’s Chamber of Commerce and Industries, told VOA.

Afghanistan has been dependent on international aid since the 1920s when development and modernization started in the country, Hafizi said, but now that international funding is cut off, the Taliban are looking for new revenue sources.

“Afghanistan’s export was worth $2 billion in the past year, which mainly came from the minerals,” Hafizi said. 

The artifacts hurdle

During a recent visit to Afghanistan by an official from the Metallurgical Corporation of China, the Taliban minister for mines and petroleum, Shahabuddin Delawar, described the project as “important and vital,” and said the extraction of the mine’s copper is “one of the top priorities” for the Taliban. 

The Taliban are “committed to beginning the work on the project as soon as possible so jobs can be created for the people,” the Pajhwok News Agency, an independent news outlet, reported Delawar saying last month.

The MCC official told the Taliban the “presence and relocation” of the historical objects at the site is the main hurdle in the exploitation of the mine, according to Pajhwok and a post by the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum of the Taliban on X, the platform formerly called Twitter. 

The Taliban said they formed a committee to work on the relocation of the artifacts. However, concerns remain about the preservation of the historical site. 

“It is impossible,” said Noor Agha Noori, the former director of Afghanistan’s Institute of Archaeology, adding that “It is an ancient city; how can the city be moved and relocated? … It has its own structures, walls, graveyard and water system.” 

Noori told VOA that the objects discovered in the site belong to the Buddhist era from the 1st to 7th century, but “there are signs that show some of the artifacts can go back 1500 BC.”

“Archaeologists would need decades to discover all the artifacts,” he added. 

Noori and other archeologists are concerned about the proper protection of the artifacts because when the Taliban were in power in 2001, they blew up two giant Buddha statues in the central Bamiyan province and destroyed many statues and artifacts in the Kabul Museum. 

Noori said 15 years ago when the contract to extract the mine was signed, only a preliminary survey was conducted, and “it was not clear that there would be many historical artifacts or an ancient city.” 

In 2007, the former Afghan government signed a $3 billion contract with a Chinese consortium, consisting of MCC and the Jiangxi Copper Corporation, to extract the Mes Aynak copper.

In addition to paying royalties to the Afghan government, the contract stipulated that the Chinese consortium needed infrastructure, including a railway and a power plant. 

But the work never started because of security issues in the province and the discovery of the artifacts.

Mes Aynak recommendations

Noori said that based on a survey by national and international archaeologists conducted over years, some recommendations were made to the former government to bring changes to the contract to preserve the site while paving the way for the extraction of the copper. 

“We recommended that the central part of the mine should be extracted via underground mining to preserve the ancient city. In the western part, there were not that many artifacts so it can be extracted from an open pit,” Noori said.

He added that in the case of open-pit extraction, “about 50% of the artifacts could get destroyed.”

The Chinese company prefers open-pit extraction of the mine, said Ainuddin Sadaqat, the Afghanistan National Museum’s chief curator.

He told VOA the recommendations to do underground extraction were shared with the Chinese officials in a meeting last year, but the company’s delegation said that “it was costly.”

Sadaqat said government agencies and some NGOs that are working to protect the historical site are preparing for the relocation of the artifacts.

“The preliminary work is underway, but it is still not clear when the relocation of the historical artifacts would take place,” he added.

Sadaqat said while many of the smaller artifacts, such as jewelry and dishes, have already been transported to the National Museum, the larger objects are going to be moved to a local museum in the area.

Taliban response

In the past two years, the Taliban government has taken steps to protect the historical sites, Mohammad Hasib Nasimi, Director of Preservation and Restoration of Historical Monuments in the Ministry of Information and Culture of Afghanistan, told VOA.

“There are positive changes. We have been working on the restoration and protection of the historical sites,” Nasimi added.

Haroon Hakimi from VOA’s Afghan Service contributed to this report, which originated in VOA’s Afghan Service. 
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Members of Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya community living as refugees in Bangladesh are again voicing opposition to efforts to repatriate many of them. They say that the Myanmar government has not met their demands over citizenship rights and that it is not safe for them to go back to Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

Those concerns come amid a plan for their repatriation to Myanmar in the coming weeks.

Following recent meetings in Naypyitaw with visiting delegates from Bangladesh’s foreign ministry, Ko Ko Hlaing, Myanmar’s minister for international cooperation, told state-owned media that 7,000 Rohingya from Bangladesh would be sent to Myanmar by December.

Twenty villages would be set up soon with plots for 1,000 houses to resettle more members of the community, the Myanmar minister said.

Members of the Bangladeshi delegation later told Bangladeshi local media the process of repatriation would start with 3,000 Rohingya in a first phase.

At the Myanmar talks, Bangladeshi officials said many Rohingya had refused to return home in the past because they had not been assured of restoration of their citizenship rights. In 1982, military authorities in Myanmar introduced a controversial law stripping the Rohingya of citizenship.

Mohammad Foyes, a 38-year-old Rohingya living in a camp in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, said that since 2018, the refugee community has conditioned their return to Myanmar on the restoration of those rights and other guarantees.

“But from the Burmese authorities, there is no assurance yet that we will get back our citizenship rights after we return. In such a situation, we do not feel safe to go back to Myanmar,” Foyes told VOA.

Third attempt at repatriation

Fleeing persecution and violence in Myanmar, the Rohingya have for decades crossed over to Bangladesh, where more than 1.2 million of them live in congested shanty colonies.

After a brutal military crackdown in Rakhine state forced 750,000 members of the minority Muslim community to flee to Bangladesh in 2017, international pressure mounted on Myanmar to agree to take back the Rohingya.

Efforts to repatriate the refugees failed in 2018 and 2019 when the Rohingya said that the Myanmar authorities had not accepted the demand for citizenship rights. The latest effort to send the Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar stems from a China-backed initiative.

However, Nurul Kabir, a Rohingya refugee teacher in Cox’s Bazar, said he and his neighbors in Bangladesh are not ready to go home because certain conditions have not been met.

“The Myanmar government has not agreed to our demands regarding citizenship rights, issuing national ID cards, returning confiscated properties, restoring the right to livelihood, allowing free movement and ensuring our security,” Kabir told VOA.

“Unless Myanmar heeds our demands and convinces the global community and the U.N. of its commitment, no Rohingya will agree to return to Myanmar,” he said.

Htway Lwin, a Cox’s Bazar-based Rohingya community leader and human rights defender, said Myanmar authorities still count the Rohingya as “illegal immigrants.”

“In the past, the Myanmar authorities wanted the Rohingya to accept the NVCs or the National Verification Cards,” Lwin said. “All Rohingya rejected the NVC because it officially labeled us as illegal immigrants.”

‘No sign of restoration of citizenship’

“Before the repatriation, it is crucial that the junta assures us of the restoration of our citizenship rights, freedom of movement, religious freedom, education and, in essence, equal rights every other community enjoys in Myanmar,” Lwin told VOA.

Mohammad Mizanur Rahman, Bangladesh’s refugee relief and repatriation commissioner, said the Bangladeshi government cannot be blamed for the delay in the repatriation.

“In 2018, we handed over a list of over 800,000 Rohingya refugees to the Myanmar authorities for the purpose of repatriation,” Rahman told VOA. “So far, they have verified only 100,000 of them and have agreed to accept around 20,000 of them without any hitch. The process of verification is very slow and even more complicated.

“The main demand of the Rohingya is to return to their own homes in Myanmar,” Rahman said. “But the Myanmar authorities seem to oscillate between granting them this demand and refusing it. Sometimes they say one thing, sometimes the other.”

Bangladesh is trying its best for a swift, successful and sustainable repatriation, Rahman said.

Phil Robertson, Asia division deputy director of Human Rights Watch, noted that “without offers of real human rights protection, full citizenship in Myanmar and the right to freedom of movement and livelihoods,” the Rohingya refugees in the Bangladesh camps won’t budge.

“The SAC [State Administration Council] military junta is fooling itself, and more cynically, trying to deceive the international community, by claiming that this offer of 20 more de facto internment camps for returning refugees changes anything at all in the repatriation dynamic,” Robertson told VOA. “The bottom line is the Rohingya are not prepared to go, and nothing the Bangladesh and Myanmar governments try to do short of real rights reforms will persuade them otherwise.

“It’s time for the international community to demand Myanmar get serious about offering full rights and return to their homes for the Rohingya refugees and stop playing games with these people’s lives,” he said.
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China has sent a new ambassador to Afghanistan, marking the first time a foreign envoy has been appointed at the ambassadorial level since the Taliban regained power in Kabul two years ago.

On Wednesday, the Taliban-led foreign ministry said that Prime Minister Mohammad Hassan Akhund had accepted Ambassador Zhao Xing’s credentials at a ceremony in the Afghan capital.

Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi joined Akhund in welcoming the Chinese envoy at the presidential place.

Beijing did not immediately signal if Zhao’s appointment could lead to formal recognition of the Taliban government.

“This is the normal rotation of China’s ambassador to Afghanistan and is intended to continue advancing dialogue and cooperation between China and Afghanistan,” the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement. “China’s policy towards Afghanistan is clear and consistent.”

No government has formally recognized the Taliban since they seized power from a U.S.-backed government in August 2021 when all American-led NATO troops withdrew after nearly 20 years of involvement in the Afghan war.

The international community has been calling on the fundamentalist Afghan authorities to ease restrictions on women’s access to education and work before accepting them as the country’s legitimate government.

Muttaqi’s office quoted him as telling the Chinese ambassador that his appointment is a “significant step, carrying a significant message.”

Zhao’s predecessor, Wang Yu, assumed the role in 2019 and completed his term last month.

“China respects Afghanistan’s national sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity and will never interfere in Afghanistan’s internal affairs,” the Taliban statement quoted Zhao as telling Muttaqi. It said the Chinese envoy praised the “significant economic progress and improved security” Afghanistan has made in the last two years.

About two dozen countries currently have their embassies in Kabul, run by their senior diplomats using the title “charge d’affaires,” which does not require presenting ambassadorial credentials to the host government.

India, Iran, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan are among the countries that have kept or reopened their diplomatic missions in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover.

According to diplomatic sources in Kabul, several ambassadors appointed during the now-defunct Afghan government have stayed in Kabul, and some of them are close to finishing their terms.

Analysts say China’s security concerns are driving its increased diplomatic engagement with the Taliban to prevent the conflict-torn country from sliding into chaos again, which could encourage anti-China militants to use Afghan soil as a launching pad for attacks against Chinese interests.

Beijing has taken steps to help the Taliban stabilize the Afghan economy and deal with a dire humanitarian crisis. Western nations suspended all financial aid and imposed economic sanctions on the new Kabul rulers after departing the country. Chinese investors have signed significant agreements with Kabul in the Afghan mining and oil sectors.

Skeptics question the viability of these contracts, citing international banking and financial sanctions.

“We don’t see Afghanistan as an area for geopolitical competition,” Tom West, the U.S. special representative for the country, told a Tuesday seminar in Washington when asked how the United States would look at a potential increase in Chinese investment in the South Asian nation.

“I have no objection to a greater Chinese intervention, and I also don’t forecast that one will be forthcoming,” West said.

Critics say China is not an advocate of the Taliban’s religious government because it could cause radicalism to flourish in the region.

“China is interested in Afghanistan’s security and the potential development of terror groups in its immediate neighborhood,” said Torek Farhadi, a senior regional analyst and former Afghan official. “This is why next to the new ambassador, the Chinese military attaché is seated,” he said, referring to the photo the Taliban official released after the meeting with Zhao.

“China is making very modest investments in Afghanistan, just to keep open access with the Taliban, but it is not willing to accept a Taliban ambassador-level representative in Beijing. For that, the Chinese have already asked the Taliban to modernize their government,” Farhadi said.

Some information for this report came from Reuters.
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A special court in Pakistan extended former prime minister Imran Khan’s jail custody for two weeks Wednesday in connection with a lawsuit accusing him of leaking a classified diplomatic communication with the United States to the public. 

Khan, who rejects any wrongdoing, is being tried behind closed doors inside the high-security Attock prison, west of Islamabad, where he has been imprisoned since August 5 after being convicted on corruption charges and sentenced to three years.

The current trial centers around a cipher, or a diplomatic cable, from Washington which Khan says proves that the U.S. had colluded with Pakistan’s powerful military to oust him from office last year through a parliamentary no-confidence motion.

The 70-year-old former leader faces charges he breached the country’s Official Secrets Act for political gains by making the cipher content public. Khan and his opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party have consistently declared that “the cipher is a reality.” They say its contents were declassified by his cabinet last year and the U.S. ambassador was summoned to receive a formal protest over the alleged meddling in the country’s politics.

While the U.S. has denied meddling, the State Department spokesman, when asked for his reaction to the cipher-related case against Khan last week, said, “We are continuing to monitor this case and monitor the situation closely.”

Last month, an American news outlet, The Intercept, published for the first time what it said was the cipher’s text. The purported diplomatic communication from Islamabad’s then-ambassador to Washington quoted a U.S. official as encouraging him to tell his military leadership that if Khan were not removed from office via a vote of no-confidence over his neutrality on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Pakistan would face economic and political isolation. 

The State Department, while commenting on the reported cipher content, said on August 9 that Washington had objected to Khan’s visit to Russia but it played no role in his removal from power.

“So without stipulating whether it’s an accurate comment or not, if you take all of the comments in context that were reported in that – in that purported cable, I think what they show is the United States government expressing concern about the policy choices that the prime minister was taking,” said spokesman Mathew Miller. “It is not in any way the United States government expressing a preference on who the leadership of Pakistan ought to be,” he added.

Khan’s attorneys have denounced the Pakistani government for conducting the court hearing inside the jail in violation of his constitutional right to a fair trial, claiming it proves his assertions that the U.S. plotted his removal and that Pakistani authorities want to keep the truth from the public by not holding an open trial.

According to public polls, the jailed cricket star-turned-politician remains the most popular political figure in the country, and his PTI party is rated as the largest political force in Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Khan’s party has harshly criticized the U.S. ambassador to Islamabad, Donald Blome, for his recent meetings with senior Pakistani officials, including the controversial chief election commissioner, Sikander Sultan Raja, saying they contradict Washington’s stated assertions that it does not take sides in Pakistani politics. 

A U.S. Embassy readout after the August 24 meeting of the ambassador with Raja said that Blome reaffirmed Washington’s support for “free and fair elections” conducted under the country’s law and constitution. “The ambassador reiterated that choosing Pakistan’s future leaders is for the Pakistani people to decide,” the statement noted.  

Raoof Hasan, the information secretary of Khan’s party, objected to the U.S. ambassador’s engagements, citing a recent Supreme Court judgment that held Raja and other officials “guilty of contempt of constitution by refusing to hold elections” in the country within the stipulated time. He described Blome as the new “viceroy,” a reference to the British colonial rulers of the region. 

“Consequently, the American viceroy in Pakistan calling on a person who has violated the constitution, I think, is a travesty of the principles they follow in their own country. I think they should be sensitive to the public sentiment here,” Hasan told VOA.

He also criticized Blome for meeting with the police chief of central Punjab province, accusing the officer of unleashing a crackdown on PTI workers and detaining hundreds of them, including women.

State Department spokesman Millar was asked on Monday to explain what the U.S. diplomat has to do with meeting the Pakistani chief election commissioner. 

“I will refer you to the embassy for specific comment on that meeting, which I’m sure they would be happy to provide. … I will reiterate that the United States does not take any position with respect to the outcome of an election in Pakistan. We do not support any one political party or any candidate in Pakistan. But we, of course, urge free and fair elections in Pakistan, as we do throughout the world.”

On Wednesday, British High Commissioner Jane Marriot also visited the election commissioner in his office in Islamabad, infuriating the opposition PTI.
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Kashmiri soldiers in the Indian army face risks on the job and also when they travel home to India-controlled Kashmir. There, they face an ongoing insurgency and attacks by anti-India militants. For VOA, Muheet Ul Islam reports from Srinagar in Indian-administered Kashmir
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In Indian cities, most electric vehicles seen on the roads are not cars, but three- and two-wheel vehicles that deliver goods and ferry passengers in cities. Anjana Pasricha reports on how the exponential growth in these electric vehicles in New Delhi and surrounding towns could contribute to cleaning up the air in one of the world’s most polluted cities. Video: Darshan Singh
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The Taliban’s quest for normalization of relations with the international community, which includes relief from terrorism sanctions and the release of Afghan financial assets, faces significant obstacles due to the regime’s oppressive policies toward women, ongoing security threats, and the group’s failure to form an inclusive government, according to a top U.S. official.

Despite the Taliban holding sway over all of Afghanistan for more than two years, no country has officially recognized their self-proclaimed Islamic Emirate.

Thomas West, U.S. special representative for Afghanistan, underscored the reasons behind the diplomatic standoff during a Tuesday event at the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington.

“Steps toward normalization, I think, are not going to be possible. And I think there will remain remarkable unity among the international community until and unless we see a significant change in their [Taliban] treatment of the population,” West said.

West said the United States was not leading the global consensus for nonrecognition but has a set of conditions that are unfulfilled by the Taliban.

“First, the Taliban need to fundamentally fulfill their security obligations,” West said, adding that while al-Qaida had been reduced to a “historic nadir” since it moved to Afghanistan from Sudan in 1996, concerns persist about other terror groups still operating in the landlocked country.

West also highlighted the necessity for the Taliban to establish a more inclusive political system and guarantee women’s rights to education and work as two additional conditions for normal relations with the international community.

The Taliban have defied widespread calls for a reversal of their bans on women, while maintaining that their interim government is inclusive enough.

Change from within

Thus far, Washington has rebuffed calls from some Afghan groups that seek assistance in toppling the Taliban regime.

West said meaningful reforms and changes in the war-ravaged nation should originate from within Afghanistan rather than being imposed through external pressure.

“If a change has to occur on allowing women to return to secondary schools, girls’ secondary schools, and then to university, it’s going to come from inside the country. It is not going to come because I asked for it. … It will be an internal matter,” he said.

However, human rights organizations continue to advocate for increased international pressure on the Taliban, including classifying Taliban-run Afghanistan as a gender-apartheid regime and prosecuting Taliban leaders for crimes against humanity.

West acknowledged the active role played by several majority Muslim countries, such as Qatar and Indonesia, as well as the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC), in engaging the Taliban on women’s rights issues.

Last month, an OIC delegation of Islamic scholars from some Muslim-majority countries visited Afghanistan to try to persuade Taliban officials to lift the ban on women’s secondary education and work.

The group, however, has shown no signs of relenting.

While the Taliban leadership has remained unbending in the face of domestic and international appeals for women’s rights and political inclusivity, they appear to have acknowledged to some extent the counterterrorism demands put forth by the United States.

“The Taliban understand that they need to fulfill their security commitments in order to protect their own sovereignty. So, they don’t want the United States to take action on Afghan soil,” said West.
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Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia are known for their Shariah-based legal systems and authoritarian ways of governance. But the two Islamist governments are on divergent paths regarding women’s work and education.

In the Saudi kingdom, where until a few years ago women were deprived of many social rights and freedoms, the women’s employment rate has surged to 37%, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.

In the high-tech industry, Saudi women’s participation has gone up so much that recently U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Michael Ratney humorously suggested that U.S. tech hub Silicon Valley could take inspiration from Saudi Arabia’s efforts to foster female entrepreneurship.

“In the tech sector in Saudi Arabia, a third of the workforce is women — which as I understand it is higher than Silicon Valley,” Ratney said at an event in July.

The progress extends beyond the tech industry, with women securing positions in government and private companies and leading startups at unprecedented rates. Furthermore, literacy among young Saudi women 15 to 24 years of age has reached 99%, marking a significant milestone. In May, astronaut Rayyanah Barnawi became the first Arab woman in history to travel into space.

The kingdom also has appointed five female ambassadors, including Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, who represents Saudi Arabia in the United States.

“Today in the kingdom, we have more women receiving advanced degrees than men,” Al Saud said at an event in July jointly organized by the nonpartisan Atlantic Council and Georgetown University in Washington.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has been criticized in the past for his human rights violations, is credited with spearheading a reformist and developmental agenda that includes greater rights and opportunities for women.

Widely referred to as an authoritarian monarchy, Saudi Arabia still has no female ministers in the government or a woman in the royal court where the Saudi royal family decides nearly all of the kingdom’s affairs.

But even there, change is expected.

“There are several women in leadership positions already, and I only expect it to increase with time,” Sussan Saikali, a research associate at Arab Gulf States Institute, told VOA.

“The Saudi government has removed several laws that were previously restricting women’s ability to work in certain sectors, while also passing several anti-discrimination and anti-harassment laws,” she said.

Taliban’s shariah

Afghanistan, meanwhile, has witnessed a regression in women’s access to fundamental human rights and freedoms under the Taliban regime, including setbacks in education and employment, purportedly based on Islamic and cultural justifications.

Habiba Sarabi, Afghanistan’s former minister of women’s affairs, believes the Taliban’s extremist ideology stems from decades of internationalization of Islamic extremism sponsored by oil-rich Gulf monarchies, chiefly the Saudis.

“For too long, the Gulf countries invested heavily in Islamic extremism, but now they have realized their mistakes and have started pursuing a different civilizational path,” Sarabi told VOA.

Many Islamic organizations, countries and experts have objected to the Taliban’s misogynistic policies, calling them inconsistent with Islamic principles and values.

The Taliban, like Saudi Arabia, operate under an unelected supreme leader who wields unchecked power, accountable only to a divine authority.

“The man [Taliban supreme leader] in Kandahar thinks he is the representative of God and he is not bound by human laws,” Sarabi said.

Taliban officials say they have restored women’s Islamic rights to decency and seclusion, a statement met with skepticism by many Islamic scholars.

“We should not heed those people [countries] that chant for women’s education but do not allow education for women wearing the hijab,” Sheikh Mohammad Khalid, the Taliban’s minister for the promotion of Islamic virtues and the prevention of vice, told a gathering of male tribal elders on Tuesday.

Saudi influence

Riyadh has not recognized the Taliban as Afghanistan’s legitimate government but has maintained contact with Taliban officials, most of whom travel to Saudi Arabia annually for the Islamic pilgrimage, Hajj.

During Hajj in June, Taliban Defense Minister Yaqub Mujahid was seen greeting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is credited for backing women’s rights in his country. But it is not clear if he advised Yaqub about women’s rights in Islam. Yaqub is the son of the late Mullah Omar, one of the Taliban’s founding leaders, who is still widely revered among Taliban leaders.

“I don’t necessarily think we can predict one country’s actions by the other. Countries like Afghanistan have a wholly different system than Saudi Arabia, despite sharing a religion,” Saikali said.

Sarabi, the former Afghan minister, said the Saudis and other Gulf monarchies like Qatar have extensive religious, economic and political influence over the Taliban that could sway the group into softening its harsh policies on women.

U.S. officials, recognizing the Taliban’s defiance of Western countries, have urged Saudi Arabia and other Muslim-majority nations to advocate for women’s rights within Afghanistan.

Rina Amiri, U.S. special envoy for Afghan women, girls and human rights — a role not seen in other countries dealing with the Taliban — has urged Muslim states to prevent a normalization of the Taliban’s misogyny.

After meeting officials from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in July, Amiri wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, about the “dangerous precedent” set by the extreme repression of Afghan women and girls.

In February, the Saudis closed their embassy in Kabul, reportedly over security concerns. The kingdom has donated $1.6 million to the $3.2 billion the United Nations has sought for a humanitarian response in Afghanistan this year.

During her July speech in Washington, Reema said it was essential for the world to invest in women’s empowerment to build more inclusive and equitable societies. She particularly emphasized the importance of education for women.

“Education and training help level the playing field. It gives women equal footing in the workplace and fosters not only gender equality but equity,” she said.

Missing from her remarks was Afghanistan.
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More than two decades after al-Qaida operatives slammed passenger jets into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, America’s war on terror has left the terror group practically impotent, unable to strike the U.S. homeland, according to the latest U.S. intelligence assessment.

“Al-Qaida is at its historical nadir in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and its revival is unlikely,” National Counterterrorism Center Director Christy Abizaid said in a statement marking the 22nd anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people.

“It has lost target access, leadership talent, group cohesion, rank-and-file commitment, and an accommodating local environment,” Abizaid added, calling the degradation of al-Qaida’s core an “example of what the United States and its allies and partners have achieved in the years since those terrible attacks.”

The assessment also aligns with previous statements by other top-ranking U.S. officials.

In March, the Department of Homeland Security’s counterterrorism coordinator said another September 11th-style attack on the U.S. would be “almost inconceivable.”

And this past June, a senior administration official told VOA that even the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 has failed to rejuvenate the terror group.

Al-Qaida “simply has not reconstituted a presence in Afghanistan,” the official told VOA, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the latest U.S. intelligence.

Only not everyone is as optimistic as the U.S. about the downfall of al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

A June report by the United Nations, based on member state intelligence, warned that Afghanistan has again become a haven for al-Qaida, which has expanded its footprint from just several dozen members to as many as 60 senior officials, in addition to some 400 fighters.

The U.N. report further warned that al-Qaida has established training camps in at least five provinces and safe houses in another four.

U.S. officials who spoke to VOA at the time described the U.N. assessment as “out of whack” and insisted that the military and intelligence agencies have the right capabilities in place to see any potential al-Qaida revival.

Since then, other senior U.S. officials have similarly rejected the idea that al-Qaida, even under the Taliban, has been able to reestablish a foothold.

“Remember what I said about Afghanistan? I said al-Qaida would not be there. I said it wouldn’t be there. I said we’d get help from the Taliban,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in response to a question on Afghanistan in July.

“What’s happening now? What’s going on?” Biden said at the time. “Read your press. I was right.”

Some analysts, though, are skeptical of sounding the death knell for al-Qaida in Afghanistan, even if the terror group may not be currently capable of launching the type of spectacular attacks that first gained it notoriety.

“Even if the threat from al-Qaida now is not as obvious, or not as salient as it once was a decade and a half ago, it hasn’t gone away completely,” said Bruce Hoffman, a senior fellow for counterterrorism and homeland security at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“Al-Qaida sees its struggle as divinely ordained, as commanded by their deity and therefore, it’s not for mere mortal men to lay down their arms and stop fighting,” Hoffman told VOA. “They now have the opportunity in Afghanistan with the Taliban in power to regroup and rebuild.”

Retired U.S. General David Petraeus, who served as the commander of U.S. forces in South Asia and then as director of the CIA, likewise told VOA that al-Qaida should not be underestimated.

“They don’t have a kind of international reach yet, similar to what al-Qaida eventually developed, of course, when they carried out the 9/11 attacks,” Petraeus said.

“That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t keep a very close eye on them,” he said, adding, “I’m very confident that we are tracking to the extent that we can.”

Yet even top U.S. military officials concede the ability to track al-Qaida in Afghanistan, along with its rival, the Islamic State Khorasan Province, is not what it once was.

“Our intelligence is degraded,” the commander of U.S. Central Command, General Michael “Erik” Kurilla, told lawmakers in March on the impact of the U.S. withdrawal on counterterrorism efforts.

“I believe we can see the broad contours of an attack [plot],” he said. “Sometimes, we lack the granularity to see the full picture.”

In her statement marking the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, the National Counterterrorism Center’s Abizaid cautioned that despite the progress against al-Qaida and other groups, “The threat of terrorism is not gone.”

“Every week, threat-related intelligence lands on my desk,” Abizaid said. “In the face of a persistent terrorism challenge, the United States Government must sustain a nimble, action-oriented counterterrorism posture, even as other priorities take center stage.”

VOA’s Afghan Service contributed to this report.
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Pakistan on Monday defended its decision to close the main border crossing with landlocked Afghanistan, saying Taliban authorities were trying to build “unlawful structures” on its territory and “resorted to indiscriminate firing” when challenged.

Traffic through the busy historic Torkham transit point for trade and travelers was suspended last Wednesday after border security forces exchanged fire, killing a Taliban guard and a civilian on the Afghan side.

“Pakistan cannot accept the construction of any structures by [the Afghan government] inside its territory since these violate its sovereignty,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said Monday.

She responded to a Taliban Foreign Ministry statement accusing Pakistani forces of opening fire on Afghan forces while they were doing “repair work on an old security post constructed several years ago.”

Sunday’s Taliban statement warned that the border closure could “adversely affect” relations between the two countries.

“On 6th September, instead of a peaceful resolution, Afghan troops resorted to indiscriminate firing, targeting Pakistan military posts, damaging the infrastructure at the Torkham Border Terminal, and putting the lives of both Pakistani and Afghan civilians at risk when they were stopped from erecting such unlawful structures,” said Baloch in a statement.

“Such unprovoked and indiscriminate firing on Pakistani border posts cannot be justified under any circumstances,” she said.

The Torkham standoff has stranded hundreds of trucks transporting commercial goods, mostly Afghan fruits and vegetables, and thousands of travelers on both sides.

The nearly 2,600-kilometer has long been a source of bilateral tensions because Afghanistan disputes the century-old British colonial-era demarcation. Islamabad rejects Kabul’s objections, saying Pakistan inherited the international border after gaining independence from Britain in 1947.

Rising cross-border terror

Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Baloch suggested Monday that the Torkham gate closure also resulted from the rising cross-border attacks against her country by anti-Pakistan militants sheltering in Afghanistan.

She referred to leaders and fighters of the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, operating out of Afghan soil.

TTP is listed as a global terrorist organization by the United States and the United Nations. It is a known offshoot and close ally of the Afghan Taliban.

“These elements are enjoying sanctuaries inside Afghanistan, as confirmed by the U.N. Security Council’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team in its latest report,” she said.

“We expect the Afghan interim authorities to be mindful of Pakistan’s concerns, respect the territorial integrity of Pakistan, and ensure that the Afghan territory is not used as a launching pad for terrorist attacks against Pakistan,” said Baloch.

The U.N. report in question found that TTP has been “gaining momentum in its operations against Pakistan and aspires to regain control of territory within the country.” It noted that at least 4,000 TTP operatives are active on Afghan soil and warned the group could become a regional threat if it continues to have safe operating base in Afghanistan.

The Afghan Taliban deny they allow the use of Afghan soil to threaten Pakistan or other countries, calling TTP-led violence an internal matter for the neighboring country.

Pakistani officials and residents said Afghan Taliban fighters also joined TTP in launching last week’s massive assault against two security outposts close to the Afghan border in the northern Chitral district.

Islamabad claims it has also shared evidence and bodies of several Afghan assailants killed in retaliatory counterterrorism actions by the Pakistani security forces.
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A new ports and railway corridor for the Middle East and South Asia will include train links to India, an Indian foreign ministry official said on Monday, offering new details about the plan unveiled over the weekend at the G20 summit in Delhi.  

Asked about the proposals, Ausaf Sayeed, a secretary in the Foreign Ministry, spelled out that the corridor would include trains to India and not just links by port.  

“India would be connected by railroads is the right interpretation, rather than India building the railroads,” he said in response to a question at a media briefing.  

The multinational rail and ports deal, which includes as members the United States, Saudi Arabia, India, the European Union and the United Arab Emirates, is being viewed as a response to China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative.  

The corridor would be “the equivalent of the Silk Route and Spice Road,” Saudi Investment Minister Khalid Al Falih said at an event in New Delhi later in the day, adding that it will provide “greater energy connectivity, green materials and processed and finished goods that will rebalance the global trade.”  

During Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s state visit to New Delhi on Monday, India and Saudi Arabia also discussed the possibility of trading in local currencies and expediting the negotiations for a free trade agreement between India and the Gulf Cooperation Council, of which Saudi Arabia is a member.  

Sayeed said the two countries signed eight agreements on Monday, including a pact to upgrade their hydrocarbon energy partnership to a comprehensive energy partnership for renewables, petroleum and strategic reserves.  

Saudi Arabia is among the top exporters of petroleum to India.  

They also agreed to create a joint task force for $100 billion in Saudi investment, half of which is earmarked for a delayed refinery project along India’s western coast, Sayeed said.  

Sayeed said that new corridor will include ports, railways, better roads and also power, gas grids and optical fiber network.  

During their talks earlier in the day the Indian leader and the Saudi crown prince also discussed cooperation in space, semiconductors and collaboration in defense manufacturing as well.
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French President Emmanuel Macron witnessed the signature of a deal Monday to facilitate loans to Bangladesh aimed at infrastructure development, as well as a letter of intent to provide the South Asian country with an earth observation satellite system.

This came during Macron’s two-day visit to Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, where he met with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, to bolster bilateral relations between the two countries.

Bangladesh’s Economic Relations Division signed the agreement with the French Development Agency.

A letter of intent was also signed to provide Bangladesh with an earth observation satellite system through cooperation between Bangladesh Satellite Company Limited, or BSCL, and Airbus Defense and Space SAS, France.

Macron and Hasina witnessed the deals signed at the prime minister’s office.

Details remained unclear, with Bangladesh authorities saying they are still ironing out the details.

“The satellite that we will buy will travel through the orbit around 350 miles above the earth. This will be used mainly to observe the status of our crops and the sea. Currently, we don’t have any monitoring capabilities across the vast sea,” state-run Bangladesh Satellite Company Ltd. Chairman Shahjahan Mahmud was quoted as saying by Bangladesh’s leading English newspaper The Daily Star.

Bangladesh bought its first geostationary communications and broadcasting satellite, named Bangabandhu Satellite-1 and launched in 2018, from France where it was manufactured by Thales Alenia Space.

Bangladeshi media positively reported his visit, with many seeing it as a step to bring in investments from France in sectors where the United States, China and India are heavily engaged. Some even said the visit may have a political and strategic significance ahead of Bangladesh’s next general election expected in early January.

France is Bangladesh’s fifth-largest trading partner in the fields of engineering, energy, aerospace and water sectors.

“We both hope that this new strategic move between Bangladesh and France will play an effective role in establishing regional and global stability and peace,” Hasina said.

Hasina said both the leaders agreed to continue to work to ensure stability in the Asia-Pacific region as well as on projects involving impacts of climate change as Bangladesh is considered to be one of the worst victims of change of weather.

She said that France has reiterated its commitment to facilitate trade with the South Asian nation under the European Union’s Generalized Scheme of Preferences Plus, or GSP+, scheme, which gives developing countries incentives to pursue sustainable development and good governance.

Experts say once Bangladesh joins the GSP+ scheme, it may lose some benefits it enjoys under the World Trade Organization’s protocol as a least developed country as it may be fully upgraded into a developing nation status.

Bangladesh has long been buying aircraft from the American company Boeing, but recently the government has signed an agreement with Airbus in which France has a major stake.

Hasina has been under pressure lately with her seeking a fourth consecutive term as prime minister.

Bangladesh’s main opposition party, led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, has threatened to boycott the election if Hasina does not resign and hand over power to a caretaker government to oversee the next election. Zia’s party accused her of vote rigging in 2018.

The U.S. has been pushing for a credible election and raised questions about human rights under Hasina’s rule, threatening to impose visa sanctions if the next election isn’t free and fair.

Russia and China have pledged continued support to Hasina while neighboring India has maintained a cordial relationship with her.

Apart from investment and other partnerships with France, Marcon’s visit is seen as a boost for Hasina in the run-up to the election.
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Authorities in northwestern Pakistan said Monday that a bomb explosion killed at least one soldier and wounded several people, including civilians.

The attack targeted the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) convoy in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan.

Area police officer Mohammad Arash Khan told reporters that six FC personnel and two civilians were among the wounded.

The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it ambushed the convoy with an improvised explosive device.

The group, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, has routinely plotted bombings and other terrorist attacks in districts close to or on the nearly 2,600-kilometer border with Afghanistan, killing hundreds of people, mostly security forces.

The Pakistani military has confirmed the death of more than 220 soldiers and officers in nationwide attacks this year.

Islamabad says fugitive TTP leaders and fighters orchestrate the violence from their sanctuaries in Afghanistan, and says the Taliban’s return to power in the neighboring country in 2021 has emboldened and enabled the TTP to intensify cross-border attacks.

Last week, a large group of heavily armed TTP militants assaulted Pakistani security outposts in the northern Chitral district near the Afghan border, killing four soldiers and 12 assailants, according to officials.

Taliban rulers in Afghanistan reject the allegations, saying they are not allowing anyone to use their territory against Pakistan or other countries.

The TTP leadership has publicly pledged allegiance to Hibatullah Akhundzada, the supreme leader of the Afghan Taliban. In its latest report, the United Nations has estimated that at least 4,000 TTP militants are active on Afghan soil.

The Islamist Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021, when the United States and NATO allies chaotically withdrew all their troops to end nearly two decades of war with the then-Taliban insurgents.

Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan border province has recently also experienced an uptick in insurgent violence by separatist ethnic Baluch groups.

The Pakistani government has blamed the weapons and gear left by the U.S. military in Afghanistan for the uptick in terrorism.

Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar told reporters earlier this month that the war equipment had fallen into the hands of TTP and Baluch insurgents, enhancing their capacity to fight the Pakistani state.

“There was no equipment left behind by American forces,” John Kirby, the U.S. National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, told reporters last week when asked for his response to the Pakistani assertions.

“The equipment that people are saying the Americans left behind, that was equipment that was transferred well in advance of our departure to the [now-defunct] Afghan National Security Forces,” Kirby said. “It belonged to the Afghan National Security Forces. They — as the Taliban advanced on Kabul and other places throughout the country, they abandoned that equipment, not the United States.”
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G20 leaders paid tribute Sunday to Mahatma Gandhi at Delhi’s Raj Ghat Memorial, which is dedicated to Gandhi, who used nonviolent resistance to free India from British rule.

World leaders attending the two-day G20 summit in India this year came to a consensus Saturday on a joint declaration about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Saturday’s declaration on the conflict is much softer than the one issued at last year’s summit in Bali. Last year, the G20 condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and called for Russia to withdraw its troops. This year, the bloc’s declaration fell short of condemning Russia’s continued presence in Ukraine.

The group’s unanimous agreement on the declaration this year is a major accomplishment for India, which holds the bloc’s current presidency.

However, Oleg Nikolenko, a Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson, said on Facebook the declaration was “nothing to be proud of.”

The group announced Saturday that the African Union would be its newest member. “This will strengthen the G20 and also strengthen the voice of the Global South,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The group also held an event Saturday where it announced a multinational rail and ports deal linking the Middle East and South Asia.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “Today, as we embark upon such a big connectivity initiative, we are sowing the seeds for future generations to dream bigger.”

The deal seeks to connect Middle Eastern countries by train and then connect them to India by ports.

U.S. President Joe Biden said the initiative is a “real big deal” that would connect the ports of two continents and could lead to a “more stable, more prosperous and integrated Middle East.” He said the deal could also open “endless opportunities” for clean energy, clean electricity and laying cable to connect communities.

Some information for this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press. 
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Afghanistan is the world’s fastest-growing maker of methamphetamine, a report from the United Nations drug agency said Sunday. The country is also a major opium producer and heroin source, even though the Taliban declared a war on narcotics after they returned to power in August 2021.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes, which published the report, said meth in Afghanistan is mostly made from legally available substances or extracted from the ephedra plant, which grows in the wild.

The report called Afghanistan’s meth manufacturing a growing threat to national and regional health and security because it could disrupt the synthetic drug market and fuel addiction. It said seizures of meth suspected to have come from Afghanistan have been reported from the European Union and east Africa.

Annual meth seizure totals from inside the country rose from less than 100 kilograms in 2019 to nearly 2,700 kilograms in 2021, suggesting increased production, the report said. But it couldn’t give a value for the country’s meth supply, the quantities being produced, nor its domestic usage, because it doesn’t have the data.

Angela Me, the chief of the UNODC’s Research and Trend Analysis Branch, told The Associated Press that making meth, especially in Afghanistan, had several advantages over heroin or cocaine production.

“You don’t need to wait for something to grow,” said Me. “You don’t need land. You just need the cooks and the know-how. Meth labs are mobile, they’re hidden. Afghanistan also has the ephedra plant, which is not found in the biggest meth-producing countries: Myanmar and Mexico. It’s legal in Afghanistan and it grows everywhere. But you need a lot of it.”

Me said it was too early to assess what impact the Taliban’s drug crackdown has had on meth supplies.

A spokesperson for the Interior Ministry, Abdul Mateen Qani, told the AP that the Taliban-run government has prohibited the cultivation, production, sale and use of all intoxicants and narcotics in Afghanistan.

He said authorities have destroyed 644 factories and around 12,000 acres of land where prohibited narcotics were cultivated, processed or produced. There have been more than 5,000 raids in which 6,000 people have been arrested.

“We cannot claim 100% that it is finished because people can still do these activities in secret. It is not possible to bring it to zero in such a short time,” said Qani. “But we have a four-year strategic plan that narcotics in general and meth in particular will be finished.”

A U.N. report published in November said that opium cultivation since the Taliban takeover increased by 32% over the previous year, and that opium prices rose following authorities’ announcement of a cultivation ban in April 2022. Farmers’ income from opium sales tripled from $425 million in 2021 to $1.4 billion in 2022.

The 2022 report also said that the illicit drug market thrived as Afghanistan’s economy sharply contracted, making people open to illegal cultivation and trafficking for their survival.

Afghans are dealing with drought, severe economic hardship and the continued consequences of decades of war and natural disasters.

The downturn, along with the halt of international financing that propped up the economy of the former Western-backed government, is driving people into poverty, hunger, and addiction.

An Afghan health official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said around 20,000 people are in hospitals for drug addiction, mostly to crystal meth. Of these patients, 350 are women. He said children are also being treated but did not give the number nor their ages.
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Mosquito-borne dengue fever is taking a heavy toll on South Asian nations this year as Bangladesh grapples with record deaths and Nepal faces cases in new areas, with disease experts linking worsening outbreaks to the impacts of climate change.

Authorities in the two countries are scrambling to contain and treat the disease – which is also known as “breakbone fever” for the severe muscle and joint pains it induces. Entomologists and epidemiologists say rising temperatures and longer monsoon seasons are providing ideal breeding conditions for mosquitoes.

The threat is not restricted to South Asia as dengue rates are rising globally with 4.2 million cases reported in 2022 — up eightfold from 2000 — the World Health Organization (WHO) says. Earlier this year, WHO said dengue is the fastest-spreading tropical disease worldwide and represents a “pandemic threat.”

In Bangladesh, at least 691 people have died so far in 2023, and more than 138,000 have been infected, official figures show, making this the deadliest year since the first recorded epidemic in 2000. The previous record toll was 281 deaths last year.

A lack of proper prevention measures has allowed the dengue-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquito to spread across almost all of Bangladesh, said Kabirul Bashar, an entomologist and zoology professor at Jahangirnagar University in the capital of Dhaka.

He said this raised the risk of more infections occurring during September. Dengue is common during the June-to-September monsoon season, when mosquitoes thrive in stagnant water.

“This climate is favorable for the breeding of Aedes mosquitoes,” Bashar said in an interview. “Dengue is not only a problem for Dhaka, it is now a problem for the entire country.”

Nepal struggling

Meanwhile, Nepal — which first recorded dengue in 2004 — has had at least 13 dengue deaths and more than 21,200 cases so far this year across 75 of its 77 districts, according to officials.

This year could match the 2022 toll of 88 deaths and 54,000 cases, said Uttam Koirala, a senior public health officer at the national epidemiology and disease control division.

Meghnath Dhimal, a senior research officer at the Nepal Health Research Council (NHRC), said the incidence and spread of dengue had been rising quickly nationwide in recent years.

Rising temperatures mean cases have started occurring in colder autumn months, while Nepal’s higher mountain districts that never before had the disease are now struggling to curb its spread, he said, describing the shifting patterns as “strange.”

For example, the city of Dharan in the mountainous east has been hit particularly hard this year — with dengue cases rising so fast that hospitals and ambulances are overwhelmed by demand, according to Umesh Mehta, the local health division chief.

The city of more than 160,000 people saw the number of dengue cases peak at 1,700 a day as of late August, he said.

Amrit Kumar Thakur, a Dharan resident, was one of four members of his family to contract dengue last month. The 27-year-old said the disease started with a mild body ache and got steadily worse before he was treated at a temporary health center set up to deal with the fast-growing number of cases.

“Dengue was the worst health experience of my life,” said Thakur, adding that he and his relatives had fully recovered.

Ideal conditions

WHO says dengue is rising partly because global warming benefits mosquitoes, along with other factors including movement of people and goods, urbanization and problems with sanitation.

In July, WHO said an unusual episodic amount of rainfall in Bangladesh, together with high temperatures and high humidity, had helped the mosquito population to grow across the nation.

Furthermore, Bangladesh has experienced longer-than-usual monsoon seasons in recent years, with erratic rainfall over the March-to-October period and more breeding grounds popping up for mosquitoes, according to various disease and health experts.

The number of potential breeding sites identified in 2023 is the highest in the last five years, said Nazmul Islam, director of the disease control branch of Bangladesh’s health department.

Fiercer floods fueled by heavy rains and melting glaciers — driven by climate change — are another major factor behind the spread of dengue, said Mohammad Mushtuq Husain, an adviser at the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research.

The Bangladeshi government has also cited climate change as a driver behind the country’s worsening dengue outbreak.

Saber Hossain Chowdhury, the prime minister’s special envoy on climate change, said last month on the messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that the nation’s record dengue cases are “a clear instance of (the) climate change health nexus.”

Bangladesh needs to think about a national plan for adapting its health system to prevent diseases like dengue from turning into major disasters, Chowdhury said in an interview.

Informing the public

As dengue lacks a specific cure, health experts say the disease must be kept at bay through control of mosquito breeding, engaging with the public, and managing symptoms.

In Dhaka, officials are going around the city spraying insecticide to kill mosquitoes and imposing fines on people if breeding sites for the larvae are found.

Atiqul Islam, mayor of the Dhaka North City Corporation, said the authorities would have to keep informing residents of the risks, and monitoring the situation, throughout the year.

“It’s not the time for pinning blame, rather everyone should come forward to deal with the dengue situation — for their love of this city where we are born, live and die,” said Islam.

In Nepal, Dhimal from the NHRC said no authority alone could stop dengue as mosquitoes are found everywhere from garages to the corners of houses which are out of reach of the government.

“Everyone should be aware and proactive and contribute from their side to control the spread of the vector,” he added.

Civil society and development organizations are also helping to tackle the disease.

Sanjeev Kafley, head of the Bangladesh delegation for the International Red Cross, said it was helping to raise public awareness, procuring testing kits, and boosting the availability of platelets used in blood transfusions to treat some patients.

Yet when it comes to treatment broadly, ordinary families face high costs. Researchers from Dhaka University’s Institute of Health Economics have warned that total medical expenses for dengue patients may exceed $91 million this year, up from $41 million in 2019.

Dhaka resident Akhtar Hossain spent $545 on private hospital care for his daughter, Ayesha Tabassum Taqwa, who ultimately died of dengue last month at the age of 10.

Hossain cried as he spoke of Taqwa’s love of learning.

“Her books, notebooks … are all still on the reading table. (She) will never arrange new books,” he said. “(But) who can we blame and what is the point of talking about it?” 
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Pakistan and Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities have met multiple times in the last week to negotiate the reopening of their main border crossing but could not make headway, stranding many trade convoys and travelers on both sides for the fourth consecutive day Saturday.  

Pakistani officials said the standoff erupted Wednesday after Taliban guards began constructing a new outpost near the historic Torkham border crossing, violating mutual agreements and ignoring warnings to stop the work.   

The tensions eventually led to brief skirmishes between border security forces from the two countries, killing a Taliban guard and a civilian, according to the Afghan side.  

The Taliban rejected the allegations, saying the outpost was being built on the Afghan side of the nearly 2,600-kilometer (1,616 miles) British colonial-era boundary separating the two countries.  

On Saturday, officials in both countries said the situation remains fluid and it is unclear when or if a resolution will be reached soon for all stranded travelers and truck convoys to resume their journey through the Torkham point of transit for trade and travelers.  

Mufti Asmatullah Yaqoob, a senior Taliban official at Torkham, alleged while speaking to the BBC Afghan radio service that the Pakistani forces had started the armed clashes and closed the border gate. He rejected claims that Taliban guards were building the post on the zero point or the border conjunction. 

“A zero point exists where there is a formal border, but this is just an imaginary line,” Yaqoob said, referring to the border with Pakistan, which Afghanistan historically disputes and rejects as an international boundary.  

Islamabad rejects Afghan objections, saying it inherited the international border after gaining independence from Britain in 1947. 

Wednesday’s conflict over the controversial outpost occurred just hours after hundreds of heavily-armed Afghan-based militants stormed two Pakistani security outposts in the remote northern Chitral district close to the border at an elevation of 1,670 meters (5,479 feet). 

Pakistan’s military said the ensuing clashes killed four soldiers and 12 “terrorists” before the assailants retreated to Afghanistan.  

The outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack. TTP leaders and fighters mostly reside across the border in Afghanistan and orchestrate cross-border terrorism from there, according to Pakistani officials and recent United Nations assessments. 

Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said Friday that her government was in close contact with Afghan authorities. 

“We have shared our concerns with regards to the terrorist threat against Pakistan that emanates from the Afghan soil… All these concerns and developments are relevant to the opening or closure of the border as well,” Baloch stressed.  

The Pakistani ministry also summoned the head of the Taliban-run Afghan Embassy in Islamabad and formally protested the Chitral cross-border terrorist raid and the Torkham incident, official sources said. 

The Taliban envoy was told to convey to Kabul “our serious concern over TTP’s use of Afghan territory to enter into Chitral” and attempts by the Taliban “to encroach upon Pakistani territory at Torkham,” a senior Pakistani diplomat privy to the meeting told VOA Saturday. He spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to interact with journalists on the subject publicly.  

In a media interview Friday, Taliban chief spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid rejected allegations that the TTP attack in Chitral had originated in his country. He reiterated that his government is not allowing anyone to use Afghan soil to threaten other nations and advised Islamabad to stop blaming Kabul for its internal conflicts.  

However, Pakistani officials and independent critics questioned Mujahid’s claims that TTP does not exist in Afghanistan. A recent U.N. assessment estimated that more than 4,000 TTP militants are active on Afghan soil. 

Islamabad maintains that the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul in August 2021 has emboldened the TTP, and it increasingly uses Afghanistan as an operation base for orchestrating attacks in Pakistan.  

The TTP’s fugitive chief, Noor Wali Mehsud, has publicly pledged allegiance to Hibatullah Akhundzada, the supreme leader of the Taliban government, and has stated the Pakistani Taliban “is a branch” of the Afghan Taliban. Mehsud has been frequently spotted and spoken to journalists in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover. 

The Taliban hosted Pakistan’s talks with the TTP leadership in Kabul last year but refused to evict the militants from the country. The dialogue process collapsed late last year, leading to a dramatic surge in deadly TTP attacks against Pakistani security forces.  

Pakistan says that some militants killed during recent counterterrorism operations against the TTP were members of the Afghan Taliban and their bodies and other personal details were shared directly with Kabul authorities.  

A foreign ministry official in Islamabad told VOA that in recent meetings with Kabul representatives, his government has unsuccessfully sought an explanation that “while the Taliban condemn Islamic state terrorist attacks in Pakistan, they maintain a stoic silence when the TTP conducts its attacks in Pakistan.”  

The official requested anonymity for not being authorized to speak to the media publicly. 

He also questioned the effectiveness of a recent “diktat” or decree issued by Hibatullah declaring cross-border attacks by Afghan Taliban fighters as “haram” or forbidden.  

“Either the Amir ul-Momineen (leader of the faithful) has no authority to implement his orders, or the (Afghan) Taliban are hand in glove with the TTP,” the Pakistani official said, using the title the Taliban use for Hibatullah. 
…

The White House on Saturday hailed this year’s G20 summit as a success, saying the final communique contains “consequential paragraphs” on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — despite the notable omission of the word “Russia” in those paragraphs, which drew sharp criticism from Ukraine’s government.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan described the agreement — reached on the first day of the meeting in New Delhi — as a “significant milestone for India’s chairmanship and a vote of confidence that the G20 can come together to address a pressing range of issues.”

The summit was also notable for the absence of two key leaders — Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Both were represented by senior officials.

“The G20 statement includes a set of consequential paragraphs on the war in Ukraine,” Sullivan told reporters. “And from our perspective, it does a very good job of standing up for the principle that states cannot use force to seek territorial acquisition.”

The 29-page communique spanned issues that included trade, economic growth and development, climate change, reform of multilateral institutions, technology, taxation and gender equality. In it, leaders of the Group of 20 major and developing economies called for a “comprehensive, just, and durable peace in Ukraine” — but stopped short of naming Russia as the aggressor. The group also agreed that the use of nuclear weapons is “inadmissible.”

“By removing the word ‘Russia,’ and the word ‘aggression,’ they gave Mr. Putin a face-saving gesture, and will now wait and see if he then reciprocates by doing what all G20 members except him agreed to,” said Professor John Kirton, who heads the G20 Research Group at the University of Toronto. “And that’s getting out of all of Ukraine.”

In a Facebook post, Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesman, Oleg Nikolenko, said, “Ukraine is grateful to the partners who tried to include strong wordings in the text.”

He also offered a heavily edited version of the communique, rewriting the statement “There were different views and assessments of the situation” as “On Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, members of the G20 unequivocally condemned it and called on Moscow to immediately end it.”

At the start of the New Delhi summit, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged consensus.

“Today, as the president of G20, India calls upon the entire world to first convert this global trust deficit into faith,” he said. “It is time for all of us to move together.”

Washington’s argument for supporting Ukraine hinged on the significant economic consequences of the conflict, the White House told VOA.

“The war in Ukraine has put a huge strain on lower- and middle-income countries when it comes to food security, energy security, inflationary pressure. You can’t discount the effect that Mr. Putin’s war has had on the global economy,” John Kirby, director of strategic communications for the National Security Council, told VOA on the summit’s sidelines in New Delhi.

“And what the president wants to pursue — and he’ll mention the war in Ukraine specifically as he pursues this — are opportunities for these lower- and middle-income countries to be able to pursue investment opportunities and loans for infrastructure development that are high quality, that are transparent, and that will really meet their local needs as best as possible,” Kirby said.

But Kirton said the leaders of the world’s 20 premier economies could have been much bolder, especially in regard to combating climate change.

On that topic, the communique said, “Mindful of our leadership role, we reaffirm our steadfast commitments, in pursuit of the objective of UNFCCC, to tackle climate change by strengthening the full and effective implementation of the Paris Agreement and its temperature goal, reflecting equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in light of different national circumstances.”

UNFCCC is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

“We live in a world full of summits — G20, G7,” Kirton said. “We’ve got four U.N. summits to come in New York in the next few weeks. [U.S. President] Joe Biden is planning a summit of the future next year. But what’s the point if you just get these fine communiques, these fine promises as well: ‘we commit to,’ ‘we agree,’ and then nothing gets done once leaders go home?”
…

U.S. President Joe Biden is emphasizing the power of the purse as part of his push to rally greater global support for Ukraine at a summit of the Group of 20 nations, by arguing that developing economies have been harmed by the conflict, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told VOA in an interview Saturday.

However, the summit is marked by the absence of two key leaders, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, both represented by senior government officials. It is an absence that could affect the meeting’s outcome.

Speaking on the sidelines of the G20 summit, Kirby also spoke about Biden’s planned visit to military forces in Alaska on the 22nd anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA: Thank you so much for joining us, John, here in New Delhi. Let’s start with the G20 summit, which has a theme of unity. Can you explain to us how the U.S. and other nations can reach unity amid the absence of two key leaders?

Kirby: I think you’re probably referring to Russia and China and Mr. [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping]. Both Russia and China are represented here at the G20 through different levels of staff. So they’re still here. They’re still participants. They’re still involved in the discussions, and so we look forward to be able to work through with all members of the G20 on some of the key priorities that both [Indian] Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi and of course President [Joe] Biden have at this summit. … Although President Xi’s not here, and that is a disappointment to us, the Chinese are being represented at a leader level and … they are participants in these discussions and that’s what the president wants to see.

VOA: Can you outline the argument that the president is making to G20 countries to rally support for Ukraine?

Kirby: A big focus of the president today is going to be on economic opportunities and investment in lower- and middle-income countries. And I know you’re probably thinking that doesn’t have anything to do with Ukraine. But it has everything to do with Ukraine, because the war in Ukraine has put a huge strain on lower- and middle-income countries when it comes to food security, energy security, inflationary pressure — you can’t discount the effect that Mr. Putin’s war has had on the global economy.

And what the president wants to pursue — and he’ll mention the war in Ukraine specifically as he pursues this — are opportunities for these lower- and middle-income countries to be able to pursue investment opportunities and loans for infrastructure development, that are high quality, that are transparent, and that will really meet their local needs as best as possible. So the president fully intends to make the war in Ukraine a centerpiece of his discussions here today.

VOA: On U.S. engagement in the Indo-Pacific, can you take us through some of the signature initiatives — not just the military ones but the economic ones — and can you also respond to criticism that the U.S. doesn’t have the resources that China does in terms of offering economic opportunities?

Kirby: United States and our allies and partners have a broad range of economic tools available to us — and, again, through these multilateral development banks and the reforms that we’re trying to pursue in terms of making more viable to boost the balance sheet of these development banks so that they can provide more alternatives to lower- and middle-income countries. This is not about the United States versus China in terms of economic development and infrastructure growth. China is a shareholder in the World Bank, China should have an interest in seeing that the World Bank is a more viable option for countries to go to for financial assistance and for, again, credible, transparent loans.

VOA: On reports that India is looking at possible responses to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan in response to discreet inquiries from the U.S. — is this a discussion that the U.S. is having with other G20 members at this summit?

Kirby: Taiwan, in terms of military action, is not going to be a focus here at the G20. Nothing has changed about the United States and our policy. We continue to support the One China policy. We don’t support independence for Taiwan. But we also don’t support any changes to the status quo in a unilateral way, or in a way that uses force.

And what the president would tell you is that everything he’s doing in his foreign policy, particularly here in the Indo-Pacific, is about deterring conflict. We don’t seek conflict with China, we don’t seek a conflict with anybody in the Indo-Pacific.

We do seek competition, we do seek opportunities to economically compete because so much of the global economy is right here in the Indo-Pacific. Here at the G20, you’re talking about 75% of the global economy represented in this group. So this isn’t about Taiwan specifically, but it is about opening up opportunities to reduce the chances for conflict and to increase the opportunities that legitimate competition would offer to all members of the G20.

VOA: Moving on to the president’s visit to Vietnam, this is a historic visit and a big deal, the formation of a comprehensive strategic partnership. Can you answer how a liberal democracy like the United States can have a robust relationship with a communist country like Vietnam?

Kirby: Just take a look at what the relationship has been like. It’s been growing over the last decade or so. And the Vietnamese want a stronger relationship with the United States. The Vietnamese share many concerns that the United States has, both economically and from a security perspective in the region. We share a lot of interests; we also have a shared perspective of some of the challenges including the course of behavior of the PRC.

It’s really quite a stunning turn of events over recent decades to see our two countries working together this closely. The president is very excited about this stop. It is an important strategic partnership. We look to take it to the next level. And it comes at a very important time in the Indo-Pacific. So a lot [is] on the agenda tomorrow in Hanoi and, again, the President’s very much looking forward to it.

VOA: And, finally, I invite you to reflect on the significance of the 22nd anniversary of the September 11 attacks, which happened before many current servicemembers were born. The president is going to commemorate the event with military members in Alaska, which is on the edge of a region now seen as a pacing threat to the United States. Was that part of the decision to mark the occasion in Alaska?

Kirby: The president’s looking forward to being able to commemorate the service and sacrifice that so many Americans have put forth since 9/11 in Alaska with members of the military and their families. Because he knows that although members of the military haven’t been the only ones that have responded over the last 22 years to keep us safe, they certainly have been critical to that effort.

Alaska, no less, though it sits out further away from D.C. and from the sites that were affected on 9/11, it very much because of the capabilities we have in the high north is critical to keeping this country safe from a maritime and from an air perspective. …

It is true, we have many members of the military that were born after the 9/11 attacks. But I don’t think you have to have been there, I don’t think you have to have physically experienced the attacks on 9/11 to understand the impact that it had on our national security, the impact that it had on the security of our allies and partners and the challenges that we’ve all faced over the last 20 years in terms of dealing with the terrorism threat.

And just look at how far we’ve come. The integration and the sharing of intelligence — look at how decimated the capabilities of al-Qaida are now; it’s a shadow of its former self.

And while the terrorist threat has metastasized, grown into different networks and spawned itself in other areas outside just the Middle East and the Levant, the United States, just unilaterally is far more capable of dealing with terrorist networks and terrorist threats as they arise through a really robust over-the-horizon counterterrorism capability that these young servicemembers are very much still involved in — whether it’s in Africa, whether it’s in Europe, whether it’s in the Middle East, and yes, here in the Indo-Pacific, where there are still counterterrorism threats to deal with.
…

People in the Maldives were voting on Saturday in a closely contested election for president of the Indian Ocean archipelago, seen as a battle for influence between India and China.

President Ibrahim Solih, seeking a second five-year term in the Indian Ocean tourist destination, has championed an “India-first” policy during his time in power. He appears to be slightly ahead in the polls.

The coalition backing his main rival, Mohamed Muizzu, has a record of being close to China and has launched an “India out” campaign, promising to remove a small Indian military presence of several surveillance aircraft and some 75 personnel.

Muizzu entered the fray after former President Abdulla Yameen was banned from contesting the election by the Supreme Court in August following a conviction for corruption and money laundering.

Polls close at 4 p.m. (1100 GMT), with final results expected Sunday if the race is close. If no candidate secures a majority, a second-round vote on Sept. 30 would decide the winner.

About half the country’s 520,000 people were expected to vote on Saturday. Thousands turned out early at over 570 polling stations across 187 islands. Maldivians were also voting at polling stations in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia. They will also vote at polling stations in Britain and Abu Dhabi.

“All polling stations are open and voting has begun. We thought turnout might be low during the early stages. However, we have been surprised with many people queuing very early,” Fuwad Thowfeek, the president of the Elections Commission told Reuters. “So far, everything is moving smoothly without any disruptions or delays.”

A poll of 384 people published last month by the Baani Center think tank found that 21% of respondents favored Solih compared with 14% supporting Muizzu.

Three weeks before the vote, 53% were undecided, the organization said in a statement. “This month’s poll has seen the most ‘undecideds’ since Baani began its monthly poll in April.”
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