India’s moon rover has completed its walk on the lunar surface and been put into sleep mode less than two weeks its historic landing near the lunar south pole, India’s space mission said.

“The rover completes its assignments. It is now safely parked and set into sleep mode,” with daylight on that part of the moon coming to an end, the Indian Space Research Organization said in a statement late Saturday.

The rover’s payloads are turned off and the data it collected has been transmitted to the Earth via the lander, the statement said.

The Chandrayaan-3 lander and rover were expected to operate only for one lunar day, which is equal to 14 days on Earth. 

“Currently, the battery is fully charged. The solar panel is oriented to receive the light at the next sunrise expected Sept. 22, 2023. The receiver is kept on. Hoping for a successful awakening for another set of assignments!” the statement said.

There was no word on the outcome of the rover searches for signs of frozen water on the lunar surface that could help future astronaut missions, as a potential source of drinking water or to make rocket fuel.

Earlier this week, the the space agency said the moon rover confirmed the presence of sulfur and detected several other elements. The rover’s laser-induced spectroscope instrument also detected aluminum, iron, calcium, chromium, titanium, manganese, oxygen and silicon on the surface, it said.

The Indian Express newspaper said the electronics on board the Indian moon mission are not designed to withstand very low temperatures, less than minus 120 degrees Celsius during the nighttime on the moon. The lunar night also extends for as long as 14 days on Earth.

Pallava Bagla, a science writer and co-author of books on India’s space exploration, said the rover has limited battery power.

The data is back on Earth and will be analyzed by Indian scientists as a first look and then by the global community, he said.

By sunrise on the moon, the rover may or may not wake up because the electronics die at such cold temperatures, Bagla said.

“Making electronic circuits and components that can survive the deep cold temperature of the moon, that technology doesn’t exist in India,” he said.

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

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

The mission began more than a month ago at an estimated cost of $75 million.

India’s success came just days after Russia’s Luna-25, which was aiming for the same lunar region, spun into an uncontrolled orbit and crashed. It had been intended to be the first successful Russian lunar landing after a gap of 47 years.

Russia’s head of the state-controlled space corporation Roscosmos attributed the failure to the lack of expertise due to the long break in lunar research that followed the last Soviet mission to the moon in 1976.

Active since the 1960s, India has launched satellites for itself and other countries, and successfully put one in orbit around Mars in 2014. India is planning its first mission to the International Space Station next year, in collaboration with the United States.
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Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister has stated that militant groups are carrying out frequent and more lethal attacks on his country’s security forces because they are using the military equipment left behind by the United States in Afghanistan. 

The assertions by Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar came as militant ambushes and raids against Pakistani military and police forces become daily occurrences, particularly in districts near or along the Afghan border.  

 The violence has killed hundreds of security forces — including more than 200 military officers and soldiers — in the first eight months of 2023. 

“The reason for the recent resurgence of terrorism being witnessed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan is, unfortunately, an outcome of the rushed military withdrawal by the U.S. and NATO allies,” Kakar said in comments aired Friday on state television. 

The prime minister referred to the two Pakistani provinces lining the country’s 2,600-kilometer border with Afghanistan. He spoke to local media representatives in Islamabad on a day when a suicide bomber struck a military convoy in the Bannu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, killing nine soldiers and wounding several others. 

“The rushed withdrawal has had an impact not just on Pakistan but also on Central Asia, China, Iran, and the whole region,” Kakar said. 

‘They can now target my soldier’

Kakar stated that Pakistani leaders had long unsuccessfully persuaded the U.S. to stage a “responsible withdrawal” to ensure their war equipment was accounted for and beyond the reach of terrorist groups.  

Kakar claimed that anti-state groups such as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, and ethnic Baluch insurgents committing terrorist acts in his country have now armed themselves with thermal weapons, assault rifles, night vision goggles, and other equipment that U.S. troops left. 

“This equipment has greatly enhanced the fighting capacity of terrorists and non-state actors in the region,” Kakar said. “Previously, they had minimal capacity, but they can now target my soldier even if he moves his finger.” 

Washington and allied nations chaotically pulled out all their troops from Afghanistan in August 2021 after almost two decades of counterinsurgency operations. The then-Taliban insurgents retook control of the war-shattered country from a U.S.-backed Afghan government two weeks before the foreign troops withdrew. 

More than $7.1 billion in U.S.-funded military equipment was in the inventory of the former Afghan government when it collapsed in the face of insurgent Taliban nationwide attacks amid the foreign troop exit, the U.S. Defense Department estimated in a report released last year. 

“The U.S. military removed or destroyed nearly all major equipment used by U.S. troops in Afghanistan throughout the drawdown period in 2021,” the report said. It also says other equipment was disabled so that it could no longer be used. 

Terror activity increased, says Pakistan

Pakistan complains that terrorist activity has sharply risen since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan two years ago.  

Islamabad says the power shift in Kabul has emboldened fugitive TTP leaders and other insurgent groups sheltering on Afghan soil to move with “greater freedom” to orchestrate cross-border attacks. 

Taliban authorities in Afghanistan have rejected allegations anyone is being allowed to use the country to threaten other nations, including Pakistan. They also deny charges that U.S. weapons seized by the Taliban have left the country.  

Earlier this year, an Israeli commander told Newsweek magazine on condition of anonymity that U.S. small arms capture in Afghanistan had ended up with Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip. 

“The truth is that after the expulsion of the foreign forces [from Afghanistan] and full control of the Islamic Emirate, equipment, and vehicles are stored and saved in depots, and no one is allowed to smuggle or sell even a single weapon,” chief Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid wrote on X, formerly Twitter, last July. 

Mujahid responded to a report published by the Geneva-based independent Small Arms Survey warning that the TTP and other militants continue to have access to weapons of U.S.-trained and -equipped former Afghan security forces. 
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The separatist head of the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh has resigned amid widespread food and fuel shortages resulting from an almost yearlong blockade of the territory by Azerbaijan.

Arayik Haratyunyan, who is an ethnic Armenian, said in a statement on Thursday: “Tomorrow I will present to the people of the Artsakh Republic and the national assembly of Artsakh my resignation from the post of president of the republic.”

Artsakh is the Armenian name for the breakaway region. Haratyunyan suggested that his presidency was an obstacle to negotiations with Azerbaijan and that “difficulties in the country have significantly reduced the trust in the authorities.”

Karabakh, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but whose population of 120,000 is predominantly ethnic Armenian, won de facto independence after a war in the early 1990s.

In 2020, Azerbaijan retook territories in and around Karabakh in a second war that left the region dependent on Russian peacekeepers deployed under a Moscow-brokered cease-fire.

Haratyunyan, who presided over the 2020 defeat, faced calls to quit that have intensified since December, when Azerbaijan began a blockade of the Lachin corridor, the one road linking Karabakh to Armenia, on which the region is dependent.

Azerbaijan denies that it imposed a blockade on the Lachin corridor and says that alternative routes to resupply Karabakh through Azerbaijani territory are available.

The blockade has caused acute shortages of food, fuel and medical supplies inside Karabakh.

Haratyunyan also had clashed with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who has signaled a potential willingness to recognize Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, a move that would jeopardize the survival of the region’s breakaway authorities.
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After consulting with several doctors in the main city in Indian-controlled Kashmir, Aayat Hameed was advised to seek help from a mental health expert for her bouts of unspecified anxiety, random palpitation attacks and occasional but strong suicidal thoughts. A psychiatrist diagnosed her with acute depression.

On a recent hot summer day, Hameed was among scores of other patients visiting a mental health clinic in Srinagar, where she had been undergoing rounds of counselling along with prescription medication.

“I realized seeing a psychiatrist or reaching out to someone you trust really helps to deal with suicidal thoughts and depression,” Hameed said. She’s already recovered about 40% over the course of her one-month treatment, the young student said.

For over three decades, Kashmiris have been living through multiple crises. Violent armed insurrections, brutal counterinsurgency, unparalleled militarization and securitization, and unfulfilled demands for self-determination have fueled depression and drugs in the disputed region, experts say.

The stunning Himalayan region has been a flashpoint for more than 70 years for tensions and wars between rivals India and Pakistan, which both control part of it and lay claim to all of it. Despite the fierce fighting, the tight-knit Muslim families of Kashmir formed a durable safety net.

That fell apart when an armed rebellion erupted in 1989.

Since then, tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict that has left Kashmiris exhausted, traumatized and broken. Nearly every one of the Kashmir valley’s 7 million people has been affected by violence.

The conflict has created two lost generations: the teenagers of 1989, who saw their childhoods collapse into warfare, and the teenagers of today, who never had a childhood at all.

“The most basic building blocks of a healthy psyche — a sense of safety and security — are, and have been, under attack for decades in Kashmir,” said Saiba Varma, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of California, San Diego, who studied psychiatric issues in Kashmir for her doctoral research.

The daily violence has ebbed sharply in recent years, and the region’s semiautonomous status was revoked in 2019 in a move that the Indian government sold as being necessary for normalcy to return. Still, the invisible scars of Kashmir’s unending conflict are evident in the psychiatric sections of multiple hospitals where, on a routine day, hundreds seek help for mental illnesses and drug addictions.

A 2015 study by aid group Doctors Without Borders in collaboration with the University of Kashmir and the Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Srinagar showed “nearly 1.8 million adults (45% of the adult population) in the Kashmir valley are experiencing symptoms of mental distress, with 41% exhibiting signs of probable depression, 26% probable anxiety and 19% probable Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”

The mental health care infrastructure has expanded from a mere four psychiatrists and one main mental health care clinic in Srinagar in early 2000 to about 17 government-run clinics operated by over six dozen professionals across the region today. But the mental health network is still overwhelmed.

Varma, the anthropologist, said the mental health crisis directly stems from social and political conditions in the region.

“Ongoing militarization of everyday life has eliminated many cultural and religious practices of coping that Kashmiri people traditionally relied on, leaving them dependent on an overburdened and pharmaceuticalized health care system,” she said.
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Merchants throughout Pakistan closed their shops Saturday to protest the country’s steep electricity bills and mounting inflation.

The general public has already mounted protests about Pakistan’s soaring cost of living. 

“Everyone is participating” in the shutdown, Lahore’s Township Traders Union president, Ajmal Hashmi, told AFP, “because the situation has become unbearable.”

A deal with the International Monetary Fund has forced Pakistan to cut popular subsidies that helped cushion true costs.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister, Anwaarul Haq Kakar, has said the high prices are not an issue because there is no “second option.”

“When you subsidize, you shift your fiscal obligations to the future,” he said. “Rather than addressing the issue, you just delay it.”
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Following the success of India’s moon landing, the country’s space agency launched a rocket on Saturday to study the sun in its first solar mission.

The rocket left a trail of smoke and fire as scientists clapped, a live broadcast on the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) website showed.

The broadcast was watched by nearly 500,000 viewers, while thousands gathered at a viewing gallery near the launch site to see the liftoff of the probe, which will aim to study solar winds, which can cause disturbance on Earth commonly seen as auroras.

Named after the Hindi word for the sun, the Aditya-L1 launch follows India beating Russia late last month to become the first country to land on the south pole of the moon. While Russia had a more powerful rocket, India’s Chandrayaan-3 out-endured the Luna-25 to execute a textbook landing.

The Aditya-L1 spacecraft is designed to travel about 1.5 million kilometers over four months to a kind of parking lot in space where objects tend to stay put because of balancing gravitational forces, reducing fuel consumption for the spacecraft.

Those positions are called Lagrange Points, named after Italian-French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange.

The mission has the capacity to make a “big bang in terms of science,” said Somak Raychaudhury, who was involved in the development of some components of the observatory, adding that energy particles emitted by the sun can hit satellites that control communications on Earth.

“There have been episodes when major communications have gone down because a satellite has been hit by a big corona emission. Satellites in low earth orbit are the main focus of global private players, which makes the Aditya L1 mission a very important project,” he said.

Scientists hope to learn more about the effect of solar radiation on the thousands of satellites in orbit, a number growing with the success of ventures like the Starlink communications network of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

“The low earth orbit has been heavily polluted due to private participation, so understanding how to safeguard satellites there will have special importance in today’s space environment,” said Rama Rao Nidamanuri, head of the department of earth and space sciences at the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology.

Longer term, data from the mission could help better understand the sun’s impact on Earth’s climate patterns and the origins of solar wind, the stream of particles that flow from the sun through the solar system, ISRO scientists have said.

Pushed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has privatized space launches and is looking to open the sector to foreign investment as it targets a five-fold increase in its share of the global launch market within the next decade.

As space turns into a global business, the country is also banking on the success of ISRO to showcase its prowess in the sector.
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Pakistanis are angry about a sudden increase in their electricity bills. In daily protests that began in late August, people are demanding the government take back the new charges that have made electricity almost unaffordable for many. VOA’s Pakistan bureau chief Sarah Zaman explains why this crisis has emerged.
Camera: Wajid Asad 
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More than 840,000 Afghans who applied for a resettlement program aimed at people who helped the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan are still there waiting, according to a report that lays out the challenges with a program intended to help America’s allies in the two-decade-long conflict. 

The report released Thursday by the State Department’s inspector general outlines steps the department took to improve processing of special immigrant visas for Afghans. But two years after the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan and the return of the Taliban to power, challenges remain. 

The visa program was started in 2009 to help Afghans who worked side by side with Americans and faced significant risks for doing so. A similar program exists for Iraqis. Both programs have been plagued by criticism that cases move much too slowly, leaving applicants in dangerous limbo. 

And since the U.S. left Afghanistan, the number of people applying for the visas has skyrocketed. According to the report, there were fewer than 30,000 applicants in October 2021, but by December 2022 that number had grown to roughly 155,000. Those figures do not include family members who are allowed to resettle with applicants who secure approval.

The State Department estimates that as of April of this year more than 840,000 applicants for the special visa program and their family members remain in Afghanistan, the report said. Not everyone who applies is accepted; the State Department noted that about 50% of applicants do not qualify when their applications are reviewed at a key stage early in the process. 

The department also said that since the start of the Biden administration in January 2021 through August 1 of this year, it has issued nearly 34,000 visas for the applicants and their family members, which it said was a substantial increase from previous years. 

The report said the department has hired more staff to process applications, coordinated with the Pentagon to verify applicants’ employment and eliminated some of the steps required of applicants. But, the report said, there was more it could do. For example, the report noted that a key position overseeing the special immigrant visa process has seen frequent turnover and vacancies. 
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The United States will continue to push back against Beijing’s “false maritime claims,” said John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, in response to China’s newly released 2023 map that has drawn the ire of India, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and the Philippines.

In an interview with VOA White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara on Friday, Kirby spoke about expectations for President Joe Biden’s upcoming trip to the G20 summit in New Delhi, followed by a visit to Hanoi, where the U.S. is expected to upgrade bilateral ties with Vietnam. He also previewed Vice President Kamala Harris’ upcoming engagement with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Jakarta, Indonesia.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA: We are hearing that [Chinese] President Xi Jinping may not be attending the G20. President Biden said that he hopes that he will still attend. Is there a sense that the president’s disappointed? Was there a Biden-Xi meeting that is now not going to happen?

John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator: As far as I know, there hasn’t been a formal decision made by the [People’s Republic of China]. We’ll certainly leave it to them to talk about his attendance plans. As the president said, we certainly hope that President Xi would attend.

G20 is an important forum, and this year there’s a focus on improving economic cooperation around the world. So clearly, there will be a role for the PRC, and we would hope that he will take advantage of that.

VOA: China just released its annual map that seems to be more expansive. It’s not just the nine-dash line, it’s now the 10-dash line. How does the administration feel about this?

Kirby: We have been very, very consistent about pushing back on these false maritime claims of the PRC. This map doesn’t change that policy. But it’s not just what lines they draw on the map. It’s about their coercive behavior. It’s about the way they intimidate [their] neighbors and some of our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific, to try to advance these false maritime claims.

VOA: Do we expect the vice president to be that forward leaning as you have laid out when she visits the region? Last year she went to Palawan Island. Can we expect that kind of a pushback this year?

Kirby: The vice president’s very much looking forward to her participation at the ASEAN summit. She will not shy away from talking about our responsibilities as a Pacific power. She will not shy away about talking about how seriously we take our security commitments to our allies and partners throughout the region. Five of our seven treaty alliances are in the Indo-Pacific region.

VOA: One of the proposals that the president will bring to New Delhi is to bolster the capacity of the IMF [International Monetary Fund] and the World Bank to provide lending for global development projects as an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

There is already a Western push for this. It was initially called Build Back Better World, B3W, and then the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, PGII and now this push to move together with the World Bank and the IMF. Is there a change of strategy or perhaps a scaling down of ambition here?

Kirby: Not at all. In fact, it’s quite consistent with everything the president has been saying since he took office. The data show that his approach to economic prosperity, building from the bottom up and the middle out — Bidenomics — works here at home. The president believes that that same approach can work globally. One of the ways is through revitalizing multilateral development investment. That’s why he has asked Congress for another $25 billion to reshape the World Bank. That’s why he has appointed the new head of the World Bank.

And it’s why the president — as you rightly said — also launched a couple years ago the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, which is already starting to pay dividends. The PGII won’t necessarily be on the agenda at the G20. But we’re certainly hoping that we’ll get a chance to talk about it.

VOA: So, this is in addition, not in place of the PGII program?

Kirby: The PGII is something separate and distinct from what we’re trying to do in terms of the World Bank. 

I think it’s important to keep all this in context. Developing countries are looking for alternatives to the high interest loan programs that the PRC is putting out. What the president and the G7, G20 leaders wanted to put in place are alternatives to that so that developing countries who have been affected by the war in Ukraine can address those problems.

VOA: Is the president disappointed that — unlike in G20 Bali — this time around the G20 chair, India, is not inviting [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy to speak?

Kirby: That’s really up to the G20 chair. President Zelenskyy had a chance to address NATO allies in Vilnius not too long ago. He certainly has had multiple opportunities to speak with foreign leaders on his own. We believe that it’s important that people stay focused on supporting Ukraine to the degree they can, but as far as an invitation, I’d refer you to the Indians.

VOA: Can we get some more clarity on a possible Biden – [Saudi Crown Prince] MBS [Mohammed bin Salman] meeting? Would this be a good opportunity to forward the agenda of a Saudi-Israel normalization?

Kirby: The president believes strongly that our strategic partnership with Saudi Arabia is important. That’s why we continue to work on that partnership and see it starting to bear fruit, in terms of the truce in Yemen.

In trying to encourage progress towards normalization with Israel, there’s been a lot of good work with Saudi Arabia. The president looks forward to any opportunity to try to advance that, I just don’t have anything on the schedule.

VOA: Our diplomatic sources say that Vietnam is interested in upgrading ties to not just a Strategic Partnership, but to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, which would be a really big deal. Can you confirm this?

Kirby: I’m not in a position to confirm. We very much value the growing partnership that we have with Vietnam. Some of our interests are merging in ways that 10 to 15 years ago you couldn’t even imagine. 

The Vietnamese are of course concerned about PRC activities in their part of the Indo-Pacific. There’s an awful lot of shared common interests here, and the president’s looking forward to discussing how we can advance those interests. But I won’t get ahead of specifics.

VOA: An op-ed in The Jakarta Post said that “ASEAN matters little if at all enough for Biden to skip the annual gathering, even though he will be in the neighborhood around that time.” Does ASEAN matter to the U.S. beyond officials such as yourself repeating statements of ASEAN centrality?

Kirby: Of course, it does. The president hosted a summit here in Washington, the first ever for ASEAN, and has engaged with ASEAN leaders on numerous occasions in person and, of course, virtually over the last two and a half years. And the vice president also believes strongly in the vibrancy of ASEAN and in our Indo-Pacific relationships.

The first two foreign leaders that President Biden invited to the White House were from Japan and South Korea. The first trip that the Secretary of Defense [Lloyd Austin] and Secretary of State [Antony Blinken] took together, was to the Indo-Pacific region. The president revitalized the Indo-Pacific Quad. The president was responsible for putting together AUKUS [Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States strategic partnership] which will allow us in concert with the United Kingdom to help Australia build a nuclear-powered submarine capability.

We are looking forward to participating in this ASEAN summit because ASEAN is an important forum for discussion and pursuit of these common interests and shared values, as well as addressing the challenges that those countries face. The United States wants to be part of that discussion. We have been with ASEAN since the very beginning of this administration, and we will certainly be going forward.
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Armenia and Azerbaijan said Friday they had sustained casualties in fighting along their common border, northwest of the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia’s Defense Ministry said two of its servicemen had been killed and another wounded in shelling near the town of Sotk. Azerbaijan said that Armenia had struck positions in the Kalbajar region using drones, wounding two Azerbaijani servicemen. It said it was taking “retaliatory measures.”

Reuters was unable to verify the reports.

Nagorno-Karabakh, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, has been a source of conflict between the two Caucasus neighbors since the years leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and between ethnic Armenians and Turkic Azeris for well over a century.

Despite sporadic discussions on a peace deal to agree on borders, settle differences over the enclave and unfreeze relations, tensions remain high and skirmishes along the shared border are a regular occurrence. 
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Chinese President Xi Jinping is likely to skip a summit of G20 leaders in India next week, sources familiar with the matter in India and China told Reuters, a development that would dash chances of a meeting there with U.S. President Joe Biden.

Xi’s absence also could be a shot at host India, according to some analysts, who see it as a signal China is reluctant to confer influence on its southern neighbor that boasts one of the fastest growing major economies as China’s slows.

Two Indian officials, one diplomat based in China and one official working for the government of another G20 country said Premier Li Qiang is expected to represent Beijing at the Sept. 9-10 meeting in New Delhi.

Spokespersons for the Indian and Chinese foreign ministries did not respond to requests for comment.

Li is also likely to attend a summit of East and Southeast Asian leaders in Jakarta, Indonesia on Tuesday to Thursday, according to a report from Kyodo.

The summit in India had been viewed as a venue for a possible meeting between Xi and Biden, who has confirmed his attendance, as the two superpowers seek to stabilize relations soured by trade and geopolitical tensions.

Xi last met Biden on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia last November.

“I hope he attends,” Biden told reporters Thursday in Washington.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has already said he will not be traveling to New Delhi and will send Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov instead.

One senior government official from India told Reuters that “we are aware that the premier will come,” in place of Xi.

In China, two foreign diplomats and a government official from another G20 country said Xi will likely not be traveling for the summit.

Two of these three sources in China said they were informed by Chinese officials, but they were not aware of the reason for Xi’s expected absence.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The G20 summit is seen as an important showcase for India, with the country coming off a successful lunar landing and touting itself as a rising power with attractive markets and a source for global supply chain diversification.

But relations between the G20 host and China have been troubled for more than three years after soldiers from both sides clashed in the Himalayan frontier in June 2020, resulting in 24 deaths.

Farwa Aamer, director of South Asia Initiatives at the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) in New York, said Xi skipping the summit could be read as China being “reluctant to cede the center stage” to India.

“China doesn’t want India to be the voice of the Global South, or to be that country within the Himalayan region to be hosting this very successful G20 summit,” she said.

Eyes on APEC

Anticipation of a meeting between Xi and Biden had been fueled by a stream of top U.S. officials visiting Beijing in recent months, including Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo earlier this week.

Chinese and U.S. officials, however, have told Reuters they are looking toward November’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders Meeting in San Francisco as the main potential venue for a Xi-Biden meeting this year, and had downplayed expectations for any major talks between the two at the G20.

Still, no meetings or formal attendance plans for APEC have been announced.

Xi has attended all other in-person G20 summits since becoming president in 2013 except in 2021 during the COVID pandemic when he joined by video link. The 2020 G20 meeting hosted by Saudi Arabia was conducted virtually due to the pandemic.

Xi, who secured a precedent-breaking third term as leader last October, has made few overseas trips since China abruptly dropped strict pandemic-induced border controls this year.

While he played a prominent role at a meeting in South Africa last week of leaders of the BRICS group of major emerging economies, the Chinese government gave no reason for his absence at a business forum there.

His scheduled speech was delivered instead by China’s commerce minister.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a rare conversation with Xi on the sidelines of that BRICS summit and highlighted concerns India has about the border dispute between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.

Several G20 ministerial meetings in India ahead of the summit have been contentious as Russia and China together opposed joint statements which included paragraphs condemning Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine last year.
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About 130,000 security officers will be deployed as India hosts the world’s most powerful leaders at a G20 summit in New Delhi this month, a showcase for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the country’s growing presence on the world stage.

The two-day summit, starting Sept. 9, will have the most high-profile guest list India has ever welcomed, from U.S. President Joe Biden to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed Bin Salman. However, Chinese President Xi Jinping is likely to skip the meeting, sources in New Delhi and Beijing have said.

Leaders from Japan, Australia, France and Germany are also among those expected to attend, although Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is facing criticism from the West for the war in Ukraine, has said he will be represented by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The heads of the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization and World Health Organization will also be present.

The event will take place in the sprawling, refurbished Pragati Maidan, a convention-cum-exhibition center in the middle of one of the most populous cities in the world.

“This is a historic and momentous moment,” said Dependra Pathak, a special commissioner of the Delhi Police who is in charge of security arrangements in the city. Thousands of personnel from other government security services including the home guards and the para-military Border Security Force will be brought in to maintain law and order, he said.

“To contain protests and gatherings, we will have adequate and robust police presence.”

While Pathak is in charge of security in the city, the main venue will be guarded by a team under another Delhi Police special commissioner, Ranvir Singh Krishnia.

Although the capital is relatively peaceful, as recently as last month, communal tensions flared up in the neighboring industrial township of Gurugram in which at least seven people were killed.

During the weekend summit, New Delhi’s borders will be closely guarded and access to the city will be regulated, officials said.

Within the city of 20 million, the government is planning a partial shutdown during the summit with schools, government departments and businesses being asked to remain closed for three days.

Defense in the skies

The city will be guarded by nearly 130,000 security personnel, including the 80,000-strong Delhi Police, officials said.

A spokesperson for the Indian Air Force told Reuters that it will “deploy comprehensive measures for integrated aerospace defense in the Delhi and close-by areas.”

The spokesperson said that the Indian military, including the air force, along with the Delhi Police and paramilitary forces, will deploy anti-drone systems to prevent any aerial threats. About 400 firefighters will also be on call.

Security control rooms are being set up at the venue and special security arrangements have been made at key hotels like the ITC Maurya Hotel, where Biden will stay.

Modi has converted India’s year-long presidency of the G20 into a national event, with different meetings of the group being hosted in key parts of the country, including far-flung Arunachal Pradesh state and Srinagar city in Kashmir.

Through the year, roads, airports, bus stops, parks, railway stations, government offices and government media have been plastered with G20 advertisements.

In New Delhi, new fountains and ornamental plants adorn key traffic roundabouts while life-size cutouts of langurs — a large monkey with a black face — have been put up in several areas to fight the city’s monkey menace.

Modi inaugurated a $300 million venue in the capital in July to host the summit meeting — a conch shell-shaped building that can seat more than 3,000.

The government has also leased 20 bullet-proof limousines at a cost of $2.18 million for ferrying leaders.

Many world leaders travel with their own bodyguards and vehicles. India has requested countries to be “rational” about the number of cars and personnel that they bring, but has not put any restrictions, one government official said.

The official said the U.S. is bringing in over 20 aircraft over a week-long period around the summit.
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Pakistani officials said Thursday that a “motorcycle-borne” suicide bomber struck a military convoy in a remote northwestern region, killing at least nine soldiers and wounding several others.  

The deadly attack occurred in the Bannu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, according to the military’s media wing.  

Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister, Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, condemned the bombing in a message posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.  

“Heartbroken by the loss of 9 valiant soldiers … to a cowardly terrorist act that injured many. Such acts are utterly reprehensible,” Kakar wrote. “My thoughts are with the families of the martyred and injured. Pakistan stands resolute against such terror.”

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing in a region where the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan — also known as the TTP or the Pakistani Taliban — routinely target security forces.  

Last week, six Pakistani soldiers were killed in a shootout with TTP insurgents in nearby South Waziristan district. 

The Pakistani Taliban and other militant groups have recently increased attacks in the country. 

This year, the violence has killed about 500 people nationwide, including civilians and security forces. Army officials have confirmed the deaths of more than 140 soldiers since the start of 2023. 

Pakistan maintains that fugitive TTP leaders have increasingly directed cross-border terrorism from sanctuaries in Afghanistan since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in the neighboring country two years ago.  

The Taliban reject the allegations, saying they have not allowed anyone to use Afghan soil against other countries, including Pakistan.

The TTP is a known offshoot and close ally of the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan.  

The United States and the United Nations have listed the Pakistani Taliban as a global terrorist organization. A recent U.N. report estimated that up to 6,000 TTP members operate in Afghanistan.
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A journalist who reports for VOA’s Deewa Service was held in custody overnight in Pakistan’s restive Swat Valley. 

Police late Wednesday arrested Fayaz Zafar and took him to a district jail on accusations that he “exploits freedom of speech,” including on social media, according to an order issued by the office of the deputy commissioner in Swat.

The journalist said police beat him while he was in custody, before releasing him on Thursday.

Zafar told VOA’s Deewa Service that police beat him for about 15 minutes, using their guns and fists. 

“They hit me on my head, back, shoulders and legs. I told them I am suffering from an illness, but they did not stop,” said Zafar, who has a medical condition. 

The journalist said police also used rifle butts to hit his vehicle, which remains in police possession. 

Zafar was arrested under colonial-era laws that allow police to arrest anyone deemed a threat to public order.

The order for Zafar’s detention, dated August 30, was issued under the West Pakistan public order ordinance. The order, viewed by VOA, claimed that the journalist “exploits the phrase freedom of speech” and uses social media to spread “fake, offensive and hatred;” to defame authorities and high-profile figures; and to incite the public against state institutions.

“He is using wrong perceptions through social media to gain popularity,” according to the order.

The journalist, who reports on militancy, extremism and the economy in the Swat Valley, denies the accusations. 

Zafar said that authorities pressured him to sign an affidavit to restrict his reporting but that he refused to do so.

VOA’s attempts to reach police and officials in the Swat Valley via phone and messaging app for comment about the arrest were not successful.

Pakistan’s caretaker Minister for Information Murtaza Solangi noted the arrest and said he will file an inquiry.

Zafar has worked for VOA for 13 years. In a recent report from August he covered a protest by residents about the rise in militancy and the arrest of activists demanding peace.

The journalist has previously received intimidating messages and threats related to his coverage. 

Pakistani journalists have condemned the arrest of Zafar, calling it an “illegal detention.”

Pakistan is a tough country for media freedom, with reporters having to navigate red lines dictated by officials, says media watchdog Reporters Without Borders. The country ranks 150 out of 180 countries, where 1 has the best environment, on the global Press Freedom Index.  

This article originated in VOA’s Deewa Service.
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Afghanistan’s Taliban announced Thursday they have signed more than $6.5 billion worth of mining contracts with local and foreign companies from China, Iran, Turkey and Britain.

Shahabuddin Dilawar, the Taliban minister of mines and petroleum, said the seven contracts cover the extraction and processing of gold, copper, iron, lead and zinc in four Afghan provinces — Takhar, Ghor, Herat and Logar.

The nationally televised signing ceremony occurred as the de facto Afghan authorities marked the second anniversary of the withdrawal of all U.S.-led NATO troops from the country after nearly 20 years of war with the then-insurgent Taliban.

Dilawar said the seven contracts signed Thursday “will collectively bring a $6.557 billion investment” and create thousands of jobs in Afghanistan.

The minister said that an agreement awarded to a Chinese company for gold extraction in Takhar would bring the Taliban government a 65% share of the earnings over five years.

Dilawar said other contracts involving Turkish, Iranian and British investments for mining and processing iron ore in Herat would earn the government a 13% share over 30 years. “It will eventually turn Afghanistan into an exporter of iron,” he said.

Skeptics question the viability of the contracts, citing international economic sanctions imposed on the country after the Taliban reclaimed power in August 2021.

“The Afghan financial and banking sector is almost paralyzed and dysfunctional. Hence, no financial transactions or valuations,” Tamim Asey, a former official with the Afghan ministry of mines and petroleum, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

He argued that the Afghan ministry “lacks technical-legal-police capacity” to manage and oversee such mining contracts.

“The legal-policy framework for the mining sector is not only vague but almost nonexistent. The regime doesn’t even have a constitution, let alone mining legal framework,” Asey said.

Earlier this year, a Chinese firm signed an oil extraction contract with the Taliban administration. Beijing lately has also shown interest in investing in lithium mining in Afghanistan.

The landlocked South Asian country reportedly has more than $1 trillion worth of precious minerals, including deposits of highly sought-after lithium used in rechargeable batteries.

The Taliban have stabilized Afghanistan’s economy and increased trade with neighboring and other countries, according to regional officials and independent monitors.

The World Bank said in its report last month that “the year-on-year inflation has been negative” for the past two months in Afghanistan.

“The supply of goods has been sufficient, but demand is low. Over 50% of Afghan households struggle to maintain their livelihoods and consumption,” the report said. It added that the local currency, the Afghani, appreciated against major trading currencies in the first seven months of 2023.

But the Taliban’s men-only government in Kabul remains under fire from the world because of its restrictions on women’s access to work and education.

Since seizing power from a U.S.-backed Afghan government on Aug. 15, 2021, the Taliban have imposed their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, in the conflict-torn nation.

Edicts from reclusive Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada primarily set the policy guidelines for his government.

Akhundzada has banned girls from attending schools past the sixth grade and most women from working for the government and nongovernmental aid groups in a country where two-thirds of the population needs humanitarian assistance. The Taliban have closed thousands of women-run salons nationwide. Women are barred from visiting public parks and gyms and undertaking road trips without a male guardian.

The treatment of Afghan women has deterred foreign governments from recognizing the Taliban administration in Kabul, known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

The last American soldier departed Afghanistan on Aug. 30, 2021, ending the longest war in U.S. history.

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden defended his troop exit decision in a statement marking the second anniversary of ending the Afghan war.

“We have demonstrated that we do not need a permanent troop presence on the ground in harm’s way to take action against terrorists and those who wish to do us harm,” Biden said.

The president referred to the July 30, 2022, drone strike that killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in his home in downtown Kabul.
…

In 2016, a young girl, whom we will call Zarghona to protect her identity, embarked on a remarkable journey in central-south Afghanistan. At just 14 years old, she joined a local radio station in Ghazni province, eager to make her voice heard. Initially entrusted with a daily entertainment program for young people, Zarghona’s charisma and talent soon led her to more challenging assignments.

“I presented a culinary program, as well as a cultural awareness program,” she said, her voice tinged with nostalgia.

By 2021, Zarghona’s career was soaring, and she had dreams of pursuing higher education in journalism in Kabul and working for the national media in the capital city.

Before the year’s end, though, everything changed dramatically.

As the Taliban swept into power in August of that year, one of their first acts was to indefinitely suspend secondary education for girls, extinguishing the hopes of countless young women like Zarghona. The new Islamist regime also terminated the employment of almost all female public servants, with few exceptions, in the education and health sectors.

The national broadcasting agency, Radio and Television Afghanistan, saw all of its female journalists dismissed, and private TV channel anchors were compelled to wear face masks.

Under the Taliban’s gender-based discriminatory regime, female journalists are barred from interviewing male government officials, forbidden from participating in press conferences without a male chaperone, and restricted from traveling for reporting purposes.

These rules, unapologetically designed to push women out of journalism, paint a grim picture for Zarghona and many other young women who desperately want to work as journalists.

Despite this bleak reality, for about two years, Zarghona has waited anxiously for an announcement from the Taliban that schools and universities would reopen for girls, and women would be allowed to return to work.

Others hold no such hope.

“I see the future even darker. The restrictions [against women] are increasing day after day, and the Taliban do not care how we suffer,” said Madina Bamyani (not her real name), a journalist in the central Bamyan province.

The three journalists who spoke with VOA for this article still reside in Afghanistan, but they all asked to remain anonymous, fearing reprisals from the Taliban.

Targeted persecution

Earlier this year, Bamyani received a job offer from a U.S.-based Afghan media outlet to produce video reports about alleged Taliban atrocities in Bamyan and nearby provinces.

The private media sector — once a thriving industry thanks to the international support it received — has been crushed as Taliban restrictions force hundreds of journalists and media professionals to seek asylum in countries around the world.

Outside their homeland, some Afghan journalists have managed to secure funding and launch digital news and analysis outlets aimed at Afghan audiences. But working for those outlets is perilous in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

“After I produced a report about the ban on women’s beauty salons, the Taliban investigated and discovered my identity,” Bamyani said. Fearing detention, she fled to Kabul after her employers warned her they would not be able to help if the Taliban found out about her work for them.

The United States has played a significant role in supporting Afghan media development over the past two decades, spending more than $220 million on media support programs, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

In September 2022, a year after the Taliban seized power, the U.S. Agency for International Development allocated $20 million for projects supporting Afghan media, including $5 million in grants and a nearly $12 million award that aims to deliver news and educational content for Afghans until mid-2026.

“The United States remains committed to supporting the fundamental right of freedom of expression, including for journalists and human rights defenders, and supports their ability to operate freely without fear of violence against them,” said a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department.

Taliban officials accuse media organizations from abroad that produce content for Afghans of spreading lies and propaganda, and they have targeted reporters and producers working for such outlets.

Parwiz Shamal, an Afghan journalist and founder of Chalawsaf, an Afghan media observer organization, said the Taliban have detained several reporters on charges that they worked for media entities that are not permitted to operate in Afghanistan.

“Nobody is there to defend those reporters because the Taliban consider these outlets illegal, and like in any other country, work for a disallowed organization bears legal responsibilities,” Shamal said.

Information blackout

When the Taliban announced the closure of beauty salons for women in July, there was no public debate or critical media coverage about it.

“We are forced to comply with their misogynistic orders knowing well that those orders are against us,” said Yagana Niekhandish, a female journalist in Herat province.

“If I refuse to comply, the Taliban’s intelligence agency will throw me in jail overnight,” she said.

The Taliban’s intelligence agency has been accused of detaining, and in some cases torturing, about 50 journalists during the past two years, free press groups have reported.

In rural areas, the suppression of women’s voices is even more severe, with local Taliban and religious leaders banning women from radio broadcasts, effectively silencing them from public conversations.

Human rights groups say the Taliban’s anti-women policies are aimed at erasing women from all public spheres, but Taliban officials maintain they are committed to women’s rights — as long as they are within the confines of Islamic Sharia and local traditions.

As Afghan women vanish from public life, access to credible information about their living conditions, from health to income to education, becomes increasingly unavailable.

The Taliban have dissolved the two state institutions — the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission — that monitored and reported on women’s issues and proposed policies to empower them.

“I guess everybody knows what’s happening in Afghanistan, it is an official femicide,” Zarghona said.

“What pains me more is that I’m not able to report it to the world.”
…

People across Pakistan are hailing local zipline expert and volunteer rescuer Sahib Khan for saving school children trapped in a cable car over a ravine in the mountainous Allai valley region of northern Pakistan. Over generations, Sahib Khan’s family has built a reputation as lifesavers. Ihsan Muhammad Khan reports from Pakistan
…

A special Pakistani court Wednesday extended former prime minister Imran Khan’s jail custody for two weeks to investigate him in connection with a secret diplomatic document allegedly missing from his possession while in office.

The judicial proceedings were conducted inside Attock prison, west of Islamabad, where Khan has been imprisoned since August 5 after being sentenced to three years for selling state gifts and allegedly concealing their proceeds. He refuted the graft charges as politically motivated and described the trial as unlawful.

The government cited “security concerns” for holding Wednesday’s court hearing inside the century-old British colonial-era prison, notorious for its harsh conditions and housing convicted terrorists among its inmates. 

On Tuesday, a federal court suspended Khan’s three-year sentence and ordered his release on bail in what was hailed by his lawyers as a legal victory against frivolous graft charges. But authorities barred the 70-year-old politician from leaving prison, saying he was already under remand in the case related to the alleged missing secret diplomatic document.

The cricket-star-turned-prime-minister has been in a political showdown with the country’s powerful military since a parliamentary vote of no-confidence toppled him and his coalition government in April of last year. 

Khan accuses the military of orchestrating his ouster and instituting scores of criminal lawsuits against him since his removal from power, including terrorism and sedition, murder, and corruption charges.

The deposed prime minister and his supporters maintain the military is trying to squeeze him and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, the country’s largest, out of national politics for questioning the institution’s meddling in politics. 

The August 5 conviction on graft charges led the Pakistan Election Commission to swiftly ban Khan from running for office for five years under relevant laws. He has appealed the conviction, which led to the suspension of his sentence on Tuesday.

The diplomatic document case accuses Khan of making public a confidential cable, internally known as a cipher, for political gains in breach of the country’s Official Secrets Act. 

His close aide, former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, has been arrested and interrogated for his alleged role in the case. 

Since his ouster, Khan has discussed the cipher content in public rallies and media interviews as evidence of his claim that the United States engineered the toppling of his government. 

The cipher purportedly contained a threat from the U.S. to oust Khan from power for visiting Russia on the eve of the Ukraine war. Written by Islamabad’s ambassador to Washington, it documented a meeting between him and U.S. State Department officials. 

The purported cipher quoted the U.S. officials asking the Pakistani ambassador to tell his military leadership they should topple Khan’s government through a no-confidence vote, charges Washington and the current administration in Islamabad have rejected. 

Khan dismisses allegations of misplacing a copy of the cipher or leaking any official secrets. He maintains that cipher messages are written in coded language and cannot be removed from the safety of the foreign ministry.

Former Pakistani diplomats back the assertions, saying that only a summary of the cipher is normally shared with the prime minister and a few other top officials, not the original cable.

Before his ouster, Khan had formally dispatched copies of the cipher summary to the country’s chief justice, the military chief, and the house speaker, among others, asking them to order an investigation to determine who in Pakistan facilitated the alleged U.S. conspiracy to remove him from office. 

At the direction of the country’s national security committee, comprising top civilian and military leaders, the Khan government summoned the U.S. ambassador in Islamabad to the foreign ministry to formally protest the threatening message and Washington’s alleged interference in Pakistan’s politics.

Earlier this month, while responding to the allegations, the U.S. State Department said that it had objected to Khan’s visit to Moscow but had nothing to do with his removal from power weeks later.

“We expressed concern privately to the government of Pakistan as we expressed concerns publicly about the visit of then-Prime Minister Khan to Moscow on the very day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We made that concern quite clear,” State Department spokesman Mathew Miller said. 

Khan’s attorneys have denounced the government for conducting the court hearing inside the jail, 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.
…

India said on Tuesday that it had lodged a “strong protest” with China a day after Beijing released the 2023 edition of its standard map showing Aksai Chin — an area of Kashmir mostly controlled by China — and the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh within Chinese territory.

The map was released Monday on the Chinese Ministry of Natural Resources standard map service website, just days after the two nations agreed to work to ease tensions at their disputed border.

The map also includes Taiwan and the South China Sea as Chinese territory.

On Tuesday evening, India’s Ministry of External Affairs announced it had contacted its Chinese counterpart to object.

“We have today lodged a strong protest through diplomatic channels with the Chinese side on the so-called 2023 ‘standard map’ of China that lays claim to India’s territory,” MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said.

Just last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met at a BRICS summit in South Africa and agreed to “intensify efforts” to reduce tensions along the border. Both countries announced the agreement as a major step toward improved relations.

The release of the map also comes ahead of the multinational G20 or Group of 20 nations’ summit, which is being hosted by India in New Delhi on Sept. 9 and 10 and is scheduled to be attended by Xi and other global leaders. 

Manish Tewari, a member of parliament from the opposition Congress party, said Tuesday that the Modi government should seriously consider whether to host Xi at the summit.

Ill-defined border

Nuclear-armed India and China lay competing claims to vast swathes of territory along their ill-defined border — called the Line of Actual Control or LAC — which runs for more than 3,500 kilometers from Ladakh in the northwest to Arunachal Pradesh in the northeast.

The border, running through remote, rugged and snow-covered Himalayan ranges, was never clearly demarcated by India’s former British colonial rulers. After independence in 1947, India and China failed to agree on a common frontier, and the border dispute has continued.

The dispute escalated into a full-fledged war in 1962 when, according to India, China occupied 38,000 square kilometers of Aksai Chin. India still claims the China-occupied region as part of its Ladakh territory while China insists that Aksai Chin was long part of the ancient Chinese empire.

China claims that India occupies some 90,000 square kilometers of its territory in India’s northeast, including Arunachal Pradesh, which it views as southern Tibet. But New Delhi, which controls Arunachal Pradesh, insists it is part of India.

In April, China issued a statement declaring that it had “standardized” the names of 11 places in the region, also called “Zangnan” by China. India rejected the Chinese claim and MEA’s Bagchi asserted: “Arunachal Pradesh is, has been, and will always be an integral part of India.”

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in April at a regular news briefing in Beijing that the southern Tibet region was indeed a part of Chinese territory.

Dialogues fail to resolve dispute

Diplomatic ties between the two nations have remained frosty since their soldiers engaged in hand-to-hand combat in the Himalayan region of Ladakh in 2020. India reported 20 of its soldiers had been killed, and China later acknowledged the deaths of four Chinese soldiers. 

Since then, the countries have held more than a dozen diplomatic and military-level dialogues trying to resolve the border dispute but with limited success.

On Tuesday, spokesperson Bagchi said that China’s claims to Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh have “no basis” and that steps like the release of the map “only complicate the resolution of the boundary question.” 

Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar told Indian television channel NDTV that claiming parts of Indian territory was an “old habit” of China. 

“These [territories] are very much part of India. This government is very clear [about] what our territories are. Making absurd claims doesn’t make others’ territories yours,” he said.

Congress leader Tewari said that China must end its occupation of Indian territory.

“Today, the real issue between India and China is that they have transgressed along the Line of Actual Control at multiple points on a theater level. Analysts believe that the Chinese are currently in occupation of 2,000 square kilometersof Indian territory. This is the territory that the [Indian] government needs to get vacated,” Tewari said.

“Under those circumstances, the government should seriously introspect — though the G20 is a multinational forum — whether it would be in accordance with India’s self-respect to be feting a person in Delhi, Xi Jinping, who is in illegal occupation of 2,000 square kilometers of Indian territory.”
…

When the Taliban retook control of Kabul, Afghanistan’s only unit of female commandos was left with a target on their backs. Nearly 40 were evacuated and as their legal statuses remain in limbo, a group called Command Purpose is using art to help release the trauma of the past while supporting their futures. Carla Babb reports. Camera: Henry Hernandez, Command Purpose
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Christians in Pakistan, a Muslim majority country, often face discrimination. Sister Zeph was in seventh grade when poor treatment from teachers forced her to quit school. She went on to educate herself and, over the next two decades, provide free education to several hundred poor Christian and Muslim children in her community. VOA’s Pakistan bureau chief Sarah Zaman brings this story of resilience. Camera — Wajid Asad
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Dutch prosecutors demanded a 12-year prison sentence Tuesday for a former Pakistani cricketer accused of incitement to murder firebrand anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders.

The suspect, identified by Wilders as Khalid Latif, is accused of offering a bounty of some 21,000 euros ($23,000) to anybody who killed Wilders.

Latif did not appear in the high-security courtroom near Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport for the trial. He is believed to be in Pakistan.

Prosecutors did not name Latif, but said in a statement that a video posted online in 2018 showed a famous Pakistan cricketer offering the money for killing Wilders. The lawmaker has lived under round-the-clock protection for years because of repeated threats to his life sparked by his fierce criticism of Islam.

The threat came after Wilders said he would organize a competition of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Many Muslims consider any depictions of Muhammad to be blasphemous. Ultimately, the contest did not go ahead, but the plan sparked outrage in the Muslim world.

“The video message was extra toxic because it was issued during a period in which there was a lot of hatred and anger towards Geert Wilders,” the Public Prosecution Service in The Hague said in its written statement.

The prosecution office said that killing Wilders would not just have “caused unbearable pain to his loved ones. It would also have been an attack on the rule of law itself.”

Wilders said in court that a conviction would send a “powerful signal to all other others who issue threats: we won’t accept it.”

And in comments he addressed directly to Latif, he added: “As long as I’m living and breathing, you won’t stop me. Your call to kill me and pay money for it is abject and will not silence me.”

An international warrant has been issued for Latif’s arrest. Dutch prosecutors said they had been trying to contact him since 2018, first as a witness and then to answer the charges. However, they said they hadn’t received any reply from the Pakistani authorities.

In 2017, Latif, 37, was banned for five years from all forms of cricket for his role in a match-fixing scandal in the Pakistan Super League.

Tuesday’s case comes at a time when parts of the Muslim world have been angered by a series of Quran burnings in Sweden. Swedish police have allowed the demonstrations, citing freedom of speech, but have filed preliminary hate speech charges against a refugee from Iraq who has carried out a series of such desecrations.
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A Pakistani court suspended former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s corruption conviction and three-year jail sentence Tuesday, but it was not immediately clear whether he will be released from prison.

The ruling by the high court in Islamabad came in response to Khan’s appeal against his conviction, arguing that it was unlawful and breached his “fundamental right to due process and fair trial.”

The embattled 70-year-old politician was arrested and jailed earlier this month after being found guilty of selling state gifts in office and allegedly concealing their proceeds. Khan has denied any wrongdoing.

The conviction prompted the Pakistan Election Commission to immediately ban Khan from running for office for five years under relevant laws.

Tuesday’s ruling also granted bail for Khan, but the former prime minister faces scores of other allegations, ranging from terrorism and sedition to corruption and murder.

Khan alleges that the country’s powerful military is behind all the legal challenges, to prevent him and his political party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), from participating in the next general elections.

The military denies the charges.

The cricket star-turned-popular politician has been in a political showdown with the military since a parliamentary vote of no-confidence toppled him and his coalition government last year.

Khan accuses the then-military leadership of plotting the vote in collusion with his political opponents and the United States, charges Washington and Islamabad denied.

In another case, the former prime minister is under investigation about an official diplomatic cable, known as a cipher, that prosecutors allege went missing from his possession while in office.

Khan has rejected the charges as baseless and “ridiculous.” The judge hearing the case has ordered authorities to bring the ousted leader before him on Wednesday.

“After suspension of @ImranKhanPTI sentence in the Toshakhana case, his arrest in any other fake & fraudulent case will be ill-intentioned & mala fide. Justice must prevail – and justice shall prevail,” Raoof Hasan, a central PTI spokesman, wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Toshakhana is a repository where foreign dignitaries’ gifts to government officials are stored, but officials are legally allowed to retain gifts after paying a certain percentage of the price.

In recent months, a military-led crackdown has arrested thousands of PTI workers and leaders. Supporters carrying PTI flags or staging street protests against the crackdown are immediately apprehended by police, effectively making it a crime to show loyalty to Khan publicly, PTI leaders and commentators say.

The alleged missing cipher purportedly contained a threat from the United States to oust Khan from power over his neutrality in the Ukraine war. It documented an alleged conversation between U.S. State Department officials and Islamabad’s then-ambassador to the U.S., Asad Majeed Khan.

Earlier this month, an American news outlet, The Intercept, published what it said was the cipher text for the first time, which Khan has long held up as evidence of his claim that Washington engineered his ouster in April last year.

According to the purported cipher, State Department officials encouraged the Pakistani ambassador to tell Pakistan’s powerful military that if Khan were removed from office over his neutrality on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Islamabad could expect warmer relations with Washington.

Khan remains the most popular politician in Pakistan, according to opinion surveys.

The military has directly ruled Pakistan for nearly half its history by staging coups against elected governments.

Politicians and independent critics say the army leadership continues to influence political happenings in the nuclear-armed South Asian nation even when they are not in power and orchestrate the toppling of prime ministers or imprison them on controversial charges for falling out with the military.
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A video clip posted on social media showing a private elementary school teacher asking pupils to take turns slapping a seven-year-old Muslim boy has triggered outrage in India.

The clip, recorded Thursday in a classroom of Neha Public School in Uttar Pradesh state, shows the teacher, identified as Tripta Tyagi, instructing students to hit the second grader, ostensibly because he failed to memorize a multiplication table. The child is seen crying, as the other children take turns slapping him.

The 60-year-old Hindu teacher’s action received widespread condemnation largely because, her words as heard in the video, many said, were targeted at Muslims, sounding Islamophobic.

Tyagi appears to be saying in the video that she has “declared that all Mohammedan (Muslim) students should be beaten up and sent back home…”

The teacher, who is the head of the school, is also heard asking one of the students in the video, “Why are you slapping him so gently? Can you not hit him harder?” At one point she says, “His face has turned red. Now, hit him around his waist.”

The video — which was secretly filmed by a cousin of the victim’s father —went viral online among social activists, child rights campaigners and others. Many sought stern actions against the teacher and #ArrestTriptaTyagi began trending on X, formerly known as Twitter. At Jawaharlal Nehru University, students burnt an effigy of Tyagi and demanded her arrest.

‘Inappropriate remarks’

The police chief of Muzaffarnagar, Satyanarayan Prajapat, said that the parents of the child had filed a complaint with the police and the video had been verified.

“The video contained inappropriate remarks (by Tyagi). Relevant authorities have been notified about the incident. Appropriate actions will be initiated against the teacher,” Prajapat said.

On Saturday, Tyagi claimed that a “minor” issue had been blown out of proportion by politicians.

“Big politicians including opposition Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi have tweeted about this incident unnecessarily,” Tyagi said, referring to the opposition party leader.

“It will be difficult to teach children in school if such small daily issues are made viral.”

Reacting to the video, Gandhi tweeted in Hindi: “Sowing the poison of discrimination in the minds of innocent children, turning a holy place like a school into a marketplace of hatred – nothing worse a teacher can do for the country…This is the same kerosene spread by the BJP which has set every corner of India on fire.”

Defending the action of corporal punishment, Tyagi said that it was needed to “discipline and control” children at school.

“I am not ashamed of my action. The entire village knows me as a good teacher. They all support me,” she said.

Although in the video the teacher is heard pejoratively speaking about “Mohammedan students”, in a separate video Sunday (Aug 27) she said her action was not religiously biased.

“I am physically handicapped. I could not stand up promptly that day (to beat the student). So, I asked some other students to beat him… I made a mistake,” she added.

To counter the trending hashtag #ArrestTriptaTyagi, some Hindu groups have made #ISupportTriptaTyagi viral on X. On Saturday, BJP leader and union minister Sanjeev Balyan met Tyagi in her village and assured her of support.     

Child traumatized

Mohammad Irshad, the Muslim student’s father said that his son was traumatized after being beaten and humiliated in the school, and was scared and refused to return to classes there.

“I have withdrawn my son from the school. I will send him to another school now . . .. Following the advice of some community leaders, I went to the police station and filed a complaint against the teacher. But now, local Hindu leaders are pressuring me to withdraw the complaint and reach a compromise with the teacher,” Irshad told VOA Sunday.

Living in a Hindu-majority area, he felt scared as the issue had turned communal, Irshad said.

“I was shocked after I saw in the video how my son was tortured and humiliated. The teacher spoke about the Mohammedan community when my son was being beaten. But I am a poor tractor mechanic. I cannot legally pursue this case against powerful people. Perhaps, I have to do as they say, and withdraw the complaint finally,” Irshad added.

On Sunday, the authorities shut down the school.

“Local education officer Shubham Shukla said: “In our inquiry we found that the school does not meet the criteria of the department. We have sealed the school. We are conducting in-depth investigation before we take further action.”

Rights groups have noted that hate attacks against Muslims have increased in India since the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014.

However, in June, while visiting the U.S., Modi told reporters that in India “there is absolutely no space of discrimination” targeting any community.   

Muslim children “across generations have faced discrimination” in schools in India but things have “fallen to a new low” since 2014, said Delhi University professor Apoorvanand, who uses one name.

“Now, discriminatory violence against Muslims is enjoyed and rationalized by society,” Apoorvanand told VOA.

“But one can glean from the teacher’s unrepentant stance that she feels emboldened by the assurance of impunity that those indulging in violence against Muslims enjoy. There is a casual Islamophobia prevalent in India which is denied by Hindus and the teacher seems to practice it.”
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